“I think this business he and I share quite involves you, you little harlot,” the earl snarled, breathing hot through clenched teeth. “In fact, it quite involves you and only you. For you have a matter of an unsettled estate to manage, and your father is quite beholden to whomever decides he wishes to have you as his own, Anne Hatley of Roxborough,” he tongued her title with utter contempt. “Now, I shall become proper viscount of these lands, and you will be my viscountess - proper, compliant, and behaved, willing to bear for me any number of heirs I require, because that is a woman’s place in this world, and I will ensure that you know it,” the earl demanded. “You don’t have much of a choice. No woman does. And for that I will do with you what I need, and you and your father will be happy and dance along with my choices, because you have no alternatives,” he growled.
“I have love,” Anne sputtered back, begging in her mind that her love would return to save her.
“Love? Hah! Love, with whom? That worthless, spineless fool from Amhurst? What, have you so stupidly fallen in love with a man who has no idea how to treat a woman?” the earl guffawed, pulling Anne tight against his waist. “Love is learning - and you will learn all I need you to learn in due time, and you will love me and yourself for it.”
“Get away from me!” Anne exclaimed, tugging at his grasp; and when he refused to let her free, she resorted to living up to her reputation as so utterly unladylike, by bringing her palm up in a stiff strike against the assaulting earl’s nose. He roared in pain, eyes shocked, clearly not expecting so righteous a response from the rather petite girl he had decided to claim as his own. Instead, she broke free of him and ran; when he moved to intercept, she stamped her heel hard onto his foot, bringing another dolorous howl to the winds. The earl grasped at his nose, which had begun to swell and bleed; Anne spat at him as she rushed to the stables for safe haven.
“Bertold! Are you here?” she shouted, her mind rushing, on fire after the encounter with the earl. “Please, Bertold, are you here?”
“M’lady?” the skinny young blonde man appeared, yawning lazily, from the rear of the stalls. “Shall I prepare Midnight for you? So late in the evening?”
“Please, Bertold, I need to...” she did not quite know what she needed to do. When the earl had touched her, grabbed her, taunted her, she could think of only one person - only one thing. No matter how much she held hate in her heart for him at this given moment, she could not stop thinking of him. She did not know that she would ever be able to, because when she had said she had love - she had meant it.
“I... I need to go to see... someone,” she stammered. Bertold heard a cry of anger from without, no doubt the howling vitriol of the Earl of Carteret; fear in her eyes, Anne pleaded quietly with the stable boy. “I need to get away from here, for now, Bertold, please—”
“Of course, m’lady,” he answered with a hasty nod, rushing off to the rear of the stables to find the proper bridle. As he left, Anne braced herself against her jet-black steed’s stall; her head spun, her heart pumped, and she could scarcely bear all the emotional tumult she had endured on this day alone. No matter how often she closed her eyes, she saw him; reflected in every tear she shed. She wanted to ride, away from here; away from England, away from all people and places, and out into the ocean, where she could swim and swim until she reached France. She could drink a proper wine and live as a pauper; she could find her freedom in anonymity, the freedom she had always lusted for, but she would never find fulfillment without him.
She realized what true freedom was - not simply the freedom to choose one path or the other, or the freedom not to bear the stigma and expectations of society. Love - knowing one soul so intimately, and wanting to give yourself to it, while that soul felt the same way - true love was true freedom. Her heart hurt because she had tasted it, but only a taste; and now she knew she could not simply live, no matter how free, with only a taste of the love she felt for this man.
“I’ve found the proper bridle m’lady—”
“Hurry, please, Bertold,” Anne pleaded, pulling open the door to Midnight’s stable and leading the horse out. Bertold lashed the saddle and equipment to the creature as fast as his hands could move; she could hear the clopping of carriage wheels, and she sighed in relief, hoping that the intolerable earl had finally departed the estate. She would deal with whatever manner of political fallout fell upon the Roxborough estate later; now, she had more pressing matters to engage with.
