CHAPTER4
The sudden knock at the door sent a shiver of alarm down Frances’s spine, her body seized with dread, heart thudding violently. For one harrowing moment, she imagined Cranford himself standing on the other side, flanked by ruffians, ready to drag her back to the altar she had fled.
Johnathan motioned her toward the corner of the room, placing himself instinctively between her and the door.
“Who is there?” His voice was low, edged with warning.
“It’s the innkeeper, sir,” came the muffled response. “There are men asking after you. I thought you’d want to know.”
Frances’s breath caught. Cranford, or her father…perhaps both, were after them.
Johnathan glanced briefly at Frances, his eyes sharp and calculating. “Thank you. Please tell them nothing.”
“Aye, sir. Thought as much.” Footsteps retreated down the hall, and Johnathan wasted no time moving toward the window, pushing back the curtain just enough to peer outside.
Frances approached cautiously, her stomach in knots. “Is it Cranford?”
Johnathan’s jaw clenched. “Most likely. He will not let this humiliation go unanswered.”
She swallowed thickly, the memory of Cranford’s dark expression at the altar still fresh. “What do we do?”
“We cannot stay here.” He began gathering their things quickly—his movements efficient, practiced. “We have to put distance between us and those who wish to stop us.”
She rushed to retrieve her damp cloak, pulling it around her shoulders. Johnathan pressed several shillings into the innkeeper’s palm on their way down the narrow staircase. The man nodded grimly, stepping aside.
“Slip through the kitchen,” he instructed quietly. “There’s a back way out through the yard. You’ll find horses ready.”
Johnathan touched the brim of his hat briefly in gratitude, then guided Frances forward. The kitchen was dimly lit, the scent of stale bread and smoke thick in the air. A scullery maid glanced up, startled, but said nothing as they passed, her wide eyes tracking their hurried steps.
Outside, the night air felt colder, sharper, pricking Frances’s cheeks. Two horses stood tethered near the fence, saddled and waiting. Without a word, Johnathan helped Frances mount, then swung into his own saddle with practiced ease.
“Keep close,” he warned. “Ride as though hell itself follows us.”
Frances nodded mutely, gripping the reins until her knuckles whitened. Her mind raced, every nerve alight with peril. She feared not just capture and the wrathful consequences it would bring, but also the terrifying possibility of losing Johnathan—either to injury or worse. The thought sent a sharp pang through her chest, tightening her throat and making her grip on the reins grow even tighter.
They followed a narrow lane lined by hedgerows, the only sounds the muffled thuds of hooves on damp earth. Frances cast anxious glances behind her, expecting at any moment to see the shadowed forms of riders emerging from the darkness.
Johnathan kept them moving swiftly, his gaze scanning the landscape tirelessly. Every rustle in the brush, every flicker of shadow set her heart pounding. The weight of silence between them grew heavy with tension until she could bear it no longer.
“Where are we going?” she asked, breathless from the fear tightening her chest.
“North,” he replied shortly, eyes never leaving their path. “Gretna Green.”
Gretna Green. The name sent a shiver through her as vivid images leapt to mind: the clang of pursuit, the whispered judgment of society, the weight of forever sealed by an anvil and a vow. She recalled hushed tales of lovers who had fled there, scandal nipping at their heels. Some had found joy and freedom; others, only heartbreak.
For Frances, Gretna Green was no mere destination—it was a reckoning. A rebellion. The place where obedience ended and something uncharted began. The Scottish border promised more than marriage. It promised a severing, a beginning, and the terrifying question of what came after. But would freedom found through flight truly set her free, or would it only bind her tighter to another fate?
Her thoughts scattered as Johnathan suddenly tensed beside her, his body rigid in the saddle. Voices carried faintly on the night air—men shouting orders, horses neighing sharply in protest.
“They have found us.” His voice was sharp, decisive. “Ride hard, Frances. Do not look back.”
She barely had time to gather her reins before Johnathan spurred his horse forward, and they surged into a gallop, the wind rushing past her ears, yanking at her cloak, her breath came in ragged bursts like thunder in rhythm with the horses’ hooves.
Shouts rose louder behind them. Fear clawed at her throat, bitter and sharp, driven by the pounding hoofbeats echoing behind them and the distant shouts cutting through the night, each sound driving her heart into a frenzied panic. She could almost feel the hot breath of pursuit at her back, imagined Cranford’s furious face looming in the darkness.
“Faster!” Johnathan urged, his voice slicing through her panic. She leaned low, gripping tightly as her horse surged beneath her, lungs burning from the effort.
The countryside blurred past, hedgerows becoming mere streaks of shadow in the moonlight. Time seemed suspended, their flight eternal. Only when the distant sounds of pursuit faded did Johnathan slow their pace, guiding their exhausted horses toward a copse of trees.
