Chapter Six
They exited the graveyard holding hands, though if it seemed more like a temporary truce than a true reconciliation Edward couldn’t complain.
His desire to protect her—and himself if he was honest—was misguided.
Of course, a woman like Beatrice would not judge nor misconstrue.
The thought of how close he’d been to losing her made him tighten his grip on her hand.
He glanced sideways at Beatrice. The thought of living a life separate from her made his heart clench.
The issue with Annabel might be resolved, but he anticipated that mending the divide created by his deceit would take some time. Nonetheless, it was of no consequence to him. He was willing to spend his entire life working to become the husband Beatrice deserved.
They walked in silence for a while. Beatrice stopped at the intersection of two narrow avenues of graves. Her hand fell away from his.
“You see that?” she said, nodding toward a lopsided structure at the crest of a low hill. “The mausoleum?”
Edward followed her gaze. The tomb was hunched over in the moonlight, all stone angles and sunken panels, its inscription so eroded that the family name was just a blur.
“It’s cracked,” Beatrice explained. “I could not stop thinking of it. Last week it was half the size.” She started toward it, and after a brief hesitation, Edward followed.
The ground rose under their feet, then sloped down so sharply that Edward had to adjust his stride. Water pooled in the hollows, reflecting the monument.
Beatrice reached out and traced the line with her bare finger. “It seems sad it has been left in such disrepair.”
He squinted at the grave through the gloom. “It looks like it was a tomb for two.”
She glanced at him. “Do you think they were happy?”
The wind picked up, rattling the branches overhead. Beatrice pressed her hand to the stone again, then crouched to examine the base of the column.
“Look,” she said. “The crack is open here, too.”
“Do not fall in,” Edward said, half joking. “I cannot climb down and save you, not in these boots.”
Beatrice ignored him, squinting into the gap. “It’s hollow. I think it’s collapsed a little.”
She reached out, bracing herself with one hand on the cold stone. The other she eased into the fissure, as though she might find something of interest inside.
Edward opened his mouth to caution her again.
But the ground answered first.
With a wet, grating pop, the earth at Beatrice’s feet gave way. There was a heartbeat of stillness, as if the world itself inhaled. Then Beatrice vanished.
“Bea!” Edward lunged forward to grab her outstretched hand and he felt the tips of her fingers graze his.
The scream that tore from her throat was cut off by a muffled thud, then silence. Edward dropped to his knees, hands scrabbling at the grass and clay where his wife had been. For a moment, all he could see was churned earth.
“Beatrice!” His own voice emerged strangled.
The moon glinted upon the dirt, revealing a gaping hole in the ground. Heart pounding, he peered into the chasm, careful not to shift any more dirt.
Dear God, let her be okay.
A few yards down, he could make out the shimmer of fabric and the pale blur of her face, upturned and shocked but—thank God—moving.
He braced his elbows on the edge and called again. “Beatrice! Can you hear me?”
She didn’t answer immediately. Her limbs twitched, as though she were testing each one for damage.
He could feel his pulse behind his eyes.
Then, weakly, “I’m here. I—my ankle—”
Relief punched through him, leaving his hands shaking. “Stay where you are,” Edward commanded, “Don’t move. I’m coming—damn it, I’m coming for you—”
A slab of tombstone had slipped, half covering the hole into which she’d vanished.
With a grunt, he hefted it away, ignoring the spasming pain in his shoulders that told him he’d pay for this tomorrow.
He wedged his legs into the hole, angling down until his boots hit a ledge of sorts.
The descent was steeper than he’d thought—one wrong move and he’d join her at the bottom, or worse.
Edward edged down, one cautious inch at a time, until his feet found a solid surface.
He crouched and groped around, seeking her out in the gloom.
The interior stank of rot and mold, but he ignored it.
Beatrice whimpered, a vague outline in the dark.
She flung her arms around him and he grunted from the sudden contact.
