Page 5 of The Runaway

“That he was,” Dante said, with a chuckle, and that, too, was a surprise – not that he found the incident amusing, but that he would dare speak ill of his master’s family.

“Christophe took some convincing to see that it wasn’t Dante’s fault,” Antoine said. “Gaspard was family, and an alpha. You know how those things usually go down.” Indeed he did. The omega would have been severely punished for striking an alpha, and on most estates, Dante would have been immediately sold. “But we came to an understanding. Gaspard was fined and sent away. He hasn’t been welcome back here since then.”

Well, that explained why the omegas were wary of him. “For what it’s worth, I think the way you treat your omegas is exemplary,” Gabriel said, not wanting to be in any way compared to Antoine’s notorious cousin. “Your omegas have nothing to fear from me.” Words by themselves would do little to calm the staff’s anxiety, but it was worth stating, nonetheless. Over the coming days and weeks, his actions would hopefully affirm the truth of his words.

“I’m glad to hear it. But perhaps that’s enough politics for the time being. Come down to the paddocks,” Antoine said, leading him towards the exit. “We can take a look at the sheep. And I can show you a new project we’ve just started. It won’t be ready until next spring, but I can give you an idea of what it’s going to look like.”

They meandered across one of the wide paddocks, a flock of sheep grazing peacefully on the far side. Several fluffy heads lifted as the sheep kept a wary eye on them, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. They passed the stockyards and a large shearing shed, then Antoine came to a stop beside a pile of wooden planks and rolls of wire.

“We’re planning on building a pigsty,” Antoine said. “The yard will be here,” – he indicated a large, squarish area – “and the shed will go here, facing east to keep the weather out. I’ve organised to have some of the piglets from one of our neighbour’s litters next spring. I’m not planning on doing any breeding myself, but it’ll give us the means to raise our own bacon and ham.”

“You’ll be building it over the winter, then?” Gabriel asked, sounding a little surprised. Winters in Calais had been blustery and snowy. Was it so much milder here that they could work outside during the peak of the cold season?

“Actually, I was hoping to have things a bit further along by now. But we had some heavy rain that washed out a corner of the paddocks and we had to repair the fences, and then two of the cottages developed leaks in the roof. The usual story – the instant you decide to try and get something done, fate conspires against you. There’s not much point complaining about it, but if it’s not finished by November, there’s little chance of it being ready for spring.” It was currently September, so they had only six weeks, maybe eight if they were lucky.

“If it would help, I’d be more than happy to lend a hand,” Gabriel said immediately.

“Oh, goodness, you don’t have to do that,” Antoine said. “You deserve to just rest and recuperate for a bit.”

“I can’t just sit around and do nothing. And it’s the least I can do to repay you for your kindness in letting me stay here.”

“What about your leg?” It was no surprise that Antoine had noticed his limp, though Gabriel tried hard to hide it. The stab wound had healed, but he still felt a regular niggle of pain in his thigh, and hard work would only exacerbate the injury.

He sighed, wondering how best to explain things. “Physical injuries aren’t the only thing left over from the war. To be honest, you’d be doing me a favour – something to keep my hands occupied without letting my mind wander too much.” He prayed that Antoine wouldn’t ask for details… and breathed a sigh of relief when the man nodded.

“If that’s truly what you’d prefer, then I’d be grateful for the help. I’ll get a couple of the staff to help you. If we get some favourable weather, it should only take a week or two to have it done.”

Gabriel spent the rest of the morning gathering the necessary tools and supplies from the storage sheds, then in the early afternoon, he headed back out to the site of the new sty, Henry and Max, two of the omegas, in tow. Both of them had seemed reluctant when told of their new assignment by Antoine, though neither of them had made any objection. The ongoing trepidation about his presence was unsettling, but Gabriel resolved to simply ignore it. The omegas would figure out over the next couple of days that he had no interest in them, and then hopefully things would settle down. And so long as he didn’t do anything stupid, like have a panic attack in the middle of the paddock, there was little that could go wrong. Actions spoke louder than words, after all, and he spent the afternoon keeping his mouth shut, throwing all of his effort into digging holes for the fence posts and lugging the timber for the shed. The pleasant burning in his muscles kept his thoughts at bay, and the afternoon passed without incident. It was a foolish thought, but he hoped every day might pass as peacefully, the ghosts of the past drowned out by meaningful work, if not silenced completely.

