AT FIRST SIGHT: A Novella(22)
He wrapped an arm around her rigid shoulders and pulled her down to incline with him on the mattress. He tucked her resisting head into the cradle of his neck and collarbone. He could feel her warm, shallow breath on his skin and her rapid heartbeat against the side of his ribs. She shivered. The room was drafty, and he reached down to pull one of the scratchy horse blankets up over them.
“You cannot return to the Virgin Mary Tavern,” he murmured against the tendrils at her temple. “Now that Craven knows you are in the American colonies, he would locate you at your ordinary in no time. I say we meet with the sachem Peminacka. Craven will not be expecting you to strike out west toward the mountains.”
Frowning, she tilted her head to better look at him, and he could not help but notice the weariness in her eyes, nor be unaware of the inviting sweetness made by the bow of her upper lip. “You will be sealing your fate with mine if you let me escape Craven.”
“I will most definitely be persona non grata with Craven.”
She half sighed. “Even if we could escape.”
“I have a plan. I admit, our chances are maybe one in ten, but what are your chances if you return to England with Craven?”
She bit her lower lip, looked away, then she bravely met his eye. “I would be better off taking my chance with you.”
Which did not say much for him. Once more, he tucked her head into the hollow of his shoulder. “Sleep. We’ve only a couple of hours before dawn.”
Foolishly trusting him, she snuggled her face against his neck and soon slid into sleep. And he relished holding her, thinking how he may not have found his mother or sister, but he had found Evangeline.
He went over in his mind’s eye his escape plan. Aye, it was a sound one, discounting, of course, the perfidious element of chance.
Better that she did not know he had lied to her yet again. Their chances of escape, he figured, were more like one in a hundred.
§§ CHAPTER SEVEN §§
No particular sound awakened Evangeline, but she was aware of another presence. She judged it must have been close to dawn. Gradually, her drowsy lids opened, her vision refocusing in the dark, and she perceived Adam standing near the foot of the bed – and perceived he must have removed her pattens, garters, and finely knitted stockings sometime during the night.
“Are you ready to make a run for it?” He did not look up from a bundled horse blanket he was unknotting. He was wearing his russet cloak. To one side of the blanket, he had laid her cloak.
As always, at his nearness, an instant throb of excitement stirred within her. She pushed upright onto her elbows. “Literally?”
“Literally,” he confirmed, sitting down beside her. “Quite literally. At least, a great part of our bid for escape will be a mad dash.” Pulling back the blanket, his hand slid along her calf.
She yelped and bolted to a sitting position. As always, her stomach ached with a queer crimping at his mere touch. “You told me, you weren’t interested in – ”
“I am always interested, but there are such things as priorities.” His hand captured her evading foot. “Hold still. Where we’re going, these moccasins will be of far more use than those clumsy shoes.”
With what might have been the tender care of a parent, he fitted a beautifully beaded moccasin on first one foot, then the other. They fitted perfectly. Tugging her from beneath the blanket, he stood her lethargic frame upright. Turning her to face him, he draped her cloak over her shoulders and fastened the frog at her throat.
“Now listen to me.” His gaze was serious. “If we get separated, you are to head for the Rocks. To the right of them, hidden in the alders, is a canoe. Paddle up the Brandywine to its confluence with Bear Creek. With luck, Bonnie Charlie should be waiting there with a mount for you.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You – Bonnie Charlie? How did you two – ”
“Time’s a’wasting.” With that, he swooped up the blanket bundle and slung her, blanket and all, over one shoulder. Over the other, he slung his saddlebags.
Her stomach whooshed with the jounce of each of his long strides that took him from the bedroom and down the hallway. At its far end, he sat her down, but held both her wrists in one hand while with the other he threw back the hall window’s shutters. The greeting cold chilled her almost as much as the thought of what he might be about to do.
He winked at her and passed her a lengthy end flap of the blanket enfolding her. “Hold tight. I do not want you to break one of those fetching ankles.”
“What?!”
But already, he was bundling her out the window. Frigid wind buffeted her body in the stygian darkness. She dangled above the inn’s lawn that sloped behind it down to the South River. Her shoulder banged painfully against the brick wall, and her hold slipped. Grabbing tighter, she looked down. It was a good fifteen-foot drop.
Terrified, she looked up at him. His reassuring gaze met hers. “When your feet hit the ground, run for the river.”
Hand over hand, he fed the blanket out the window.
When the blanket played out, she looked down. She was still suspended a goodly distance above the ground. Scrunching close her eyes, she forced her hands to release their death grip – and dropped. The impact with the ground jarred her teeth and sent her stumbling before she regained her footing. She glanced up in the predawn darkness.