“All is well,” he assured her.
“You told me not to fall in,” she said against his chest.
She trembled and he smoothed his hands down her back until the shaking eased and concentrated on not revealing his own panic. He would never tell her, but for a moment he had believed she was truly lost.
“Edward?” Beatrice’s voice trembled. “Please don’t leave me.”
He paused, breath ragged. “Never.” He eased away and tried to get a good look at her but the moonlight barely infiltrated the hole into which she had fallen.
“Are you well?”
“My ankle is a little sore but I am fine.”
That was better. She sounded a little more like herself.
“Let’s get you out of here then.” He peered up and concluded climbing out would be easier than climbing in. So long as her ankle wasn’t broken, that was.
“Can you climb?”
“Yes.” He thought she gave a determined nod.
“Come here then.” Edward aided her halfway up, supporting most of her weight on his arms. She scrabbled her hands into the mud, trying to get a grip in the dirt and slipped several times.
“That’s it, Bea. You can do it.”
“I am trying—” she hissed, but then she took hold of something and she was able to pull herself another few inches up.
He adjusted his grip, pushing with everything he had.
“Pull, Beatrice!” he shouted, and she did. Her skirts caught, her boots kicked out, but she managed to hook her elbows and vanish out of the hole.
The silence that followed was total, broken only by his frantic breathing. Edward stood below, his arms aching, sweat soaking his shirt despite the chill.
“Are you—?”
“I’m here,” Beatrice called, voice hoarse but triumphant. “I’m—I’m safe.”
He sagged with relief. “Stay put. I’ll join you.”
He looked around, considering, He wedged his boots into the cracks, using every inch of leverage he could find.
Halfway up, his foot slipped and he scraped his shin raw, but he forced himself upward, hands clawing at the mud.
His fingers found the rim and, with a final wrenching effort, he hauled himself out into the open air.
He rolled onto his back, panting.
Beatrice’s face appeared above him, smudged with dirt and haloed by the moonlight. “You made it,” she said, grabbing his hand and hauling him to his feet before he had a second to think.
For the second time that night, she lashed her arms around his neck.
He swallowed hard, feeling his heartbeat rebound in response.
He pressed his cheek to the crown of her head, breathing in the smell of her.
She smelled like dirt and damp instead of something sweet and floral, yet he was taken back to a time of dancing with her in the warmth and candlelight and he finally acknowledged what he’d been trying to protect himself from since the day they met.
He had loved her at first sight.
Beatrice buried her face into the side of his neck, her breaths warm on his skin.
“You scared me half to death,” he confessed, lips brushing her temple.
“I won’t deny I was a little terrified for a moment too.” She glanced up at him. “At least until you came for me.”
“I’ll always be there for you, Bea.”
“I believe you,” she said, and the words hung in the damp air between them, more sacred than any wedding vow.
They stayed that way for a moment, clinging to each other, until Beatrice drew in a shaky breath. “I can’t imagine what I must look like.”
Edward smiled. “You look like you’ve clawed our way out of the grave. Which, technically, you have.”
She shifted slightly and winced.
Edward tightened his arms around her. “We should get you home. I don’t want you falling ill and your ankle will need rest.”
“I forgot about my ankle until now.”
He nodded. “Fighting for your life will do that to you.”
She glanced at the remains of the grave, then back at him. “Think you are ready to fight for this marriage?”
“Without a doubt.”
“Good.”
Beatrice looked up at him then, her face streaked with soil and something softer beneath it—trust, maybe, or the first flicker of hope. She gave a tentative smile.
“I should be honest, though…” Edward started.
“Please tell me you have not been keeping more secrets.”
“One.”
Her expression soured and Edward knew he had no choice now but to barrel on, no matter how heavily his heart hammered.
“You thought perhaps this was to be an arranged marriage, but, the truth is, Bea, well…” He scrubbed a hand through his damp hair.
“Yes?”
