Follow My Lead (40 page)

“All right,” Winn said with as much strength as she could muster. “Let’s go.”

They moved. One step in front of the other, due north. Cutting across pastureland. Hoping that the road was not too far from the river . . . hoping that it was only just over that rise.

An hour passed, they had gone maybe a mile.

Another hour passed, they had travelled nearly two.

Winn leaned on Jason, on his arm, using strength he didn’t know he had left. But she never stopped. Never gave in to the exhaustion.

Until the road was in view.

“Oh, thank God,” she whispered, and fell against him.

“It’s all right.” Jason sighed. “We made it.”

He picked her up and carried her the last few yards, and then set her down next to a fallen log by the road.

“Thank you,” she murmured, falling deeply asleep.

Making sure she was comfortable—or at least, her head was not resting on any rocks—he sat on the log and took up a position of watch.

“Don’t worry, Winn,” he said, his body heavy from his own weakened state. “Any minute now, a carriage is going to come down this road, and I’ll jump up and flag it down. You rest. I’ll be here. I’ll be right here.”

“What on earth is that?” he heard the girl’s voice cry.

He had heard the carriage rumble to a stop some seconds prior, heard the shuffling and moving of disembarkment, but Jason really couldn’t say he cared to move himself. Or that he could, if he tried. So instead, he stayed where he was, laying next to the log about ten yards off the side of the road, his arm wrapped around Winn’s equally exhausted and sleeping form.

“It’s just a pile of dirt,” he heard another young female voice say. “I told you we shouldn’t have stopped. Father
is
expecting us to be in the city before nightfall.”

“I’ll tell him I wanted to wait for the right light to paint the mountains,” the other girl replied vaguely. “And it is not a pile of dirt . . . it’s moving.”

It took a moment for Jason’s brain to register that the girls were talking about himself and Winn. It would make sense after all—after three days walking, and another three before that without being able to take a proper bath or even so much as shake out their clothes, Jason and Winn had taken on the burnished hue of their environment. The other thing that took a few moments to soak into his head was that these two girls were speaking English.

“Moving!” the one a further distance away exclaimed. “Evie, come back here! Don’t go near it!”

“It’s not an it, it’s a he,” the one named Evie replied. “And a she, apparently.”

“I’m afraid I must insist,” came the voice of a man, and a shuffling that told Jason he was the coachman, lifting himself to the ground from the driver’s perch, “that you go no closer, Miss Alton. Your father would not be pleased to find you assaulted by a vagrant.”

Jason decided at that point, it was time to speak.

“I’m afraid I am in no position to assault anyone,” he drawled weakly, his mouth dry. He opened his eyes and was met by the blue, wide-eyed stare of a young lady of some means, judging by her wardrobe—and of some sympathy, judging by her proximity to him.

“Heavens, he’s British!” Evie Alton exclaimed, turning back to the other, darker-haired girl, who had climbed out of the carriage but stood tentatively a few steps behind. “Gail, they’re British!”

“And judging by his accent, a gentleman,” Gail surmised, cocking her head to one side.

“Sir, are you and your companion all right? Whatever are you doing on the side of the road?” Evie asked, perhaps a bit too loudly.

“For heaven’s sake, Evie, you don’t have to yell.” Gail smiled, shaking her head.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Forgive me, it’s my first time attempting a rescue,” Evie said to Jason, blushing.

Jason actually managed a smile. “It’s quite all right,” he said, nodding. God, but his throat was dry. Then, he looked to Winn, curled up in his arms, seeking his warmth, even in her deep, hungry, exhausted sleep. But she wasn’t stirred by the commotion. A result that was far more worrisome than any hunger or parchedness of his own. “I beg your pardon, but we could use some water . . . ?” he asked Evie.

Evie looked toward Gail and then turned back to him, her face breaking into a mischievous smile.

“Water we do indeed have. But I think we can do you one better.”

W
INN woke up in a room fit for a queen. Or at least one of her ladies-in-waiting. Still, it was grander than any room she had ever occupied previously, and therefore this was obviously heaven and she was dead. Strange, she thought dully. She had no expectations whatsoever of going to heaven.

And, curiouser still, heaven was . . . yellow. The famous Austrian shade of yellow, found on buildings from Salzburg to Innsbruck to Graz. And chintz draperies. Heaven seemed such an odd place for chintz.

“Oh good, miss, you’re awake!” a cheerful voice, spoken with the clipped tones from northern England, called out from the door. “We thought you were going to sleep all through the day.”

Winn turned her head to see a young maid enter, bearing towels and linens.

“Where am I?” Winn asked, her wits restored to the point where she could recognize that heaven would likely be an egalitarian place, and therefore maids would be obsolete.

“You don’t remember a thing do you? I don’t blame you,” the young maid chattered as she placed the linens in various drawers, then went to the wardrobe and pulled out a set of clothes. “You were completely passed out, exhausted, or so said His Grace, from walking all day and night with no food. When the young misses found you, you didn’t move a muscle.”

“Found me?” Winn replied.

“Hmm. On the side of the road, with His Grace. The misses—Miss Evangeline and Miss Gail Alton, that is, found you, discovered you were English, and decided that since their father is a diplomatic envoy, that it was their Christian duty to attend to you.”

