Amid the Winter's Snow Page 4

  “I think, my dear, that Frank Spencer is not dead.” I could read the skepticism in my husband’s dark eyes and covered his lips with a gloved finger so that he couldn’t interrupt. “I think he’s very much alive and desperate to catch a glimpse of the girl he adores.”

  “I was the one who received the notification of his death and informed both his parents and Miss Fletcher of the terrible news. There is no reason to think—” He stopped. “Although. The army can make mistakes and Stormberg was an utter disaster. When the order to retreat came, the soldiers who were up the side of a mountain did not receive it, and hundreds of them were left behind and captured by the Boers. It is possible, I suppose, that Spencer was among them.”

  “I agree. Do, please, hear me out, although I realize it is hard to believe.” With nowhere else to go, we stood on the pavement and I told him what each of the flowers in the wooden bouquet indicated. “You found a cave where someone had made camp. It could be Corporal Spencer—he’s familiar with the area and could easily have known about the cave.”

  “If it were him, why would he have taken refuge in a freezing cold cave instead of going home? Everyone would be delighted to see him—to welcome him.”

  “You are forgetting the begonia, my dear man,” I said. “Deformity.”

  Several inches of snow had settled since I’d left Anglemore, and it was falling even harder now. “If you’re right and he’s lurking out there somewhere, he’s in a great deal of danger,” Colin said.

  “Davis sent flasks of tea and heated stones that he insists we should put in our pockets. I did as he asked, and I must say, they do keep one’s hands warm. We can’t ask anyone in the village for assistance. Miss Barker is watching us even now, and if they get wind of what we suspect, they’ll all insist on coming.”

  “Which, if Spencer is alive and doesn’t want to be seen, would only have the effect of driving him further away.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “I’ll go on my own. I don’t want you freezing.”

  “And I won’t have you off in a storm by yourself,” I said. “We’ll go together.”

  “Into the sledge, then. If we don’t wish to draw attention to what we are doing, we should make it look as if we’re headed home.” Colin knew every inch of the estate as if it had been imprinted on his heart, which, I suppose, in a way, it was. He had explored it endlessly as a boy, and loved the land with the passion of a newly converted zealot. He ordered Waters, our driver, to head in the opposite direction of Mr. Wibberley’s farm, toward a bleak moor. “There is little that could offer him shelter here, but he grew up in Dunsford Vale, so he’ll know the land well. There are four or five spots semi-suitable for temporary shelter that spring to mind. The cave where we found the abandoned campsite would have been an easy hiding place for anyone familiar with the area. It should have occurred to me that we may have been dealing with a local.”

  “At the time, we had no reason to believe we were dealing with a local,” I said, “and, despite what you Derbyshire boys might like to think, there are others among us Britons capable of finding a cave. Now, though, we must focus on the places a boy who grew up here would consider safe harbor.”

  He thought for a moment. “The remains of a shack constructed by a sheepherder at least two centuries ago stand a considerable distance from here. It would be the most obvious choice for shelter—perhaps too obvious, but if it is Spencer who’s hiding, he would have no reason to think anyone in the village would be looking for him in particular.” The sledge traversed an enormous distance, gliding over the snow, before we reached the spot. Or rather, we reached the general vicinity of the spot. My husband indicated a snow-covered bump at the top of the hill beneath which we had stopped. “It’s too steep for the sledge. I’d like to spare you and Waters the climb, but it’s too cold to sit here immobile without getting frostbite.”

  So the three of us trudged up the frozen slope, cold wind lashing our faces. By the time we reached the sad remains of the shack, I would happily have sheltered there myself. It was small and the roof was littered with holes, leaving snow to pile up inside, but it at least provided some respite from the wind. A person could have built a fire in it and hoped for a little warmth. But it was evident at a glance that no one had sheltered there recently.

  “I suppose it was too much to hope for,” Colin said. “Onward, then. I’m afraid the other spots I have in mind are a bit more remote, but we shall have to soldier on.”

