A Little More Left to the Imagination

After another lost interlude, we march on...We are now far after Lupin's escape from the posting house where she slept. She is now far away, on her way to France with her Uncle Mortimor, travelling in a trunk especially crafted for the (mostly) comfortable and hidden accommodation of a sequestered inhabitant.

Lupin saw the bright mass of flames through the grating in the trunk, and felt the heat emanating towards her. Tired and cold, she lifted the latch and let herself out of her long-inhabited couch. A few moments later she had crawled into the large bed in the room and wrapped herself in covers. The jostling of the carriage ride still tremored through her bones, but when she closed her eyes all she saw was the form of Lord Grefham dead on the ground, his face a deathly white that seemed to shine in the gloaming of the greying forest.
She could not easily lift herself up from the comfort of the mattress, but she knew that she must indeed hide once more in case a maid might enter with a warming pan. Her stomach growled, protesting the treatment she had given it, but she ignored the noises as best she could, and gathering a quilt from the bed retired again to her latched traveling trunk.
A few moments later she heard bootsteps outside the door. She was expecting Uncle Mortimor and a supper tray – but a strange feeling flashed through her mind, and she realized that the step was not the light, somewhat solemn gait of Uncle Mortimor, but a heavier one, much more sure of itself, and seeming to have no qualms about entering a strange room. The feeling that came to Lupin was unmistakably that of Lord Grefham, and she felt as if her soul were shattering. The feeling of her dream intensified around her, but she crushed it and as she heard a click and the latch draw back, she drew in a silent breath and held it. The boots trod around the room. They paused here and there, behind the scope of Lupin’s view. Finally they crossed in front of her. The latch on the outside of her trunk appeared locked, as it was not the means by which she exited the makeshift travel accommodations. She saw Lord Grefham’s legs silhouetted to the knees by the fire, and tried valiantly to push down the feeling of longing that reached out to him desperately from within her. She could hold her breath no longer and sighed it out silently, breathing only shallowly. He seemed to pause in front of her for an eternity - then he turned towards the hearth and leant against the mantle for a moment. Lupin felt his exhaustion as if it were her own; in her mind she could see his shoulders – so tall and proud - drooping momentarily, and heard the soft rustle of his laying his head in the crook of his arm, a gesture so thoroughly out of character for him, Lupin’s stomach wrenched in shock. She was crying out inside, but she silenced her inner voice, lest he somehow sense her so close by, and forced herself to look at him as a stranger. She was – by her own choice or not – no friend of Lord Grefham.
He straightened slowly, but after only a short time. He threw something in the fire and his boots moved past her trunk in an excruciatingly deliberate and controlled manner. She heard the latch click quietly, and him slipping from the room. She felt the loneliness, the anger of his gait as he made his way down the hall away from her. Away from any possibility of finding her. Away from death.
She let herself relax slowly, taking a deep breath and moving her head to the side, then the other, putting her chin down. The pain in her belly was harsh and unmitigatable. She held her knees still, but leaned back and closed her eyes tight as the waves of pain swept over her.
It seemed like only a few moments of an intense, ringing silence in her head had passed when she heard the latch click distantly once again, and the soft, precise step of Uncle Mortimor enter the room. A heavy and swift step also accompanied him, and the scent of food. The heavy shoes of the maid exited the room in a few moments, and the door closed once again. Lupin took a deep breath and dazedly undid the false side of the trunk.
Uncle Mortimor was standing with his back to her, attending to the supper tray as she crawled wearily out of the trunk and stumbled to her feet. She stood straight, but swaying, and walked unsteadily towards him. Putting her hand out to the edge of the small table upon which the supper tray was set, Lupin steadied herself and looked with less than eager eyes upon the procured victuals. Uncle Mortimor straightened from filling her glass with wine, and raised his eyes to her face. “My dear,” he said, shocked, “you look exceedingly pale!” He took her wrist lightly and felt her pulse. “I suspect something has occurred,” he sighed, and taking her arm, led her to the settee by the fire.