Page 74 of The Ambiguous Enigma of the Hunted Lady
It was a long walk from the manor to the London road, but Leah had judged the distance from her window many times. She had planned her pace so that when she reached the road, the sun would just be rising. Farmers, especially those taking something to market, awoke earlier than Dukes and Duchesses, Leah full well knew.
As long as I can make it to the road, my chances are high of hitching a ride into the city with a cart.
She had placed all of her bets on that simple “if,” but it was the best she could do, and she was going to see it through.
Leah moved along the edge of the manor road, trying to keep beneath the shade of the trees lining the drive.Don't you look back. Each step was harder than the last, and her ankle was already sore from the half mile or so she had traversed on the gravel.You'll regret it if you look back. You have to keep on going.
So, she did. Leah made the punishing journey off the Worthington estate, and at the end of it, her feet and side vibrated with hot pain. She was exhausted; she had not used any of her muscles in this manner for weeks now, and she was ashamed at her lack of strength.
Leah slumped down and leaned her back against the stone mile marker set at the junction of the London road and the Worthington estate. She dared not look at the number engraved on the post, for she knew it would only break her resolve.
It was far too many miles to be walked, especially in her state, that much she knew.
“Where are you, market goers?” Leah muttered, leaning her head back on the sign. She wanted with all her heart to close her eyes and sleep, but she knew she could not.
“Up then, you think you can make it in Australia, you sorry slump?” Leah called out to herself, laughing a bit in her minor delirium. “Got to keep going.”
Leah began trudging down the road to the north, hauling one step after another, keeping her eyes strained over her shoulder for any sign of someone headed towards London.
There! Her bet was going to pay off, and she smiled a ridiculous grin at the sight of a large wagon rattling up the road behind her.
Leah eagerly began waving the quilt in the air as best she could, and sure enough the wagon came to a snorting halt beside her.
Pulled by a two-horse team, Leah could see a grubby-looking man on the ribbons. Behind him in a cart was a small lump of straw and a large hog.
“Whatchu' doin' out 'ere miss?” the farmer called out through a mouth of missing teeth.
“Brother’s pullin' a joke sir,” Leah answered, trying to bluff her way aboard. “Took off for Smithfield without me this mornin'. You haulin' him to market, eh?”
“Him? Oh aye,” the farmer grunted and glanced back to his hog. “Smithfield you say?”
“Aye sir, you headed there too I can see it,” Leah said hopefully.
“Oh, alright,” the farmer snorted. “Get on up then.”
“Thank you, sir, thank you.” Leah clambered aboard, wedging herself into the corner of the driving bench.
“Come on then! Ha!” The farmer pushed his horses onward, and Leah watched the countryside begin to roll past her.
Leah thought then of Kenneth, and how he would be waking soon. She imagined his pain when he would learn that she had gone, and it tore into her, for she also felt it just as tight, only she knew that he would feel utterly betrayed.
She cried into her hands, sobbing out randomly at the hurt digging into her for running, for loving and wanting, and for placing her own survival above it all.
“There, there.” The farmer looked over, seemingly startled by her bout of tears. “Bein' late to market ain't nothin' to cry over. Your brothers are just bein' boys. Boys will be boys, and boys will be rotten turds.” He winked at her, no doubt thinking himself very clever and consoling.
“You're right.” Leah sniffled and wiped her eyes. With all of her willpower, she forced Kenneth to the back of her mind, and fell fast asleep against the farmer's shoulder.
London woke her. It was loud and rank and rowdy, and Leah was taken aback by the smell. She had lived in London her entire life until a few weeks ago, and the time away from the city had left her able to catch a proper whiff of what she had been living in all that time.
They rolled through the shantytowns outside the South Gates, and Leah tucked her head into the cover of her quilt so as to not be seen. It was morning, and everything was coming alive around her, but she could look at none of it as she huddled beside the farmer.
Leah could hear the sounds of breakfasts being prepared, doled out, and scarfed down. The sounds of the morning meal mingled with the splitting of wood and the hollering of children. Goats and chickens were everywhere, Leah could hear them. It was an environment that until recently, Leah felt at home in. Now, under the threat of discovery, she found it hostile and overbearing.
Further they went and the sounds and smells around her changed. She cycled through them as they went until they came to a halt in a place that stunk immensely like a butcher's counter, but at an excessive degree.The Smithfield Meat Market.
“Well miss–” the farmer had only begun to speak before Leah tucked out of the cart, leaving the quilt behind in a fluid motion, and was gone behind the corner of a nearby building.
I have to find somewhere to hide until nightfall.
