Chapter Fifteen #4
But she remembered too well what had happened when they’d last been alone, and her heart stuttered in fear. She took a step back. ‘I need to get back to the ball. I just—just needed some air.’
‘I can see why,’ he said. He smiled, but it was so strained, so forced, like a smile in a play. ‘It’s a lot for people like us, people who came from our streets, to take in. Isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ He wasn’t wrong. She’d been a fool to think she could find a way to be a duchess.
‘But it all belongs to us now. I can give you all this and more! Bigger houses, bigger yachts, grander diamonds—anything you want.’ He held out his hand to her.
And Benedict could give her none of that.
He could give her a cold, crumbling old house she would have to help him restore to life.
Yet Benedict had everything she’d ever really wanted.
Benedict’s soul knew hers because they were the same.
She saw that so clearly now, and she knew she had to be brave and tell him that, no matter what happened next.
‘I am sorry, Paul,’ she said. ‘I know we were friends once, long ago.’ Before he’d frightened her so much with the intensity of his need. She understood desperation, she truly did, but she only wanted to run away. ‘We are so different now. We need different things.’
His expression darkened and he moved closer. He didn’t hurry; there was no need, they were alone. He moved with unsettling calm, as if he’d already decided how that moment would end.
‘Jane, no. We belong together. What happened at the Casino, it was only a mistake! If you would just understand. Just—just be grateful for all I have done.’
She was cold with fear, but the sound of laughter somewhere nearby steadied her somewhat. She needed to get away.
‘You will find someone much better than me,’ she said, trying to placate him. To be kind. ‘Someone beautiful and…’ Her shoe slipped on a damp rock and her breath caught.
He shook his head, angry now. ‘I don’t want anyone else. Can’t you see that now? You are the one I’ve dreamed of. Just let me show you…’
He reached for her, and her body instinctively remembered how it had felt when he’d kissed her, the fear and panic of being trapped. ‘No!’ she cried. She couldn’t bear to have him touch her again, to feel that creeping darkness.
She jumped back and felt her feet leave the ground.
There was a breathless instant and everything shifted.
Time slowed in a strange, terrifying way and her heart lurched upwards, her stomach dropped and her arms flailed for something solid and found nothing.
There was no thinking, only feeling, the certainty that something—pain, maybe even blackness—was coming.
When she landed on a rock ledge, there was indeed pain, blinding and terrible.
She opened her eyes and stared up at the sky until she could breathe again.
She was on a solid surface for now, but she felt the spray of the sea below her, reaching for her shoes, her hem.
She thought of Kate and how Benedict had snatched her free of just such a place. But Jane was alone.
A face peered over the edge, white in the moonlight. To Jane’s shock, she saw it was Regina Van Joort. She must have been one of the laughing group nearby. Jane half-expected her to laugh again and run away, but Regina looked utterly appalled.
‘Jane! What’s happened? Did that brute we saw running away push you?’ Regina shouted. ‘Men are such pigs! Are you hurt?’
Despite her predicament, Jane had to laugh. Men are such pigs. The laugh made her ribs ache and she realised she couldn’t move her arm. ‘I think I twisted my wrist.’
‘Just hold on one tiny minute.’ Regina disappeared, and Jane feared she was utterly alone in the night. Jane shivered and thought of Benedict—how she had left him, how close she had come to losing everything. It felt like an eternity there in the night, yet surely it had only been a moment?
‘We found a rope!’ Regina said. ‘Just one second…’
Someone else peered down, and Jane saw it was Benedict.
Was it only an illusion? For a second, the world stopped spinning so violently.
She was not alone any more; everything had changed.
Because he was there. The panic started to loosen its grip, and in its place came the overwhelming safety of being found. With Benedict, hope was there.
‘Jane,’ he called. ‘Just hold on, my darling. I’m here. I’m here.’
I’m here. Jane closed her eyes in a rush of relief.
Yet she also heard something else above their voices, the creak of a falling stone, the whoosh of the waves grabbing at her feet.
She cried out and there was a sudden, sharp, stabbing pain at the back of her head as she struggled to duck away from the rocks.
Dizziness, pain and that terrible cold overwhelmed her as she tumbled down the rocky ledge.
She heard Benedict shouting her name, Regina screaming, but it seemed to come from so far away.
‘Benedict,’ she whispered, then everything faded to blackness.