“I shall,” Marcus said grimly. The appalling woman seemed to think she could play on his sympathy now, perhaps even catch him still for Anne. Well, if it helped his immediate purpose, he would not yet dissuade her. “Get in. You are their chaperone, God help us all.”
Chapter Fifteen
Helen was only too aware that every moment she was being dragged further away from Finsborough and any reasonable means of returning to Audley Park. Hurling herself from a moving carriage would merely injure her and leave her more helpless in Philip’s hands. So, to give herself time, she forced a sick look into her face and held her hand to her stomach.
“I don’t feel well,” she uttered shakily.
“It is the shock,” Philip said kindly. “You will be better in a few moments when you are used to the new situation.”
Blackguard! “Perhaps if the carriage went slower, I might keep my luncheon,” she said, giving an unladylike heave.
Only too quickly this time, he knocked on the ceiling, then lowered the window and shouted up to his coachman.
The horses slowed at once to a mere trot. She tried to look grateful, but now that she had gained some control, her mind began to think beyond her sense of outrage. And she remembered where Anne’s dislike of illness must have come from. Philip, too, had a morbid sensitivity to illness. It was why he had never visited her father in his sickbed. Well, it was time she used that weakness to her own advantage.
She introduced a tremble to her hands as she wiped at her forehead and clutched at her stomach. She gave a few miniature heaves and swallowed convulsively.
“Oh, please stop the carriage,” she moaned. “I shall be sick. Don’t let me be sick in here.”
She didn’t even need to heave again. He was already banging on the roof. The carriage pulled up at the side of the road, and Philip threw the door wide. “Go!”
She went, without even lowering the steps. Stumbling across the verge, she dropped to her knees and made horrible retching noises into the undergrowth. She imagined Philip shuddering in the coach. And she was right, for the door clicked shut behind her.
It was a beginning. She waved one hand behind her, as though apologizing for distressing him. To anyone else, it would have seemed ridiculous, but to Philip, with his massive sense of entitlement, she knew it would appear a natural consideration that he quite deserved.
Accordingly, she rose and stumbled further away from the carriage, following the road, and making increasingly loud and realistic sounds of distressed vomiting. Until she reached the bend in the road.
She straightened and ran.
Philip was not the most athletic of men. In fact, he had let himself run to seed a little. Especially with the head start she had won for herself, she thought she could outrun him. But she had no idea of his coachman’s quickness. And if they turned the carriage and came after her, the horses would easily run her down. Her best hope was to encounter another vehicle or even pedestrians who might afford her some protection.
But to her dismay, the road ahead was empty. Nor could she hear any obvious sounds of approaching vehicles from the other direction. It was a surprisingly long time before she heard distant shouting that warned her trick had been discovered.
She did not spare the time to look over her shoulder, but she imagined the coachman observing her from the bend, for she heard a closer shout and then pounding footsteps that inspired her to run faster. However, she realized the footsteps were fading. A horse’s whinny told her why. The coachman had run back to the carriage, and they were going to turn it and come after her.
And still the road ahead was empty.
She needed to hide.
Swerving across the road, she threw herself over a stone wall and into the field of cattle behind it. She considered lying close to the wall, but she suspected the coachman at least would have the height to see her there. She began to run again, between the slightly baffled cows. Could she hide behind one of them? Or behind a huddle of them if she could only persuade them to form one—which she couldn’t.
Then she spotted their water trough. It was large and far enough away from the road that she thought it would hide her pretty well. Forcing her exhausted legs to move faster, she ran toward it. When she heard the distant coachman’s “Yah!” and the clop of galloping hooves, she knew she was about to run out of time.
Gasping for breath, she found a spurt of effort from somewhere and threw herself on the ground behind the trough.
At least she could lie still there, listening to her ragged breath and the thundering beat of her heart. She could have wept when she heard the horse’s hooves slow. Had she been seen? Was this all she had achieved? A mere few minutes of freedom?
She would wait until the carriage halted, and then she would know Philip had found her. But she wouldn’t give up. She would run toward the path she could make out to her left. It led over the rise, and she prayed it might be the way to the farmhouse, or at least a cottage.
But the carriage had only slowed, no doubt to let her pursuers scour the ground on either side of the road for a sign of her. It did not stop. She waited, her breath gradually calming while it faded into the distance.
A loud moo, almost in her ear, made her jump. A cow gazed at her from only inches away.
“Sorry,” she murmured, sitting up. “I won’t take your water, I promise.”
Her bonnet, without its pin, had fallen to the back of her head, where she had crushed it and muddied it by lying on the ground. But then, she must have muddied everything. Rising, she brushed off her cloak as best she could and drew the hood over her spoiled bonnet.
She began to walk in the direction of Finsborough, wondering what her best course of action should be. To find the nearest house and beg for help? Or to get to Finsborough as fast as possible? From there, she could find someone to take her to Audley Park. But in the meantime, should she keep with the relative safety of the fields? Or to the road for speed?
Deciding on a mixture, she walked back toward the road, emerging through a gate five minutes or so later. She walked briskly, occasionally breaking into a run, always spying out places to hide if necessary. From the side of the road, she picked up a sizeable pine branch, deciding it might help conceal her at some point. All the while, she listened for the sound of vehicles coming from either direction.
Only as one finally came from behind her, heading for Finsborough, and she glanced over her shoulder to see an approaching coach and four horses, did she realize the impossibility of enlisting the help of anyone of the upper classes. How could she justify looking as she did without admitting her ruin? A farmer’s cart might carry her anonymously to Finsborough, but a person of family would either not stop or insist on a full explanation, which she doubted she could make. Not without doing herself as much harm as Philip was trying to achieve.
With fresh panic, she turned her face away from the approaching carriage and trudged on. It swept past her, scattering more mud across her boots and her cloak.
Only a few minutes later, she heard another carriage approaching, this time in the opposite direction. In case it was Philip returning, she looked around for somewhere to hide. But there was only a thick hedge she could never get through in time… and the ditch running along the side of the road.
Hastily, she jumped into the ditch and lay flat, holding the pine branch over herself. A moment later, a coach trundled by. Helen, peering through the pine needles, thought it was indeed Philip, deciding he must have missed her in his first pursuit. Presumably, he wouldn’t go much further than the place she had made the carriage stop for her? Unless he thought she had doubled back, heading toward Brighton?