Page 38 of Hold Me Fast
“I signed as Tamsyn Roskilly,” she told Jowan. “Which I suppose will spoil your claim that I am your sister.”
“Not really,” Jowan said, with the cheeky grin she remembered from their joint childhood. “I told him Bran is my brother by a mistress, and you are the daughter of my father’s long-time housekeeper. He can draw his own conclusions.”
The innkeeper conducted them to their carriage, apologizing all the way for not defending Tammie from the invaders. “I did not know what to do,” he kept saying. “I did not know who was in the right.”
“I don’t have much confidence that they will hold out for long against Willard’s threats,” Bran commented, as the carriage rolled out of the stable yard.
“All we can hope,” said Jowan, “is they won’t let those villains go before we have a chance to get home and marshal our defenses.”
“We should have questioned Willard himself,” Bran said, “to find out whether they knew where we were, or whether they found us by chance. There may be other parties out.”
Jowan pressed his lips together and frowned, then shook his head. “A fair point, but I doubt we’ll get much sense out of him, and I don’t want to waste any time getting home. We could be there tonight if Tammie is well enough for a long run this afternoon.”
Evangeline looked concerned, but Tammie nodded. “Better a long afternoon and evening’s carriage ride with the three of you than as a prisoner of one of the Earl of Coombe’s men,” she said. “I doubt they would have been as considerate.”
But what if his people are waiting for me in St Tetha?“Jowan, they might be in St Tetha ahead of us,” she warned.
He nodded. “Bran and I have discussed that,” he said. “We’ll stop at Wheal Trethewey, at the mine manager’s house. He’ll be able to accommodate you ladies for the night while Bran and I drop by some of the cottages and ask about strangers in town.”
“If they are there, they will be facing the whole village, Tammie. If need be, we’ll call in the militia,” said Bran.
“I do not want anyone to be in danger because of me,” Tammie insisted.
“We have no intention of allowing Coombe to take you back and make a slave of you again,” Jowan replied. “You cannot ask that of us, Tammie.”
Tammie turned to the nurse, who had become a friend in recent weeks. “Evangeline, this is not your fight.”
“Itismy fight,” Evangeline answered. “I have been fighting to save those in thrall to the poppy. How much more important is it to fight those who deliberately subject people to overuse of that and other things?” She was pink with indignation and distress. Bran put his hand on hers, and she turned her hand over to form a clasp.
Bran and Evangeline! That was an interesting development. Evangeline continued. “To enslave people, as Jowan rightly says. Indeed, I hope I will have the opportunity to give witness to the condition you were in, Tammie, thanks to that monster. The very idea!”
Tammie blinked back tears. How long had it been since she had had people who would take her part? She felt a surge of affection for them all. Had she been asked a few weeks ago, she would have said that opium and other substances opened her eyes and her mind to another world, a fantastic world of colors and sounds that did not exist in the mundane world.
That was what Guy had always claimed, and Tammie had believed him. In the past few days, however, she had discovered she had been seeing the real world through a wall. A crystal wall, perhaps, like a thick window of multi-colored glass that dulled and distorted what she saw, heard, and scented. And beyond that, what she felt.
She might not be able to see the indescribable colors from her poppy dreams, but the colors she could see were brighter and crisper. The same for all the other senses. As for emotions, she felt everything more intensely. Fear. Gratitude. The only thing dulled was her ability to perceive people’s auras. Only careful concentration let her see them now, a shadowy remnant of the colors and shapes that used to be so obvious to her.
Her friends were smiling at her. “I am more grateful than I can say,” she told them.
Jowan had clearly given orders for speed. The coachman kept the horses to a trot or even a canter whenever the road allowed, and they stopped twice as often as before to change teams, losing ten minutes in the change but gaining that time back doubled with the faster pace.
They went through Exeter in the mid-afternoon and kept going. By nightfall, they were in Bridestow, where they stopped to change their team once more and set out extra carriage lamps.
“The moon is full, Sir Jowan,” Tammie heard the coachman report. “It will rise in about thirty minutes or so, I think. I suggest we take the time to get something to eat and otherwise look to the comfort of the ladies.”
It was a good suggestion. After nearly a fortnight of Evangeline’s coddling, Tammie’s appetite was improving to the extent that she had moved Jowan’s ring from the ribbon to her middle finger. Mention of dinner had her longing for it.
“Will it be safe to continue by moonlight?” she asked. Jowan was escorting her and Evangeline into the inn to order their meal while Bran helped the coachman inspect the available horses to decide which would be best to carry them further on their way.
“Yes, with tonight’s clear skies it should be easy,” Jowan replied. “We will have to go more slowly, though. Nothing above a trot or a fast walk. I should think we’ll be home by midnight.”
They set off again at moonrise. Jowan and Bran had so far traveled with their backs to the horses, but this time they suggested Jowan sit beside Tammie and Bran beside Evangeline. “Being larger,” Jowan explained, “we’re better anchored. If you ladies wish to sleep, you can use our shoulders as pillows.”
Tammie yawned, which made the others laugh.
They took the seating Jowan suggested, but for the next stage of the journey they talked, and it wasn’t until they pulled out of Okehampton that Tammie finally succumbed to her weariness. She must have slept through the change at Lifton and the moment when they crossed the Tamar into Cornwall, for she woke to Bran speaking through the hatch to the coachman. “Take the next right and look for a house on the left around 500 yards down that road.”
She was sprawled on a man’s chest. She didn’t have to look to know it was Jowan’s. Even after the day on the road, he still smelled of whatever lotion he used after he shaved and of something that was undefinably Essence-of-Jowan. He had propped himself in the corner, so he was sitting semi-sideways on the bench seat, and he had an arm around her to anchor her in place.
