Lord Runthorne's Dilemma: A Regency Romance by Sarah-Jane Steele Page B

“I can’t say I like Miss Hampton coming here, alone.” She now turned her reproving look on Elizabeth. “You should take more care, Miss,” she said, as though she was an elderly matron. Runthorne judged she was younger than Elizabeth. “It’s not safe for the likes of you down this way.
    “ Now, Alice,” she added turning her attention to the child, “you just make your curtsey to the gentleman and Miss Hampton. Wash your face and hands and have a bite to eat. There’s bread on the table, then you can get to work. I hope you have plenty in that sack, but if not you can start the spinning. Go on, child.”
    “ Yes, mam,” Alice said, as Mrs Turner paused for breath. She sketched a curtsey then dashed into the tiny house still clutching her sack.
    “ Mrs Turner, please do not blame Alice,” Elizabeth said, leaning down from the cob. She dropped her voice to a murmur so that Runthorne could not quite catch what she said. He did, however, see the gleam of coins passing from one hand to another.
    Mrs Turner dropped a deeper bob than before. “Well, Miss, you are kind to say so,” she said, clearly mollified, “but you shouldn’t let Alice bother you so.”
    “ She is never a bother.” Elizabeth smiled and turned her cob’s head. “My lord, would you care to see a little more of our town?”
    “ I would be delighted,” he said but, as they headed back to the main street, he paid little attention to the sights. He was too busy puzzling over the odd relationship between Elizabeth Hampton and Alice Turner.
    ***
    The sun was high over their heads before they turned their mounts homeward. They travelled in companionable silence until Elizabeth suddenly pointed to a row of unnatural mounds in the distance.
    “ It is said that those low hills over there are burial mounds,” Elizabeth said. She gave an odd, one shouldered shrug that brought a nostalgic smile to Runthorne’s lips. “I have no idea if that is true, but the locals enjoy scaring themselves with stories.”
    “ Do you believe them?” He was surprised to find that he was truly curious.
    “ Of course not,” Elizabeth said but she did not meet his eye.
    He leaned forward in his saddle, dropping his voice to an appropriately sepulchral level. “‘Do you dare to walk those hills at night when the mists rise up to swallow you down into the depths?’”
    Elizabeth threw back her head and laughed. “I had forgotten,” she said. Then she bit her lip as she thought for a moment. “‘Oh, no, no, no,’” she gasped in a breathy, childish voice. “‘I do not dare, but I must, for if I do not my beloved brother’s life shall be forfeit.’”
    He grinned. It was a nonsense game they had invented, each trying to outdo the other in gothic silliness. He could not imagine playing it with anyone other than Elizabeth. Certainly not Aurelia.
    Where had that thought come from?
    “‘Should you dare to walk the paths of the dead, should you emerge unscathed from their chilly embrace, then your brother will be returned to you,’” he said, trying to ignore his disquiet. “‘But, beware, should you not escape the icy kiss of your forbears, not only your life but your very soul shall be sacrificed.’”
    “‘ Oh,’” Elizabeth mimicked the horrified whimper of the true heroine to perfection. “‘They come, they come.’ Or, at least,” she added in her normal voice glancing over her shoulder, “he comes. Quickly, before we have to speak to him. No, my lord, do not look.”
    It was too late. Runthorne had already turned in his saddle. A tall, exquisitely dressed man rode towards them, mounted on a showy chestnut mare whose coat was the perfect match for her rider’s pomaded hair.
    “ Gosh, Miss Hampton, is that you?” He raised his rakishly tilted hat and beamed.
    “ As you see, sir.” Elizabeth appeared resigned to their fate. “Lord Runthorne, may I present Mr Compton. He has a house just beyond those mounds.”
    Runthorne nodded.