by JayneFresina
Do not, her sister's note had said, under any account, worry or send anybody to look for me. I shall return soon. I am not lost, eaten by wolves or kidnapped by bandits. I merely desire to be alone. To contemplate.
As Pip passed through the gate and out into the lane, a sharp wind whistled around her skirt, speckles of snow gently drifting with it. She looked back at the vicarage but the door remained resolutely closed, the unfriendly housekeeper cosseted away in the warmth of her kitchen, probably muttering under her breath about "barmpot American girls, allus coming and going at will, untended".
She shut the gate hard and looked up at the sky. Yes, the snow was definitely falling again in earnest and with increasing speed. Large flakes caught on her black net veil.
Glancing down again at her mourning garments, Pip suddenly felt, more savagely than ever, the deep pain of loss in her heart. If only Aunt Du Bois was still with them; she would know what to do. In all likelihood, Serenity would never have dared run off like this if their aunt had not succumbed to a virulent fever soon after they arrived in Yorkshire, leaving the three sisters unchaperoned. The liveliness and enthusiasm with which Aunt Du Bois had bustled them all along was much missed, and so, surprisingly enough, was her guidance. Pip might have resisted her aunt's prodding and poking when she suffered them, but now they were gone and she realized there was a benefit to having somebody else in charge occasionally after all, even if one did not always agree with them. Today she truly felt alone and suddenly older. It weighed heavily on her shoulders.
"Oh, Jonathan, my only friend in this grim place! Why did you have to go away too? You might at least have provided me with a comforting word. As well as tea. Now I shall freeze to death and you'll all be sorry." She shouted back at the house, "I hope you send Mrs. Trotter packing." But she didn't really mean that. She wouldn't want the housekeeper to lose her post, just because she was too stupid to stay indoors when a snow storm approached.
Her bones already felt frozen. She was not very good in the cold; much better in heat. Perhaps it was something to do with being born during a fire on a riverboat, she mused.
Caw!
Shaking the new flakes from her shoulders, she brushed down her coat and stuck out her tongue at the arrogant crow, which had flown after her and now sat on the wall. If it was waiting for her to drop dead in the snow, it would be disappointed; the bird would not get to pick the juicy flesh from her bones today. Pipers didn't give up, however hopeless things seemed; it was not in their nature.
Besides, she was not alone; she had Merrythought. But that brought little cheer. Unfortunately her younger sister, at just eighteen, was not capable of giving much sensible advice and Pip did not want to burden her with worry.
As she trudged back along the lane, hoping the mail coach would be along soon to carry her back the way she had come, the snowfall quickened, tumbling around her in big, plump, glistening flakes. Within just a few moments, the wind grew from a mewling kitten to a roaring lion.
She felt that crow still watching her, following her a few yards behind and perching every so often on the dry stone wall or a leafless branch. Those beady eyes peered through the snow. Waiting. It was ominously quiet now. As if the crow knew something she didn't.
Pip walked along the verge, her head down and one hand on her hat, fighting against the wind.
There were only a few cottages and farms within sight of the church. Perched halfway up a steep hill, looking out over the wildly beautiful Yorkshire landscape, the grave-markers of the cemetery formed a huddling cluster against the howling wind. Some of them tilted precariously as if, over time, nature's force had pushed them just hard enough to move the stone. Jonathan had told her that there was once a Norman castle nearby, but very little of it now remained, random chunks of ancient rubble strewn about in the long grass, like grey crumbs dropped by a clumsy giant on his way across the moor.
On a pretty autumn morning, or a mellow, lazy summer afternoon, this hill was a place of great natural beauty, but today Thorford churchyard was a grim, forbidding spot, making the retention of cheerful hope even more of a challenge. Even for a Piper.
Had the dreariness of this place in winter been the cause of Serenity's desire to go off alone, as she did when she was a girl in a temper? The skies were so very dark lately, the nights coming early and staying late, and after the shock of their aunt's death, the sisters' mood was already somber and drear. It might have been enough to push Serenity out of the house and onto the moor. The girl was not much of a walker, but when she made up her mind about something she did have a certain determined spirit, in common with her sister. There was no arguing with her in one of those moods.
