Lovestorm

by Judith E. French

  “ ‘Ave ye a safe place t’ go t’, lady?” Tom asked.

  “We’ll go to Longview, to my family’s country house,” she said. “My brother’s retainers will give us shelter.”

  Minutes later, the three rode out into the pouring rain and turned their horses toward the London highway. The storm showed no signs of abating, and the rain soaked their garments and beat at their faces.

  “Do you really mean to go to your family’s country house?” Robert leaned toward Elizabeth and shouted above the rain. “This is not the—”

  “We’re going to Bristol!” she cried. “Bristol is on the sea.”

  “Then why did you—”

  “Dunmore will send men after us. If Tom relents and tells him where we rode, let them seek us anywhere but where we really are.”

  Lightning struck on the far side of the meadow, and Elizabeth shut her eyes against the sudden flash of light. Her horse shied and broke into a gallop, despite the burden of two riders on its back. “Hold tight,” she warned Cain. “We ride fast and hard this night and into tomorrow.”

  He laid his head against her back and tightened his hold around her waist. “Take me where you will,” he said, “so long as our trail leads home.”

  The kitchen boys had just crawled from their pallets and started to build the charcoal fires in the great hearth when Tom returned to the master’s chamber. No trace of light showed in the east, and rain still pounded against the glass windows. The tall marquetry clock on the hall landing had just struck five-thirty.

  Lord Dunmore lay awake. His head had pained him through the early hours of the morning, and twice he’d had to leave his bed and seek the chamber pot. He’d gone to the windows repeatedly, knowing there was no way he could see Elizabeth’s tower window from his room. He’d listened in vain for a woman’s screams, knowing just as well that the storm would muffle any outcry she made.

  He jumped when Tom tapped at the door. “Who is it?”

  “Tom the groom, yer lordship.”

  “Come in.” Dunmore peered at the man’s face, trying to decide if his mission had been a success. “Damn you,” he snapped, “you’re dripping water all over my floor. What have you been doing—swimming?”

  “ ‘Tis rainin’ out, m’lord.” He pulled the pistol out from beneath his rain-drenched cloak. “ ‘Ere be yer gun, yer lordship.” He laid it gingerly on a low table.

  Dunmore swore a foul curse as he rose from his bed. “I know it’s raining, dolt. Do you think me deaf, I cannot hear the rain and thunder?” He hobbled toward the groom. “Well? Did you do it or not? Is she dead?”

  “No m’lord, I couldn’t throw the lady from the tower window as ye asked. I’m done wi’ killin’.”

  “You fool!” Purple veins bulged on Dunmore’s forehead. “Again!” he screamed. “You dare to come here and tell me you failed me again?” He walked to within an arm’s length of Tom, raised his walking stick, and slashed him viciously across the face.

  Blood welled up on the groom’s face as he ducked out of reach of Dunmore’s fury. Tom’s features hardened. “Lord or not, ye’ve nay right t’ strike me like a dumb beast.”

  “Strike you! Strike you, you dog’s vomit! I’ll kill you!” Dunmore staggered toward him and lashed out with his stick again.

  Tom caught the end of the cane and twisted it out of his master’s hand. He snapped it across his knee. “No more,” he threatened.

  Dunmore swore and lunged toward the pistol on the table. Tom sprang as the lord’s hand closed around the weapon’s grip. Dunmore fought with surprising strength, and the two fell to the floor, struggling, and rolled over and over, each striving for posession of the gun.

  Thunder muffled the sound of the explosion. Dunmore cried out once and then fell back, his eyes wide and unblinking.

  Shaken, Tom rose to his feet and stood with the smoking pistol in his hand until Dunmore’s body ceased to twitch, then he stepped over the spreading pool of blood and put the weapon into his lordship’s hand.

  “Ye got it wrong, m’lord,” Tom said. “ ‘Tweren’t ‘er ladyship what killed ‘erself out o’ shame. ‘Twas ye. Ye couldn’t bear the shame o’ another man beddin’ yer lady when ye could nay mount ‘er yerself. Poor ailin’ lord. Yer sickness musta touched yer mind.”