It seemed to work until he was once more lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and fighting back the images of broken bodies, of disfigured limbs, of faces twisted in pain.

Once more abandoning his bed, Gabriel rose and made his way back to the hay shed. The scurrying of mice and the croak of frogs was a better accompaniment to rest than the cloying silence of his bedroom, and nestled into his bed of hay, he finally managed to drift off to sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

It became obvious the moment Gabriel woke in the morning that his plans for another busy day had been thwarted. Rain was drumming on the roof of the barn, a torrential downpour that would make working outside an impossibility. He lay back, watching the faint light of dawn creep its way across the shingle roof, wondering what he could do today to keep himself busy.

The first and most obvious answer was to get to work in the stables. Dante would be having breakfast first, which gave him an hour or so to start mucking out the horses’ stalls. There were also some crates of apples that had been stacked in the stable, not yet sorted for storage or sale, and he’d be happy to get to work on that, once he was done with the horses.

Mind made up, he climbed down from the loft and washed his face in a bucket of rainwater, then rummaged around until he found the wheelbarrow and pitchfork. The first horse – a gelding named Pearl – eyed him warily, but settled down after some soothing words and a thorough scratching of his neck. He finished the stall quickly and moved on to the second, then spent some time rubbing the mare down in the third stall before cleaning it as well. Then he braved the rain for the short walk to the compost heap to empty his wheelbarrow, before he moved on to refresh the water in the horses’ buckets. One of the buckets was developing some grime in the bottom, so he headed up the end of the stable to search for a brush to give it a scrub. But as he reached the storage cupboard, a dark, wet spot caught his attention, sitting in the middle of one of the stone tiles on the floor.

He bent down and brushed it with his finger, worrying that there was a leak in the roof that could lead to damp straw and mouldy hay. But his finger came away red.

Blood.

Gabriel felt his world tilt, and he reached out to grab the wall, trying to steady himself. In his mind’s eye, he saw his own hands, soaked with blood, and a dead Englishman lying at his feet. He shook his head. He had to be seeing things. The war was over. He was safe on a peaceful estate, hundreds of miles from the battlefront. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing the image away. It wasn’t blood. It was water. It had to be.

But when he opened his eyes, the red stain on his finger was still there. He saw another spot on the floor, a few inches from the first, and then a third. He looked around, wondering if he was going crazy.

But then he spotted the culprit. There was a nail poking out from the wooden wall, having worked its way loose over seasons of the building flexing and settling in the changing weather. And sure enough, there was blood on the nail as well. Relief flooded him. He wasn’t losing his mind. Someone had simply scratched themselves on the nail and bled a little onto the floor. There was nothing at all mysterious about that.

Except that the blood was fresh. And no one else was up and about yet, so there would have been no opportunity for anyone to harm themselves this morning.

Could it have been one of the farm cats? Not likely. The nail was too high for a cat to harm itself. None of the horses had been out of their stalls this morning. So a wild animal then? One that had crept inside the stable to escape the rain? Gabriel checked over his shoulder and saw that the stable door was still firmly shut, having been closed yesterday evening. There was no way anything should have been able to get in.

But even so, some sort of animal seemed the most likely scenario, and he checked where the trail was leading. An injured animal could spook the horses, or if it was hungry, it could damage the apple crop being stored in the corner, and it would be best to find it and chase it away. Sure enough, the trail of blood led across the aisle and behind the stack of apple crates. He tugged the nearest stack out and to the side, peering in behind it to see if some furry critter had taken refuge in a convenient hiding place…

Gabriel froze, his feet rooted to the spot. A pale, scared face was indeed staring back at him, but it wasn’t an animal. It was a young man, small, skinny and filthy, huddled up against the rear wall. As he realised he’d been spotted, he edged further into the corner, wide eyes fixed on Gabriel. His fists clenched and his legs coiled under him, as if preparing to bolt.