Imperial Clock (The Steam Clock Legacy) by Robert Appleton Page B

his wife. She eyed Derek with concern before creeping to the back of the line, to watch the rear for stragglers. “All right, off we go.”
    Mrs. Prescott’s breathing softened as she lay in his arms, shivering, wide-gazing at the frosted heather lining a peat bog to their left. No sooner had the girls begun to file past in their colourful array of macks and Wellingtons, gawping down at their stricken mistress whose wrath they’d feared more than death itself mere minutes before, when one of them slipped on the mushy snow. She slapped the ground hard and groaned, rolling onto her side as she clutched her ankle.
    “ Sir, sir,” another girl shouted ahead to Eustace Challender. “McEwan’s gone over, sir. I think she’s twisted her ankle.”
    True enough, when the flustere d master of politics removed the fallen girl’s boot and touched her foot, she winced out loud. He lifted her to her feet, asked her to try walking on it a step or two, but she gave a cry of agony at the first pressure.
    “ It could be either sprained or broken,” Derek observed. “Look, she can stay here with me. You and Mrs. Challender get the girls to safety as quickly as possible. That’s our priority. Come back for us with a stretcher or a sleigh, whatever you can rig to carry Mrs. Prescott. I don’t think she’ll be doing any more walking today.”
    A couple of the girls began to sob.
    “Don’t worry,” he said to Sonja McEwan, “I’ll carry you on my shoulders if needs be.” Then to Eustace, “See you shortly, old chap. Don’t forget the stretcher.”
    “ Right-o. Won’t be long.” And off they went, this time at half pace, so as not to repeat the McEwan girl’s misfortune. Soon Derek could no longer see Wilhelmina’s slender silhouette through the greying snowfall.
    “ So how is she really, sir? I know she didn’t stumble or anything. I was watching.”
    “ McEwan?”
    “ It’s all right. Nothing you say can shock me, sir. Believe me, not after what I saw in Norway.”
    “ Eh? Oh, that’s right, you and your sister witnessed the wave—a lucky escape, that, and a great relief to us all.”
    “ Thank you for saying so, sir. Is Mrs. Prescott unconscious?”
    He closed the Deputy Head ’s eyes, then checked her carotid for a pulse. “She’s...had a mild attack, if I’m not mistaken. We’ll have to carry her back after all—just as you said.”
    “ Sir. I hope she pulls through.”
    “ Yes. Yes, me too.” After running the next several steps of the rescue through his mind—stretcher her to the coach, drive to Keswick, find out where the nearest doctor lived, drive her there directly—he let the sequence set at the back of his mind. Fretting never solved a thing. He turned his attention to his young companion instead, and her remarkable composure. “Your ankle? Does it still gall?”
    “ Um, no. It’s quite recovered.” She jiggled it, shaking the layer of snow off her stocking. “Perhaps the cold helped reduce the swelling.” Her warm, searching gaze seemed unsure as it touched his—not at all like Sonja McEwan, an uncompromising creature like none he’d encountered. Her guard was always up, her barbed retorts ever ready to fly at obnoxious classmates, but now Derek perceived something brittle and vulnerable, something deep, delicate behind the prickly frown. As though she let very few people in, but once in, they would be the luckiest, most fascinated, most fiercely defended people imaginable. Millimetres under that cherubic face, a truly striking young woman was about to emerge, and if she held onto that proud spirit, didn’t let the world’s venom in to fester, she had every chance of becoming a woman of rare beauty, in every sense.
    But she ’d just told him a bare-faced lie. The way she’d cried out in pain after putting weight on her ankle did not tally with such a quick and full recovery.
    “ So you wanted to stay behind with us? Tell me, are your classmates really that bad?” He threw her