The Runaway Duchess (12 page)

Their
gazes locked and Charlotte became uncomfortably aware of how near their bodies
were. His knee was pressed between her thighs. His fingertips still lingered on
the curve of her wrist. He was so close she could see the wild leap of his
pulse and she thought:
this is not a man unaffected by me
.

Then
he was back on his side and she remained on hers and the empty space between
them might as well have been a ten foot wall. She turned her head aside to
stare out the window; he returned to his reading, and not another word was
spoken.

Charlotte
jerked awake when she felt the ground beneath her rumble and buck. Before she
had time to brace herself or even cry out she was thrown up in the air as if
she were a rag doll and landed hard on her side.

Shaking
her head to clear it and drawing in a ragged breath, she struggled to make
sight and sense of where she was and what had happened.

It
seemed as though the world itself had been spun on its head, leaving only chaos
and confusion in its wake. In the distance she thought she heard someone
shouting, but the noise was drowned out by the humming in her ears and the
pounding of rain on the roof.

No,
not the roof, she corrected herself dazedly. The roof was no longer the roof.
The floor was no longer the floor. She must have dozed off, and sometime
between falling asleep and her abrupt awakening the carriage had upended itself
in a ditch and was now laying crippled on its side.

“Gavin!”
she cried, fearing for his safety even as she assessed her own. She was wedged
in a corner, pinned between the door and the seat, and even though she could
freely move her upper body and arms her legs were caught beneath something
quite heavy.

Squinting
through the shadowy darkness she gasped in horror when she saw it was Tabitha
who was sprawled face down across her calves… and it did not appear as though
the maid was breathing.

“Tabitha!
Tabitha, can you hear me?” Still unable to lift herself free, she reached as
far forward and she could and just managed to grasp Tabitha’s shoulders. Not
knowing what else to do she tried giving the maid a quick shake, but it was not
enough to wake her.

“HELP!”
she shouted desperately, tilting her head back. “SOMEONE, PLEASE HELP US!”

There
was no reply. Fighting back the panic that threatened to roll over her in a
black, all consuming wave, Charlotte closed her eyes and offered up a fervent
prayer.

She
had heard of this happening before, of course. Carriages were notoriously
unstable things and it did not take much to send them careening off the road,
especially during a heavy rainstorm. But to
hear
second hand of something
happening and then to actually
experience
it were two very different
things and as the minutes passed by and help did not arrive, her anxiety and
fear started to build.

Curling
her hands into fists she began to pound against the side of the carriage in a
desperate attempt to draw outside attention, stopping only to try to rouse
Tabitha, whose face and arms had turned alarmingly pale. The maid’s teeth were
softly chattering and her lips were the slightest shade of blue. When Charlotte
touched her skin she found it cold, but as she looked helplessly around the
overturned carriage she found there was nothing within reach she could use to
keep Tabitha warm.

She
tried to take off her pelisse, but it was twisted beneath her and since she
could not stand it was impossible to remove. Grinding her teeth in frustration,
she began to strike at the mahogany paneling in earnest, crying out for help as
loudly as she could until her voice was nothing more than a hoarse whimper and
her hands were numb, the knuckles bruised and bloody.

Then,
just as she was about to give up all hope of rescue, Gavin appeared.

Like
some avenging angel he wrenched the door open and shoved his upper body
through, bracing both arms to keep himself from falling inside. Above him the
sky was an angry, swirling mix of dark blues and purples. Rain lashed out,
pummeling his shoulders and sluicing through his hair. There was dirt smeared
across half his face and a cut that dripped blood above his right eyebrow. One
of his shirt sleeves was ripped above the elbow, exposing a long gash in his
forearm.

He
certainly looked worse for wear. Charlotte had never seen a more handsome man
in all her life.

He
bellowed her name, flinging water as he tossed his head left and right.

“Here!”
Realizing he could not see her given the angle of her body in relation to the
door, she waved her aching arms high in the air. His head swung around and she
knew the exact moment he spied her amidst the calamity inside the overturned
carriage for his eyes widened and his entire body went rigid.

