After a few minutes he found another bit of lace stuck on a long thorn, waving slightly in the evening breeze.
Pushing terror out of his head, he concentrated everything he had on the language of Lindow Moss. An evening breeze stirred like a shy spirit, bringing with it the faint scent of chamomile. He froze. Smells of bracken, bramble, and smoky peat dominated, but underneath, like a whisper of song: chamomile soap.
Willa.
Mere minutes later, he found her, just as purple light was settling into the hollows of the bog. His future wife was lying on her stomach on the very edge of what appeared to be a large bog hole covered with a mat of moss. Her head was cradled on her arms and she appeared to be asleep.
He came to a soundless stop. If Willa turned on her side, she might easily roll onto that moss beside her. Even as slender as she was, it would not support her weight. And beneath the moss … Some bog holes were straight drops of twenty feet, full of water the color of the strongest pekoe tea.
If he called her name, she might wake abruptly and plunge into the hole.
His heart skipped a beat, before he pushed the thought away and lowered himself to a sitting position. She was here, and she was alive. He could see her breath moving strands of her hair.
Gradually, the sounds of Lindow Moss replaced the thundering of blood in his ears. Curlews were calling back and forth their evening songs, their cries thin spirals of sound.
When he had his body completely under control, he edged toward her, stopping only when the ground before him turned to a springy mat of thin moss covering liquid mud. With utmost care, he shifted onto his stomach. Willa must have been lying on a little island of firmer ground. It was a miracle that she hadn’t fallen in.
His head was so close to the peat now that he could hear water flowing under the surface. The moss before him was black, and he knew before his palm brushed its rocking surface that it couldn’t take his weight. He backed up, approached her from another angle.
Failed.
Tried again. Finally he came close enough that he thought it safe to wake her. If he had to, he could lunge for her hand. They might both fall into the hole, but at least they would die together.
“Evie,” he said quietly. His voice drifted under the sounds of Lindow Moss putting itself to sleep. The curlews were drowsy now, calling irregularly. The burble of running water was louder.
She opened her eyes immediately; she had not been asleep, apparently, but she showed no sign of panic. “Oh, Alaric—I didn’t hear you,” she said, smiling without moving any other muscle.
Wilhelmina Everett Ffynche was an adventurer, whether she thought of herself as an aristocratic lady or not.
“Darling, please remain exactly where you are,” he said.
“I must,” she answered, ruefully. “If I shift my weight, everything moves under me, as if I lay on a thin mattress rocking on the waves. I seem safe enough at the moment.”
Curses exploded in his head. She was not lying on a firm island. She was, in fact, lying directly above the bog hole.
“I knew you would come,” she added.
He smiled back at her, thinking hard. He was a foot away. Inch by painstaking inch, he spread his arms forward, keeping them above the surface of the moss. “I’m going to move toward you, Evie. If I go down, do not move, do you hear me? My father’s men will find you.”
She managed to express the absurdity of that without twitching more than her eyebrows. “Why don’t you go find help,” she suggested. “I’ll wait here.”
He didn’t want to frighten her. He really didn’t want to frighten her.
“We haven’t time for that,” he said, because it was all too true. “It’s growing dark.”
“We could simply wait for morning,” she said. But she sounded uncertain.
“You’re lying on something we call a quaking bog,” he said. “The mud that holds the moss together can warm with body heat and loosen.”
Fear went through her eyes, but she didn’t let it triumph. “I suppose we’d better do something, in that case.”
“Many ladies would be in hysterics at this moment, Evie,” he said. “I can’t think of anyone I’ve ever met whom I’d want as a partner other than you.”
“Why would I panic when I knew you would come for me?”
“And I have. Now, I’m going to keep my torso on firm ground, so that I can pull you toward me. Can you inch your arms carefully toward me?”
Willa nodded. Even that minute movement made the surface billow beneath her. Slowly, slowly, she inched her left arm out from under her head and straightened it.
“That’s it, darling,” Alaric murmured.
Willa gave him a lopsided smile. He was lying flat, his fingers outstretched toward hers. But behind his eyes …
“I am not Horatius,” she reminded him. She’d been lying on this undulating mattress of moss for a good hour, and she could feel where it was thick, and where a mere tangle of weeds separated her from running water.
“I know you’re not,” he said. His tone was encouraging, but his eyes were stark.
She shifted her weight slightly in order to reach her right arm toward him. One hip dipped low and she paused, waiting until her quaking bed quieted again.
“You have unerring instincts for the bog,” Alaric said, his voice drifting toward her. “You could have been born on Lindow Moss.”
“Does the house you own lie alongside the bog as well?” She reached her arms forward, but a gap still divided their hands.
“We can sell it,” he said, terse. “Do you know how to swim, Evie?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Lavinia and I have swum in the sea at Brighton.”
“Glide one arm forward toward me, pretending that you are lying on the surface of the water, like this.”
She imitated him, reaching forward with the right side of her body. It caused a violent rocking on her blanket.
“Easy,” Alaric said, so quietly it was hardly more than a breath. “Easy … Now little by little, staying level, swing your hip to the left.”
