The Winter Sea (Slains, #1)(107)
She climbed the dunes and found the place where she and Moray had so often sat and talked, and though the ground was snowy now she sat with legs drawn up beneath her cloak and turned her gaze toward the sea.
It had been weeks since she had been here. In the summer she’d come often, for it was upon these sands that she most strongly felt the bond that yet connected her to Moray. She’d found comfort in the thought that every wave that rolled to shore had lately traveled from the coast of France to spread its foam upon the beach before her, and would then return with the inevitable rhythm of the tides to touch the land where Moray walked. That image, small but vivid, had sustained her through the length of days while she had looked toward the wide horizon for the first glimpse of a swift approaching sail.
But none had come, and when she’d sickened from the bairn within her belly she had not felt well enough to walk so far. Besides, the bairn itself had given her a new kind of connection to the husband who was absent from her arms, if not her heart, and she had not felt such a pressing need to walk among the memories on the shore.
But now she found them here, and waiting for her, and her eyes from habit turned to search the distant line where sea met sky, with apprehension this time more than hope, because she feared what might befall the herald ship from France if it arrived at Slains while Ogilvie was there.
For all that Colonel Graeme had not been convinced, and Ogilvie himself was such a harmless-seeming man, she could not cast aside her feelings of suspicion any more than she could keep from hearing in her mind again the words that Moray had once spoken to her here, among the dunes: The devil kens the way to charm, when it does suit his purpose…
It was more than what she’d seen that morning between Ogilvie and Billy Wick. Now that she’d turned her mind toward the possibility, it also struck her that although he’d been at Slains some days the countess had not warmed to him, but kept politely distant. And the instincts of the countess, thought Sophia, rated far above all others in the house.
She looked with doubt towards the cold horizon, and again she heard a voice—not Moray’s but the colonel’s, telling them: The time is measured now in days. And as the sun dropped lower into cloud she knew what she must do.
She did not wish to disappoint the colonel, or bring trouble on his shoulders, but if he would not believe her and take action, someone must. She would approach the countess, tell her what she’d seen, and let the older woman handle things as she saw fit.
Resolved, Sophia stood, and made her way down from the dunes and back along the beach, her steps imprinted in the drifted snow. She saw the footprints left by Colonel Graeme, and the fainter tracks of some small animal—a dog, she thought—reminding her that Moray had once told her not to venture out so far from Slains unless she brought the mastiff.
She could only smile as she remembered his concern, because the beach was so deserted, and the hill that she began to climb beyond the beach so barren, she saw nothing that could possibly endanger her. She’d walked this path a score of times since Moray had departed. She could walk it with her eyes closed, and she’d never had a mishap.
So it struck her strangely that when she was halfway up the hill, she felt a sudden crawling sense along her spine that made her hesitate, and turn to look behind.
Along the curve of beach the waves rolled in with perfect innocence. The dunes were soft with shadow, and deserted. Nothing moved besides the water and the wind along the shore that stirred the grasses. She relaxed. It had been only her imagination, hearing ghosts when none were there.
She smiled a little at her foolishness, and turned again to carry on along the uphill path…and walked straight into Billy Wick.
It seemed to her, as startled as she was, that he’d come out of nowhere, flung by blackest magic on that hill to block her way. He let her back away a step and did not move to hold her, but his smile was worse than any touch. ‘And far would ye be going til, my quine, in such a hurry?’
He would feed on fear, she knew, and so she tried to hide her own, the only sign of it the clenching of her hands upon her gown. Chin raised, she told him calmly, ‘Let me pass.’
‘All in good time.’
No one could see them, where they stood. Not from the cottages, nor even from the high windows of Slains, because the hill’s slope cut them off from view. And crying out would be a waste of breath. No one would hear the sound.
She fought her rising panic and tried hard to think. Going back towards the beach would gain her nothing—she could only try to force her way around him, and attempt to run. He might not be expecting that. Nor would he expect her to break round him on the seaward side of the steep path. He’d think that she would try the other way, the inland way, where drifted snow and tufts of coarse grass stretched off softly underfoot, instead of that one narrow strip of ground that broke so treacherously downward to the blackened rocks and icy sea below.
She took a breath, and took a chance.
She had been right. Her lunge toward the seaward side surprised him, and she gained a precious lead of seconds, and she might have even got the whole way round him had he not recovered, snapping round with snake-like speed to grasp her arm as she sped by. Her own momentum, stopped short by the sudden action, threw them both off balance, and Sophia landed hard upon the frozen ground, so hard she felt the impact in her teeth and saw lights bursting in her vision.
Billy Wick fell harder still on top of her and held her pinned, his face no longer smiling. They were lying full across the path now, and Sophia knew that though the gardener was a small man, he was strong, and she might not be able to find strength enough herself to fight him. ‘Now, fit wye would ye dee that, quine? I only want the same thing as ye gave tae Mr Moray.’