“The truth is, I loved you from the moment I saw you.”
The words came out in a rush and a heavy weight dropped from his shoulders. He should be terrified. Love at first sight was nonsense. At least that was what he’d always thought. It was what he’d been telling himself. Give it time. Wait and get to know her.
Well, he knew her now and it only proved his first instinct right. Nearly losing her had sealed the truth fully in his mind.
“I love you,” he repeated. “And I know you likely do not feel the same but I hope, given time—”
She pressed her lips hard against his, cutting off his words. When she finally drew back, a small smile slipped across her lips. “I love you.”
He blinked a few times and tried to register the words. “Pardon?”
“I love you, Edward.” She shook her head. “Maybe from the first look, or maybe the first dance, I’m not certain. But I was reluctant to confess as much. I have seen what happens when one falls for the wrong man.”
“As have I,” he agreed, then gave into the grin trying to force its way across his throat.
“I love you, Bea.” He shook his head. “Forgive me, I had to say it again.”
“I love you too.”
She was so lovely, so beautiful, covered in dirt and telling him she loved him that he had to kiss her properly, curving his hands around her face and bringing his lips to hers.
She opened her mouth marginally and he kissed her deeply, knowing there would be many more kisses like this in his life now but savoring it nonetheless.
When he eased back, Edward took her hand again. Mindful of her ankle, they walked slowly together toward the cemetery entrance. They remained in silence but unlike the silences of the past, it felt companionable. Edward mostly just couldn’t believe his luck.
His wife actually loved him.
At the cemetery gates, Beatrice paused, glancing back once down the path “It’s strange,” she murmured. “I used to come here for answers. To feel safe, somehow. But now it feels…different.”
“Then come home,” he said quietly. “Let me be where you feel safe next.”
Before they headed out of the gate, the caretaker appeared, as if conjured by the sound of their steps. He regarded their dishevelment with a nod that was almost approving.
“Bit of a tumble, was it?” he asked.
Beatrice straightened her spine. “I misjudged the ground by the mausoleum. It gave way under me.”
The old man scratched his chin, eyeing Edward. “You’re lucky, miss. That tomb’s got a reputation, it does.”
“Reputation?”
The caretaker nodded, glancing back up the hill.
“A couple buried there—husband and wife, died within days of each other. Couldn’t bear to be apart.
They say the crack started the day she was buried next to him.
Like the stone itself couldn’t hold them.
” He shrugged. “Their love was a great one apparently.”
“That tomb is dangerous,” Edward couldn’t help but say, recalling Beatrice vanishing into the dirt.
The caretaker grinned, revealing his gap-toothed grin. “All I know is, that tomb’s never collapsed before. Maybe you two gave it a reason.”
Edward and Bea shared a small smile, then Edward turned to the caretaker. “We’ll see about repairs. To the mausoleum, I mean.”
The old man’s eyes glinted. “Wouldn’t want it swallowing anyone else.”
Edward hunted down a hack, grateful to be able to find one at this late hour, and as it rolled away from the cemetery, he pulled Beatrice close.
She rested her head on his shoulder, letting her eyes close.
Edward glanced down at her, her lashes fluttering against her cheek, her breathing soft and even.
He pressed a kiss to her hair, a quiet promise without words. For the first time in their marriage, he felt something settle deep in his chest—not longing, not ache, but peace.
She was his. And he was hers.
Not because of duty. Not because of arrangement. But because they had fought their way toward each other—through fear, through silence, through earth and shadow.
As the carriage rolled on, he allowed himself to imagine the future—one far removed from the present they had created. Mornings tangled together, laughter over tea, hands brushing as they read side by side. Perhaps children one day.
He looked out toward the trees as the cemetery faded behind them. The cracked grave still lingered in his thoughts but it was no longer about loss. It was about holding on.
Beatrice shifted, her fingers curling lightly over his knee, even in sleep.
Edward closed his eyes and smiled.
The End