“Come on, then,” Bellamy grated through his teeth, tugging on Rhys’s left arm. “Up with you.”
The hand currently grinding beneath Bellamy’s boot hurt like hell. But at least it wasn’t sliding anymore. By flexing the muscles in his arms and abdomen, Rhys was able to hoist himself up enough to swing a leg over the cliff’s edge.
A few grunting, heaving seconds later, he lay on solid ground, rasping for breath and staring up at the bright blue sky. Alive.
“Bloody hell.” Bellamy joined him, collapsing on the rock-strewn grass. “I’ll say this, Ashworth. Things are never dull when you’re around.”
The little finger on his right hand stood out from the rest at an awkward angle. Rhys blinked at it, dazed by the familiar pain. “I think you broke my finger.”
“I think I saved your life. And that’s after you kicked me in the arse, thank you very much.”
“Where’s Cora?”
Bellamy tilted his head toward the upslope. “Her ankle’s turned, I think. Driver looks like hell, but he’ll live.”
Rhys pinched his mangled little finger between thumb and forefinger of the opposite hand. Gritting his teeth, he yanked the broken digit straight out, then drew a breath and forced it back in its proper alignment, wincing at the bright slice of pain.
It was just as he’d told Faraday. The mending always hurt worse than the breaking.
He looked up to see Cora and the coachman limping down the slope.
Cora approached the cliff warily, took a peek over the edge, then reeled backward, pale and panting. “La.”
Rhys took in the driver’s torn clothing and scraped arms. In the accident, he must have flown straight off the driver’s box. “Are you well?” he asked the coachman, pushing to his feet. “The horses?”
The driver nodded. “All safe, my lord.”
“What the hell happened?”
“The traces just snapped. First the right side, then the left. Once they were gone, the splinter bar couldn’t hold. A clean break between coach and team.”
“Sabotage,” Bellamy breathed. “Faraday was right. Someone’s out to kill me.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe Faraday himself. Maybe he had someone working on this while you were enjoying your tea and shortbread.”
“Or maybe,” Rhys said, “the traces just snapped and not everything is about you.” He scoffed at the idea of Faraday’s decrepit servant crawling under the carriage with a file or rasp. “Bad luck, plain and simple.”
His curiosity finally overcoming his dizziness, Rhys peered down over the cliff. The ground fell away steeply. Far below, the sea chewed on the twisted wreckage with jaws of rock and wave. The entire coach had splintered to pieces. No man could have survived that fall.
Feeling suddenly breathless, he gave his cravat a vicious tug. The magnitude of the past few minutes’ events began to sink in. “Good God,” he said wonderingly. “I almost died.”
“We all did,” Bellamy said.
“Yes, but … that never happens to me.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, I’ve come close dozens of times, but never like that. I really, truly almost died. I could not have saved myself.”
“I’ll take that as my outpouring of gratitude,” said Bellamy. “Are you always this churlish when someone saves your life?”
Rhys winced, thinking of Meredith. “Apparently.”
Cora indicated her own temple. “You’re bleeding, my lord.”
He touched a hand to his brow. His fingers came away wet with blood. Still huffing for breath as he straightened, Rhys reached for the handkerchief in his breast pocket.
Instead, his fingers closed over two odd-shaped coins.
He pulled one of them out and squinted at it. A thin disc of brass, stamped with a horse’s head on one side and its tail on the other. Leo Chatwick’s Stud Club token.
“Bellamy,” he said. “Heads or tails?”
“What are you on about?”
“It’s an experiment. Just call heads or tails.”
The man shrugged. “Tails.”
Rhys tossed the coin and caught it, slapping it flat against his wrist. When he removed his hand, the horse’s arse shining up at him seemed like the funniest goddamned thing he’d ever seen. Laughter rumbled from his chest. Leo always did love a good joke.
“Here. This one was Leo’s.” He tossed the token at a befuddled Bellamy, who caught it handily. “Now it’s yours. I lost.”
Who would have guessed it? By all things holy and profane, he’d lost. It would seem his cursed good luck had finally run out. He’d have to learn some new tricks—like the practice of caution. No longer would he stumble through the world, flipping that coin with “Life” on one side and “Death” on the other. He’d make his own fate now.
And Rhys knew just where—and with whom—he wanted to make it.