"Are you sure you can put up with Edwyn Mortmain for a husband?" Pip had asked one morning as they helped dress each other for the day.
"My poor dear girl," Serenity had replied with a languid smile over her shoulder, "any husband is something to be put up with to a certain extent."
My poor dear girl. Serenity had taken to calling her that immediately after the engagement was official, as if she was suddenly so exalted that it hurt her neck to look down at Pip, despite the fact that there was only a year and a half between them in age.
"Well, as long as it's what you want."
"One must do one's duty. This is what I'm meant for."
The Mortmains had invited them all up to Yorkshire that summer, to the family estate, Darkest Fathoms, which turned out to be little more than a ruin overlooking Whitby Bay.
"Do you truly see this as your destiny?" Pip had asked her sister. "To be mistress of a damp, mouse-infested old pile of stone, so far from London and all its attractions?" Her sister was a sociable creature, who would surely never survive without some cause to wear her best ball gowns regularly. But Darkest Fathoms was a long way from fashionable society.
"My poor dear girl, you just don't understand the English. The Mortmains have lived in this place for several hundred years. To you it might look like a drafty ruin, but the British love their shabby aristocrats. That's how they know the difference between old money and new. They would consider it ostentatious to have too much that is modern."
"Call me flamboyant and gaudy then, but I don't think our father has worked so hard to have you living in what amounts to little more than a crypt with bats sleeping in the rafters."
"There are no bats among the rafters."
"Well, something scratches up there at night. Our sister, Merry, thinks it's dead and restless Mortmains. She says, in a house like this, it is more than likely the dead walk abroad. Of course, she's read a great deal on the subject."
"You don't understand. You have no appreciation or respect for lineage, tradition and old world elegance."
Rather than debate the matter any further, Pip had left the house then to visit Jonathan Lulworth, with Serenity calling after her, "I do hope you're not traipsing across the moor again to bother that sad little curate."
She gave no reply.
Pip had discovered Jonathan Lulworth the very first Sunday they arrived in Yorkshire, quite literally tripping over him in the graveyard, while she was distracted reading the carving on a stone crypt and he, stooped over, was tugging on some stubborn weeds growing around it. They quickly discovered a shared love of history and antiques. She began visiting the Thorford vicarage whenever possible to enjoy his extensive library. Sometimes she had one of her sisters in tow for the sake of respectability, but often— under the guise of "taking some air on the moors"— she crept away to Thorford quite alone to enjoy conversation, tea and scones in the good vicar's parlor. His housekeeper had tried, with several stern looks and salty comments, to discourage her visits, but Pip brazenly ignored all that, pretending not to understand the thick Yorkshire accent. In the space of one summer she came to depend upon those little escapes and Jonathan's quiet, tranquil and intelligent company, to keep her from going mad in that mausoleum the Mortmains called home.
The young vicar's kindness and gentleness had soon
become dear to her, his friendship invaluable. She could listen to him without taking offense when he sought to advise her, without feeling the need to arm herself with a weapon— verbal or physical. Pacing up and down in his parlor, she confided in him all her worries, shared every disagreement with her sisters, every frustration at life, and he always listened without interruption, ready with insight, assurance and comfort when she required it.
"The incredible Mr. Lulworth, whose name we hear so often these days, must have a way with wild animals," Serenity once remarked, apparently greatly diverted by the friendship. "Or perhaps you are in love."
Pip simply put her nose in the air and let her sister tease. At least, with Jonathan, she felt calm. He did not rouse her temper or make it impossible to be composed and prudent in his presence. One could never be annoyed with Jonathan Lulworth and, in his presence, she was never tempted to do, or say, anything that later struck her as harebrained.
