Chapter 18
It was full dark when Matilda found Beatrice.
They had searched the mansion first, before Christian and the grooms had plunged out into the hideous icy precipitation. They had asked all the staff if they’d seen Bea, had checked every room and closet and wardrobe to no avail.
But after Christian had gone, Matilda had decided to search again. It was that or go mad with impatience and fear.
She had thought—
She had started to think there was more to her than being a Halifax Hellion.
She had begun to believe that there was something worthwhile in her beneath all the scandal, or perhaps even a part of it.
She had started to think that the scandal they’d courted and the gossip they’d engendered had been worth it, because it had taught her to be brave.
Only now she did not know. It was that same recklessness that had brought her here, to this moment. It was her own heedlessness that had hurt Bea.
Regret was an acid taste in her mouth when she finally found the girl.
Her own impetuosity had led to it, Matilda thought. Had led to all of it: Bea’s distress over the discovery of Matilda and Christian together; the girl’s flight; and now, finally, the place where Bea had been hidden all along, deep inside the piled-up furnishings in the library.
She was nestled mostly beneath a mountain of heavy velvet draperies—puce and a nauseous ochre—and screened by the furniture and palms and paintings that Matilda had collected from across the house.
A suit of armor had come dismantled and lay in pieces around her; the helmet was tucked into the crook of Bea’s arm.
She looked fast asleep, but when Matilda approached, Bea’s hazel eyes came open, her expression mutinous.
“Shh!” she whispered urgently, her eyes going to her lap.
Matilda followed the girl’s gaze. In her lap were three orange kittens in a dozing pile; the white wrinkled muslin dress was ragged with loose threads worked free by tiny claws. Angelica Kauffman was curled half-inside the dull metal helmet, the remaining kittens sleepily nursing.
Relief stole Matilda’s breath. “Bea,” she gasped. “Oh, thank God. We looked—we’ve been looking—how long have you been here?”
“All day,” Bea whispered back. “I found Angelica Kauffman in here. She put the kittens on me. I didn’t know what to do, so I just—didn’t move.”
“And you didn’t hear us calling for you?”
When Bea spoke, her voice wobbled a little. “I did. I did. I tried to call back but I didn’t want to disturb the kittens.”
Matilda sank down to the ground beside the girl, whose face was dusty and tear-tracked. “Christian has been out of his head with worry.”
Bea looked down, blinking hard as she touched one kitten’s tiny squashed nose with the tip of her finger. “I’m sorry. I … I wanted him to worry. I was—jealous. Of him. Of you.” Her voice wobbled again. “I know it was wrong of me.”
“Jealous?”
Bea looked fixedly down at the kitten and would not meet Matilda’s gaze. “You have everything. You have freedom and art and—and Christian upending our lives to please you.”
“Bea,” she murmured. “Christian would do the same for you. He wants you to be happy.”
She felt raw and exposed, as if a feather-light touch would bruise her skin.
She’d had no special freedom. She had been caught within the restrictions of their society just as much as Bea was, as Christian was. And yet—
And yet she had always had Margo. And Spencer, and Henry Mortimer. She had always known, in her heart of hearts, that however raucously they acted, whatever scandal they courted to spare another girl some humiliation, she would not be alone.
She’d had Margo. She still had Margo, and she felt a sudden sharp desire to write to her twin and to tell her that she was sorry.
She was intensely sorry that she had not appreciated what Margo had given her. Companionship, acceptance, loyalty. Love. A warm-hearted generous wellspring of love. It had been so much easier to act as they had with the knowledge that Margo was by her side.
Christian had not had that—he and Beatrice had been separated by twenty years, both so foolishly determined to protect the other. But she felt a sudden rush of assurance, a flooding tide that took her fears and drained them away.
She could be there for them both. She had something to offer them both—because of her past, not in spite of it.
“I’m glad,” she said slowly, “that you are all right. I’m so glad. We should track down Christian—he will want to know as soon as possible that you are home.”
Bea’s eyes flew wide. “Track him down? What on Earth do you mean?”
“He’s out searching for you.” At Bea’s look of frank astonishment, Matilda blinked. “Did you not realize? We assumed you had gone down to the beach—or worse—”
Bea’s lips had parted, her wide mouth frozen in an expression of dismay. “He’s outside? In the dark?”
“He’ll be so relieved—”
Bea’s fists clenched in her skirts. “Find him!” Tears had filled her hazel eyes again, but they did not fall. She stared ferociously into Matilda’s face. “Go. Go and find him before he gets hurt because of me.”
Matilda did not go alone. As she had done when she’d set off for St. James’s Park in the middle of the night, she brought two grooms and a footman.
Most of the searchers had come back, she realized, when she went out to the stables and found them crowded anxiously together, rubbing down the puffing horses.
Almost all. Christian and the groom he’d taken with him had not returned.
It was bitterly cold; she was swathed in wool—stockings and gown and cloak—and the chill still crept beneath, finding the edges of her gloves and the bare tip of her nose. They carried lanterns against the dark and walked their horses down onto the beach, shouting Christian’s name into the wind.
It carried their voices away, and Matilda felt furious and afraid.
He was searching, of course. He would not give up searching until he found Bea. He would be so relieved when they discovered him and told him that all was well.
She tried to fix her mind on that as they searched and shouted: the solace she would bring him, the half-smile that would light his face.
And then they found Findlay, Christian’s young groom, stumbling down the beach, his head bare and his trousers sodden to his knees.
For the first time, Matilda felt terror in a fist around her lungs.
She dropped the reins of the horse she was leading and ran. She was at Findlay’s side in a moment, clutching his gloved hands in her own. “Where is he?” she demanded, and then, her words tumbling over each other, “Are you well? Is he well?”
