Lorna Gray - In the Shadow of Winter - A gripping historical novel with murder, secrets and forbidden love

“Thank you,” he said softly, allowing his head to fall back onto the cushions. His voice was weak and quiet as though the effort of speaking was almost too much for him but I was relieved to note that there was more colour in his pallid cheeks.

“Don’t mention it,” I replied lightly.

He shut his eyes, “I’ll be on my way again in the morning.”

“I’m sure you will.” He looked like the idea of even sitting up was beyond him.

He gave me a little smile, eyes still closed, and suddenly looked more like the man I knew.

“How did this happen to you?” I asked gently as I climbed to my feet. When I looked back, he was staring at me with an expression strongly reminiscent of the one I had first seen in the snow, but I was determined not to let the opportunity pass this time. “Who did this to you, Matthew?”

His head moved awkwardly on the arm of the chair and I thought for a moment he was going to try to get up. “I don’t … I can’t seem to remember,” he whispered helplessly.

“It’s all right,” I said quickly, guiltily covering the rush of concern that filled me. “It’ll keep until morning I’m sure.”

“You won’t tell them I’m here, will you?” His fingers clutched at the blankets and my heart tightened painfully as that same hunted expression beat a return to his pale haggard face.

“I won’t tell them, Matthew. Don’t worry.”

“He … I didn’t mean to … They’re …” He spoke agitatedly, seeming to be talking more to himself than to me, and I stepped back as he tried to sit up, feeling suddenly nervous as that wild urge to bolt altered his eyes again. His strength failed him however, and slowly he sank back down onto the settee, looking grey and utterly exhausted.

After a while he seemed to fall helplessly into an unmoving slumber and finally I was able to unclench my fingers from the bowl enough to set it down on the kitchen table. His agitation disturbed me and as I gazed down at his averted face from the comparative distance of the other end of the settee, I wondered just what sort of explanation I was expecting him to give, when the morning came.

Would he even be glad when he finally regained his senses, to discover that it was me that had patched and bathed his wounds? So far his reactions had ranged from gentle recognition to horrified aversion, and I really wasn’t sure which emotion I could expect to prevail when daylight and lucid reasoning made their return at last.

“Oh, stop it,” I muttered to myself, crossly avoiding working this up into a larger complication than it deserved. There were, I was sure, any number of more pressing concerns in the mind of a man who had very nearly died than whether or not the person that had helped him was feeling suitably thanked.

Armed with this fresh conviction, I slipped silently back to my station in the armchair and prepared to watch once more. I was just beginning to doze myself when he spoke again;

“What is your name? I’ve forgotten it, I’m sorry.” His head moved on the cushion as he tried to twist round to look at me but his shoulder must have hurt him because he gave a short hiss of pain before allowing his head to fall back again.

“Eleanor,” I said softly from my armchair.

“Oh.” There was a long pause and I thought that he had fallen asleep but then he added, “I knew an Eleanor once, but that was a long time ago; before I went away.”

I said nothing and just watched the fire as it flickered gently in the grate.

“She was a lot like you, but younger. And possibly a little shorter, although that could just be because you’re thinner than she was.” His voice was faint as he mumbled dozily and I realised that he didn’t know where he was. “Her father died you know. I meant to write and tell her how sorry I was but somehow I just couldn’t find the words.”

There was another long pause and then I saw his body tauten. “I’m not making sense, am I, Eleanor?”

“You’re fine,” I replied soothingly. “Just go to sleep.”

For a while I thought he had, but then in a stronger voice he asked, “What did he die of?” He turned his head to look at me and I saw that this time he knew who I was.

“Something with a long unpronounceable name, but basically it was his breathing again,” I said quietly. “He lasted a long time, much longer than the doctors said he could. But he went peacefully, and at least it wasn’t a shock.”

“And you nursed him to the end.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

“No wonder you look so …” He stopped.

“So what exactly? My weather-beaten exterior is confusing you,” I supplied lightly.

I think he might have even given a faint chuckle, “I was going to say careworn, but weather-beaten will do.”

For some unfathomable reason, given that I had started it, his evident amusement irritated me and I really didn’t want to think about why. “Go to sleep.” I spoke firmly.

“Yes ma’am,” he said with a faint hint of the wry humour that had once so typified him. He didn’t speak again.

After a night of dozing fitfully in the armchair, it was hard to gingerly ease my aching joints out of their cramped position, but he was sleeping more soundly now and finally I dared leave him long enough to go about my morning chores.

Yesterday’s fresh bout of snow had not ceased with the dawn and it was still falling thickly on the yard. It had long since filled in the areas I had laboriously cleared a few days previously and the barbed wind was picking it up, tossing it about so that flakes curled around me in little flurries as I sleepily scrunched my way across to the stables. The inmates must have only managed about two hours of escape before the weather had put an end to their liberty once more but judging by the chorus of whickering that met me as soon as I began rattling about in the feed bins, they were all contented enough with their return to confinement, particularly when it meant they got breakfast.

Leaving my assortment of horses and ponies happily munching their meal, I trudged with a relative contentment of my own across the yard and ducked into the goat house. This odd little building had probably had a previous incarnation as a bull house back in the days when this had been a dairy farm, but now it was simply a rough tin roof set on thick stone walls with a small improvised pen area so that they could exercise when the weather was better.

Three cheerful faces greeted me before trotting eagerly over the rough cobbled floor of their house to perform a little boisterous tap-dance about my feet as I tipped out their feed. Laughing, I swept up the small amount of mess they had made and then fetched a milk pail while they ate. Myrtle was a good goat and very docile, and she did not even pause in her steady chewing as I relieved her of her burden of milk. If I had time, I would make butter later.

There was just one animal in my collection that did not inspire quite the same degree of affection and this was the cockerel. He, being a very brave sort of creature, had a habit of feigning indifference until the very moment that my back was turned only to then, with a flurry of feathers, make a wild dive for my ankles. It was always a remarkable coincidence how as soon as I turned back again, he would be intently pecking at the dirt as if nothing had happened. Today, however, he must have wisely read that confrontation would rapidly lead to a close encounter with a cooking pot and as I carefully carried the precious milk back to the chilly gloom of the dairy, he chose to simply fix his beady eye upon me in a disdainful glare before losing all of his sophistication and joining the girls in a frenzied pecking of the kitchen scraps from their feeder.