Page 12 of The Forbidden Love of an Officer
The statement brought Ellen back to her senses. This was no dream. ‘God help me,’ she whispered.
Paul rose sharply and turned to face her. ‘Get back in the carriage, Ellen. You do not want to see this.’
But she had seen it.
Her hand let go of the door handle and she walked forward.
‘Ellen, go back,’ Paul barked at her. But she could not stop herself.
‘Who is he?’
The man on the ground had not moved.
‘A highwayman, chancing his luck. Go back inside, Ellen. Please. Let me sort this.’
The man was still motionless. A macabre desire to see pulled her towards him.
‘Ellen,’ Paul snapped as she got closer, in another warning. But her body refused to be warned. She kept walking, and it only took a few more steps. The man lay there, as white as the frost-stained grass beneath him. Except the grass beside his head was not white but dark, marred by something fluid that glistened in the moonlight… and half his forehead had been blown open.
Ellen turned away and cast up what little she had eaten when they had stopped for supper. Paul’s hand touched her back. ‘Ellen, I told you not to look.’
She was sick again.
He pressed his handkerchief into her palm as she fought to catch her breath.
‘Ellen.’ Paul’s voice was quiet, as though he was afraid of her reaction.
After a few minutes, she straightened, the world about her turning to dust. ‘You killed him.’
‘I had to?—’
‘Could you not have merely wounded him?’
‘It was self-defence, madam. The Captain had no choice. The highwayman had his pistol aimed at the Captain’s head. If he’d not sliced the man’s leg open to get him off that horse?—’
‘Would that not have been enough?’ Ellen’s words echoed back on the night air.
Paul raised a hand, his fingers reaching for her. ‘Ellen, come.’ She backed away. ‘That man would have raped and murdered you without a thought. I had no choice.’
‘I’m glad, you did it, Captain. The bastard hit me.’
‘Hit you?’ Paul faced the man who must have been riding the lead horse.
The man walked towards them, clutching his upper arm.
He looked as pale as the dead man.
‘Bullet’s gone clean through my arm, Captain. He wanted to stop the horses.’
‘Sit on the backboard, before you fall down,’ Paul said. Then he glanced at her. ‘Ellen, tear a strip off your petticoats.’
She bent to do it. Any moment she would wake up in her bed at home, and this whole journey would be a dream.
Her hands shook too much, she could not tear the cotton.
‘Wait.’ Paul walked back for his sword. She straightened as he wiped it clean in the grass.
Her gaze caught on the dead man. Paul seemed so unemotional.