But then, only weeks after their arrival in Yorkshire, their aunt, who had suffered a myriad of inexplicable aches and pains since early summer, suddenly took to her bed. She was dead within a week. According to the physician who examined her, the lady had been "riddled with tumors", a ghastly term that Merrythought used with considerable rolling of the 'r', whenever anybody asked about their aunt's demise.
For the time being, with the sisters in mourning for another few months at least, Serenity's wedding to Mortmain must be postponed.
At the death of their aunt, the girls had all managed their sorrow in different ways: Merrythought sobbed into her pillow every night, convinced that she too was "riddled" with something dire; Pip shook her fist at God for taking a lady who still had so much life in her, and Serenity went very quiet, withdrawing into herself as if it was unladylike to show any emotion at all.
Without their aunt's determination, inherent sense for matchmaking, and some useful but mysterious connections in society, they would not be where they were now, of course. That irrepressible lady had managed to get the Piper girls into more ballrooms than most folk thought they had any right to enter. Indeed, Epiphany mused wryly, Mrs. H. Thaxton-Choate of Boston, New York and Philadelphia could learn a thing or two from Queenie Du Bois of Hog's Flank.
But after all her hard work, their aunt had not lived long enough to reap the rewards of success. Pip remembered the carving on that ancient crypt in Thorford graveyard: Death is a bell that tolls for all; only the hour of its striking is unknown.
Enough thinking about death, she decided firmly. Shivering, she looked, in vain, for some sign of a break in the snow. What she needed now was a dose of that infamously uncrushable Piper optimism. It had never let her down before and it wouldn't now either.
The mail coach would be along soon. Surely.
If not the mail coach, then somebody would come along. She could not be the only living soul out on the Thorford road that afternoon — or evening as it must be by now; at least, the rapid dimming of daylight made it seem so.
The nearest cottage was shuttered, no sign of life. People out here on the moor were not keen on outsiders and it was unlikely they'd greet Pip— a strange-speaking foreigner— cordially at the door, or offer shelter. No matter, she thought, quickening her pace and humming in hopes of generating warmth. The mail coach would definitely appear over the hill soon.
Very soon.
Her stomach growled fiercely, reminding her that she had not eaten today at all. She really should have eaten breakfast before she left Whitby, but sitting at the long dining table, bookended by mournful Mortmain faces, who watched her every move as if she were a tigress in an exhibit, was never an enticing thought. It was even worse now that Serenity had chosen to run off on some mysterious journey, leaving only a short note for her sisters telling them not to worry.
At first, Pip assumed her sister would only be gone a few hours and that nightfall would surely bring her back. After all, where could she have gone? A ramble on the moors might keep her sister busy for half a day, but Serenity was not the sort to wander far enough to get lost. She always knew where she was going and it was never too far afield from the safe and familiar.
But as it grew dark out yesterday she still had not returned to the house.
"The wench did not mention a desire to go owt," Lord Mortmain had muttered crossly when told of her lingering absence. "Why would she go alone and not take my son? Women don't go wandering orf. It ain't done."
Edwyn Mortmain was also distressed, but mostly because his father was angry. "I wish Miss Piper had said something to me before she left," he murmured, the words dripping out of his small mouth as if they were pennies for a cold-fingered pauper. "She did not ask for the carriage."
"I should think nowt," the old man grumbled. "Can't get the horses owt just for a pleasure jaunt in winter. What could the wench be thinking?"
Of course, nobody wanted to say out loud what they thought Serenity might have been thinking when she wandered off, but it soon became clear that the Mortmains were more concerned about losing Serenity's dowry than they were about her safety.
Edwyn and his father, the Viscount Mortmain, now watched Pip and her little sister with a discomforting closeness, as if they too might take flight from the house. Only a day had passed since Serenity left, and already this morning Pip had overheard the Mortmains discussing other options.