“Diplomatic envoy?” Winn shook off the fuzziness in her brain.

“Aye—Sir Geoffrey. This is his house.” The young maid chuckled.

“Oh, but I can’t stay here!” Winn cried, coming off the bed and then immediately regretting it. Dizzy and weak, she sat herself back down on the soft feather palate.

“Sit back, miss—here, drink this.” The maid handed her a cup of lukewarm weak tea, which from the moment it touched Winn’s lips, she downed in huge greedy gulps.

“His Grace said you did the exact same thing, in your sleep, when they gave you water by the road.” The maid chuckled.

“Where is His Grace?” Winn asked, holding her empty cup out for more tea. “Thank you for your hospitality, but we truly cannot stay here—we must get to Vienna.”

“His Grace said you’d say that, too,” the maid replied. “As luck would have it—you are in Vienna.”

“I am?” Winn cried, excited. “We are?”

“Yes.” The maid nodded, Winn’s enthusiasm proving infectious. “Let’s get you cleaned up—and some new clothes, as the ones you had on were so dirty they have been burned—”

“
Burned?”
Winn cried. For the first time she looked down at herself. Sure enough, she was wearing an unfamiliar nightdress, surprisingly well sized to her small form. Even though she knew they were not there, she still patted frantically at her sides, where her pockets should be.

“Do not worry!” the maid replied. “His Grace made sure to remove the letters from your pocket before we took your clothes. I have to say, His Grace was terribly considerate of you, my lady, took care of dressing and undressing you himself, as gently as if you were a babe.”

Winn’s eyebrow went up as she turned a burning shade of red. “Er, I am not ‘my lady.’ I am simply a ‘miss.’ Miss Crane, as a matter of fact.”

The maid’s eyes went wide—wider than could really be healthy, Winn thought.

“Oh . . . this is more interesting than the time my sister went out one night with her beau and came back with her petticoat on backward,” the maid said, a grin breaking out over her face. “I’m sorry, I forgot. I’m Olive.”

Er . . . Hello, Olive, I’m Winn Crane.”

“Well, now that we are properly introduced, I’m going to draw you a bath, and you are going to tell me everything!”

Winn emerged from the yellow bedroom an hour later, having been fed, at intervals, tea and the story of how she got to where she was. Olive’s enthusiasm for gossip translated into her giving a dramatic retelling of Winn and Jason’s relative states of collapse and the heroism of her two young mistresses, as Winn bathed. Considering she admittedly was not present at the event, she managed a particularly colorful recounting. Then of course, Olive’s enthusiasm for gossip turned to intrigue . . . specifically Winn’s.

Winn did her best to avoid the more probing questions, but the luxury of hot water and rose-scented soap relaxed not only her shoulders but also her tongue. Luckily, the restorative powers of tea enabled Winn to keep her wits about her and the more, er, pertinent details to herself.

But Olive was not to be deterred, and so by the time Winn had dressed in the clean under things and lavender dress that had been laid out for her (Gail, the younger sister, was also the taller, and it seemed that a tall eleven-year-old was approximately the same size as a short thirty-year-old), she was more than willing to face the world, if not precisely ready for it.

Nor was she precisely ready for the sight that greeted her when she stepped into the hall.

Jason.

He was heading down the hall toward her, presumably from the chamber he had been assigned. He had been given the same grace of a bath and clean, serviceable clothes, but he had also been given . . .

“Oh my God!” Winn cried, immediately covering her mouth with her hands but unable to tear her hand away.

Jason’s hand went immediately, and self-consciously, to his clean-shaven jaw.

“I know. And I so wanted to keep it, to torment Jane.”

“I hardly recognized you,” Winn said, awed. Indeed, the Jason she had come to know was scruffy, rakish, with a dirty shirt missing the first few buttons, and his red beard, white teeth peeping through in a charmed smile. But this Jason—this Jason in his clean clothes and clean-scraped jaw, his posture straight—this was the Jason from London.

This Jason was a Duke.

And right now, the Duke was looking her over, a small smile playing over his lips.

“I hardly recognized you, either,” he drawled. “Why on earth are you dressed like a child?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, fingering her skirt. “The gown goes to the floor, as is proper.”

“But it’s so . . . cheerful. And there are ruffles. You just look so young.” Jason looked her up and down once again. “Makes me feel like a lecherous old man, knowing what hides underneath.”

Winn blushed wildly, barely managing a glance up at Jason. His teasing would not have managed to elicit such a reaction if she hadn’t spent the last hour so assiduously avoiding the topic, and therefore thinking of nothing else.

“Yes. Ah, well . . . I don’t think beggars can be choosers in this situation,” she mumbled. And then, adding, “Your Grace.”

Jason just smiled at her, and came and took her arm.

“Olive—that is, my chambermaid,” Winn began, “kept calling you ‘Your Grace.’ I’m ashamed to admit it took me a moment to discern she was speaking about you.”

“Yes, well, the most shocking thing happened,” Jason said conversationally as he escorted her down the stairs. “Even under all the dirt and grime, someone actually recognized me as a Duke.”