There was no rice thrown. There was only the crunch of frost beneath their boots. "We ride for four days," Henry said, opening the heavy wooden door for her. "We will stop only to change the horses and sleep."
"The goal is to cross the Scottish border before the news breaks in London." "Running away, Your Grace?" Norah asked dryly, lifting her dark skirts to step up into the carriage. Henry climbed in after her, shutting the door with a solid, final thud. "Tactical retreat, Your Grace."
The carriage lurched forward. The first two days were a masterclass in silent endurance. They sat opposite each other as the rolling green hills of the south gave way to the rugged, broken terrain of the north. They were strangers who had committed mutual social suicide.
The adrenaline of the rebellion had faded, leaving behind the crushing weight of reality. Norah stared out the window, watching the rain streak the glass. She felt the constant, nagging urge to offer him a pillow, to ask if he required a drink, to shrink into the corner. It was the muscle memory of servitude.
Every time she caught herself doing it, she forced her spine straight and clamped her mouth shut. Henry spent most of the time reading through a stack of leather-bound ledgers he had brought from his estate. Occasionally, he would look up and stare at her, not with malice and not with the predatory hunger of an aristocrat with a new toy. He studied her as though she were a complex mathematical equation he was trying to solve.
On the evening of the third day, the carriage hit a washed-out section of the turnpike in Yorkshire. The lurch was violent. The carriage pitched sideways with a deafening crack of splintering wood, throwing Norah hard against the upholstered wall. The horses screamed.
The carriage slid through deep, sucking mud, tilting precariously at a 45-degree angle before shuddering to a violent halt. "Stay here," Henry ordered, pushing himself off the floor. He kicked the door open, the wood scraping against the embankment, and climbed out into the pouring rain. Norah did not stay.
She waited exactly ten seconds. Then she gathered her skirts, shoved the heavy door open wider, and climbed out into the deluge. The scene was chaos. The right rear wheel was buried to the axle in thick red clay.
The lead horse was thrashing, its hooves slipping on the slick road, tangling the leather traces and threatening to pull the entire rig into the ditch. The coachman, a young man named Thomas, was shouting uselessly, entirely overwhelmed. Henry was kneeling in the mud, wrestling with the panicked lead horse, trying to grip the bridle while the animal reared. Norah didn't scream.
She didn't faint. She waded straight into the mud. The cold rain plastered her hair to her face instantly. Her ruined boots sank deep into the clay.
She walked directly to the second horse, the wheel horse that was feeding the panic to the leader. She grabbed the heavy leather harness near the collar. "Hold steady!" she yelled over the wind. She didn't use a soothing, delicate voice.
She used the sharp, commanding bark of a woman who had grown up wrangling dogs and drunken stable boys before her aunt forced her into service. She slapped the horse's muscular neck hard. "Stand! Stand still, you massive idiot!" The horse snorted, shocked by the sudden, violent authority.
It stopped thrashing. With the wheel horse stilled, Henry managed to drag the leader's head down, forcing it to plant its hooves. The terrible rocking momentum of the carriage ceased. Panting, Henry wiped a hand across his face, smearing mud across his cheekbone.