  Smiling in the darkness, Tom backed from the dead earl’s chambers and closed the door tightly behind him. “ ‘Tis the stables and a warm bed fer old Tom,” he murmured. “And I’ll be as sorrowed as the next when word o’ me lordship’s death comes belowstairs.” He sighed. “And ‘twas jest as ye said, m’lord. ‘Twas easier the second time.”

  The journey to Bristol was not one that Elizabeth would wish to repeat in her lifetime. They traveled mostly by night and slept by day in ruined churches or barns, and once even in the shelter of a great hedge. Cain’s wound gave him a fever. For four days he was too sick to ride and they had to trade one of the riding horses for the privilege of camping in a farmer’s stone sheep shed. They ate rabbits that Robert snared, and stale bread, and sometimes nothing at all.

  They rode the horses at breakneck speed until the animals’ sides ran with sweat and foam sprayed from their mouths. When the roan mare went lame, Elizabeth traded her to a tinker for two flea-ridden blankets, a kettle of hot stew, and a tin of powdered dovesfoot to curb Cain’s infection and lessen the fever.

  “The gypsy will hang if he’s caught with one of the earl’s horses,” Robert reminded Elizabeth as they rode from the tinker’s camp.

  “True enough, but a man who makes such poor stew deserves to hang.”

  On the eighth day, Cain was strong enough to ride alone, and although they were down to three horses, they made better time. They’d seen no sign of pursuit, but none of them was willing to relax his guard.

  “Lord Dunmore will see us all in hell,” Elizabeth reminded Cain and Robert. “He’ll stop at nothing to find us, and his gold will buy many favors.”

  Cain’s hand went to the hilt of the knife he wore strapped on his waist. “No one will take you while I live,” he promised her in his native tongue.

  She shook her head. “We must all live.”

  “Amen to that,” Robert agreed. “I’ve no wish to meet my maker with four inches of steel in my gut.”

  Refugees fleeing from London’s plague clogged the roads and made travel on the highways difficult. The villagers’ fear of the black death made all strangers suspect, and after one farmer shot at them, the three learned to keep off the roads and away from settled places. They sighted troops of soldiers almost daily; once, they barely escaped a roadblock at a ford in a river.

  Cain pulled his hat low over his face and kept his head down whenever they passed anyone on the road. They took turns sleeping and keeping watch, venturing to make human contact only when hunger made them desperate. And when they did seek food or a place to sleep, it was usually Elizabeth who did the bargaining.

  “You be as sharp as a peasant wench,” Robert said admiringly as they divided a roasted hen. “Begging your pardon, m’lady, but I’d never have thought of giving scissors for my dinner.”

  “Bridget’s scissors for her mistress’s chicken,” Elizabeth replied with a grin. “I’d say the bondwoman made the best of the deal.”

  “Aye, there’s something to that, but the farther we go from Sotterley, the more you sound like my own sweet Bridget and less like the grand lady you are.”

  “I do what I must.” Her eyes met Cain’s. “We all do what we must.”

  On the evening of the twelfth day, they crossed the Avon and reached the outskirts of Bristol. Cain and Elizabeth waited in a shadowy lane near a small church, while Robert rode in to try and locate Bridget’s brother-in-law at the tavern. As they grazed the horses beside the tombstones, a wedding party came out of the church.

  The young bride’s laughter drifted through the peaceful graveyard, and Elizabeth felt a pang of regret. Her hand went unconsciously to her belly, and she drew in a deep breath. “Are we tr
uly wed in the eyes of God, Cain, or is this child I carry to be born in bastardy?” It was the first time she had voiced the fear that had plagued her since she’d first realized they had created a babe. It was also the first time she had spoken to Cain about being pregnant.

  He chuckled softly, put his arms around her, and pulled her against his chest. “This one knows of the child to come, Eliz-a-beth. It gives me joy.”

  She nestled her head beneath his neck, letting her fingers trace the line of his jaw. “How did you know?”

  “Your body tells me. Are you sorry we make this little one?”

  “No. I want your child, but . . . How can we be married? You’re not even a Christian.”

  “No, and you be not of the true people—the Lenni-Lenape. My God cares not. He opens his arms to all children of the earth.” He kissed her hair, then tilted her chin to place a gentle kiss on her lips.

  The kiss was sweet, but it did not quell her concern. “To be born a bastard is a terrible thing,” she said when their embrace ended. “If I’ve sinned, our child will carry the stain forever.”

