Page 51 of Hold Me Fast
“I don’t go a day without craving opium or alcohol or anything that will take me into the false promise of bliss. In truth, several times a day, I find myself thinking about how easy it would be to succumb, and how good it would feel, though I know the second part is a lie. The sensations I would have are transient and leave me worse than before. But I am constantly afraid I will forget that when the cravings are hard.”
The color had drained from his face. “I had no idea,” he said. “You seem to be managing so well.”
“I can manage. I have been managing. But it is easier to forget the need if my brain and hands are busy.” She frowned at the shock on his face. “It will get easier, Evangeline says, but it will never go away. That is how I live now.”
“I…” He gulped back whatever he had been going to say, shoved his hand through his hair, and took a deep breath. “Yes. Evangeline warned us. I should have remembered. What can I do to help? Do you need something to do right away?”
Tamsyn could have flung herself at him and kissed him. Once again, she had shown him how broken she was, and once again, he had absorbed the blow and come to meet her. To give herself a moment to recover her poise, she outlined what she’d been doing and planned to do.
“I have finished going through my mother’s papers. We will be moving into the cottage tomorrow, and it will not take more than a day or two to settle everything to our liking. And I’ve no more than half a dozen items to pick up for the steward’s cottage, plus Patricia and I mean to see that the bed is made, that we’ve lit fires in the main rooms for several days ahead of their arrival to make sure the place is dry and warm, and that a meal is hot on the stove.”
“So, after that?” Jowan asked. He had recovered his equanimity and had the look that meant he was coming up with a plan. “I was going to wait until Evangeline came back—I have been meaning to talk to all three of you ladies about an idea I had.”
Tamsyn raised her eyebrows in question.
“You know Bran and I would like to offer more schooling for the older village children. Those who want to go further. I wondered if you three ladies might take on some of the children who are ready for more than our teacher can handle. The teacher is the wife of the innkeeper and is only able to give us four mornings a week. I thought maybe you ladies could teach the girls painting. Fine sewing. That kind of thing. Perhaps even music lessons.”
She felt her eyebrows shoot higher. “Or classics and science if their talents lean that way. Patricia has a fine education, and mine is certainly up to teaching a twelve-year-old girl.”Painting and embroidery, indeed.Sometimes, even Jowan could be a typical man. “We will need to talk to the others, and to the teacher. But I am eager.”
He reduced the minuscule dent in her faith in him. “I imagine you will teach anything for which they have an interest or talent. Something their parents see a value in, but also things that will lighten their hearts and brighten their days—and those of their families in the future.”
Still a very male point of view, to assume that the future of all those girls held marriage and children. But Tamsyn loved him. Not just the memory of the boy, but the wonderful man he had grown into. Her only doubt was whether her love was going to bring him joy or despair, in the end.
It was time to return to Lord Trentham’s. Jowan helped Tamsyn into his curricle and set the horses trotting over the path out of the moors, and down into the valley. They were approaching the village when another vehicle thundered towards them—a carriage, pulled by four galloping horses.
The driver didn’t shift from the center of the road—Jowan had to swerve his horses and curricle onto the grass at the side to miss being hit as the equipage hurtled by.
“Fool!” Jowan spat after the rapidly receding carriage.
Tamsyn was thinking of a few choicer words.
“Could you make out anything about the carriage or the driver?” Jowan asked. But the driver had been muffled in a scarf, with a hat pulled down over his eyes and a bulky coat concealing his form. The horses were two bays, a chestnut, and possibly a black, but the black was the rear offside, and neither of them had managed a good look as it raced past. And the carriage was plain and also black.
They were still discussing the incident when they entered the village and saw a knot of people gathered on the road outside of the inn. “What has happened?” Jowan wondered. Someone ran from the crowd to the inn stables.
“An accident of some kind?” Tamsyn speculated.
The scene was becoming clearer as they approached. Someone was lying in the road, but too many people were gathered around to see any details.
“It looks as if the victim has plenty of help,” Jowan commented. “I’ll just go straight through to the manor, shall I?”
Tamsyn was about to agree when she caught sight of the bonnet lying abandoned just beyond the cluster of people. She would know it anywhere. She had helped choose the colors for the ribbon and braid and had watched them being attached to the felted wool shape, stitch by stitch. Her heart rose to her throat, and she heard herself say, “No, stop. That is Patricia’s bonnet,” almost before she even thought to speak.
She leaped down from the curricle even as Jowan drew it to a halt, lifting her skirts so they would not trip her, and not waiting for Jowan’s help. Because there was Patricia, lying in the road, her face white, her arm at an odd angle, and her gown torn, her green and blue aura torn by jags of dirty red.
One of the villagers recognized Tamsyn and made way for her to sink down beside her friend.
“She is alive,” reported the innkeeper, who was holding a wadded-up neckcloth against Patricia’s forehead, “but she has been kicked in the head.”
“She didn’t have time to get out of the way,” someone else commented.
“He drove straight at her,” said another. “Straight at her.”
A horse erupted at a gallop from the inn stables, thundering off in the opposite direction. “Johnny has gone for the doctor,” the innkeeper explained.
“Make way,” said someone else. “Mother Wilson is coming.”
Mother Wilson was the local midwife, and probably the best person after Evangeline to see to Patricia’s injuries while they waited for the doctor, who lived ten miles away, and might not be at home even when the messenger reached him.