“I didn’t gain any ground,” Willa told him, a moment later, having attempted it.
“You will,” he said. His eyes held her, fiercely, as if he could will her over that last half-foot of bog.
“I believe my rump is caught,” she said.
“What?”
“My cork rump.” She managed a smile. “I suspect that the strings that hold it around my waist are caught on some twigs.”
“That cork rump,” he said, stunned. “It’s keeping you afloat, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps? When I tripped, my arms and legs went through the moss, but I popped back up. Yet I can’t seem to move forward. Or backward.”
Alaric made a slow, sinuous movement and reached for her.
“Is your weight moving onto the moss?” Willa asked with a pulse of sick fear. “You don’t have a rump to hold you up!”
Another movement, so delicate that it scarcely sent a ripple across the surface. Alaric had perfect control over every muscle, she realized. As he moved, his weight didn’t tip to either side.
“I’m all right,” he reassured, his voice low. “I have a good grip of a hassock with my knees. Not ideal, but sufficient.”
One more movement, so slow that she scarcely saw it, and his hands closed firmly around her outstretched fingers. Willa’s smile trembled. “Hello, darling. I’m—I’m so glad you came for me.”
“I will always come for you,” Alaric stated, matter-of-factly. “Now, I mean to skate you along the surface toward me. Can you bend your knees so that your feet are raised above the surface?”
“I’m afraid I would be made—oh!” she exclaimed. “I believe I understand.”
“It will remove the drag of your feet, and your cork rump will prevent you from sinking. I shall give you a good tug to free the strings. On my nod.”
Willa kept her eyes on Alaric’s. “If I fall into the water,” she asked, “will you please stay sa
fely where you are?”
“You didn’t answer when I asked you the same question.”
“My answer is no.” The truth of it came from her heart. Alaric was hers and she was his, and if one of them was lost, the other would go as well. “Perhaps it was best that my parents died together,” she added, a sudden thought.
“We are not going to die,” Alaric said firmly. His hands tightened on hers. “Now, Evie.”
Instantly she bent her knees, pulling her legs up at the same moment that he pulled her sharply toward him. The rump’s strings broke free and she skimmed the rolling surface of the bog like a hoop across a lawn. He flung himself backward and they rolled together onto relatively solid ground.
Alaric’s arms closed tightly around her and he buried his face in her hair. Willa was trembling all over, shock making her feel more frightened than she had been a minute earlier.
After a while, she took his face in her hands. “You saved my life, Alaric.”
His expression in the darkening twilight was agonized. “One of my readers tried to kill you, Evie. Tried to kill you.”
Willa shook her head. “Prudence wasn’t a reader. She was a madwoman, and like a flash of lightning, nothing could be done about her. You’re not responsible for her actions.”
Alaric grimaced, but then he carefully stood up. “You’re wet and cold,” he said, bringing her to her feet. “We have to make our way to the peat cutter’s hut before it gets any darker.”
“I’m wet, but not cold,” Willa said, following his lead as he showed her how to hop from hassock to hassock. “Thank goodness, it’s warm today.”
When they reached the hut, Alaric helped her inside, leaving the door open so the sun’s last rays shone through.
“Someone is waiting to see you,” he said.
“Sweetpea!” Willa cried, sinking to her knees. “You’re all muddy.” She put the little skunk against her cheek but quickly started blinking and held her at arm’s length.
“She reeks,” she cried. She turned to Alaric. “She’s never smelled like this before!”
“She sprayed Prudence,” Alaric said, crouching down. “That is how I knew Prudence was lying to me, and how I discovered where you left the path. If not for Sweetpea, you might well have had a night in the bog by yourself. How did Prudence get you off the path, by the way?”
“She has a pistol,” Willa said, shuddering.
“Good lord. I am desperately sorry.” His arms wrapped around her. “I left a footman guarding her door, and she’ll be in the sheriff’s hands tomorrow, I promise.”
Sweetpea was trying to get down, so Willa put her on the floor, and the little skunk trundled off with her tail in the air. “What do you mean, Sweetpea ‘sprayed’ her?”
“This odor is her weapon.” They watched as the baby nosed her way out the door and peed before trotting back inside. “I’m glad she didn’t use my pocket for that.”
“Sweetpea has very good manners,” Willa said, laying her head against his shoulder.
Dropping a kiss on her hair, Alaric gently nudged her to the side and investigated the hut. It was the work of a moment to light a peat fire; its smoke banished Sweetpea’s lingering fragrance. He even found a couple of tallow rushes to keep the dark at bay, and three earthenware bottles of clear, cold water likely scooped from the same underground river they had almost fallen into.
“My father’s men will find us,” he said, closing the door so the peat smoke would rise to the hole in the ceiling rather than billow around the room. “This hut belongs to an old peat cutter named Barty, who lives with his granddaughter in the village. As soon as people smell peat burning in an empty hut, they’ll know where to look for us.”
Willa had seated herself on the pile of rough blankets on the pallet, her back against the wall, and was drinking from one of the bottles. The front of her gown was covered with mud, which made his heart skip a beat. She could have sunk into the mire so easily.