  More remote than this? I wrapped my muffler more tightly around my neck and tucked my chin under it. Going down the hill proved more difficult than climbing it. We slipped and slid most of the way. Waters shook the snow from the blankets in the sledge and we set off again across the windswept ground. Our next two stops proved equally futile to our first. The storm battered us, its snowflakes tiny knives of ice. We were careful to leave as little skin as possible exposed, but we did need to keep our eyes uncovered. Colin took the reins from Waters. He knew the moors better than anyone, and we could not risk getting lost in the blowing snow.

  “There are two more places we’re likely to find him, but one would be impossible to reach in this weather,” he said. “The other will require some walking, I’m afraid. If he is there, he won’t be in good shape. It provides some shelter, but not much.”

  After he stopped the sledge, we tumbled out of it, pulled our hats lower over our ears, and crammed our hands back into our pockets, where the stones Davis had insisted we take still held a bit of heat. We crossed a frozen stream and a wind-battered hedge before descending a steep slope, strewn with large boulders that looked like the discarded toys of long-gone giants, scattered when they grew tired of the game. Twice my husband stopped, trying to get his bearings in the midst of the swirling snow, but eventually, we came to the place he sought, where three enormous rocks were stacked one on top of the other. We circled around this formation and then I saw it: a dark crevice, almost invisible, half-filled with snow. It was just wide enough for a slim man to pass through, if he turned sideways, as my husband was doing now.

  “You’ll never fit,” I said. “Not with that coat on. It’s too bulky. Let me.”

  “There’s a passage about six feet long,” he said. “At the end, to your right, you’ll find a small hollow in the bottom of the boulder wide enough to use as a makeshift shelter. To enter it, you’ll have to crouch down or you’ll smash your head.”

  “Very good,” I said and gave him a jaunty little salute.

  “Emily, do be careful. I couldn’t stand—”

  “Nothing to fear, my dear, nothing to fear.” My tone was confident, but I admit my nerves were ever-so-slightly on edge. If I did find Corporal Spencer, I had no reason to think he would lash out at me, but only a fool would feel no apprehension when cramming herself into a narrow crack cut into a rock by centuries of relentless wind. I could see well enough, as the crevice was open to the sky and the rocks kept out a certain amount of the falling snow, but I proceeded with caution, feeling my way with my hands in front of me. When I reached the end, I dropped to my knees and lit a candle to illuminate the hollow in the rock. The space was a scarce three-feet high, and not more than a foot wider than it was tall. Someone was inside, huddled beneath a horse blanket, his face buried in his arms.

  His voice rasped, weak and shaking. “Please, please go away. There’s nothing for you here.”

  “It’s you, isn’t it, Corporal Spencer?” I asked. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to find you.”

  “You’re the mistress of Anglemore, aren’t you?” he asked. “I recognize your voice. Leave me alone, please, please, I beg you. I have made such a dreadful mistake, coming back. No one in the village can know what I’ve done, that I’m here.”

  “Not even Julia?” I asked gently.

  “Especially not Julia. She can’t see me like this. It was careless of me to return. I wanted to make sure she was all right and give her one last Christmas gift. What a fool I’ve been, t
hinking I could do any of it undetected.”

  If he had wanted to remain undiscovered, he had not taken adequate measures, at least not when it came to his gift. He had left the flowers for his beloved in her house, coming through a locked door. Even if he had put them in a public place, Julia, with her love of riddles, would have easily decoded their meaning, and what could she think then, other than that her fiancé had not died in the war? Who else would have presented her with such a thing? She would never have been able to rest until she found him. Surely he must know that. And, if that were the case, at least some small part of him longed to be reunited with her.

  Now, though, all that mattered was getting him out of this hole in the rocks before he froze. But how? Despite the blanket enveloping him, I could tell he was painfully thin, yet not thin enough that I could bodily force him from his haven. I would have to appeal to his sense of duty.