“My
God, are you hurt? Do not move,” he ordered. “I am coming down.”

Did
he think if she could move she would remain pinned in a corner?

She
considered saying as much out loud, but then thought better of it. Now was not
the time for sarcasm. Later, she decided. Later when she was warm and safe and
dry she would be sarcastic all she liked and Gavin would simply have to deal
with it.

She
tipped her face up and guarded her eyes from the rain with her hand as he began
to ease himself through the door, lowering his massive body inside inch by
precious inch. But he had not gone more than a foot when the carriage gave way
with a heavy groan and began to slide, eliciting a startled shriek from
Charlotte and a biting curse from Gavin.

“The
ground is too unstable for the rig to take my extra weight,” he shouted down to
her.

“I
– I rather gathered that,” shr said weakly.

“You
will have to give me your hand and I will lift you out.” He gritted his teeth
and reached down with his left arm, the muscles bulging and twisting as he
stretched as far as he could, but Charlotte shook her head and grasped
Tabitha’s shoulders protectively.

“No,
no I cannot! My maid… She… I think she struck her head. She is unconscious and
must be carried out. You… You will have to try again. Perhaps if you go more
slowly…”

Gavin’s
jaw clenched. “Charlotte, if I move any further, the carriage will slide
again.”

“So
let it slide!” she cried.

“We
are resting on the edge of a cliff.”

“Oh.”
Her eyes widened. “
Oh
. That does not sound very good.”

“It
is not very good at all.” Rain continued to lash at Gavin’s back. In the
distance thunder boomed, an ominous warning the storm was only growing worse.
Undeterred by the elements, he gave an impatient toss of his head to clear his
vision and flattened his stomach out along the edge of the doorframe,
stretching his hand towards her yet again. “If you could reach me, I can pull
you out and—”

But
Charlotte was already shaking her head. “No, that will not work. My legs.” She
gestured helplessly to her lower limbs, which were still pinned beneath
Tabitha’s unmoving body. “I cannot move. You have to get her out first.”

Now
that she knew the true danger of their predicament, the panic she had managed
to suppress returned in spades. It clawed at the edges of her mind, urging her
to thrash and kick and fight to free herself, but she knew any movement at all
could be enough to send the carriage tumbling over the edge into an endless
abyss.

Keeping
one arm on Tabitha, she wrapped the other around her middle in a vain attempt
to stop the sudden trembling that had overtaken her body and closed her eyes.

“Gavin,
I am afraid,” she whispered.

“Open
your eyes, Charlotte.”

She
shook her head with a whimper.

“Open
your eyes, damn it, and look at me!”

Reluctantly
she blinked the rain from her lashes and stared up, up, up to where Gavin
hovered above her. With his torn shirt, long hair dropping water, and dark
features illuminated by bolts of lightening that had begun to streak in silvery
bursts across the sky he looked like a savage warrior of old, and all at once a
sense of calm descended over Charlotte and she knew, as surely as she had ever
known anything, he would not let any harm befall her.

Mustering
all of her remaining courage, she managed a tentative, trembling smile and
Gavin nodded his approval.

“There
is my brave girl. I will be right back. Do not move.”

He
was leaving her? “Wait!” Without thinking of the consequences, she jolted
forward. The movement was slight, but it was still enough to send the carriage
sliding a few more precious inches through the muddy soil. Charlotte froze, her
heart pounding with fear, and when the bulky rig groaned and settled back into
place without toppling over the edge of the cliff both she and Gavin breathed a
heavy sigh of relief.

“Do
not do that again,” he snarled. “Do you understand me?”

“I
– I won’t.”

“I
have to find something to pull Tabitha up with and then I will get you out.”
His eyes were dark and fierce and he was staring at her with such a burning
intensity she felt the heat of his gaze as though she were touching an open
flame. “I swear to you, Charlotte. I will get you out.”

