The Secret Attachment

IV

"I met a boy whose eyes showed me that the past, present and future were all the same thing." Jennifer Elisabeth

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IV.

Katy screamed in terror as she hurtled down the embankment in complete chaos. Her body was thrown like a ragdoll over roots, rocks, and endless mud. She was too terrified to feel pain, and the fall felt like it would never end.

She flung her arms out, in an effort to grab hold of a root or branch that could stop her fall, but she could hold onto nothing before it disappeared from her grasp.

And then the fall ended. With a scream, she felt herself collide with something. Something hard. She was on top of something, but she was lying horizontally. She wasn't falling anymore.

Katy was afraid to open her eyes. She was afraid she would be on the edge of a cliff, or something dreadfully like it. She could only imagine what one of Eliza's books would paint this like.

"Are you alright, my lady?" rasped a deep voice.

Katy's eyes snapped open, and she realised that the object she was lying on top of was a strange man. Katy anxiously looked around and gasped at the height of the embankment that she had just fallen down. Rain was still running down it like a waterfall.

A saddled horse was standing idly only a few feet from them. This stranger must have dismounted to try and catch her.

Katy attempted to scramble off of him, but the pain she was feeling had rapidly found her. She had aches and pains all over her body, and the sudden movement pained her.

Her pained cries caused her rescuer to place his hands on her arms to stop her from movement. "My lady," he said firmly, capturing Katy's attention. "Where are you hurt?"

The stranger was sitting up with her, but Katy was still sitting on his lap. He looked on her with absolute sincere concern in his warm, trustworthy brown eyes.

Katy concentrated, and she realised that a lot of her pain was localised in her leg. "My leg," she told him.

The stranger gently shifted her onto the ground and reached for the hem of her skirt. Before he touched the fabric, he asked, "May I touch you, my lady?"

Katy nervously nodded, and the stranger lifted her skirt just enough to expose the bloody wound on her shin. Whatever she had fallen on had torn her stockings and stained them red with blood. The cut looked deep, and the sight of it brought bile into Katy's throat. But after falling on him, she couldn't vomit on her rescuer. She looked away.

"Come," decided the stranger. "Philip and I were about to find some shelter. We passed a shallow cave about hundred yards from here. Please, allow me to carry you."

Once Katy had nodded in permission, the stranger gently placed one arm under her knees, and the other around her back. He stood up with her and began to walk with her along another wood path. He whistled to his horse, and the black stallion obediently followed his master.

The stranger carried her for only a few minutes before he stopped at the shallow cave. It was more of a rock ledge than a cave, but it offered shelter. He placed her down gently on the dirty ground and then led his horse underneath it as well.

Like a charmer, he motioned for his horse to sit down, and he did as he was told. He folded his legs underneath him and sat underneath the ledge beside his master. The stranger cooed at his horse, and stroked his nose, uttering kind words for him. As soon as the horse was settled, he turned his attention back to Katy.