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I had never seen any man get out from under a girl so fast. Well, to be honest, I had never seen any man get out from under a girl at all, but I imagined that most would be pretty reluctant. Not Mr Ambrose. He was out from under me and up on his feet in half a second, leaving me lying in the dirt.
‘What are you waiting for, Mr Linton? Up on your feet! Karim, get the horses and take Mr Linton’s knapsack for now! We have to move fast!’
‘I can bloody well carry my own knap-’ I began, but cut off with a yelp when Mr Ambrose grabbed my hand and jerked me to my feet.
‘Not now, Mr Linton! Karim, get moving! We’re going west!’
*~*~**~*~*
We marched all day long, and I suspected we would have marched into the night as well, if there hadn’t been the danger of getting hopelessly lost in the dark. Mr Ambrose, marching at the back, was like a hellhound on our heels, dictating a pace so gruelling I could almost smell the gruel in the air.
With every step I thanked God that I had thought of removing my corset a few days ago. I should have thought of that days earlier. The freedom of movement without the horrid thing was a blessed relief - or at least to me it was. To Mr Ambrose, whose eyes almost never left me - not so much. Without the tight corset, certain parts of my anatomy that had been constrained before were now, um…how should I put it delicately…? Free to move. Yes. Free to move. A movement which Mr Ambrose seemed to find quite fascinating.
By the end of a heavy day’s marching, neither of us had enough stamina left to do much besides lie flat on the ground. But even so, the little noises he sometimes made when marching behind me, and the stares he gave me when we both lay in our hammocks, totally exhausted - they drove my blood to the boiling point and made me wish Captain Silveira and his merry men to the devil, along with their rebellious counterparts! No matter that Mr Ambrose remained absolutely silent. His eyes said more than a thousand indecent words.
We kept this up for five days. Five inconceivably long, endless, torturous days. Finally, I’d had enough.
‘No more! I can’t…! No more..!’
Panting, I fell to my knees in the mud. My hair was plastered to my face in a sweaty tangle. My chemise, once a pretty white, was now a wild mixture of greens and browns. My legs ached as if someone had shoved red hot irons up the soles of my feet, my chest was heaving, desperately seeking for air, and I was hardly able to keep my eyes open.
‘Get up, Mr Linton!’
‘Can’t! Too…much!’
Marching around me, Mr Ambrose planted himself in front of me. ‘We have to go on! We can’t afford to stop now! If we don’t manage to give them…the…slip…’
His voice slowly trailed off.
Raising my tired eyes, I glanced up at him and saw his eyes were fixed somewhat lower than my face, right about where my heaving chest was located.
‘Mr Ambrose!’
‘Hm?’
‘If we don’t manage to give them the slip?’ I prompted.
‘Ah. Yes. Of course.’ He shook his head, and his eyes snapped back to my face where they belonged. ‘If we don’t manage to give them the slip before they catch sight of us, we’re lost. If they’ve come this far to chase us, they won’t give up now.’
I tried to rise to my feet - I really did! But to no avail. My legs would not cooperate.
‘I’m sorry,’ I panted. ‘I…can’t! I’m not used to this. I’ve never walked more than a stroll in the park now and again. This is too much.’
I waited for him to snap at me, to make some scathing remark about the weakness of women - but he didn’t. Instead he did something that I would never, ever in a million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred ninety-nine years have expected of him:
He bent down and picked me up.
Picked me up as if I were a feather.
Picked me up as if he were the hero of some cheap romance novel, and I the helpless heroine.
Ha! Fat chance!
‘Put me down!’ I demanded. ‘Put me down this instant!’
He ignored me.
‘Karim? You’ve been scouting ahead as usual, haven’t you? Where’s the nearest river?’
