She didn’t waste a moment to acclimate herself. Malcolm’s curses burned her ears. He sounded close, terrifyingly close, but she refused to waste a second to look behind her.
Dark night surrounded her. The cold winter wind cut through her clothes, but she didn’t let it affect her—didn’t let it stop her from diving into the woods pressing all around the small cottage she had just escaped.
The loamy odor of wild earth filled her nose. Clearly he’d taken her somewhere outside the city.
With a fortifying reminder that the forest never scared her, she plunged headlong into the teeth of it.
He followed, crashing through trees and brush behind her like an angry boar. He was faster than she would have expected.
Or perhaps her injuries slowed her—that or her heavy skirts. Her thin-soled slippers couldn’t gain much traction on the slushy ground. Whatever the case, she couldn’t lose him as she raced into deep woods, her legs pumping hard and furiously beneath her cumbersome garments. Her muscles burned, but she didn’t stop. Her wet hem dragged across the frozen ground and she grasped a fistful of skirt, trying to lift the fabric high as she zigzagged wildly through trees.
He shouted her name, the sound echoing on the frigid air, sending the birds above squawking and flying from their night nests.
Ugly sobs tore at her throat, but still she ran on, a certain, stark knowledge pressing its full weight on her.
He’d kill her if he caught her.
He was past reason at this point and enraged as he tried to run her to ground like a hound after the hare.
Panted breaths crashed from her lips. Tears trailed cold wet paths down her cheeks. Branches tore at her exposed face, snagging her clothing. Her chest hurt, but she pushed on, blindly running through the moon-soaked night. Still, there wasn’t enough light. Not nearly enough. Not enough to see any great distance ahead of her.
Suddenly the trees and undergrowth thinned out on every side of her. But by the time she realized this it was too late. She couldn’t stop in time.
She jerked to a halt, just as the ground beneath her feet ended. Her arms flailed wildly, fighting for balance. The tips of her slippers toed the rocky edge. Rocks hissed and slid loose.
She yelped, hovering, wobbling precariously on the precipice. Arms sawing at the air, she struggled to fling herself back away from the drop.
All to no avail. She toppled forward, her scream a horrible unearthly sound on the night.
Icy air rushed past her as she careened down the side of the steep incline with no hope of stopping. Not until she reached bottom.
Wind tore at her body. Her hands dragged against the craggy wall, ripped to bloody shreds as she fought for purchase, a handhold, anything to stop her descent.
The floor of the earth loomed somewhere below, waiting to greet her. To break her with cold, relentless force.
Sev. She’d never see him again. Never tell him how she really felt . . . that she wanted to marry him. Only him. And not because she’d decided she needed to marry. Not because of security or because she craved respectability. Not because marriage was that thing every woman should do.
She loved him and he would never know it. She would be gone. Forever lost, forgotten at the base of some ravine.
With a desperate cry, she fought harder, her nails splitting as she clawed. Bits of rocks and grass flew around her as she plummeted, but nothing more. She couldn’t save herself.
Malcolm had gotten his wish after all.
Chapter Twenty-six
The hand on the mantel clock chimed the hour as a carriage clattered to a stop in front of Sev’s townhouse. Sev held his breath, waiting at the window to see who stepped down. The instant Malcolm emerged from the carriage, Sev signaled the grooms hiding behind the hedges and along the side of his townhouse.
They barreled forward and hauled the driver from his perch first, per Sev’s orders. He wanted to make sure the driver didn’t escape into the night in case Malcolm proved uncooperative.
Sev rushed from the drawing room, Jack Hadley and Cleo fast on his heels. They converged all at once in the foyer.
Malcolm thrashed in his captor’s hands. “Unhand me at once! What’s this about?” His eyes alighted on Sev. “Cousin! What the devil is going on? Tell these ruffians to release me!”
Sev walked a sharp line toward him. The closer he approached, the more alarmed Malcolm appeared, his eyes widening at whatever he read in Sev’s face.
“Where is she?” Sev spat.
“Wh-what are you talking about? Who?”
Sev’s hands flexed at his sides. Savage fury hummed through him. “I will ask you only one more time. Where is Grier?”
Malcolm started to shake his head, and then he stopped, paused, cocking his head to the side in a considering manner. As if relenting to the truth, he sneered, “Somewhere you’ll never find her.”
Sev lunged for him, an animallike growl erupting from his throat as he ripped Malcolm free from the grooms who held him captive.
They crashed to the parquet floor with bone-jarring force. Sev straddled him, striking him again and again until he couldn’t feel his hands anymore, until his knuckles were slick with blood—until several grooms stepped in and pulled him off.
“Where is she?” he shouted, rage and desperation riding hot in his chest, tightening his lungs so that every breath felt raw and anguished. As anguished as he felt inside.
Malcolm laughed maniacally, staggering to his feet. He pressed a hand to his profusely bleeding nose. “Good luck finding her.”
Sev lunged free and grabbed for him, ready to rip him apart.
Malcolm dodged and dove out the door.
Sev followed, chasing him down the path.
