Chapter 7
1031 Words
Chapter Seven
Green hadn’t found his way to the workhouse, or to any of the almshouses. Dusk was darkening the sky. The wind carried the occasional drop of rain. “We’ll try all the inns tomorrow,” Letty said. “I know there’s no logical reason why anyone would lie, but there’s no harm in checking, is there?”
Reid glanced at her, and clearly decided that the question was rhetorical.
A gust of wind almost lifted Letty’s hat from her head. In its wake, the rain began to come down in earnest.
Miss Trentham, England’s greatest heiress, never ran; Mrs. Reid did, clutching her hat with one hand and holding her skirts up with the other. She arrived at the Plough puffing and laughing and feeling like a girl again, and clattered breathlessly up the stairs to her room, where Eliza waited to help her out of the damp clothes.
The Plough had begun to feel almost like home, comfortable and familiar, with its warm, low-beamed bedchambers and snug parlor. Dinner was giblet pie and rice pudding. Letty, who’d never eaten giblet pie before, found it surprisingly tasty. Mr. Reid—with an expression of silent long-suffering—ate almost half a plateful, but refused the rice pudding.
Upstairs in her bedchamber, Letty allowed Eliza to unbutton and unlace her, and then sent the girl to bed.
“But your hair, ma’am. Don’t you wish me to brush it out?”
“I’ll do it myself tonight. Go to bed. You look exhausted. And don’t worry! You will not be turned out into the street.”
Grateful tears filled the girl’s eyes. “How can I ever thank you enough, ma’am? You’re an angel!”
“I can assure you I’m no angel. But I’m an orphan, myself; I know what it’s like. Now, off to bed, my dear!”
Eliza bobbed a tearful curtsy. “Thank you, ma’am. Good night, ma’am.”
Letty brushed out her hair, plaited it, and changed into her nightgown. An angel? No one in the ton would call her an angel. Cold, yes. Proud and standoffish. In the words of one of her rejected suitors, an unfeeling b***h.
But not an angel.
Letty climbed into the high bed. She didn’t immediately blow out her candle, but lay watching the candlelight flicker over the walls, enjoying the coziness of the bedchamber and the sound of rain pattering against the window panes. I wish I could stay here forever. It was wonderful being plain Mrs. Reid. Wonderful not to be hemmed about by servants, wonderful not to have people toad-eating her whichever way she turned.
Dimly, a clock struck the hour. Letty counted the strokes. Ten. She snuffed her candle and burrowed into her bedclothes.
The sound of rain lulled Letty to sleep; the sound of someone calling out woke her. She blinked her eyes open and lay almost unbreathing, tense, straining to hear. Utter silence. Utter darkness. And yet she had the sensation that someone was in her bedchamber, that they’d made a noise . . .
Minutes crawled past. Letty found the courage to roll over and locate the tinderbox and light her candle. Light sprang up. The shadows drew back into the corners. No housebreaker cowered by the little washstand or behind the chair.
Letty got up and checked under the bed. Nothing. She padded shiveringly across to the door. It was still latched on the inside.
She blew out a breath, annoyed with herself. A dream, that’s what it had been. Or perhaps she’d heard a drunkard on the street. How had Sally phrased it? Jug-bitten.
Letty turned back to the bed—and the sound came again. A choked-off scream that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. It was close. So close it seemed almost inside her room.
She stood for a moment, her scalp prickling, her heart pounding with terror—and then common sense reasserted itself. That was no one jug-bitten; that was pure distress. Whoever had made that sound needed help.
Letty hurriedly put on her slippers, threw a shawl around her shoulders, picked up her chamberstick, and let herself out into the corridor. She turned towards Eliza’s room, but even as the floorboards creaked beneath her feet, the noise came again.
Not Eliza’s room; Mr. Reid’s.
Letty crossed to his door and knocked quietly. “Mr. Reid?”
No one answered her.
Letty cautiously tried the door. It was unlatched.
Dare she enter Reid’s room?
While she hesitated, shivering, the sound came again, a gasping cry that made her heart clutch in her chest. Was he being murdered?
No, what was far more likely was that he was raping Eliza. The girl was pretty, and her pregnancy scarcely showed, and she was young and vulnerable and easy prey to an unscrupulous man.
Letty wrathfully flung open the door.
Reid wasn’t raping anyone. He lay in bed, alone and asleep—but he wasn’t sleeping restfully. Even as she watched, he thrashed against the bedclothes.
He was in the throes of a nightmare. And clearly one that put every nightmare she’d ever had to the pale.
Letty crossed swiftly to the bed. “Mr. Reid, wake up.”
Reid thrashed again. He seemed to be having difficulty breathing. Sweat stood out on his face. Tendons strained in his throat.
“Mr. Reid! Wake up!”
Reid’s face was so twisted by distress that it was almost unrecognizable.
Letty grasped his shoulder and shook him. “Icarus! Wake up!”
His eyelids sprang open. He stared at her without recognition, his silver eyes wide and wild, and sat suddenly upright and struck her.
His arm tangled in the bedclothes, blunting his blow. Even so, the punch knocked her flying. Letty hit the floor. The chamberstick spun from her hand, plunging the room into darkness.
She lay where she’d fallen, almost too afraid to breathe. The animal savagery on Reid’s face—the blind wildness in his eyes—the swiftness of the blow . . . He could kill her without realizing it.
She lay silently, fearfully, listening to Reid’s harsh, disrupted breaths, feeling the imprint of his knuckles on her cheek, tasting blood in her mouth. He sounded as if he was sobbing, choking, unable to get enough air into his lungs. Was he still caught in his nightmare?
A minute passed. It appeared that Reid wasn’t going to climb from the bed and beat her to death. Was he awake? Did he even realize she was in his room?
“Mr. Reid?” Letty said cautiously. “Are you awake?”
His breath caught, as if she’d startled him. There was a moment of silence, and then: “Miss Trentham?”
Letty carefully sat up and fingered her cheek. “Yes.”
She heard fumbling, and then the tinderbox sparked and a candle flared alight.
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