Chapter 10
They could not find Matilda.
Henry gripped the reins of the stolen gelding and squeezed his knees into the horse’s flanks. The motion brought his thighs tighter around Margo’s lush hips, but he forced himself not to focus on the sensation.
Darley Dale was just at the southern end of the Pennines, and the land here was wilder than he would have expected. The rolling hills had quickly shifted to barren stretches of moorland and rocky outcroppings made of limestone and shale.
Mrs. Turner, the tavern keeper, had told them she was certain Matilda and Ashford had not taken a horse or coach.
Margo had demanded to know whether Matilda had seemed frightened or out of sorts, but Mrs. Turner had shaken her head.
“Wanted Chelsea buns,” she said, “but took my caraway buns in the end.” One corner of her mouth lifted. “A high-spirited lass.”
Margo’s hands had been in fists on the table. “And you don’t know where they were going?”
Mrs. Turner gave an apologetic shrug. “I did tell her of a waterfall near her. Maybe three miles’ walk, but it’s hard going in the High Peak. Might take her an hour or more to get there.”
So they’d set off for the waterfall, having no better direction. It had not been easy travel even on horseback, and Henry found himself growing increasingly concerned. A picnic sounded a pleasant enough interlude—but would they truly have walked so far just to eat caraway buns?
“Surely it must be that way,” Margo said, tugging on his right jacket sleeve. He looked in the direction she indicated.
“What makes you say so?”
“The sheer power of my futile hope?”
Henry sighed and turned the horse. He knew all about futile hope and the impossible imaginings it engendered. “Good enough for me. I think there’s a trail there, near that pile of rocks.”
They found the path, though the uneven ground soon forestalled riding.
Henry looped the horse’s reins around a stubby hawthorn tree, and they continued on foot.
The trail, flanked by gorse and a few scraggly larches, wound down into a little valley.
As they descended, the track grew increasingly sheltered by trees, and Henry caught the sound of water.
“Do you know,” he said, “I think you were right.”
She laughed, but to his carefully Margo-calibrated ear, it sounded forced. “What an event! It’s like an eclipse. Or a duke marrying a seamstress. Rare enough to be worthy of a proper headline.”
“Margo—”
But they’d come around a stand of birch trees and found the waterfall.
Four separate columns of froth spilled down into a rippling cove, its water clear enough to see the flat rocks and pebbles and scattered leaves at its base.
Everything was sun-dappled, shades of white and gray and brown, and Margo’s hair was a beacon for the light.
There was a blanket, spread across a large rock near the foot of the waterfall. On it lay a traveling pelisse, a man’s hat, an empty wine bottle, and the remains of several caraway buns.
“Matilda!” Margo gasped, and then she raised her voice in a shout. “Matilda!”
She shouted twice more, but her voice died beneath the headlong rush of water.
Henry raised his voice to shout as well, but it was useless. The waterfall drowned out their voices. Margo clutched his hand, and the feeling of her palm in his—the cool firm pressure of her fingers—rooted him to the spot.
“You don’t think—she’s—fallen in the water, or—”
“I don’t think she’s fallen in the water.” He squeezed her fingers. Her eyes were big and blue and endless, her mouth caught in a frown. “I think she had a picnic here with Ashford. I think they’re probably somewhere nearby.”
She kept her hand in his while they circled back through the trees and down the path. He didn’t let her go.
They searched and shouted, but found no trace of Matilda or Ashford. It seemed absurd, impossible. Where could they be hidden?
Eventually, Margo bit her lip and pulled him to a halt. “I think we should split up.”
He shook his head, an instinctive denial on his lips before she had even stopped speaking. “It won’t—”
“Please, Henry,” she said. “We can cover twice as much ground. We’re so close—we’ve nearly found her.
We must find her, before it starts to grow dark and she heads back to Darley Dale—or worse, leaves altogether.
Please, just—do this one last thing for me?
” Her fingers were still tangled with his.
“This is the final thing I’ll ask of you. I promise.”
He was helpless to deny her. He didn’t even need rain to push him into capitulation. “All right. Meet me back at the waterfall in thirty minutes.”
“I don’t—Henry, neither of us has a timepiece.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “All right. Not thirty minutes. Before the sun dips over those trees.”
She was already nodding, her fingers pulling away from him. “You take this side of the falls, and I’ll take the other.”
