Page 12 of The Trouble with Anna

“Lady Anna!” he bellowed, but she was too far away to hear—or too stubborn to listen.

Julian’s heart galloped as he pressed the gray harder, cursing his lack of a saddle. It seemed an age before he reached the woods, and his chest lurched with relief at the trail of deep half-moon prints Lady Anna’s horse had left behind. At least he could follow her.

Branches whipped by at an alarming rate. An elm reached out and swiped him, but Julian ducked hard to the right, his weight shifting badly. He gripped with his thighs and held on as the path opened up into a clearing with a low wooden shack.

There was the chestnut. Riderless.

“Lady Anna!” Julian spun the gray in a tight circle.

A terrible silence answered him.

“Lady Anna!” he bellowed.

A faint, hollow cry echoed from behind the shack, and his chest seized.

Christ! She’s in the well, the little idiot.

Julian rounded the building and spotted the low stone well, its wooden cap splintered. A bridle was tied around an old iron crank, and the reins descended into gloom.

Julian leapt off the gray and ran over, dreading what he might find.

Two small faces, pale as moons, stared up at him from the darkness.

“Are you all right?” he shouted down.

“We’re g-grand!” Lady Anna called up with a determined cheer that made his chest seize. “Only Henry’s b-banged his arm, and it’s a bit slippy to climb up.”

Julian threw off his greatcoat, braced his arms, and leanedover for a better look. A frigid funnel of air spiraled up to him, like the breath of a ghost.

“I’m throwing down a rope. Tie yourself in and then tie the reins around the boy. Good stout knots!”

“I t-tied Henry in before you got h-here!”

He grinned. “Of course you did, my general. Hurry and tie yourself in, then.”

He could hear faint splashing from the water below. “Done!”

Calculations flashed through his mind. Lady Anna was stuttering from the cold, but the boy had been in longer. “The child comes up first.”

“N-naturally!” snapped Lady Anna, and Julian’s grin grew wider.

“Hold tight, Henry.” Julian looped the reins around the crank and began to pull, hand over hand, until a small, sodden head rose from the gloom. Julian caught the boy under an arm and hauled him onto solid ground.

Off came Julian’s jacket, which he thrust at the boy. “Get out of your wet clothes and put this on. Quickly!”

Henry only looked at him, shivering and white with shock.

“Quickly now, there’s a soldier! We can’t leave Lady Anna down there alone.”

That roused the child. He scrambled for the jacket and Julian turned back to the well.

“Ready, Lady Anna?”

“R-ready!”

Julian heaved on the rope. It went taut, but didn’t rise. Lady Anna might look like a little thing, but she weighed as much as a boulder.

“It’s my skirts—they’re w-wet, too h-heavy!” With Henry up, she wasn’t quite able to disguise the slice of fear in her voice. “I’ll have to w-wait for the men!”

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