The rising wind whipped around the hem of her riding-habit, and caused Daisy’s white mane to flutter wildly about her neck. Livia could hear the ladies inside the landau clucking about the weather.
“Oh dear, I smell rain,” said Mrs. Thorland anxiously. “You and I, dear Mrs. Tenneson, are warm and snug, but as for the others! To be caught in a downpour after such a delightful outing would be a sad end.”
“To be sure,” agreed Mrs. Tenneson, in a nervous tone. “Only think, what if our roof should begin to leak? Dr. Wendeburgen has told me any number of times I am susceptible to inflammation of the lungs—not to mention putrid sore throat—and that I must avoid situations of dampness at all costs.” She then put her head outside the window and beseeched the coachman to pick up his pace.
Livia looked ahead where the group of riders had already begun to string out along the road. A scowling Miss Gillingham chivvied Tom Orr along, and some of the others had urged their horses into a brisk trot. Cecily continued riding next to Gabriel, talking, talking, her countenance as serene and lovely as a flower. And there he was, nodding and responding, in a manner so attentive that Livia felt that she would soon be drowning in her own sorrow and loneliness.
And as if to emphasize just how easily that could be accomplished, several fat little drops of rain pelted her, just like tears, she thought. The ladies in the landau redoubled their anxious twitterings and the coachman nudged his horses again. Overhead there was no more blue sky to be seen; only gray clouds loomed, and the wind blew lustily.
Her horse Daisy, ever placid, seemed unaffected by these portents of the coming storm, and continued to pace sedately along the roadway. Rather than encourage her to go more quickly, Livia only held loosely to the reins and allowed the distance between herself and the others to widen—until, when there was a long curve to the road, she saw that they were completely gone from her view. It was just as well. If not for the knowledge that she couldn’t keep Daisy, or take care of her, she would have turned her around, back toward Stanton Drew, and simply kept on going until she had completely disappeared from Gabriel’s life forever.
The rain fell more heavily now. She didn’t mind, really, because it disguised the fact that she was weeping, with an uncontrolled violence. If a highwayman came along, pointed his pistol at her, and ordered her to stop it, she didn’t think she could.
Yes, she who never cried, was doing it now.
Almost as one would who had a broken heart.
Gabriel, Gabriel . . .
Daisy stopped, and twisted her head around to look curiously at Livia with dark liquid eyes. Then, receiving no further commands, she turned her head back around, walked to the side of the road, and began to calmly eat some grass.
Afterwards Livia knew she couldn’t have sat there, head bowed, for more than five or ten minutes, but at the time it felt like years. She was dimly aware that she was soaking wet, and starting to shiver.
“Livia,” came a deep voice, and she turned to see that Gabriel had ridden up to her. Rain dripped like a wet curtain from the brim of his hat, obscuring his face.
He was here.
Here with her.
But it was all so fleeting . . .
“What is it?” he said, and then:
“Good Lord, you’ll catch your death like this. Can you ride on, so that we can catch up to the others?”
“No,” she answered, in a little, flat voice.
“We must.”
“I can’t. I won’t. You go on ahead.”
“Of course I won’t.” He peered more closely at her. “You’re crying.”
“Y-y-yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s n-n-n-nothing.”
“I doubt that. And your teeth are chattering. Are you sure you can’t keep riding?”
“Very sure.”
“This is a bad place to stop. You’ll only get colder.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.” He glanced back toward Stanton Drew. “Will you let me lead Daisy for just a few minutes? I think I saw something back there.”
Livia only shrugged, and Gabriel leaned over to take Daisy’s reins from her unresisting hands. Then he pressed his heels into Primus’s side and, with Daisy following docilely, led them through the torrents of rain that by now had thoroughly drenched them both. In a very few minutes they left the road and into a muddy copse of trees where—very nearly concealed amidst a wild tangle of shrubbery—stood a small, freestanding lean-to.
Around the back was its entrance—a crudely shaped opening—with an overhang made of roped-together boards, supported by four posts and just big enough to shield the horses from the rain.