His empty hand felt like a loss. He was absurd. He hated feeling this way, hated how much more of her he wanted now that he knew what was possible. “Don’t tumble into the water. I’m not certain my extra shirts have dried.”
She quirked a grin, her teeth flashing, and he made his way in the opposite direction of where his feet and his hands and his ridiculous heart wanted him to go.
It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, though, when he heard the sound. It was clear over the sounds of water, a sharp crack and a snap. And then a scream.
Henry spun, his boot slipping in muck and rotted leaves, and ran back the way that he’d come.
He was back on the trail, his heart in his throat, before he remembered to shout for her. “Margo! Was that you? Answer me, damn it! Margo!”
But God—God. Matilda, if she was there, had not seemed to hear their shouting. Perhaps Margo would not hear him either. She would not know he was coming for her. Christ, Margo could be calling out for him right now, and he would not know it.
He made himself stop, think. Listen for her.
“Margo!” he shouted again. “Can you hear me?”
He waited, refusing to breathe, until his lungs burned with the effort, his chest tightening with the need for air. If she had responded, he could not hear her.
He inched down the trail she had taken, shouting Margo’s name and pausing in between to listen for her response. He wanted to run—to pray—but instead he made himself walk softly so that his footsteps would not overshadow the sound of her voice.
And then, halfway back to the waterfall, he heard her.
“Henry?”
Her voice sounded calm, blessedly calm. “Margo! Where are you?”
“Just off the path—by the big oaks. What are you—”
He couldn’t make out the rest of her words.
He was off the path and around the trees, mindlessly searching for her small form, the red beacon of her hair.
When he finally spotted her, twenty paces away, her green dress flirting with the shadows, he wasn’t quite sure how he crossed the distance between them.
He was by the trees, then suddenly he had her in his arms.
She squeaked.
“Tell me you’re all right.” He said it into her hair, breathing her in as his hands searched her body. “Tell me you’re not hurt.”
She pulled herself free—or half-free at least, enough to look him in the eye. “I’m not hurt. I’m perfectly well. Henry, what on Earth—”
He dragged her back into his arms and pressed his face into the curve of her neck. “Oh Christ. Margo. I heard a crash. I heard you scream.”
She wiggled, but he could not let her go. Not yet. Not until every part of his body had felt every part of hers. Until his body knew her to be safe.
“I climbed a tree,” she explained, “to see if I could spot Matilda. I thought perhaps they’d wandered farther than we’d imagined. Unfortunately, I chose an entirely unsatisfactory tree to climb, and the thing nearly came down on my head.”
“It didn’t—”
“No. It didn’t. I told you, Henry, I’m perfectly well. I’m sorry you were frightened—I never expected that you would hear me.”
Now he pulled back, just enough to give her shoulders a little shake. “Damn it, Margo, you took ten years off my life.”
Her face was flushed pink, her lips a cherry-colored curve. Where fear had been, coiled in his chest and sparking in his brain, new feelings rose instead. Hotter. Darker.
Her chin tipped back, a familiar gesture of defiance. “You didn’t need to come after me. I was fine.”
“I didn’t need to—” His fingers were tight on her upper arms, and she was so fragile, her flesh yielding beneath him. It made him furious, blackly furious—he couldn’t think. “You could have been killed!”
“From climbing a tree? I assure you, I’ve survived worse.”
“Yes, I know! You survived a carriage crash. You survived nearly freezing to death in Derbyshire. You survived a goddamned trek through St. James’s Park alone in the middle of the night. For Christ’s sake, Margo, you have to be more careful!”
He felt her tense beneath him, and he thought she might slap his face. He wanted it—a quick hard spark to shock him back to his senses. Instead her lips twisted down, the constellation of freckles at her mouth a harsh curve.
“Are you only now discovering this? Yes, Henry—I’m careless. I’m reckless.” Her blue eyes were bright, bright—her lips were trembling. “What haven’t I wrecked in my godforsaken life? What haven’t I ruined?” Her palm had somehow come to his chest, flat and warm through the thin barrier of his shirt.
“Damn it, Margo—”
“This,” she said. “Us.”
And it was true, though not as she meant. He was ruined. He no longer knew how to breathe without the scent of her in his nose. He didn’t know where he ended and she began, and he wanted to press his turbulence into her body and bury himself there.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Is that what you want me to say? I’m sorry I climbed a tree. I’m sorry I made you come with me. I’m sorry—”
“No,” he said, and then he yanked her back against his chest and kissed her.