Elizabeth Beacon: The Black Sheep's Return

She stopped to listen for any sound over the racing beat of her own heart. Breathing as deeply as she could, she sensed she was alone out here and suddenly she really didn’t want to be. If only she had been born in a different bed. A comfortable squirely one, perhaps, where she could have grown up as merely a passably pretty young miss. Then she might have made friends, gone on impromptu picnics and danced the night away at country balls with eager young gentlemen in search of a comfortable wife.

Dreaming wouldn’t get her out of this endless forest and now it was getting dark. It took all her resolution to face the endless isolation and strange twilight noises without giving in to her fears. Lucky it was summer, she told herself, and this was England so no wolves or bears were running about the forest hungry for a well-fed young aristocrat. Of course there were still human wolves, as she had found out earlier today, but best not to think of them.

Freya struggled to see further than a foot in front of her nose and came to the unwelcome conclusion that she would have to find a suitably dry tree and curl up under it for the night, before she fell flat on her face into some sharp and clinging bush that would snare her fast in the darkness, or cut her to ribbons when she tried to escape. Failing anything better, it might be as well to stop before she did more damage.

Hesitating as she fought what felt like an ancient terror of being trapped in the forest by night, she snuffed the air like one of Bowland’s hunting dogs and caught an elusive flare of scent made up of wood-smoke and manure and perhaps even a garden that told her she wasn’t so far away from humanity after all. Unsure if that was good or bad, given the horrors of her day, she tried to creep closer as softly as she could. Shivering like a nervous racehorse as full darkness brought the threatening chill of night with it, she hesitated in mid-stride and tripped over a protruding root and fell awkwardly into a heap of felled logs waiting to be split by the forester she was trying not to disturb. She tried her best to get up as she flailed around to find a prop in the dark and grasped yet another bramble instead.

With hot pain from her new scratches bringing tears to her eyes she made herself splay her hands palms down to push herself up and discovered she couldn’t endure any weight on her ankle as agony shot through it and she couldn’t hold back a grunt of pain. At last tears were streaming down her face unchecked at the misery of it all and she couldn’t seem to stop now she’d finally got started. Conscious of a huge and probably fearsome dog baying to be let out, so he could fight off the clumsy idiot come to attack him and his, she decided all she had left in her to do was to curl up as small as possible and hope she wasn’t about to be savaged.

Sure enough, the vast-sounding hound was unleashed by his probably terrified owner and she could hear him howling with eagerness. Now she heard the soft pound of huge paws on the echoing floor in this dry part of the forest and she let herself breathe in the surprisingly sweet scent of old leaves, lichen and earth in case it was the last thing she ever sensed. Almost wishing the rest of her senses hadn’t sprung into action now the darkness rendered her eyes useless, Freya heard the dog panting between growls and knew her fears were about to come true. Suppressing an irrational plea not to hurt her, she stiffened and waited as it bounded up to her and at least terror had stopped her crying. Almost resigned to feel its huge teeth close on her flesh, she heard a gentlemanly snuffle, then a puzzled whine as the huge beast lay down beside her and sniffed politely at her wildly disordered curls where she had buried her face in her arms in instinctive defence.

Daring to raise her head half an inch from her sheltering arms, Freya ventured a hesitant look in the direction of a vast sigh, as the large hound decided it didn’t understand humans at all and seemed about to go to sleep. She couldn’t actually see much, but it was enough to know the animal was as large as its bark indicated. Wishing she knew more about dogs and her mama hadn’t been so afraid of them that she wouldn’t have the smallest lapdog in the house, Freya wondered how you made friends with an animal the size of a small horse.

She hesitantly held out a still-shaking hand and he sniffed it obligingly before putting his head on his paws and sighing once again as if all the cares of the world lay on his doggy shoulders. Biting back what she assumed would be a hysterical chuckle, she risked pushing herself up on to her knees before the shock of pain in her ankle made her collapse in an inelegant heap and wish she was brave enough to cuddle up to this apparently benign dog for comfort.

‘What have we got here then, Atlas old boy?’ a deep voice rumbled out of the darkness and nearly made Freya jump out of her skin.

‘Who the devil are you?’ she snapped, finally feeling anger burn away the tears and shock of these last horrible hours.

‘I think it’s the host’s prerogative to ask that question,’ he replied with lazy indifference to a lady’s plight and she wondered if that burst of fury had been such a good idea when her safety and possible future might lie in this man’s hands.

‘You can ask, but I’m not promising I’ll answer,’ she muttered, supposedly to herself, but from the deep chuckle it won from him, he had amazing hearing.

‘Let’s start with what you’re doing lying in the middle of my favourite coppice and work it out from there, shall we?’

‘No, I didn’t have the least idea it was yours and you should keep it in better order if you don’t expect strangers to trip over things in the dark and do themselves an injury.’

‘Had I known you were coming, my lady, I would have made sure everything was shipshape and neat. As it is, you’ll have to excuse a working man for being just that.’

She almost leapt at that satirical ‘my lady’ and asked how he knew who she was, but stopped herself just in time when she realised her normal haughty manner had sparked his sarcasm and she should be more conciliatory, under the circumstances.

‘I’m sorry, it’s been a very long day,’ she managed more graciously.

‘Clearly, so let’s get you inside and at least fed and watered, even if comfortable is beyond hope for a lady such as you with my slender means. It’s far too dark to put you on the road to wherever you were going before you got lost now,’ he said gently, as if he could hear the fear and horror in her voice despite her best efforts.

‘I can’t walk,’ she explained blankly.

‘I hesitate to ask how you got so far from civilisation then,’ he teased as if it didn’t really matter how she got here, here she was and he would deal with her as best he could.

‘I fell over,’ she explained earnestly and wondered why it felt so tempting to give up fighting at last and let him take over.

‘Better for you perhaps if you’d done so sooner,’ she thought she heard him mutter, but it was lost in the sensation of his touch, as if he was learning her by feel since he’d failed to bring a lantern with him.

‘Where does it hurt?’ he asked and she marvelled that the authority in his voice had her pointing to her ankle, feeling more foolish than ever when she realised he couldn’t see her in the dark.

‘My ankle,’ she said gruffly and yelped as he found out for himself which one.

Atlas whined his puzzlement that his master was hurting the surprise human he’d found him, then settled at a soothing word.

‘I hope you’re not heavy,’ the man said as he rose to his haunches beside her and it felt as if he was towering over her as he insinuated strong hands under her legs and shoulders and lifted her in his mighty arms.