Cursing to himself, he let her lead him out into the sunshine.
When had it stopped raining? During his ordeal, part of him had welcomed the rain as a way to irrigate the wound, but it had turned chilly, and he feared he might shiver himself to death. A horse stood outside, calmly cropping the grass. It had good bones but signs of age. Black with a white blaze on its forehead that vaguely resembled a white cockade. Appropriate. It was probably called Charles or James.
“I think you should ride the mile to the house,” she said.
“Dear lady, I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of your gallant steed.”
She turned to face him, studying him with a frankness that in other circumstances he’d enjoy. “I fear that if you don’t use the horse, you will fall over. I can’t pick you up. You are far too heavy for me.”
Yes, he was, and she was right. But she’d patched him up, so he wasn’t in danger of bleeding to death. A mile, she’d said. Hardly any distance at all.
But every step felt like he was lifting a ton of weight.
She walked toward a tree stump at the corner of the field. “You can mount here.”
“I don’t need a tree stump.” At times in his life, he’d lived on horses. Slept on them too. He could mount an average-sized docile gelding. Besides, the walk seemed too far. Grabbing the reins, he put his foot in the stirrup and prepared to swing his other leg over the saddle.
Except when he pushed up, something happened to his head, and while he gave his free leg the order to lift, it didn’t want to obey him.
The dizziness overwhelmed him, the grass becoming even greener, spinning, as if the horse had taken off and was cantering in circles. Just a rest, and then he’d complete the action.
Black edges at the corners of his eyes warned him what would happen next. With a silent prayer that he wouldn’t be unconscious for long, he fell forward, slumping over the saddle.
Chapter 2
“Miss Imogen, your lady mother will be expecting you. Shall I take the…” Young George’s voice trailed off when he saw the burden Blackie was bearing.
Silently, Imogen opened her hand to reveal the scuffed, filthy white cockade. “I found him in that run-down hut near the highway. He’s been shot, George.” She wasn’t above using the loyalty of the Georges, young and old, especially now. She’d waited until the stable lad had run from the yard, probably, considering the hour, in search of his dinner, before she’d led Blackie around the corner and into Young George’s view. “Quick, George, help me get him out of sight.”
Young George touched his forelock. “Yes’m.’”
Not for the first time, Imogen had cause to be glad of Young George’s towering height and overpowering strength. Over six feet with a huge frame, he nevertheless could be quick when the occasion demanded it.
She knew exactly where she would take her captive, and she headed for a corner of her house, key in hand. Unlocking the small door, she waited impatiently for her servant to catch up.
Young George lifted Tony off the horse as if he weighed no more than a lamb. Tony flopped over Young George’s shoulder. All the way home, Imogen had paused to check the pulse in Tony’s wrist, terrified that utter collapse meant he would never wake.
He might be a Jacobite, but she meant him no harm, and if she’d left him there or informed someone in authority, they’d have locked him up. He’d have taken prison fever in a week. She couldn’t have lived with herself if that happened.
Imogen opened the door and waited for Young George to step through before she relocked it and dropped the key in her pocket. She followed him up the narrow wooden staircase that led to the highest room in the house, the Long Gallery that stretched across the front of the main building.
Imogen had avoided the courtyard, because the parlor overlooked it and her mother might be already there, foot tapping, waiting for her daughter’s tardy presence. What Imogen had imagined as a leisurely hour to wash and ready herself for dinner would turn into a frantic ten minutes with cold water from that morning and the first gown she could lay her hands on.
But she had rescued someone.
The Long Gallery was of a piece with the rest of the house. One of the Thanes in the past, when they’d been country squires with not a title in sight, had seen an elegant long gallery in one of the large aristocratic houses being built at the time and decided he wanted one, too. But not as long and not as high.
She kept the gallery free of all but a few pieces of furniture, something she was glad of now, because Young George had less to trip him. A shame her sixteenth-century ancestor hadn’t used weathered wood because this place didn’t have one straight line in it. Successive owners had to practice constant make do and mend as the timbers had warped and twisted, and now the Long Gallery resembled the deck of a ship, one that had seen more than a little action. The warped boards were patched and the worst places covered with rugs, but every spot of the long room shone and gleamed with careful polishing. If Young George hadn’t known the vagaries of the gallery, he’d have stumbled. As it was, he carried his burden carefully around the more prominent of the gaps and jutting floorboards.
Halfway down the gallery, they paused. Young George shifted Tony’s weight, but not because it bothered him. Imogen had seen him carry a heifer five miles with no discomfort, so he could manage a man. It was to prepare them for the next part of their journey.
Very few people knew this secret. When Imogen had discovered it, she’d stood amazed.
Now she pushed open a panel, revealing a room, the upper half abutting onto the gallery. When the owner had built the Long Gallery, a room from the old part of the building, the wing leading up to the gatehouse, had inconveniently abutted at the wrong height. So instead of demolishing or reconstructing, he’d merely blocked it off. Although it had formed a secret room, it wasn’t meant that way when first built.
Imogen used to jump down the four feet to the floor of the secret room, but Old George, Young George’s father, had discovered her playing one day, and later he’d made her a set of stairs, so she didn’t have to jump and risk breaking her ankle. At the time she’d scoffed, but secretly warmed to the old man’s concern.
Now she was profoundly glad of the rudimentary steps. She went down first, waiting for Young George to pass his burden to her. He didn’t, but held Tony in his arms as he scrambled through.
The bed here must have been blocked in with the room. It was too large to have passed through the small opening. Not as large as the one in her room, but not a narrow cot, either. Big enough for a man. She’d stored some old sheets in the chest pushed against the wall, ones she had darned instead of throwing out. While Young George stood patiently, head bowed because of the low ceiling, holding the still unconscious Tony, she hastily made the bed and threw a blanket and quilt over it.
“Can you strip him, George? All but his shirt and drawers,” she added. “His clothes are filthy and his wounds need bathing.”
“Best to leave him awhile, miss,” Young George said. “I’ll strip him all right and put him to bed. Best you get off and change. Your lady mother will be sending for you if you don’t go.”
She’d return later. “Can you bring some water up?”
“I’ll do that for you, miss.”
Ah yes, the cockade. Imogen pulled it out of her pocket and tossed it on the chest where she kept the blankets and sheets. It was grubby now, since he’d ground it into the dirt, creased but still recognizable as the symbol of the Jacobite. What a stupid man to carry this about his person! But they did, so they could recognize each other. Young George would tell nobody.
Reluctantly, she left the room and scurried along the Long Gallery in the direction of the passageway that led to the