Page 3 of Too Wanton to Wed
She’d traveled via mail coach as far as her meager purse had allowed. Five long days of constantly looking over her shoulder. Before the money ran out, she’d forced herself to continue over hills and through forests on foot until her blisters had blisters, and both her body and her brain grew sluggish from lack of food and water. Once again, the sun had begun its inexorable decline. If she did not find shelter soon, she would pass the night alone in the woods, hungry and defenseless.
She trailed the last rays of sunshine through a break in the trees and discovered herself at the edge of a sprawling moor. The land stretched away from her in green-brown waves, an endless sea of dense bracken disappearing into shadow along a distant horizon broken only by the silhouette of what looked to be an enormous convent or monastery.
Her legs crumpled in relief. She was saved.
An enormous cathedral loomed out of the growing darkness, its twisting gothic silhouette stark against the crimson sunset. Several similarly medieval outbuildings flanked the primary structure. The only element detracting from the beauty of the flying buttresses arching from the nave and sanctuary was the thick wooden boards covering what once must have been handcrafted stained glass windows.
No light shone, but she pushed forward anyway. Abandoned or inhabited, the walls were still standing—more than she could say about her own limbs—which made it the perfect resting place. And if there were nuns, the sisters wouldn’t turn her away just because her pockets were empty. She could finally sleep. The nuns’ seclusion would also keep them from outside influence, buying precious time before Violet had to fear news from Lancashire catching up with her. If there were no one at all, at least she would have peace.
She rose on trembling legs and pushed forward through the moorland. Coarse grasses tangled with her skirts and sent her stumbling, but she forced herself to keep moving. Her luck was finally turning around.
Or was it?
As she neared the structure, the grasses grew ever taller. The towers seemed more dilapidated than imposing, and even the stone walls were chipped and lackluster.
Not a single candle flickered in the windows because therewereno windows. Layers of thick board crisscrossed over every surface, blocking all access to light. Whoever had worshiped here was long gone. Violet’s shriveled stomach clenched in protest at the realization that there would be no monks or nuns to offer bread and water. But at least the crumbling roof would be a respite from the empty rolling moors and offer shelter from whatever animals left the forest to hunt at night.
When her aching feet finally crossed the border between the open moorland and the cultivated lawn, she wanted to sob in relief. Instead, she barked a sharp cry of pain as her ankle connected with an unseen hindrance and sent her sprawling into a cluster of roses. A thousand simultaneous pinpricks assaulted every limb as thorns clawed at her skin through her tattered clothes.
Ankle throbbing, she rolled sideways onto the cool grass. She stared up into the growing darkness and blinked back tears. She doubted she had the stamina to close the remaining distance by hopping on one leg or crawling on her knees.
The chill breeze rustled the rosebushes, scraping sharp thorns against her hair and clothes. As the sensation reminded her more and more of insects crawling across her skin, she batted at her cheeks and forced herself into a sitting position.
She pulled her ankle close enough to prod the tender skin with her fingers. Her entire body tensed, and her eyes stung. She was able to flex her toes, so at least it was not broken.
“‘Merely’ turned,” she muttered wryly, abandoning her self-examination to seek out the obstruction that had caused her downfall in the first place.
She glanced about to realize she lay upon a trampled path through the weeds. No, not trampled—trimmed. Someonedidreside in the convent, then, and came this way to tend—what? She could discern nothing of interest except a pair of large stones. Unable to move far without exacerbating her injury, she leaned forward and ran a finger along the edge of the nearest stone. Flat and rectangular. Uniformly so. With grooves that felt almost like etchings...
She snatched her hand away in horror.
Agravestone. She’d tripped over a gravestone and fallen directly atop a grave! Mindless of the pain, a sudden rush of irrational panic propelled her to her feet. Torn between the urge to flee and the morbid desire to know whether anyone was truly buried here, she swayed on her good foot as she stared at the sharp inscriptions, not yet blurred by time and weather:
MARJORIE
WALDEGRAVE
BELOVED WIFE
LILLIAN
WALDEGRAVE
BELOVED
DAUGHTER
She reallywasstanding upon a gravesite! Violet hopped backward, turning away from the graves and toward the looming abbey. Sudden dizziness rolled over her in waves. Her arms flapped woodenly but were no match against the pull of gravity. Before she’d managed to hop more than a few feet along the path, the craggy moor proved too difficult to navigate on one leg and she crumpled to the hard ground once again.
The sun chose that moment to concede defeat as well, giving way to the night. As the thick blackness enveloped her, so did a pervasive chill, permeating her to the very soul. This close to shelter, and she would not be able to reach it.
Frustration pricked at her eyes. She could not lie next to the graves all night, until whatever creatures haunted the woods came to make an easy feast of her.
A tended walkway meant residents. Perhaps not a convent full of friendly nuns spending their days in the kitchen (oh how she yearned for fresh-baked bread!) butsomeonehad to be minding the path to the gravesite. Perhaps an abbot or even a groundskeeper. She propped herself up on her elbows and tipped her face into the oppressive darkness.
“Help,” she croaked, far more quietly than she’d intended. Her throat was ruined from lack of water, and if she did manage a good shout she’d no doubt lose her voice on the morrow. But what choice did she have? “Help! Please, help!”
When her voice finally gave out, so did her consciousness. Her head collapsed backward against the hard soil and her vision blurred. Just before exhaustion robbed her of her senses completely, a female countenance swam before her eyes.