But she hadn’t.
His eyes moved slowly up her body, cataloguing her missing shoe, wet sleeves, round chin, smiling lips … happy eyes. He froze for a moment, relief washing over him as if he’d ducked under a waterfall on a blistering African day.
Willa was safe. He hadn’t really taken it in before now.
“I knew you’d come, and you did,” she said. She waved the bottle at him. “Come drink some water. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired in my life.”
Alaric had never been so joyful in his life. He took one stride and fell on his knees, pulling her to him, unable to speak. His arms wound around her so tightly that she squeaked a laughing protest.
“I’m all right,” she said, kissing his jaw and then his lips. “We’re both safe.”
His throat was closed to words, so he just held her, rocking back and forth. She leaned against his chest until he managed to croak, “I was terrified that I’d lost you.”
She shook her head, and soft hair caressed his cheek. Holding Willa sent another stab of terror through his heart. “You knew I was coming,” he said, forcing the words past that damned tightness in his throat.
“Of course I did.”
That was the woman he loved: she who took whatever happened to her, whatever life gave her, and made the best of it.
“Do you ever cry?” he asked, lowering his mouth and brushing hers.
“Extremely rarely.”
“Why not?”
“When my parents died, I realized that if I were to begin crying, I might never stop. So I decided not to begin.” She ran a hand along his cheek. “Today I knew you would come for me, which made me feel as safe as I used to feel before my parents died, when nothing frightened me.”
“I might have missed you,” he said, his voice tight. “We never found Horatius’s body.”
Her brows drew together. “And yet you’re certain he’s dead?”
“He died trying to save his horse.”
“A heroic death,” Willa whispered, putting a kiss on his chin.
“No,” Alaric said tightly. “It wasn’t.”
Willa tried to move back, but he tightened his grip and wouldn’t let her slide off his lap. “I want to see your eyes,” she complained.
He bent his head and gave her a lopsided smile. “I’m looking at you.”
Alaric followed the logical workings of her mind by watching her eyes, and he knew her question before she even asked it.
“He’d been drinking, and some fool bet him that he couldn’t take his horse safely across Lindow Moss,” he said, getting the sorry story out. “Horatius knew every path in the bog. If any man could have come through the bog on horseback unscathed, it would have been he.”
“So he died as a result of an idiotic bet, just like my parents,” she said.
“It has made me wary of obvious danger,” Alaric said. “Hence, no cannibals.”
“I’m glad,” she whispered.
She pressed her lips onto his, and heat flared down Alaric’s body. He bent his head to give her a proper kiss. Her lips opened and he dipped deep into the sweetness of her mouth, telling her without words that she was his.
Telling her of fear, relief, and joy, so tightly bound together that he felt as if the knot in his chest would never untwine. He had the sudden conviction that if he could see his own heart, he would see an image of Willa in the middle of it: composed, brilliant, loving, organized Willa.
Or Evie, to give that image the name by which only he knew her. Evie would always surprise him. Frustrate him, probably. Take care of him, because she took care of everyone in her life.
Love him.
Save him.
Chapter Thirty-three
Willa was conscious of a bone-deep weariness such as she’d never felt before, along with dizzying elation. “Do you know that you have never properly asked me to marry you?” she asked Alaric.
He scowled at her. “Damn it, Evie, you aren’t allowed to change your mind. Not about this.”
It seemed t
hat was his proposal. None of her fourteen suitors had demanded her hand. Their requests had been courtly, flattering.
Alaric’s was profane.
It made her laugh.
“Believe me, I had no intention of marriage when I returned to England.” The sentence burst from him with an enraged frustration that made Willa laugh again.
“This isn’t a humorous matter,” he said, running a hand through his hair. If he’d had a hat, it was lost in the bog. “Now I can’t imagine my life without you.”
“You’re framing your proposal with the dispiriting news that you suffer a deficit of imagination?” Willa asked, her smile growing wider.
He dragged his hand through his hair again. “No. I can imagine the world without you in it—my mind showed me that possibility over and over in the last few hours—but it’s not a world I would want to live in.” His eyes were dark with pain. “Damn it, Willa, no one who’s lost a loved one too soon suffers from that particular lack of imagination.”
“I know,” she said softly. “It’s often in the back of my mind.”
“Since Horatius’s death, my imagination readily shows me a world with holes in place of people I love,” he said. “My stepmother might die in childbirth; Betsy might succumb to scarlet fever; North might drink himself into a stupor.”
“Unlikely, but I understand.”
“When I think about your death, it’s not just a hole in the fabric of my world, Willa. It’s the whole damn thing. It’s …”
He seemed to run out of words, just when Willa became most interested. He snatched her up and kissed her so fiercely that she melted into his arms, and stopped thinking.
The voice in the back of her head, the one that never stopped observing and commenting—the unruffled, curious, detached voice?
It gave up.
Stopped.
Went silent.
The only thing that mattered was the strong circle of Alaric’s arms. He didn’t hold her as if she were a fragile crystal statue: he crushed her, his mouth ravaging hers. His tongue demanded she respond—and she did.