“I
believe you.” In that moment she would have willingly followed him through fire
if he asked it of her. Still, the time with which he was gone was the longest
of her life and she nearly wept with relief when at last he reappeared and
began to lower a long, skinny piece of black leather into the carriage.

She
grabbed at the end of it once, twice, and managed to secure it the third time.
The leather was slick with rain and smelled of mud and… horse?

“What
is it?” she yelled up to Gavin who was once again braced in the doorway with
only his upper torso and long arms visible.

For
the first time it occurred to Charlotte if the carriage shifted he could easily
slide off the top of it and meet his death at the bottom of the cliff. She
blanched, her pulse quickening as she began to imagine one grisly ending after
another. 

“A
trace,” Gavin shouted, wiping the rain from his eyes with one hand and holding
fast to the end of the leather with the other. “From the harness. Do you see
the buckle on your end?”

The
heavy brass fastening was impossible to miss. “Yes! Yes, I see it.”

“Good.
See if you can wrap the trace around Tabitha, right under her arms, and buckle
it as tightly as you can. I will lift her up, and then you will do the same for
yourself. Do you understand?”

He
was going to pull them out of the carriage one at a time with a piece of
harness
?
Leather stretched when it was wet. At least, she thought it did. What if the
trace stretched and snapped while she was dangling in midair? What if it
slipped from Gavin’s hands entirely? This was his grand plan? It was suicide!

“Is
there any rope?” she called up hopefully.

Gavin
shook his head and grasped his end of the trace with both hands. His jaw was
set, his expression determined. “Do as I say, Charlotte, and be quick about it.
There is no telling how much longer the ground with hold.”

The
man certainly knew how to build a girl’s confidence.

“I
can do this,” she muttered to herself. “I can. I can do this.” Sweeping her wet
mass of curls over one shoulder, she leaned as far forward as she dared and
began to carefully loop the trace around Tabitha’s body. The leather was
surprisingly pliable and she was able to slip it beneath the maid’s shoulders
and buckle it snugly under her breasts.

Poor
Tabitha was still unconscious, but her chest was rising and falling at regular
intervals which Charlotte took to be a good sign.

She
whispered one final prayer and then could only watch as Gavin pulled the trace
taut and began to lift Tabitha slowly but surely from the depths of the wrecked
carriage.

When
it was her turn she buckled herself so tightly it was difficult to breathe, and
kept her eyes pinched shut from the moment she felt her feet lift off the floor
to the moment she felt Gavin’s arms wrap around her. They slid onto the muddy
ground together before Gavin plucked her up and cradled her firmly against his
chest as one would a child.

“Tabitha?”
she asked, twisting in his arms to catch a glimpse of the maid. “Where is she?”

“She’s
safe. My driver is with her. There is an inn a short distance from here and—”

Gavin’s
voice was drowned out as the carriage, with a sharp groan and protesting rumble,
began to slide in earnest. Charlotte gasped and buried her face in her
husband’s wet chest, unable to watch as the carriage disappeared from view over
the edge of the cliff and splintered with a crash of wood and screech of metal
on the rocks below.

“Everything
is fine,” Gavin murmured, drawing her even closer and cupping the back of her
head. “An outrider has already been out and a coach is on its way. They have a
room and food and a fire prepared for us at the inn. A doctor will be there as
well to look at your maid.”

Charlotte
burrowed into his warmth with a whimper of relief. He felt so good, she
thought. Safe and strong and secure. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice so
soft she doubted he would hear, but his arms tightened and she felt his smile
against the top of her head.

“You
are welcome,” he said simply.

Turning
so she could look up at him, she saw the cut above his brow was still bleeding,
the red turning to rust as it slid down the side of his face and dripped onto
his shirt collar. “Put me down.” Fretting, she said, “If you are injured I am
far too heavy—”

“You
are light as a feather. I could carry you anywhere.”

Stubborn
man
. “Not anywhere,” she sighed. Her eyelids were becoming extraordinarily
heavy, as were her limbs.