Momentarily surprised, Eleanor gaped before responding. “Simply a walk, sir.”
Why she answered the brusque stranger, she had no idea.
“Be careful,” he warned her.
“Of what?”
He cocked his head of white hair, his ruddy, lined farmer’s face taking measure of her.
“Vicious foxes, for one. Though some say there are packs of wild dogs.”
She hadn’t heard of either, and, surely, someone from the hall would have told her if she needed to beware.
“I thank you for the warning. Good day.”
She had to go around him since the old man hadn’t yet moved. After she’d taken a few steps, he called out to her, “Missy!”
Hesitating, she waited.
“Don’t go anywhere near the river, not if you know what’s good for you.”
“Why, sir?”
“It’s a death-trap! All this rain has swollen her something fierce, and she’s about to spill from her bed. When she crests, it’ll be a sight to see, but only from afar. You’d be swept away and lost forever.”
She shivered. He certainly had a way about him, but he obviously meant well.
“Thank you,” she called out over her shoulder.
When he didn’t respond, Eleanor turned around and nearly shrieked, for as he walked away, hanging down his back was a coarse burlap bag, stained red from the inside with what looked like blood.
Dear God, what was he carrying? And why was he going to Angsley Hall?
Wondering if she should go back, she tried to make sense of him and his sack when she recalled the happenings of the night before. The chickens, the dogs, and the farmer.
Realizing he was carrying evidence of Lord Angsley’s spaniels’ mischievous adventures, she shook her head at her own imagination.
She would try to remember to tell Lord and Lady Angsley at dinner how the Gothic tone of her visit had continued even this morning. Then she set out on a brisk walk, what her oldest sister Jenny called a prancing pace, all the while heeding the farmer’s warning but wanting, at least, to see the River Great Ouse in all its majesty.
He’d been correct. The riverbed was full, and the water was moving more swiftly than she’d ever seen. As long as she stayed a few feet up the bank, however, she felt perfectly safe.
If the rain held off, she would bring her sketchpad the next time she walked, maybe even later in the day, and try to capture the beauty of raging nature. She wished she could sit for a while and watch, but the ground was wet. While her feet were kept dry by her boots, her cloak would do nothing to stop the rainwater from seeping from the ground through every layer.
Glancing around, Eleanor decided she could, perhaps, manage to climb onto a low branch and lean against the trunk. From such a perch, she was sure to see not only birds, but perhaps fish jumping, and other creatures coming to the water’s edge.
To that end, she placed the toe of her boot in a crevice in the tree. Wishing her Wellie’s were more pointed and not so uselessly round, she grabbed hold of the lowest branch in order to pull herself up.
A hand on her shoulder made her nearly shriek for the second time that morning. But Grayson’s voice at the same time stopped the scream in her throat.
“What on earth are you doing?” he demanded.
*
Gray had watchedher as he’d approached. He’d left the house not long after she had, feeling a little anxious about her destination, particularly when Farmer McNeil arrived with the bloody evidence of the prior night’s mischief of Lord Angsley’s dogs. When the old man mentioned how the river was soon to crest, Gray hurried after her.
At first, Eleanor looked to be simply gazing around, quite responsibly and maturely, and then, to his surprise, she seemed to try to climb a wet, slick oak tree, whose branches all hung out over the raging Ouse.
He’d reached her as she was pulling herself up.