“All ready to ride, m’lady,” Bertold announced, nodding to his mistress. He went to fetch the stairs, but instead Lady Roxborough simply threw herself atop the horse, bracing herself against the stall door and setting herself astride the animal.
“No need,” she said, haste in her words and her manner. With a yip, she set Midnight upon the path; as the horse carried her quickly out of the stables, she saw that the carriage - and its miscreant of a rider - had disappeared into the night, as best she could see. Good, she thought to herself. They set off down the path - darkness had crept in, paths covered in dirt and mud from the bluster of wind and the snap of cold, and before long they had passed through a pair of trees and the manor - and all its brilliant, life-giving light - had vanished behind them.
“Hyah!”
Anne’s voice carried across the moors; she raced atop Midnight’s back as the horse bucked and brayed anxiously, leaping along the cobblestone paths, through dusty trails and along pathways coated in dead leaves, with nothing but the moon to keep the path visible. A few lanterns dotted the main arteries cutting through the estate, but as she took a detour onto darkened, muddy trails, the light began to fade. The numerous crisscrossing pathways had never seemed so painstakingly jagged and mazelike as they did now - when she needed to make every second count, her mind burning with passion for that she would love, whether he could realize the value of it or not. She needed to see his face again - to tell him he loved her, and that as a stubborn woman, as stubborn a woman as ever has been born of noble blood, she wouldn’t simply let him decide alone who was worthy of whom. She raced against time; she raced against her own doubts. She raced against a night that only grew darker and more dangerous as each second passed, threatening to stop her forced and hasty march across the roads.
“Midnight, here! Hyah!” Anne had never been the most talented rider, but she had enjoyed enough long days on Midnight’s back to know the pathways on the outskirts of the manor quite well; she reasoned if she cut across here, she could arrive quicker at the main road leading towards the Duchy of Amhurst - she could meet him at those crossroads. She spotted a sideways path and took quickly to it, the moonlight reflecting in a puddle of mud that Midnight whinnied as the horse’s hooves splashed through the puddle. The long and sloping road saw little traffic from carriages and merchants, on account of its steep and awkward slopes, but a lone rider would have none of those troubles. Dashing past darkened, swaying and leafy shapes and tall, unkempt grasses, Anne and her proud mount barreled through mud and tangling vines, the muck growing thicker with each cloven footfall. As blackened trees blurred past, tossed about by a cold wind that shivered along Anne’s lightly-clothed spine, she saw him everywhere - in everything. Her father had been right about her - she was proud, but most of all, could be quite stubborn. Stubborn enough to put herself at great risk... riding alone, a woman, in the dark, without a lantern... she had left in such haste that she had not asked Bertold to prepare a torch or lamp for her, and worse, she had driven her steed from the most populous roads, into darkened territory.
Only then, did Anne notice that something did not feel quite right. She heard not only Midnight’s hooves fall upon the derelict cobblestone roadway, but a second... and even a third set of steps, echoing down the paths. Anne felt it odd... practically none dared travel this roughly-hewn path. Anne tried not to worry about those extra hoof-falls, though her heart began to thump in her chest when she noticed the sound had begun to draw closer with each further step Midnight took, and now the phantom ho
oves fell so fast that they outpaced the sound of her own. Midnight stepped through a morass of muddy puddles, her pace slowing briefly before taking to the bridge up ahead - a rickety bridge of crumbling stones drawn across the river bank, the rushing sounds of a shrunken stream gushing along her ears. The bridge rose tall above the stream, and she dashed across it quickly... but not so quickly as she heard the stones rattle with the passage of a heavy burden just behind her, and when she finally glanced back, she saw a carriage, catching up to her, lantern lit bright.
Her heart stopped and terror froze the blood in her veins as a realization struck her hard as a musket-blast to the back. He would not give up - not so easily, and he would do anything he had to prove his point. Anne tightened her profile against the horse, urging Midnight on, spurring the creature into a fevered run as she heard horse hooves clopping behind her. The threat of losing a man’s love loomed as dark as the deep, starry night that had fallen over the trees, and no longer did only her fear chase her, but now something more threatened to claim her love, her comfort, her future, and now - her life.
