Fanny’s tear stained face crumpled again. ‘I don’t know. They went when I was unconscious. I woke up and found myself all alone. How could he just leave me?’
‘Because your brother is a cold, heartless killer,’ Sebastian said, releasing his grip on her.
‘Steady on, Alder,’ Harry reproved.
‘You don’t know him. You don’t know why he had to do the things he did,’ Fanny protested without conviction.
Sebastian rose to his feet and looked down at the girl. ‘We’re wasting time! Bennet, ride back to the nearest village and get help for Fanny. Colonel Dempster and I will continue on to Lidiford, if that’s where he’s heading.’
‘Don’t leave me!’ Fanny’s hand clawed at his boot.
He gave her no more than a cursory glance, knowing his disgust was written on his face.
‘Bennet will be back soon enough. Coming, Dempster?’
Harry picked up Fanny’s hand. ‘Sorry, Miss Lynch,’ he said. ‘Just hang on a little longer. Corporal Bennet will fetch help for you.’
Sebastian snapped. ‘She’ll be fine for another hour. I can’t do this without you, Harry! Are you coming?’
Harry rose to his feet in one swift movement, and they swung into their saddles and looked at each other with grim purpose written on their faces. Being on foot made Freddy a much easier target. They just had to make it to Lidiford before the turn of the tide.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
‘Please, Freddy. I must rest.’ Isabel clutched at the man’s arm as she tripped over another puddled rut, sending her to her knees.
He had marched her through the unrelenting rain, dragging her unmercifully across the mire and the mud until she was soaked through to the skin. Her stout boots were sodden and heavy, and her feet felt like blocks of ice. They had encountered no one and had seen only distant dwellings. In this wild, desolate place, Isabel felt her hope fading.
Freddy turned and looked down at her. Water dripped from a lock of his rain-darkened hair on to his nose. He looked as exhausted as she felt. He jerked on the cord, dragging her back to her feet.
‘I can see the village,’ he said.
Isabel raised her head, her teeth chattering with the cold, her thoughts immediately turning to warm food, a fire and dry clothes.
‘Is there an inn?’
Freddy looked down at her. ‘An inn? By now, Isabel, I’ll have half the county on my heels. No, first we have to find the fisherman the boy told me of.’
‘For pity’s sake, Freddy!’
‘I’ll find somewhere dry first,’ he conceded.
Towing his reluctant charge, Freddy skirted the village. It was a poor place without a church or an inn that Isabel could see, the rough dwellings gathered around a tidal creek that ran out into the Wash. Behind the village, a few meagre agricultural lots provided the sustenance for the villagers.
About half a dozen fishing boats were anchored in the estuary, the angle of list indicating that they rested on the mud flats. They would wait until the tide rose and carried them out to sea.
That thought sparked hope in her heart again. They would not be sailing until the tide had turned. That gave her rescuers a little more time to find them.
Freddy led her down to the dunes and she saw what had attracted his attention: a hut, no more than a few bent boughs covered with whatever debris could be found. It looked like the sort of thing children would build. He pushed aside the leather skin that served as a door. A rough hearth in the middle of the floor set with an old cooking pot and a kettle, a low stool, a few cracked plates,you and a bed of sorts laid over rough planking gave the simple dwelling a rustic humanity.
Freddy thrust her down on the bed and pulled a stinking—and no doubt vermin-infested—blanket around her shoulders. Despite its odour of rotting fish and sweat, Isabel huddled into its warmth
‘Can we light a fire?’ she suggested, through chattering teeth.
‘Don’t be a fool! I don’t want to attract attention.’
‘But somebody lives here,’ she protested
Freddy kicked at the roughly made hearth. ‘There’s been no one here for days.’ He looked around the hovel. ‘Lie down on the bed.’