Malcolm looked over his shoulder, laughing wildly. “Guess you’ll have to start all over again looking for a bride! I’m sure that will prove no small feat considering the last one—”
The rest of his words were lost, twisting into a scream that shattered the cold night as he stepped into the path of an oncoming carriage.
Malcolm went down, crumpling beneath razor-sharp hooves and spinning wheels. The horses screeched as they plowed over him.
The carriage slowed several yards away, but Sev’s gaze rested on the still, broken body in the middle of the street. Sev reached the middle of the street first. Others soon joined him, morbid fascination drawing them like moths to the flame.
As he gazed down at the dull, unseeing eyes of his cousin, he felt nothing. No sorrow for the bastard who stole Grier from him . . . and quite possibly murdered her. Nothing.
A shudder racked him. With a gulp of icy air, he swung back toward his house. Countless people poured from the townhouses lining up and down the street to examine the spectacle of a dead body.
Then he remembered the coachman. He rushed back inside, unwilling to accept that Grier was gone, lost from him and this world. Vaulting up the steps to his townhouse, he shoved his way through the crowd of servants, relieved to see the driver still restrained—that he had not managed to slip away in the chaos.
Grabbing him by the front of his frock coat, Sev shoved his face close. “Where is she? Where did you take them?” He gave him a good shake. “If you’ve a wish to breathe another breath, you’ll take me there at once.”
The driver nodded fiercely, waving his hands helplessly between them. “Aye. I don’t want no trouble. We went to a cottage, an ol’ hunting box just outside Town. I’ll show you.”
Sev nodded, his heart tight and aching in his chest. He refused to believe she was gone. That he could have lost her. He’d have to see her with his own eyes . . . touch her lifeless body with his hands before he let her go.
And even then . . . he might never be able to do that.
The cold woke her, a bitter shroud that she could not escape. It clung like the worst of dreams. Shivering, Gr
ier parted heavy eyelids to peer out at a predawn gray. Even though it wasn’t the brightest of light, she squinted against it. Stabbing sharp pain hit her everywhere. No part of her body was free of it.
Her last sight had been of murky night . . . and she’d been careening toward her death.
At that reminder, she sat up. Every nerve in her body screamed in protest and she fell back down, her cheek scraping the rough ground. She hissed at the newfound sting of pain, but supposed she should be glad for it.
Glad that she lived, that she felt anything at all.
Panting heavily, she scanned her surroundings. A frigid mist curled on the air like smoke. She could see nothing. Just the small stretch of ground she huddled upon and endless gray sky all around her.
Rolling onto her back on the hard ground, she looked up, her gaze following the endless stretch of rocky wall to her right.
She slid down that?
It was a miracle she survived.
Lying there for several moments, she listened to the howling wind and the birds chirping in the distance. The clouds’ underbellies looked swollen, threatening with rain or snow.
Gathering her strength, she breathed in and out before finally lifting herself up again, bit by slow bit. Every muscle strained in agony as she shifted herself into a sitting position. A hissing breath escaped between her teeth.
She assessed herself, checking for injuries. When she wiggled her right ankle, she winced and bit her lip against the sudden lancing agony that shot up her calf. She doubted she could stand without help.
Using blood-crusted hands, she dragged her body to the point where the ground appeared to break off and vanish.
She looked down. And down.
Far below a tiny stream trickled between banks dotted with snow and grass the color of withered straw. She’d never survive the fall. Nor could she climb down. Or up. Despair threatened to engulf her, but she shoved it away.
Even faced with such a grim scenario, she looked around as if expecting to find another solution. Something. Anything to help escape this nightmare. This wasn’t her fate. She would not die like this.
The wind increased, battering her where she huddled upon the ledge. If not for the precarious shelf of earth, she would have fallen to her death.
She pushed tangled strands of hair from her face and shook her head slowly, staving off the hot tide of panic that threatened to devour her.
You’re not meant to die. Not now. Not like this.
And yet she shook with fear despite her brave thoughts. Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted, “Hello! Can anyone help me?”
Nothing.
The birds fell silent at her voice. She shouted again and again, until her words grew hoarse and her tongue felt thick and dry in her mouth.
The wind seemed to whip even more fiercely. Its lonely howl intensified her fright that no one was going to find her. That she was going to waste away on this small shelf of ground jutting from the side of a crag.
She choked on a sob and blinked back burning tears. Years later her bones would be found with no clue as to who she was.
Pulling herself into a tight ball inside her tattered cloak, she held herself tightly, vowing to hang on, to not let despair claim her even when rescue loomed as distant and elusive as the stars.
“Grier!” Sev shouted her name yet again as he tromped through the woods surrounding the small hunting box the driver led him to. It had been empty, of course, the door wide open as if its last occupants had left in a hurry.
He wasn’t the only one shouting for her. The sound of her name echoed through the trees, winding through dark, gnarled branches and floating on the curling wind. Over three dozen servants, his and Jack’s combined, spread out through the thick woods.
His long strides ate up the ground, his gaze straining, taking in every shrub, every twig for some sign of her—the slightest evidence that she’d passed through the area. If Grier was out here, he’d find her.
