Water.Of course.
“Cecilia,” he called out. “Cecilia!”
“Here, James,” said Cecilia, peering over the cliff edge.
“Find a way to lower a pouch of water to me. She’s alive!”
“Alive! How—?” she broke off. “Yes. Right away,” she said instead, turning to run toward the wagon.
“Cecilia is getting you water,” he assured Mrs. Jones as he heard Cecilia call out the good news to Elinor.
Mrs. Jones’ eyes closed, her breathing ragged. James couldn’t see how she could be alive. Her body lay twisted in anunnatural position. She must have multiple broken bones, and she must have been down here for hours.
A few minutes later, Cecilia lowered one of the picnic baskets, using a rein from the pony cart as a rope. Inside were a water pouch and some linen bandages. He dribbled some of the water on her parched, chalk-covered lips. Her tongue darted out to taste it. But the effort appeared too difficult, and she stopped. “No…” she exhaled. Her eyes opened again, more this time. They were a dull gray. She blinked, her fingers tightened on his shirtsleeve. “No pen…ny roy… Sto…p.” Her chest heaved in her agitation. “Sto…” Her eyes closed, her body collapsing in on itself, her fingers loosening their hold, her hand falling away from his arm.
Dark memories of the condition of his men lying in surgeons’ tents in Spain drew his brows together. As with them, James didn’t imagine Mrs. Jones would live much longer, her body giving up. But James didn’t give up.
He continued to talk to her softly, telling her Lord Aldrich had gone for help, to stay with him. There was no response from her, but he continued.
Her breathing changed to gulping air, a fish out of water. His heart clenched, for he recognized the death rattle, the herald of death to come. He turned his head and laid his forehead against the cliff. The sound was too much like Spain. He would live with those final sounds his whole life. For all his phlegmatic attitude within society, the sound haunted him.
Cecilia had enjoyedher life in Kent with James and their son. She knew they should soon have to make the duty visits to his far-flung family, particularly his parents in Yorkshire andhis cousin in Devon. And, of course, to her grandparents in Somerset. But in this spring air, she had reveled in being home. A cozy Georgian manor house, Summerworth Park suited her and James. It did not sprawl across the land as many aristocratic manor houses did. And thankfully, that was the case, for the old home had been long neglected and needed renovations. They were nearly finished with the house and were now turning their attention to other parts of the estate.
Cecilia no longer wanted mysteries and emotional upheavals now that they’d tasted a calm, everyday life. She had thought the village of Mertonhaugh would be free of such things. She sighed. She now wryly considered that naïve thinking on her part—or perhaps merely wistful thinking, people being people, good and bad, the world over.
She turned her head toward the trail when she heard the clomp of horse hooves and the creak of a wagon approaching. To her surprise, when the wagon topped the rise, she recognized the brewer’s wagon. On the seat next to the brewer on the driver’s plank seat sat Dr. Patterson, and behind them rode Simon and Squire Inglewood, the magistrate.
Simon had made good time. He was back considerably before they thought he would be.
Waking to the sound of the wagon and the horses, Charlotte tried to climb out of the cart, but the sides were too tall for her chubby legs. She fell back on Hugh, startling him. He cried out, and startled birds flew up out of the nearby trees.
Cecilia swiped tears from her cheeks, then she picked Hugh up. Charlotte stood in the cart, her arms raised above her head and her little hands opening and closing as she demonstrated she wanted to be picked up too. Elinor pulled her out of the cart.
“I wish she could have slept longer. She’s going to want to follow her father and the other men to look over the cliff,” Elinorsaid, sniffling as she turned Charlotte away from the men’s activities.
“We should take the children home and let the men do as they must,” Cecilia suggested sadly.
“What? You have no curiosity!” Even through her sadness, Elinor gently prodded Cecilia for her friend’s questing mind that had her investigating other mysteries.
“I do have curiosity, an abundance of curiosity; however, it doesn’t serve me or Mrs. Jones at the moment. That’s why I was suggesting we should take the children home,” she sadly explained.
“Ah, your history had me worried about you for a moment,” said Elinor with a sad, melancholy smile. “Unfortunately, their wagon blocks our way.”
“That is easy enough to solve,” Cecilia stoutly said. She laid Hugh back in the wagon and handed him the new bottle she and Hugh’s nursemaid had picked out from the London circular on the marvelous new design of infant bottles to supplement nursing. Thankfully, he accepted it eagerly. She walked toward the men.
They were facing away, looking toward the cliff where her husband, covered in white chalk, was pulling himself up and over the top of the cliff.
“She’s not dead,” James told them.
“Not dead!” exclaimed the magistrate.
“Not yet,” James said sadly. He turned to look at Dr. Patterson. “She has the death rattle breathing.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I doubt she’ll survive our bringing her up,” he said quietly.
Cecilia, seeing her husband’s pain, pushed past the men to go to him and throw her arms around him.
Sir James stilled for a moment, then wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight.
Squire Inglewood, the magistrate, scowled at her. “Lady Branstoke, you should not come closer. This is not for a gentlewoman to see.”
