Without uttering another word, he was gone.
She fumbled with the window, sat back in the seat and exhaled. Tristan would need a hot bath to warm his cold bones, a tonic to keep a chill off his chest. Please God, she hoped he did not come down with a fever. She could not have another man’s death on her conscience.
But Tristan was not just any other man.
Despite all that had happened, she could not lose him. To live in a world knowing he was no longer in it would be the end of her.
The carriage lurched forward. The coachman’s roars and cries were aimed to encourage the spiritless horses to push through the storm. They rattled on for ten minutes or more before she noticed them slowing, before each revolution of the carriage wheels seemed to take a tremendous effort.
They stopped. Jerked forward. Stopped again.
Her world tipped to the left, her sense of balance thrown off kilter by what she suspected was a wheel stuck in the mud.
Dawes climbed down from his perch and rapped on the window. “We’re stuck, my lady,” he called through the pane.
Isabella opened the door ajar. “Is it the wheel? Can you not free it?”
Dawes shook his head. “Not on my own, my lady. I need to fetch help.”
“How long will it take?” Being a gentleman, Tristan would wait for her to arrive at Highley Grange before entering her home. She could only hope he would take shelter in the stables.
“I can’t leave you here, my lady. It could take hours.” Dawes groaned and winced as a gust of wind almost took the door off its hinges. “I can free one of the horses from its harness, but there’s no saddle.”
The sound of a horse’s hooves squelching in the mud captured her attention. Tristan appeared, strong and commanding like a knight of old. Dawes stepped back.
“You’ll need to come with me.” Tristan gripped the reins with one hand and held the other hand out to her. “Do you have a cloak?”
“Yes. Give me a moment.” Isabella unfol
ded the garment lying on the seat next to her, threw it roughly around her shoulders before jumping down to the ground.
Mud oozed around her ankles, and she thanked the Lord she’d worn her sturdy boots.
“Give me your hand. You’ll have to sit in front of me.” Tristan leant down, wrapped his gloved hand around her forearm and hoisted her up to sit sideways. “Lean into me. Put one arm about my waist.” He turned his attention to Dawes. “We’ll send someone to you as soon as we reach Highley Grange.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“You should wait inside the carriage, Dawes,” she said feeling a pang of guilt for leaving the poor man behind in such treacherous conditions.
Dawes straightened the collar of his greatcoat and shrank down into its depths. “I’ll stay with the horses, my lady, but I thank you all the same.”
A loud clap of thunder roared through the heavens.
“We must go.” Tristan urged his horse forward and soon they were cantering along the road.
The wind whipped about them. She gripped onto him with all the strength she could muster. As the rain hit her face with the force of hail stones, she pressed her cheek to Tristan’s chest. It didn’t matter that his coat was sodden. Somehow it still felt warm and comforting.
They came to the crossroads where the stone memorial stood proudly on the grassy mound. “It’s left here, and just a minute or so more.”
Another boom of thunder crashed through the sky.
Water dripped from his hat onto her cheek. The droplets trickled down her neck, but still she huddled into him as they continued their journey.
“We’re here,” Tristan eventually said, his weary sigh breezing over her face as she looked up into his brilliant blue eyes. “Thankfully, the gates are open. My legs feel so numb I doubt I’ll be able to climb down.”
She had no desire to move. “You’ll need a hot bath to ease your stiff muscles,” she replied wishing they had another hundred miles to travel.
They rode up the long curved drive, designed specifically to give the impression that the surrounding land appeared far more extensive than it was in reality.