“Aye, miss,” said the groom, “he’s alive—but his horse, she fell in the flats—went lame—the great fool, he said he wouldn’t leave her there—”
Matilda’s eyes burned. It was the wind, she told herself. The wind, and the cold.
She could picture it—the horse down on her knees in the frigid salt water of the sand flats. Christian’s mad, stubborn refusal to leave the animal behind.
“I told him I’d go for help,” Findlay said.
His voice was hoarse—perhaps he too had been shouting.
“We’re not far—but damn fool that I am, I tripped on some rocks and went down on my way back.
” He gripped her hands. “Got turned round. We’re not far though.
” He looked behind him, his blue eyes tearing, his disorientation apparent. “I don’t think we’re far.”
The other grooms had caught up now, leading her horse with theirs. She passed the dazed Findlay to the footman with hurried instructions to take him home and get him warm. To the other grooms, she related Findlay’s information.
The taller groom nodded. “The sand flats, aye. We’re close. If he’s not too far in, he’ll be able to hear us soon enough.”
Matilda wanted to ride. She wanted to gallop headlong in the direction of the flats, wanted to find Christian and drag him back to the house herself.
But she forced herself to walk with the others. She forced herself to stay quiet and listen for Christian’s voice in the dark, for movement in the bright circles that spilled from their lanterns.
When they reached the sand flats, Matilda shuddered. It was too dark to see well. They sloshed in and out of shallow tidal pools, and the stinging water went straight through the lace-holes in her boots.
They shouted his name. “Ashford!” called the grooms. “My lord!”
“Christian,” Matilda called. “Christian!”
Until finally he answered.
The echo of his reply was so faint, they almost didn’t hear it.
Matilda’s ears picked out the sound even as she saw a hint of movement in the darkness.
She shushed the others frantically, and they all listened hard.
Matilda pointed in the direction where she thought she’d seen movement, and they moved steadily toward where she pointed.
She heard it again. A rasping voice, muttering her name. And then, as if his voice had summoned his image into being, she saw him.
The horse was down on her side. Christian had obviously tried to push her and pull her back out of the mucky, icy sand, but she’d had none of it. He was on the ground too, his shoulder pressed against the horse’s sweat-dark flank. His eyes were closed.
Matilda threw herself at him, heedless of the water in her boots and the wind that burned her cheeks. She went down onto her knees, her dress sodden and heavy now with salt water and precipitation.
“Christian,” she gasped out. “Oh, thank God. Thank God you’re all right.” Her hands were on his shoulders, his face, combing his hair back from his face. She kissed him, and then drew back with a start. His lips were stiff and ice cold.
He did not move or speak as she pulled back from her abbreviated embrace. His eyes fluttered open as she watched.
“Christian.” She cupped his face in her hands.
He looked at her, looked hard into her face. And then he smiled.
It was a sweet, wide smile. She had never seen him smile like that, happiness undiluted by loss or pain or fear.
“Mattie,” he said. “Knew I would see you again.”
She licked her lips and turned back to the grooms. “All right,” she said, “he’s alive. Let’s get him home and keep him that way.”
She wriggled closer, thinking to wedge herself beneath Christian’s arm and heave him to his feet.
But he was heavy—so heavy—she could scarcely lift the dead weight of his arm, let alone his entire body.
One of the grooms struggled to loop a rope around Christian’s horse.
The other tied the rope to the two they’d brought with them, clearly meaning to lever the lame horse out of the sand.
That was good. Christian would not want them to abandon the horse.
He tipped his head down against hers, his mouth near her ear. “Knew you would come,” he said. “My brave girl.”
“All right,” she said again. “Excellent. You’ve a future as a clairvoyant. Time to stand up, Christian.”
He did not seem to register her words. He pressed his face against her cheek, and she shuddered at the deathly chill she felt where his skin touched hers.
“Had to tell you I love you,” he said.
She froze. Her heart seemed to freeze too, and then beat again so hard it felt like a blow. “No,” she said, and she pushed and shoved and fought with his big, heavy body, urging him to his feet.
“It’s all right,” he said.
They were standing. Somehow, she’d gotten him to stand, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. She spread her feet and held his weight.
“No,” she said, “it’s not all right. You have to walk. Lean on me and walk, for God’s sake.”
“Love you, Mattie. So glad you came.”
She felt ice everywhere: in her boots, on her cheeks, creeping down her spine with the eerie finality of his words.
“Stop it,” she said. “Do you hear me, Christian de Bord? I am telling you to stop.”
He had told her to remember it many times. The word—the only word she need say to bring everything to a halt. She had not said it until now.
He hesitated at the word, and she felt a pained clench somewhere in her diaphragm. No, she wanted to say, no, no, I love you, don’t stop.
But instead she said, “I have no interest in deathbed declarations, Christian. I am taking you home, and you can tell me tomorrow in bed, over a cup of chocolate.”
He relaxed a little against her, and she tripped, barely able to keep them both upright.
The horses. They just had to make it to the horses. The grooms would help her get Christian into the saddle, and they would ride home together, and everything would be fine.
“You ask too much,” he mumbled. “Bed. Chocolate. Too much.”
“It’s not too much,” she hissed. They were close. They were almost there. “Keep moving. I won’t tell you I love you back until we’re naked in your bed, do you hear me?”
He stumbled and leaned harder into her. “Mattie girl,” he said. “Too late. I already know.”
And then everything happened at once. Christian’s mare was dragged bodily to her feet, breaking free from the heavy grip of tide and sand.
The groom dropped the rope and threw himself toward Matilda.
And Christian—his arm locked around her shoulders—went limp and dragged both of them down to the ground.