  “I understand that you would prefer to keep away from the village, and respect the sentiment, but I am lost, you see, and in dire need of your assistance,” I told him. “You may be capable of hiding out here on the moor indefinitely, but I’m not from Derbyshire and don’t know this land so well as you, especially in a storm. The snow is blinding. Please help me find my way back to Anglemore. I shan’t force you to go anywhere near Dunsford Vale.” No honorable Englishman could deny such a plea. He pulled the blanket over his head so that I could not see his face and crawled toward me.

  “Anglemore is too far. If I take you all the way, I’d never make it back here walking through this storm. I will lead you to a place where you can see the village, but no further,” he said. “Someone can help you from there.”

  “You could stay with us at Anglemore,” I said. “We don’t have to tell anyone you’re back. I give you my word.”

  “No, I will not go to Anglemore. That is not possible.”

  I had expected as much. “If you can get me to where I can find the village, that will suffice. I shall owe you more than thanks.” I shuffled back into the passage, where I could stand upright. He followed, and I felt for his hand. He recoiled from my touch. “I shouldn’t have come out in the storm, but the snow was so beautiful . . .”

  “You’ll come to no permanent harm. Keep walking, we’re very nearly out of the rocks now,” he said. “Brace yourself for the wind; it’s fierce on this part of the moor.”

  I felt a pang of guilt at having to trick him, but what else could I do? Certainly not leave him there to freeze to death in the crevice of a boulder. He was weak, that much was obvious, so even if he tried to flee, Colin would easily be able to catch him. I just hoped Corporal Spencer wouldn’t spot my husband or Waters before he came all the way out of the rocks. If he retreated within again, it would be all but impossible to force him out. Fortunately, he kept his head down and covered with the blanket, which kept him from realizing that we were not alone until it was too late. Colin, who had been standing with his back pressed against the rock, just to the side of the opening, gripped him with strong arms the instant the young man emerged.

  I have never heard a more heart-wrenching sound than that which escaped Corporal Spencer’s lips as he realized he was caught, and by whom. It was worse than the howls of the so-called barghest, worse than the cries of a banshee. It was the sound of a pain whose depths were all but incomprehensible. Colin held onto him as he struggled, until, at last, his emaciated form went slack.

  “He’s fainted. We need to get him to Anglemore,” Colin said.

  It was only as he lifted the unconscious man into the sledge that we saw his terrible secret. Half of his face was covered in hideous scars, the result of some diabolical battlefield injury I could hardly bear to imagine. The eye on that side had been sewn shut, the eyebrow gone, and his nose misshapen. The other half remained intact, a cruel reminder of the good-looking boy he used to be.

  I swallowed hard and met my husband’s eyes. “I understand his desire to hide.”

  Colin did not speak again until we reached Anglemore Park.

  FIVE

  Davis showed no reaction when he opened the door to admit us to the house. Colin carried the ailing man upstairs while I instructed our butler to bring up chicken broth, have a maid run a hot bath, and send one of the footmen for the nearest doctor. Efficient as ever, he nodded, assured me he had it all in hand, and informed me that Miss Fletcher was in the nursery with the boys.

  “Good,” I said. “Can you find a way to keep her there? I don’t want her to know what’s going on. Not yet.”

  The doctor was some time coming through the storm. By the time he arrived, Colin had long since brought Corporal Spencer around, applying the same smelling salts we’d used on his fiancée. The bath had warmed him, and the broth began to bolster his strength, but it was no surprise when the physician told us that his recovery would hinge more on his mental well-being than the physical.

  “He’s quite insistent that he wants no one else to know he is alive,” he said. “The nature of his injuries are such that . . . well, to be frank, Mr. Hargreaves, he will always look like a monster.”

  “But physically, he will make a full recovery?” Colin asked.

  “His war wounds have long since healed. Other than lack of food and some minor frostbite, he’s already physically as recovered as he ever will be. As for the rest, it is impossible to say what will happen. Difficult though it may be, soldiers have an idea how to cope with the loss of a limb. This sort of disfigurement, however . . .”