  He laughed. “How can ommamundot, a child, have sin before he draws birth? The English are wrong. A child is good. A child belongs to Wishemenetoo. He is only . . .” Cain frowned as he searched for the right word. “. . . loan to parents. A gift of joy. This word you say—bastard—this one does not understand. Wishemenetoo’s gift can only bring honor. If there is bad, it rests on head of mother and father, never ommamundot.”

  Elizabeth looked up into his face. “Would you speak the marriage vows before a clergyman of my faith?”

  “No English shaman would say the words for us.”

  “But if he would?” she persisted.

  “If the words will make you easy in your heart, I will say them but, for this one, we are man and wife until the forests grow beneath the salt sea and the dolphins swim upon the land.”

  Her eyes gleamed. “Wait here, then. If this good minister can perform one ceremony, perhaps I can prevail upon him to do another.”

  Ten minutes later, Cain and Elizabeth stood hand in hand in the bare, whitewashed church and repeated the vows that wed them according to English custom. The cold-eyed cleric made clear his disapproval of their hasty marriage far from home and family.

  “We are going to the Colonies,” Elizabeth had told him blithely. “I am with child, and we would be married according to law.”

  When he’d protested that they were strangers to him, no banns had been cried, and he had no way of knowing if they were close kin or already bound in wedlock, Elizabeth had bribed him with Dunmore’s bay gelding.

  “Where did such as you get so fine a horse?” the minister had demanded. “Is it stolen?”

  But Elizabeth had murmured denials, shrugged, and fluttered her hands, and the greedy churchman had consented.

  “God bless you, sir,” she said meekly. “I’ll want a copy of our marriage lines, as well as those to be entered in your parish book.”

  She signed the page boldly, Elizabeth Anne Sommersett, and offered the book and quill to Cain. “Make your mark here,” she instructed. To her surprise, he took the quill and wrote his own name in flowing script. Cain Dare.

  Startled, she stared up into his twinkling eyes.

  “My cocumtha. ”

  The parson puckered his thin face into a sour expression. “What heathen talk is that? Be this man Irish? I wed no papists in this church.”

  “No, good reverend, let your mind be at rest,” Elizabeth soothed as she held out her hand for the proof of her marriage. “The Dares have been honest Englishmen since the time of Good King Richard. I can assure you that neither of us is Catholic.”

  The minister peered at Cain suspiciously. “He’s dark enough to be an Irishman.”

  “His mother was Welsh,” Elizabeth lied.

  “I’ll have the saddle with the beast,” the cleric said.

  “Nothing was said of a saddle,” she retorted.

  “Would you rather I called the sheriff, Mistress Dare?” he threatened.

  “Let him have the saddle,” Cain said. “He be welcome to it.”

  “Irish or Welsh, ’tis little difference,” the minister grumbled. “Pagans, the lot of them.”

  Robert and Bridget were waiting outside in the lane. Bridget gave a cry of delight and threw herself into Elizabeth’s arms. “I never thought to see ye again.”

  Elizabeth hugged her tight. “Or I you. Leave the bay, Robert. ‘Twas payment to the minister for our marriage.” She produced the precious paper. “It’s true, we’re wed. Here are our marriage lines.”

  Bridget drew back. “But m’lady, ye are still wed to—”

  “Shhh,” Elizabeth laid a finger over her lips. “Let’s away from here, and I’ll try to explain. Are you well, Bridget? How did you come to Bristol without harm? The roads are thick with travelers.”

  The four walked down the lane away from the churchyard, leading the two horses, Robert’s sorrel and the remaining chestnut. Cain walked close to Elizabeth’s shoulder, saying nothing, but she felt his eyes on her in the darkness.

  “First,” Elizabeth said, “there must be no more of ’m’lady. ‘Twill mean our lives if we are captured by Lord Dunmore’s people. We are Cain and Elizabeth.”

  “Aye,” Bridget answered thoughtfully. “But Elizabeth is too dangerous—best we call ye Lizzy. Few would look for an earl’s lady behind such a milkmaid’s name.”

  “Good enough.” Elizabeth sighed and caught hold of Cain’s hand. It tightened around hers and gave her courage. “We came here because we didn’t knew where else to go. We need your help, Bridget. We must get back to Cain’s home, to the Colonies. I’m to bear his child. If Dunmore captures us, our babe will die also.”

