A Cold Legacy. Megan Shepherd

sheep bucked, it couldn’t get out. I leaned closer, trying to grab hold of its mud-clotted wool. My fingers grazed its neck when the sheep bucked again, and I slipped off the branch, landing shin deep in the bog.

      I cried out with the rush of cold. My dress was beyond ruined; Mrs. McKenna would have to cut it up for scraps. But I was in now, and I could reach the sheep. I waded a few steps closer, mud trying to suck me down, and wrapped my arms around the sheep’s neck and leg. I pulled, and it bucked in fear, succeeding only in dragging me down deeper with it. Mud crept up my stockings. A jolt of cold ran through me. I tugged my foot, but nothing happened.

      Suddenly, I realized I wasn’t saving the sheep anymore.

      I was just as stuck as it was.

      Panic made my pulse race. I let go of the sheep and grabbed onto the tree branch, but it wasn’t attached to anything, and I only got stuck further in the muck. The sheep bleated frantically, frightened by my movements, and I sank deeper.

      The sun set on the horizon.

      I was going to die out here.

      I screamed as loudly as I could until my voice was hoarse, until I could see only the horizon in the faint light, until the sheep gave up struggling.

      Until a figure appeared on the horizon, as unreal in the twilight as a ghost.

       7

      It wasn’t until the figure came closer, walking expertly over the moors, that moonlight splashed over it and I recognized the face beneath the hooded cloak.

      “Elizabeth!” I screamed.

      She approached quickly but carefully, as though she’d spent her entire life learning how to navigate the hidden dangers of a bog—which I suppose she had. She wore a long brown cloak and a traveling gown, stained now with black peat. I didn’t notice the rifle in her hand until she was only feet away.

      “Stop moving!” she called. “It only makes it worse.”

      She lay down on the ground and held out the rifle. “Grab hold and don’t move. I’ll pull you in, but we must go slow.”

      I curled my fingers on the rifle, heart pounding, fighting the instinct to kick as hard as I could. Inch by inch, she pulled the rifle toward her, giving the mud time to shift and release me. My heavy skirts caught on roots deep in the muddy waters. No matter how she pulled, she couldn’t tear me free.

      “Your dress is caught,” she said. “You’ll have to take it off.”

      I started on the row of buttons down the front of my dress with stiff fingers. Once I struggled out of it, the cold water bit at my skin through my underclothes, but I felt lighter, freer, and it didn’t take Elizabeth long to drag me to the bog’s edge and pull me from the water. I was slick with mud and shivering uncontrollably. She wrapped her cloak around me as I huddled on the ground, breathing in her rosewater scent.

      “My God, Elizabeth, I nearly drowned …”

      A shot rang out, and I jerked up with a cry.

      The smell of burned gunpowder hung in the air. She’d shot the sheep to put it out of its misery. The poor animal sank into the bog, a part of the moors now.

      She wiped the muck from my face. “I heard your screams from the road. Why are you out here alone?”

      “I went to Quick for a wedding dress. God, it seems so stupid now. I heard the sheep—”

      “Oh, you foolish girl. My carriage is waiting back at the road. Thank goodness I was held up in Liverpool or I’d have missed you completely. Let’s get you home before you freeze to death. Valentina knows which herbs to use in a bath to restore circulation.” She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and led me along the winding bog paths. It was dark now, clouds hiding the moon, steam rising from the horse’s nostrils. She helped me into the carriage.

      I sank into the soft seats. “I’d have died if you hadn’t come just now.”

      She leaned forward and rubbed my knee. “We von Steins pride ourselves on good timing.”

      “Did you discover what the police know? Are they still after us? I read an article that John Radcliffe wrote about the massacre, and it made no mention of us.”

      She rubbed my freezing hands in hers. “Right now you need to worry about getting warm, not the police. They won’t be storming the house tonight, I can promise that.” There was a troubled look on her face, though, and she pressed a hand against her coat, retucking a folded piece of paper that had nearly slipped out of her pocket.

      We heard Lucy’s and Montgomery’s voices calling to us a quarter mile away, but it was Balthazar who reached us first. He flung open the carriage door and wrapped his arms around me. Montgomery raced up just behind him.

      “Juliet, what happened?”

      I couldn’t answer. I was shivering too hard.

      Montgomery touched my hair, my face, my hands, as though reassuring himself I was intact. There might have been tension between us, but he still loved me.

      “Balthazar, my friend,” he said, “carry her back to the manor, quick as you can.”

      I hadn’t the strength to object when Balthazar scooped me up, carrying me toward the shining lights. Once inside the house, Mrs. McKenna fawned over me, wrapping me in a blanket and rambling about getting some tea and scones in my stomach. She led me upstairs, where Valentina already had an herbal bath going. Mrs. McKenna helped me strip off my ruined undergarments and ease into the hot water.

      “Mrs. McKenna, I can’t thank you enough.”

      “Enough of those formalities, little mouse. You nearly died tonight. Call me McKenna like everyone else does.”

      The water quickly browned, but I didn’t care. I held my breath and slipped under, letting the water work its way through my hair, daring to imagine that it was bog-water instead of a rose-scented bath. What if I had died, tonight? It was Edward we were all so worried about, but the truth was, the world wasn’t a safe place. Any one of us could vanish from it at any moment.

      I jerked upright, coughing out water. Once my head had cleared, I saw that McKenna had left. Elizabeth was in her place at the side of the tub, still in her stained traveling dress, while Valentina packed away the herbs she had brought for my bath.

      Elizabeth reached out to pet my head.

      “Silly girl. You must take better care of yourself. People will be relying on your judgment. You can’t take foolish risks like that if you’re to run this place one day.”

      I twisted to look at her in surprise. Valentina, crouched down to pick up some of her fallen herbs, had paused as well. “What do you mean, run this place?” I asked.

      Elizabeth glanced at Valentina hesitantly. There was regret on her face, as though she wished she could take back what she’d said. “Valentina, could you leave us a moment? Afterward, let’s talk, you and I.”

      Valentina stared at Elizabeth, some silent exchange happening between them that I could not fathom the meaning of, and gathered the rest of the herbs and hurried from the room.

      Once we were alone, Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Juliet, the professor and I intended to make you our heir.”

      My hands nearly slipped on the wet side of the tub. “A ward, yes. But heir?”

      “Yes. Heir to all of it. The manor. The grounds. Everything we have.”

      A tin clattered to the floor outside the bathroom, followed by the sound of footsteps running away. Valentina had been listening in the hallway. I started to call after her but Elizabeth shook her head. “Don’t. I expect she’ll be quite upset. I shouldn’t have told you in front of her—I wasn’t thinking, and it was cruel of me. Before I left for London, Valentina