  “I understand.” My husband shook the doctor’s hand, thanked him, and then watched the man descend the stairs. “We can’t force him to see Miss Fletcher or anyone else. He has suffered enough.”

  “He can’t let her go on thinking he is dead,” I said.

  “He believes he is doing her a kindness.”

  “Well, he’s wrong. Does he have so little faith in her love that he thinks she would prefer him dead to scarred?”

  “The scars are horrific, Emily. He’s a shade of his former self. It’s wholly understandable that he would not want to subject her to a life with him.”

  “Shouldn’t that be for her to decide?” I asked, my hands on my hips. “Would you do the same to me?”

  “I hope I would have the strength not to, but will not deny the temptation of disappearing rather than standing before you so deformed. And does not he have a choice in the matter? Perhaps, given his current state, he would prefer not to have a wife.”

  “Of course he has a choice, but if his decision is to abandon her, he ought to be man enough to tell her.”

  “Would it not be easier for her to believe he is dead?” Colin asked. “She will mourn, she will move on. And forever, in her memory, he will be the boy she loved, not some monster.”

  “Forever he will be a liar and a coward, who did not believe in the strength of her love,” I argued. “Ignorance can never be bliss.”

  Colin raked his hand through his curls, still matted down from his hat. “I do not mean to defend his position, only to say that I understand it.”

  I stood directly in front of him and took his perfectly handsome face into my hands. “No matter what your scars, no matter what your physical condition, I would always choose to have you at my side rather than be left to think you were dead. If we had to spend the rest of our lives contending with worse instead of better and sickness instead of health, I would never lose even one tiny bit of my love for you.” I smiled at him. “I did not marry you because you look like Adonis sculpted by Praxiteles. I wanted you—all of you—because of the man you are inside.”

  He reached for my hands and held them in his. “But what if the man inside cannot help but change? Spencer’s injuries are such that—”

  “They are such that it may take a great many years for him to adjust,” I said. “And no good woman would abandon the man she loves for so flimsy a reason. If he will not have her, that is his choice, but she must be allowed to choose, too.”

  “I admire your conviction, my dear.
” He pulled me close and rested his head on the top of mine. “Your words mean more than I can ever make you see, but this is not our marriage or our love. It is theirs. We cannot force Spencer to do anything against his will.”

  “We could bring Miss Fletcher to him right now.”

  “Yes, but at what cost?” Colin asked. “He’ll reject her. He doesn’t want her to see him.”

  I blew out a long sigh. “You’re right. Yet . . .”

  “What?”

  “He wanted her to have the wooden bouquet and he deliberately chose the flowers in it to send a specific message. If all he’d wanted was for her to have a last Christmas gift from him, he could have composed it in a way that expressed love and even loss without including the sentiment your presence softens my pain. He’s afraid of being rejected—and that is to be expected, given his condition.”

  “Did it not also contain butterfly weed, which means let me go? That is an undeniably strong message.”

  “Love is not always straightforward, my dear man,” I said. “He’s being contradictory, yes, but he did communicate that she can ease his torment. He gave her the flowers knowing she would figure out what they meant. You’re quite correct that we ought not force the situation, but that does not mean we’re obligated to stand in the way of what he’s already set in motion.”

  “What do you mean to do?”

  “I’m going to see whether Miss Fletcher has decoded the message of her bouquet.” I gave him a quick kiss and headed for the nursery. Detaching the young woman from my sons was no easy prospect, as she was currently playing the part of damsel in distress. Tom and Richard were on the floor in front of her, howling like Yeth Hounds, while Henry, his barghest-fighting stick now repurposed as a sword, moved to defend her with the valor of a medieval knight.

  “They haven’t argued amongst themselves once since Miss Fletcher came up with Richard,” Nanny said. “It’s a sight to behold.”

  Miss Fletcher showed genuine regret at being pulled from the game and promised the boys to return as soon as she could.