Sanditon: A Sisterhood Forms

66

Further Afield — Hemlock Hall

He dared not look. Not at first.

Instead, he remained hunched over, a palm braced upon one knee, and lifted the back of a hand to his mouth, holding it there.

"Apologies," Linton said to the guard who had stepped away, further into the reeds to clean the sick off his boots, "I... I don't know what came over me."

He felt the heat of the guard's eyes; careful, always, with every glance, every movement. Careful not to give anything away as if his own life depended upon it; when in truth, another's was in the balance.

He gripped his knee harder, hand washed in the pinkish hue of the sunrise as he wondered again how long it had been.

How long since Sidney had made his escape? How long had he been out here, sick as a dog? And, he thought, another wave of nausea wracking through him...

Would it be enough?

"Miss Heywood," the voice of Charles Bicknell cut through the sharpness of the wind, turning equally as sharp as he spoke to a guard, "Will you stop looming over her like that? You'll do little more than deprive her of air to breathe with your hovering."

Bicknell stood to his full height, and Linton marvelled for a moment at his ability to be so imposing when even the very top of his hat was still well below the shoulder of the guards.

"Miss Heywood," he said, assertively enough that it sounded as if it were a command.

But the words fell like lead from his mouth, a stillness spreading. For Miss Heywood made no response, the white noise of the wind the only sound that greeted them for a time.

"It's only that... might she be in need of a doctor, Sir?"

Bicknell jerked his head towards the guardsman whose voice had pierced through: "A doctor?"

"Perhaps I migh' drive her back to Raynham Hall...," said the driver of Lord Townshend's carriage, shifting in his seat to better see the men below him, a hint of relief in his voice as if he had been grasping for some way to be rid of them: "The doctor does not live far..."

Linton resurfaced again to the sound of the guard nearest him stomping and swearing, the sound of reeds cracking from the force of each blow as he attempted to clean the last of the sick from the leather.

The sun had pierced the horizon, a dwindling fog settling into a haze. Linton's eyes moved rapidly over the landscape. A solitary line of trees lay off in the distance, reeds extending far as the eye could see.

"Let us give her a moment," came Bicknell's reply to the driver, sounding as if it were the very last solution he would entertain, "before we resort to such extremes."

The air seemed to press inward, like hands cupped over Linton's ears, though he fought a smile from emerging all the same.

One more moment and Sidney would be that much closer to the house. Just one more and they would be one step nearer to ending this. If they could only wait it out...

Another wave of nausea washed over him as he dipped low again, waiting for the inevitable to strike.

He closed his eyes, breathing in, the cold blast of air filling his lungs until a shiver ran down his spine.

And then it was as if the air had lifted, the storm lessening a degree or two as a new voice sounded:

"I'm all right."