  “He’s a wicked man, Lord Dunmore.” Bridget smiled up at Robert. “Ye’ll not know how happy I was when Sean brought Robbie to the house.”

  “You should have realized I’d not be so easy to get rid of,” Robert said. “I was leaving service before the lady bid me ride with her. Dunmore accused you of stealing from her ladyship.”

  Bridget stopped and stared at Elizabeth. “Ye didna believe me a thief, did ye?”

  “No. I’d believe nothing Dunmore told me.”

  “He took yer jewels, ye know. He ordered me to bring them to him, and he took them all himself. He had no right—what’s yers is yers. Husband or not . . .” Bridget’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Does the lord still live?”

  “Aye,” Robert said.

  “Then this marriage to . . . to him . . .” Bridget motioned to Cain. “ ‘Tis no real marriage at all.”

  “No,” Cain said in his softly accented English. “Eliz-a-beth be my wife.”

  “We were handfasted in America,” Elizabeth explained. “I gave my pledge to him before witnesses. ‘Tis my marriage to Lord Dunmore that means nothing.”

  “Then why this second exchange o’ vows here at Bristol?” Bridget asked.

  “I had no paper before, no words spoken in a church. Now I do.” She handed the folded parchment to the Irish girl. “I’m entrusting my marriage lines to you. Keep them safe for me, and when you can, put them into the hands of Micah Levinson or one of his sons.”

  “But London is a pesthole. Any that remain there are—”

  “In time the plague will pass. Micah Levinson is too wise to be caught in the city. When London is safe again, he’ll return, or his sons will. If I knew where Micah was now, I would go to him for money.” She spread her hands. “I have nothing, Bridget. We fled with what we have on our backs.”

  Bridget laughed as she tucked the parchment inside her wrap. “What ye ha’ on yer back is more than ye know, m’la—” She corrected herself. “Lizzy.” She knelt beside Elizabeth in the road and ran her fingers down the inner lining of Elizabeth’s cloak. “Hah! Feel this.” She guided Elizabeth’s fingers to a hard lump in the bottom hem. “Open the seam, and ye’ll find a string o’ pearls, each one worth a workin’ man’s fort
une.”

  “But how? Why?” With the aid of Cain’s knife, Elizabeth freed the precious pearls and cupped them in her hand. “You put them there,” she said to her friend.

  “Aye, for just such a time. You’ve led a sheltered life, m’lady, and I’ve not. When Lord Dunmore asked for yer jewels, I saved that out . . . just in case.”

  “Thank God, you did. I thought to come to you a beggar.” She squeezed the pearls tightly. “These may buy us passage to Jamestown,” Elizabeth told Cain.

  They were entering the town, and the street was crowded despite the hour. Men and women hurried past, some on horseback and others on foot, some driving livestock before them or pushing heavily laden wheelbarrows. One stout woman led a cow with two baskets of codfish strapped to the animal’s back. Cursing drovers maneuvered two-wheeled carts and horse-drawn sleds along the narrow streets, and everywhere were barking dogs and filthy, ragged children. They ran crying beside the passersby with outstretched hands and slept, like piles of stray puppies, in the doorways.

  Cain took the pearls from Elizabeth and weighed them in his hand. “They are pretty beads,” he said, “but is hard for this one to understand why the English value stones from the sea and not children.”

  Bridget shrugged. “Tis plain to see why he canna remain here. ‘Twill be hard to pass him off as English.”

  Elizabeth chuckled. “I told the minister his mother was Welsh.”

  “Fooling the clergy is one thing,” Robert said, “but the trick will nay work long. No insult meant to you, Cain, but savage you are, and savage you look.”

  Bridget led the way through the twisting streets to an old stone tavern. “Maureen and Sean have a room beyond the inn bakehouse. ‘Tis warm enough, and ye’ll be welcome, but ’twill be snug for six of us. The town is packed with those who have fled from London, and families come from the country seeking work. I’m sorry there’s no better place to offer ye, m’lady.”

  “Any place with a roof over it will seem like Whitehall,” Elizabeth replied. “We’ve been sleeping on the ground for so long I—”