Moreover, now he thought about it, that clump of thicket appeared vastly similar to a clump of thicket they’d passed not one half hour before.
Jumping down without waiting for the steps, Jack stretched his stiff muscles and perused the landscape. It wasn’t exactly how he’d imagined Cornwall to look. He had thought it all sheer cliffs and crashing waves but nothing more than heathland surrounded them, a few stunted ponies grazing in the distance.
Jack kicked his heels, causing a veil of dust to envelop his hessians.
“Could you possibly refrain, my lord, from soiling one’s boots,” Oliver Miggens protested as he clambered from the coach, rocking the entire equipage. “Cornish dust has proved particularly stubborn and there is only so much one can achieve with basic travel accoutrements.”
“And couldyourefrain, for just once, from being so stiff-rumped, Miggs. We have greater problems than my boots at this moment.”
The reply was a plenteous sniff that must have drawn air from Scotland.
“Why the devil didn’t you ask the driver of that cart we passed?” Jack grumbled as the coachman swigged something suspicious from a hip flask. No wonder they were lost; Sobers was soused.
“A man don’t ask fer directions. That’s fer skirts. We’re somewhere on Goonhilly Downs and if I jus’ follow south, I’m bound to hit the coast.”
“When?”
“An hour ago.”
Soundly disparaging Sobers’ occupational choice, Jack scrutinised all points of the compass for signs of Cornish folk, but not even a butterfly meandered past, and he was about to suggest they turn back when a billowing cloud began to form on the north horizon.
Coachman Sobers took another swig. “It’s a swarm of bees.”
“No, it’s a dust storm,” proclaimed Miggens. “A natural phenomenon in such dry weather. Fine particles are transported in suspension from one place to another via the wind without ever touching the ground.”
His half-brother clearly read too much for one so young.
Jack narrowed his gaze. “It’s a woman on horseback heading this way. She’ll be able to tell us where the hell we are.”
Indeed, she rode at full pelt towards them, and Jack lounged nonchalantly against the wheel, waiting for her to slow upon sighting their rested and crested carriage.
“She’s not slowing down,” observed Miggens with concern.
“Of course she will. Friendly lot, these country types. Always keen to assist.”
The hooves thundered, ground vibrating as she neared, dust swathing and rising in a maelstrom toward the blue sky.
“She’s not slowing down,” repeated Miggens.
No, she wasn’t. In fact, she looked primed to perform a last-ditch swerve around them. They’d be lost on Goonhilly Downs for eternity, their desiccated bodies found years from now, himself only recognisable by his ruby signet ring and hessian tassel. Death by countryside.
He threw out an arm.
“My lord, she’s not–”
He threw out both arms.
“It might be wise, my lor–”
He flung himself across her path; the horse reared, hooves flailing, and Jack stumbled back against their dust-clad coach, buckskins scuffing.
Taking the Lord’s name wholly in vain, he righted his waistcoat and glowered up at the panting animal as it pranced, set to give the rider an earful.
His eyes lit upon…
Well, he’d never seen the like.
Generous chocolate-coloured hair scattered down the woman’s back, tangled and sorely in need of a comb. A grey frayed dress, which required burning in his opinion, clad a shapeless form, and grime smothered her petticoats.