"If the eldest girl has turned tail and fled from the altar, one of the others will have to do for you," old Lord Mortmain had croaked from his chair, while Pip hovered out of sight behind the dining room door. "Damn it all, we're not giving that purse back! You can take the mouthy one or the naive one instead. I daresay it makes no difference. Better that than bother with suing for breach of promise. I hear their father retained Stempenham and Pitt, and it's best not to come up against them or we could be worse orf than we were before. No, no, you'll take one of the other wenches if the first does not come back. Get courtin' 'em now, afore the father gets wind of this."
Shock had rooted Pip to the spot for a moment, and then she'd backed away on tiptoe, forfeiting breakfast rather than face their questions and cold stares.
Well, Epiphany might be willing to do a vast many things for those she loved, but she was no martyr, and The Honorable Edwyn Mortmain was a wretched bore, a fact that could not, in any way, be alleviated by the prospect of him one day becoming a Viscount. The idea of being "courted" by such a man was insupportable for Pip, and although, a year ago, she might have had no compunction in telling him so outright, she could not do that now. The Mortmains currently kept a roof over her head, and over the head of her little sister. Tact was a painful, uneasy necessity. This was no time to further upset the applecart.
Oh, her stomach really complained now.
Thank goodness Jonathan Lulworth was not here to witness the gaseous contortions of her intestines. They would both have been mortified. Not that he— being a frightfully constipated English gentleman— would have mentioned it, of course.
* * * *
Abruptly the carriage halted. No warning, no slowing of the wheels, just a sharp jolt and a rattling stop.
Cursing, Damon tugged so hard on the sash window that he almost broke it. He leaned out to yell at the coachman, "What the Devil is it now?"
"Somethin' ahead in the road. Horses won't go 'round it."
He swore again, snow melting on his lips. "Well, see what it is, man! Why do we sit here?"
"But it might be a trick. Might be an ambush."
"For pity's sake!" Damon pulled up the collar of his great coat, opened the carriage door and stepped down into snow.
"I wouldn't, if I were you, sir!" The coachman's voice warbled down to him through the screaming wind. "Take care, sir! There's vagabonds on this road, and they do lay in wait for carriages to pass."
"Splendid." He was just in the right temper for a fight. Cracking a few skulls might release some of this frustrated tension he'd suffered for the last six days of travel— most of it on rough, badly-maintained ro
ads.
"Do mind yerself, sir! A man can barely see an inch afront of 'is nose out there, but the 'orses know, sir. They 'ave a sense for these things," the coachman called out to his only passenger above the mournful winds. "T'aint safe, sir!"
But Damon Deverell refused to be vanquished by the weather, or by some desperate highway robber's trap. He was on a mission and he would not be stopped. Squinting against the snow, he trudged forward, searching the road for any obstacle that might have frightened the horses.
At first, in the light of the carriage lanterns, he could see nothing but white. The wind sought its way under his coat and scarf, wailing in his ears so that no other sound could be heard.
One hand inside his coat, resting on the pistol he kept there, Damon took another step forward. It was then that he finally saw something in the road. Right at his feet. He'd almost tumbled over it.
A bundle of rags? A dead animal?
A wind-beaten black feather fluttered helplessly in the wind.
No sign of blood in the snow, however. The dark animal could not have been there too long for the snow had not yet had time to settle over it.
Whatever it was, he'd have to shift it so that his horses could get by.
Suddenly, as he assessed the crumpled creature and his eyes adjusted, Damon realized it was human. A woman.
Dressed entirely in black, she was bent over, fussing with her ankle, apparently unaware of how close she came to being crushed by horses. Of course, in the howling wind she must not have heard the carriage approach.
"Madam! What the devil are you doing?"
She looked up, sheltering her face from the snow with one hand, and he saw now that the wet feather was merely decoration on a small, veiled bonnet. "Oh, sir," she gasped out, breathless, "I think I twisted my ankle."
No sign of a companion. Out here and all alone? She didn't look like a robber, but she might be a decoy. His hand tightened on the pistol under his coat. "You shouldn't be out in this weather, stumbling about like a drunk in the road. It's treacherous and getting dark. And cold."
