Promises Unkept

Dead and Wounded.

***

It had stopped raining altogether, outside.

Lord Adelwood headed briskly to the stable with a bunch of well built and well equipped guards behind him accompanied with Clarke and Devin. He had not cared to change into his riding suit. He was still in his formals, bowtie and black cotton overcoat as he mounted over his personal favorite, raven horse.

By him, his friend Clarke did the same while rest of his guards took their positions around him, ready on their stallions. Devin joined in too.

“Keep a sharp eye on the route we are heading.” Lord Adelwood commanded. “They might very well be on their way back.” They better be.

His men nodded ardently. Lord Adelwood turned to Clarke.

“We shall begin with the substandard taverns.” He said considerately. “I doubt a man like Eden’s uncle would have afforded the steep and costly ones.”

“Sure.” Clarke nodded with a frown. “You know him? This maid’s uncle?”

Lord Adelwood turned away, looking forward as he lunged his horse out into the open. Clarke followed in his wake.

“Quite well, Clarke.” He mumbled, setting speed through his ropes. “Quite well.”

And they all dashed right through the conduit, surpassing a dark, dense channel of pines and then, into the remote, bleak moors that fell within Ashleyton property like a haunted intermittent of two lively shores. Lord Adelwood rode ahead most, with Clarke galloping just behind him on the left and Devin and the rest of his guards forming a protective ‘V’ around him.

The air was cold, quite wet but all he felt was_ terror.

Pure. Unadulterated. Complete terror.

Not concern. Not anxiety.

Terror.

Downright.

Who was he?

An Assembly leader’s Son. A prosperous member of the aristocracy himself. A peer. A man with plenty.

And Eden? Who was she?

No one. Or rather_ nothing.

A nondescript.

That was why he feared. That was what terrorizing him.

Trampling down the formerly down, the lost, the degraded, the already on the unprivileged side of the deal was one of the favorite pastime this world sported. And a girl like Eden, alone, uncared for, the nothing kind, _ she was like a morsel dangling in the cage of bloodthirsty hound.

His blood froze in his veins as he imagined the possibilities_ the un-good possibilities. His heart beats stumbled.

And Magpie?  That only little girl who had ever made him laugh by her unguarded mischief_ Heaven! He couldn’t lose them either.

When he re-emerged in the reality, from the unending depths of his thoughts, and that was long after, he realized that the marshes were past and another stroke of pine signified the end of his frontier_ the Ashleyton.

He flexed hard at the cord hard making his horse a raging storm and followed the mud-cultured narrow pathway.

His coarse driving had led him much farther from the group. He closed his sea-weedy eyes as the cold winds suddenly splashed onto his skin, but that did nothing. Altered nothing.