Page 16 of Fortune Favors the Frivolous
And then, jarringly, he felt a tapping. Yes, a tapping upon his brow at the same time as a gentle squeeze upon his arm. Like a persistent bird pecking at the edges of his slumber.
Frowning, he blinked open his eyes and was shocked to find Venetia standing over him. Venetia?
The single candle she held cast wavering shadows across her face, highlighting the worry etched into her features. Her golden hair, all but undone from its earlier styling, fell in disheveled waves around her shoulders. She had clearly made an attempt to restore order to her appearance, but the evidence of their desperate flight remained.
She was in his bedchamber? A myriad of possibilities warred for supremacy in his mind, flickering through his consciousness like the shadows on the wall.
She was in love with him and wished to enter his bed?
No, that did not at all make sense.
Lord Windermere had discovered her? She’d heard him in the corridor, seeking her out? The floorboards outside his roomcreaked as if in answer to his thoughts, and he tensed, listening for approaching footsteps.
“Venetia! What is it?” Henry pushed himself up on his elbows, still groggy with sleep, the rough wool blanket falling to his waist. The chill night air prickled his skin, bringing with it the clarity of wakefulness.
“Oh, Henry! I’ve been trying to get your attention since the moment you threw me onto your horse and galloped away!” Her words were so fraught with emotion it was difficult to understand what she was trying to say. Her hands twisted the fabric of her skirts.
“What is it, Venetia? Is it Lord Windermere? Has he returned?” Henry’s heart quickened its pace, fear washing away the last vestiges of sleep. “Are you afraid? I cannot stay with you. You do know that!” He glanced toward the door, half-expecting it to burst open at any moment.
“I know that, Henry, but this is too terrible, and I can barely believe it has happened.” Her voice dropped to an urgent whisper, her eyes darting to the window where the wind still rattled the panes. “Do you not wonder why someone knew to throw those heavy things through the glass window to deflect Lord Windermere?”
The memory flashed in Henry’s mind of the shattering glass, the shouts of confusion, the momentary chaos that had allowed them to escape. He had given it little thought in the frantic flight that followed.
“Of course I know who did. It was that brave stable lad, Flash, whom I discovered a short while earlier after he alerted me to the danger you were in.” Henry ran a hand through his tousled hair, the events of the night replaying in his mind with new clarity. “Were it not for him, Lord Windermere would have had you halfway to the border now. Flash told me—”
“Flash?” she all but shrieked, then clapped a hand over her mouth, glancing fearfully at the door. When she spoke again, her voice was lower but no less intense. “You call the stable boy Flash?”
The candle flame jumped as she leaned closer, her shadow looming large against the peeling wallpaper.
“That’s what he told me his name was.” Henry frowned, puzzled by her reaction. Something cold and uneasy settled in the pit of his stomach.
A very brief second of thought preceded Venetia’s next words, her breath catching before she spoke. “Flash is the name of her brother’s horse—”
“Whose brother’s horse?” Henry sat up fully now, his fatigue forgotten, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. The floorboards were cold beneath his stockinged feet. “Venetia, I’m very sorry this has happened, but I gave Flash a sovereign. A very great sum of money and amply deserved for his bravery.”
The coin had gleamed in the moonlight before the young lad had caught it in his small hands. He remembered that now—how delicate those fingers had seemed for a stable lad.
“I wish I could have ensured his safety from Lord Windermere, but I suspect all will go well for him, as Lord Windermere would have been more concerned with finding you.”
“But—” Venetia stepped closer, the candlelight illuminating the tears gathering in her eyes.
“Venetia, you really shouldn’t be here, and I’m sorry I abandoned Flash—” The clock in the hallway struck the hour, each chime seeming to emphasize the impropriety of their situation.
“It wasn’t Flash, Henry! That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Her voice cracked with emotion, a single tear spilling over to trace a path down her cheek.
Henry frowned. A faint drift of memory assailed him like a whisper from the past. The expression of the lad’s eyes as he’d gazed briefly into Henry’s before Barnaby had claimed his attention. There’d been something familiar about them, he’d thought at the time. A particular shade of blue, a certain tilt at the corners…
A lad working in his own employ who’d somehow been caught up in Lord Windermere’s evil scheme?
“His name is not Flash?” Henry tried again to imagine what he had missed, the pieces of the puzzle refusing to align. The wind moaned around the eaves of the inn, an eerie counterpoint to the tension in the room. “Then who is he?”
“It’s not a he, Henry. And not a stable lad or anyone you are likely to think of.” Venetia’s face was pale in the candlelight, her expression grave. “No, Henry!” She gave his sleeve a more forceful tug for emphasis, her eyes boring into his as she clearly sought to ensure she had his full attention.
The candle flame guttered in a draft, sending shadows dancing wildly across the walls.
He was silent, his body seeming to thrum still from the reverberation of all those seemingly endless hours of pounding hooves. Suddenly he didn’t want to hear her response as that hauntingly familiar piercing gaze he’d dismissed at the time seemed to take on a greater import. A terrible suspicion began to form in his mind, too outlandish to be true.
“No, Henry, that was not Flash we abandoned at Lord Windermere’s hunting lodge.” She drew in a shuddering breath, the sound loud in the hushed room. “That was Caroline!”
