Page 89 of A Debt Inherited

“You do yourself injustice. One must admire what is before one.”

“Then Hertfordshire must content you entirely,” she replied. “Its fields are full of subjects for admiration.”

“Perhaps. Yet some company is rarer than others.”

“And yet,” she said, “something seems to have detained you. I trust it keeps you well employed.”

“A dull duty indeed—accounts, horses, and a mountain of receipts. I am more clerk than soldier.”

“Then I shall not keep you from such important labours.”

“Only a word—”

The hedgerow breathed; a blackbird scolded somewhere within. She turned to leave and struck a chest as firm as a gatepost.

Arms closed very fast and very sure. One pinned both her elbows, drawing her back to the body behind, the other folded across her middle and fixed her there. She could not draw breath for an instant. She tried to stamp, to twist, to find the foot that held her, but the man’s weight at her back held like a band of iron.

“Quiet,” a man’s voice said close to her ear, low and unhurried.

“Hold her,” Wickham said behind the word, the brightness gone from his tone.

She tried to cry out. The hand at her middle tightened; the other slid, hard and dry, up her rib and across her shoulder. A palm came against her cheek. Fingers found the hinge of her jaw and pressed cruelly until the joint slackened. The heel of his hand forced between her teeth. The shock of it made her gasp. Cloth was thrust upon her tongue and driven back. She choked; her mouth filled, bitter with old soap. The palm sealed her lips. Sound jammed in her throat.

Breathe through the nose. She fought for air and caught only the scent of male skin, wool, and dust. She kicked for the inside of his knee. He shifted and took the blow with his shin, the pressure at her middle never easing. His cheek brushed her temple as he leant. There was no heat in him, only steadiness.

Wickham came near. “It is done,” he murmured. “Do not struggle, Miss Elizabeth; you will only tire yourself.”

She wrenched her shoulder to no avail. The man’s grip held firm. She made a sound that might have been a plea had the cloth not swallowed it.

“Quickly,” Wickham said. “The lane is empty now, but it will not be so long.”

The man behind her spoke once, and she knew the voice. She knew the name, though the voice struck her first—level and cold as the edge of a coin. “Lift her.”

He moved her a pace, half-carrying, so that her boots dragged. She craned her head to see him and caught a slant of his cheek in the corner of her eye: the same impassive line she had glimpsed at the assembly, the scar pale above his brow. Mr Kerr. His coat smelt faintly of smoke and leather.

Tears came hot and sudden. She fought for breath and found it thin.

Wickham’s voice, nearer now: “No harm if she is still, I said.”

“No harm,” Kerr answered, without inflection. “If she is still.”

Her hat-strings cut at her throat. The rim knocked against the man’s shoulder, slipped, and went. She heard it fall upon the lane. A bird lifted from the hedge with a clap of wings. The sun went in behind a cloud and returned at once; the light seemed too bright.

“Walk,” the man said softly, and moved her in small, sure steps. She stumbled, and he took the weight of it without looseness. They left the beaten centre of the lane for the rough verge. Grass tore under her heels.

“If she sees—” Wickham began.

“She will not.” The words were plain, almost polite.

A rasp of coarse fabric. Something rough slid over her hair, then her face. Jute rasped her cheek. The world dimmed, then vanished. The sack came down to her shoulders. The smell of grain and dust shut out the hedgerow and the sky. The weave scratched her lips where they strained against the linen.

She tried to pull in air and had too much dust for it. Panic rose, sharp and foolish. Through the nose. Slow. Steady. She forced the breath and found a rhythm. Her heart struck hard and high.

“Tie it close,” Wickham said. “Allow air, for God’s sake.”

The arm that held her tightened. Cool fingers found the cloth at the back of her head and drew the sack close at her neck. Not tight enough to choke her, but the darkness held.

Somewhere to her left a wheel creaked. A horse stamped. Leather tugged and metal rang softly against a buckle’s tongue. Canvas stirred in the faint wind, a dry flap and sigh above boards. Not a carriage. A cart—covered, close-drawn to the hedge, waiting.