Four blocks from Sarah’s house, she directed the carriage to the closest coaching inn. There she had all her property removed and transferred to an oxen-led wagon that she learned was making a delivery in Langdon’s End. She left Birmingham as she entered it, ensconced in the back of that wagon, thus saving three-fourths of the cost of the carriage hire.
It was twilight by the time the wagon lumbered up the lane to her house. The waggoneer quickly unloaded her belongings, dumping them without ceremony on her doorstep. He rolled away seconds after she paid him.
Throwing open the door, she bent and pushed the boxes and canvas over the threshold. She stood while her eyes adjusted to the shadows deepening in the house.
An ugly thrill of alarm shot up her back to her head. Squinting, she advanced on the stairs and felt a large shadow. Her hand just kept going. The sixth step was gone, removed, revealing the space beneath the stairs like a gaping mouth.
Her gaze darted around the library on her left. What she saw left her shaking. She made her way to a lamp and tried to light it. Her hands trembled so much that she barely managed it.
Light spread through the chamber, revealing horrible destruction. The divan had been upturned and its upholstery slashed. Wallboards were peeled off. Even a section of the floor was destroyed, the boards thrown haphazardly around.
Then she saw the paintings.
Two of her views decorated this chamber. Only now they lay on the floor. She ran over to them and looked down in horror. Someone had taken the turpentine from her paint box and smeared it all over them, ruining them forever. As if that were not cruel enough, the remnants of mixed paints had been smeared all over one of them, as if the criminals who had done this thought that amusing.
She feared what she would find in the other chambers. Fighting a shock that threatened to paralyze her, she ventured to the rest of them.
The same chaos greeted her everywhere. Her mind jumped to her own bedchamber, and the nail in the joist below the floorboards, holding her bag of money. She rushed back to the stairs to go and see if she had been the victim of theft as well as vandalism.
She stopped cold there, with one foot on the first step. A floorboard had creaked above. Terror did a little dance on her skin. She could not breathe. She listened hard, waiting. Then she heard it again. A footfall, as if someone shifted his weight.
She turned on her heel and bolted from the house and ran as fast as she could down the lane.
***
Skirt hitched high, Eva ran so hard her side hurt and her breath came in gasps. Her bonnet fell off, lost in the night. She dared not look back to see if anyone followed, but she thought she heard someone else on the road.
At the crossroads with the road to Langdon’s End, she paused a moment, heaving deeply to catch her breath. She peered down the road, flanked by trees and woods. How fast could she run that mile? Would she even be able to without fainting dead away?
The road ahead beckoned. Another minute she would be at the bend, and Albany Lodge would be in sight.
A horse whinnied in the distance behind her, terrifying her. Not debating her choice, not thinking at all, she ran again.
Rounding that bend gave her some heart. Albany Lodge could be seen in the gathering night, and she thought she spied some light in a window. No one would hear if she were accosted this far away, but she found comfort in that light and ran harder, no longer so afraid and witless.
She did not worry about going up the lane. Instead she ran cross-country feeling safer with each step. Finally the house loomed in front of her. Only then did she stop, her breaths heaving so hard she feared she would be sick.
A horse passed on the road. She instinctively dodged behind one of the trees. Was it the intruder in her house, following her? There was no way to know. He could still be in her home.
She calmed slowly and pressed that tree for support so she would not drop to the ground. As sense returned, she realized her predicament. Had Gareth remained only a friend, she would not hesitate to pound on his door and pour out her fear. That he had become something more made her hesitate, and shy about intruding.
She only needed to be near him to be safe, she reasoned. She could stay by this tree, although the spring damp would become unpleasant during the night. If she were very quiet, she could sit on the stone steps, however. Dawn would wake her, and she could then walk to Langdon’s End and find help.
Moving soundlessly, she walked to the steps and sat on the top one. She rested her back against the wall, and pulled her pelisse close for warmth. Now that panic had receded, the chill of the night entered her bones.
Suddenly light flooded her. She looked up. Gareth stood in the threshold, candelabra in hand, his shirt blazing from the flames’ reflections.
“Who is out there?” The light from the candles made a slow arc, finally finding her. “Eva? What the hell are you doing sitting out here?”
***
Eva just stared at him. Her eyes appeared extremely large, and her face unhealthily pale. She huddled with her knees drawn up to her chest. She looked small and young and terrified.
He turned and put the candelabra on a table near the door, then returned. He reached down and lifted her to her feet. “What is wrong?”
She leaned into him as if her legs had no strength. He embraced her. The tremors in her body had nothing to do with him.
“You are shivering.” It was not that cold tonight. “Where is Rebecca?”