Cleo tromped over the ground next to him, panting hard but keeping up with admirable effort. She wore a simple wool gown and heavy boots. Her voice rang out hoarsely as she called for her sister.
“Look! Here!” Jack shouted not far away from them.
Sev ran ahead and inspected the bit of fabric Jack plucked from a thorny bush.
Cleo arrived at his side and took the material to examine it. “That looks like a piece of Grier’s cloak.”
A hound on the scent, Sev pushed on, practically running through the trees, calling for Grier. He stopped abruptly when he came to where the ground suddenly ended. His heart froze in his chest as he toed the broken edge of ground.
Others soon arrived behind him. Like him, they scanned right and left. Only open air stretched before them. There was no going forward at this point. It was either back or . . . down.
“Oh, Grier,” Cleo whispered.
Jack cursed.
Sev immediately saw her in his mind, her freckles standing out in stark relief against her frightened face as she ran through the night, Malcolm in pursuit. She couldn’t have seen five feet in front of her in the darkness. She wouldn’t have had time to stop . . .
Tossing back his head, he shouted up at the sky, startling birds from the silent trees. No one made a sound around him.
Cleo placed a hand on his shoulder and he shuddered, fighting the violent impulse to shake her off, to toss himself off the cliff, too—so that he would feel none of this pain. None of this tearing grief.
“Hello!”
He stilled, cocking his head to the side at the faint sound.
It came again, distinct . . . and familiar, vibrating with a terror similar to the one that had moments ago seized hold of him so completely. “Hello! Help! Help me!”
He dropped to his knees and peered over the edge of earth, digging his hands into the rough soil. “Grier! Are you down there!”
“Sev! Sev!” His name sounded garbled, tangled up in her sobs. “I’m down here! On a ledge!”
A good forty yards down, he caught sight of her, bedraggled but alive on a small shelf of earth jutting from the side of the crag. His stomach twisted at her precarious position. The ledge could give out and crumble at any time, tumbling her to her death.
“Don’t move! Not even an inch! Do you understand me?”
He didn’t wait for her answer before turning and shouting to the gathered crowd of servants for a rope. Several men turned and ran back into the woods toward the lodge.
Time stretched interminably as he waited for their return.
“Grier! Are you injured?” he bellowed down.
“I hurt my ankle! I can’t stand.”
He nodded grimly. An ankle would heal. He just had to get her on solid ground and then he could keep her warm and safe and forever in his arms.
The men returned with a rope. Sev made short work knotting it about his waist as securely as he could.
“Your Highness, perhaps I should go?” a groom proposed.
Sev shook his head severely. “I’m going.” He would not trust Grier’s fate to anyone else.
The groom nodded. “Yes, Your Highness.”
Sev took position at the edge of the cliff.
Bracing his booted feet apart, he gripped the rope tightly as they lowered him down, perfectly agreeable to the notion of risking his life if it meant saving Grier.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Grier watched as Sev descended toward her, her breath frozen in her chest until he dropped down and landed solidly, safely beside her.
She released a strangled cry as he pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly. The tears flowed then. Sobs racked her frame as his strong arms held her up, so firm and reassuring.
“I thought no one would ever find me.”
His hand buried in the snarls of her hair. “I wouldn’t have
stopped until I found you. Come. Let’s get you out of here.” He pulled back to look at her face, his hand warm and caressing on her cheek. “Can you ride my back?”
She nodded.
His gaze searched her face. “Truly? Are you too weak? You’ll need to hold on tightly.”
She smiled tremulously. “I can hang on. Just get us out of here.”
With deft fingers, Sev quickly checked that his rope was still fastened securely about him. Satisfied, he squatted so that she could straddle his back.
“We’re ready,” he shouted up, and then they were ascending. Sev’s legs worked, his booted feet moving along the rocky wall, helping leverage them as they were hauled upward by several pairs of hands.
Grier clutched closely to him, mindful that she not choke him with her clinging arms. It seemed like forever before they cleared the top, but in reality it could only have been a few minutes.
She and Sev collapsed together in a tangled pile. He breathed heavily beside her, his hand reaching for hers, fingers lacing with her own.
“Grier!” Cleo dropped down beside her, pressing her much warmer hand to Grier’s grimy face. “Oh dear, you’re cold as ice.”
As if that was the only reminder Sev needed that she had spent the night injured and exposed to the harsh elements, he jumped to his feet and swept her up in his arms.
She rested her cheek against the warm solidness of his chest as he marched them through the same woods she had raced through last night, a real-life devil in pursuit of her, intent on stopping her from marrying Sev—even if it meant ending her life.
She moistened her parched lips. “Your cousin—”
“He’s dead.”
She lifted her head and studied the hard set of his profile. “Did you—”
“He ran in front of a carriage. I doubt he suffered.” A muscle flexed along his jaw. “Not as he should have. Not as I would have had him suffer.” His fiery gaze locked with hers then. “For what he’s done to you . . . what he wanted to do, he deserved far worse than a swift end.”
Shaken at the intensity of his expression, she lowered her head back to his chest, let the rocking motion of his strides lull her into deep relaxation.