“Midnight! Hya!” She glanced over her shoulder as she called to her steed; she felt Midnight’s pace slowing, the power of a single horse driven to its limit not quite as great as a slave-driver pushing two horses along the dark paths. Anne had pushed the poor horse hard, and now it threatened to leave the two of them stranded and in his clutches. Her hands shaking, Anne gripped the reins tight, leading her tired mount back to the roadway. Midnight gave her all, galloping along; even the horse pushed hard to blaze a trail safely for its master. She realized too late that the path ahead would slow her steed’s pace a great deal, and she led the creature down a side path, hopping along a rocky ridge - but it was too late. She had made a grave mistake, and as the earl’s carriage pursued her, catching up to her, she closed her eyes.
She saw him; her love, the only one who could still her heart. She wondered in that moment if she would ever see him again.
“M’lady! Come now, don’t lead me on so crass a chase across these beautiful lands! It’s dark, and dirty, and you’re out riding in darkness, alone,” she recognized that odious man’s speech as he hung from the opened door of the carriage. Midnight had slowed to a gentle gallop, and the chauffeur of the Carteret carriage had pulled his vehicle up alongside the poor creature.
“Midnight! Here, hya!” Anne tried her best to ignore the man, leading Midnight through some trees; the earl followed close behind, the path narrowing - but damnable fate saw that it did not narrow enough to cut off his approach. When they cleared the trees, the chauffeur drove hard until the earl could see her again.
“Come, now, I do love it when a woman plays hard to get, but my patience is nearly expended now,” the earl exclaimed with a haughty laugh. Hanging from the side of the carriage he grasped out at Anne, who kept herself tight and low to Midnight’s mane; the horse whinnied as it felt the earl’s grasping hands reach for its reins.
“Help! Help me! Please, stop,” Anne exclaimed, tears forming at her cheeks. The earl didn’t abate for even a moment.
“I told you you’d be mine - and you had no choice in the matter,” the Earl of Carteret bellowed as he grasped at Anne’s dress, trying to tug her off of her steed. “You should have listened to me. The harder you make this, the worse things will be for you, and for your father.”
“Just go away,” she pleaded. “Please.”
“I will HAVE what’s MINE! And not you, or Lawrence, or ANYONE will get in my way!” the Earl roared as he flung himself from the carriage, landing on the back of Anne’s horse. Her heart beat hard as she tried to shake him off, pulling away from the road and into the trees. The devil was not deterred, and grasped at Midnight’s reins; the creature cried out and bucked and tried everything it could to free itself of the man, as he struggled with poor Anne.
Anne closed her eyes as they converged back onto the main road - praying someone, anyone, would see them. Someone would stop this.
“Stop this damnable beast and speak to me! LOOK AT ME!” the earl shouted into her ear.
All she cared about was him. All she could see when she closed her eyes was him. Even with this demon of a man trying to control her, to have her for his own twisted and nefarious purposes, with her life and freedom on the line.
Would she ever see him again?
Chapter Sixteen
“So I try not to pry in to m’lord’s affairs too deeply, of course,” the driver said; his voice broke in to Lawrence’s sense of broken self-defeat, interrupting another dangerous reverie. “And of course, the lord is free not to answer, should he find it pushes too deep into his own personal situation, but... could I inquire as to who the... pretty young lady in the nightgown was, back at that manor we left?”
Lawrence had known the driver, Colby, for most of his life; the man was only a year or thereabouts younger than he, and had grown up as a daughter of one of the older maidservants, playing amid the fields of the Amhurst estate. When he came of age he worked in the Amhurst stables, and moved then on to learning the art of maneuvering carriages through the moors, carriages which had once carried the previous Lord Strauss through the paths and fields on late nights. Colby had never pried so much into Lawrence’s life; he had been a loyal servant, though, and Lawrence saw in him someone who had come up much the same as he himself had. Lawrence considered not answering the question - certainly such an inquiry from a servant or driver would provoke the fabulous rebuke of any other noble of good standing, but Lawrence had never been quite like other nobles of good standing, had he?
