Hearts Alligned

Chapter 16

Andrew's POV

Andrew rushed forward to the front of the line so he could help the children climb up the ladder.

The guilt about killing three men weighed heavily in his chest, but he'd done it so they could escape. He didn't have a choice.

He started to hoist a little girl up the ladder. Most of the children scrambled up the ladder without any help at all, but this girl started crying when she got to the ladder.

"I'll help you." Andrew said to her.

The girl only cried harder and shrank away from him.

Anne came forward and knelt to her level. "I'll go with you. You don't have to be afraid."

"I-I can't."

"What if I carry her on my back?" Andrew suggested to Anne.

"That might work."

They helped the rest of the children while the little girl clung to Anne's dress.

Finally she was the last one left. Anne knelt I front of her.

"I'm going to put you on Andrew's back. Is that okay?"

She nodded.

Andrew knelt on the floor as Anne lifted the girl. "Hold on to him."

Her hands clutched his shoulders. Andrew stood and started to climb the ladder. When they reached the top, he pulled them out and turned to see if Anne needed any help, but she was already climbing out of the hole before he could offer.

"Which way is Dawnridge?" Anne asked him, holding a child's hand on either side of her. The sight almost made him groan. How were they going to get all these children to Dawnridge without a wagon or horses and with a madman chasing them?

"It's that way," Andrew said.

All of them turned in the direction he pointed to and started walking down the hill, he and Anne in the back of the line.

"Fifty-two children," he whispered to Anne. "How are we going to escape Arthur?"

"Maybe we should turn around and take them home. There's no safer place than their own homes with their fathers. But I'm not sure we could sneak them past the guards at the gate."

"Do you think we could boost them through the opening in the wall?"

"Maybe."

Andrew thought about how they could possibly get that many children quietly and safely through the wall. "No, it's too dangerous. Arthur's guards would definitely notice us before we could even get the first kid home."

"Maybe we could get to a nearby village where the people don't know Arthur. We could hide the children there while we travel to Dawnridge and to your father."

"How do we hide fifty-two children?"

"We'll find a way." There was bravery and a little doubt in her expression.

"We will find a way. I won't let anything happen to the children and you."

She smiled at him. "You don't sound like duke's son I've heard so much about."

He winced. "What did you hear?"

"Only a little drinking and breaking women's hearts. That kind of thing, you know?"

Guilt formed in Andrew's chest again. "It's true. I drank too much and was not the son my mother and father raised me to be, but I never broke a woman's heart."

"No women?"

"Nope."

She nodded.

"Why did you stay?"