“She is... a lovely young woman, Colby,” Lawrence said, deftly avoiding a confrontation with the heart of the matter. He knew full well what the driver’s question had intended, but he had no desire to give the answer the chauffeur had truly wanted.
“Indeed, from the look of her she seemed to be quite a lovely woman, and one I can only guess has quite the station among the nobles, yes?” Colby asked, pushing forward as the carriage trotted along a dark and lonely road. A lantern, hung at the side of the vehicle, burned a soft orange light to guide the path along the cobblestones. It was not much to go by, but it helped abate some of the oppressive darkness; even on the night of a full moon, the hills and trees obscured much of its silvery glow, and one could scarcely see beyond the length of one’s own feet.
“She is indeed a lovely woman, and the woman due to inherit the title and lands and wealth of the viscount of Roxborough, her father, we he passes, if that gives an answer to your question,” the duke responded weakly. He looked out the window and a gossamer figure in the distance; his eye twitched as he narrowed his gaze, and he could see the figure vanish. He closed his eyes, and her face appeared; this time, not a face stricken in tears and pain, but a face gripped with passion; with want, the same face he had seen her give to him when she saw his body for the first time. A face he had never expected to see; a face full and bright, just for him.
Had he been hallucinating?
“And I’m certain that none of that matters much to you at all, does it, m’lord?” Colby asked with a wry smile, looking back over his shoulder through the window connecting the carriage to the chill of the outdoors. “I know you’ve never been a man for title or wealth or station. Not power-hungry, nor a silly social climber wearing a suit of paper.”
“You know me well, Colby, perhaps more so than I had thought,” the duke responded.
“It’s the only reason I can manage in thinking on why you’ve reached an age as old as you have without taking a wife, as would be expected of you,” Colby continued.
“Is it? Most simply assume I have unconventional tastes, instead,” the duke laughed. “That’s what they tell me the circles of gossip whisper, anyway.”
“I certainly know that you’ve known affection, or at least as close as could ever be said to be that sort of romantic affection, in the way you’ve cared for women you’ve been with in the past, but...” Colby opined. “I think you simply had n
ot truly seen in them what you long for.”
“Perhaps,” the duke said dismissively.
“But you saw it in that girl, didn’t you, m’lord?” Colby dared, as the carriage came to a tall forest, the road cutting away from clustered trees.
“That’s quite a statement for you to make,” the duke retorted. He couldn’t stop seeing her. He couldn’t stop thinking about her - once more he saw the image of a woman on a black steed, dress white as snow, laughing and calling out across the hills, before the lantern light flickered and she was gone.
“I think it’s an accurate one, though, don’t you?” Colby asked. “She said she loved you, after all. And I know that’s far from the only sign of truth to be seen, m’lord, but the manner in which she said it shook me down to my core. And I’m sure it did the same to you.”
“She’s a lovely woman, but...” the duke stammered.
“But?” Colby questioned. “I think there are few buts to be had when it comes to matters of love, m’lord.”
“You knew my father, Colby,” the duke announced with a sigh. “You knew the... manner, in which he acted. I’m certain you’re not privy to every detail, but the stories are there, and I’m certain you heard a few in your youth from the serving-girls and the butlers, and the like.”
“I knew him to be a flawed man, yes,” Colby admitted. “I do not yet see how those flaws have changed you, m’lord, or influenced your relationship with this girl who seems just right for you.”
“Don’t you see, Colby? What would happen if I took that girl’s hand? Do you think I could make her happy, with the things my father did? Do you think she’d leave my manor with anything save tears staining her eyes, the same way my mother did?” the duke responded.
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