Chapter Twenty-seven
It was nearing noon when they returned to Buckleigh-in-the-Moor the next day, riding single file on the four draft horses. They must have been quite a sight. Villagers swarmed out of their houses to watch as, one by one, Rhys, Bellamy, Cora, and their much-abused driver clopped down the road and into the courtyard of the Three Hounds. Rhys had hated stopping the night yesterday. Everything in him had wanted to return to Meredith as soon as possible. Fall on his knees, pledge his love, beg her forgiveness for everything. What words he’d employ in that effort, he couldn’t begin to imagine. Well, three particular words were a given. Beyond that, he just hoped for inspiration in the moment.
But Cora’s ankle had needed a doctor’s attention, and they’d each had small injuries to tend. There were other basic needs, too: rest, food, proper saddles. He’d forced himself to be patient, wait.
Now they were here, and he wasn’t waiting a second longer. The moment he slowed his horse, he dismounted and hurried toward the inn’s door.
He was intercepted by Gideon Myles. The man came tearing out from the entrance. His face was one big bruise, and his steps were hobbled, and his mien was determined. He was a man with a destination in mind.
And Rhys wasn’t it.
He brushed straight past Rhys and Bellamy both, rushing to help Cora down from her horse.
“Cora.” He tugged the girl into his arms, burying his face in her hair. “Cora, thank the Lord you’re back. I woke up and you were gone, and I didn’t have the strength to go after you …” He hugged her close. “I would have never let you leave. You’re not getting out of my sight again.”
Rhys harrumphed loudly.
Myles pulled back from the embrace, surveying the bruise on Cora’s cheek and the tattered edge of her cloak. “What’s happened to you?” He turned a burning gaze on Rhys and Bellamy. “If you’ve hurt her, I’ll kill you.”
Rhys said impatiently, “Oh, suddenly you care about the girl’s welfare?”
“Of course I care. And there’s nothing sudden about it.” He rubbed his hands up and down the girl’s arms. “I love her, more than my own life. Would have said as much the other day, if someone hadn’t smashed his fist in my face.”
“Truly?” Cora asked, blinking hard. “You … you love me?”
“Aye, truly.” He pulled her aside from the crowd, just a step. “I love you. And I’ve a question to ask you, but I’m just vain enough that I hate to ask it looking like this.”
“Probably for the best,” she said shyly. “It’s come to my attention that I may be too easily swayed by fine looks and charm.”
“I’m low on both at the moment.”
“Yes, you are.” She smiled, feathering her fingers through his hair. “And if it’s worth asking, the question will keep.”
“I see,” Myles said, a slow grin spreading across his face. “You mean to make me work for it.”
She nodded, lacing her arms about his neck.
“Good girl. You should.” Bending his head to hers, the man kissed her soundly. And quite thoroughly, considering the swollen state of his jaw.
As the assembled crowd cheered the young couple, Bellamy came to stand at Rhys’s side. “Spares me the trouble of finding her a new place.”
Damn Gideon Myles and his scene-stealing. Rhys wanted his own happy reunion. “Where the devil is Meredith?”
“Would you hand me the scissors, please?” From her perch atop the crate, Meredith braced her weight on the window frame and leaned sideways, extending an arm. “They’re just there, over by the lace.”
“Here?” Riffling his sandy hair with one hand, Darryl scouted the heaps of fabric and thread until he located the missing sewing shears. Then he loped across the cottage loft and delivered them to her hand with a gallant flourish. “There you are.” “Thank you, Darryl.”
The youth smiled. “Anything for you, Mrs. Maddox.”
Meredith returned to her task. She stretched a length of twine from the top of the window to the sill, then cut it to the exact length. Looping that strand around her neck for safekeeping, she started another measurement crossways.
“What are these?” Darryl asked.
“What are what?”
“These.”
Craning her neck, she glimpsed him holding a misshapen lump of wood in his hand, turning it this way and that for examination.
“They’re flowers,” she said.
“Are you certain? Look like vegetables to me. Aren’t these cabbages over here? And this one has the look of celery.”
“It’s a tulip. They’re flowers.” She smiled to herself as she turned back to her measurements.
“If you say so.”
She heard a dull thunk as Darryl tossed the tulip finial aside.
“You surely are anxious to make these curtains,” he said. “What’s the hurry, Mrs. Maddox? I thought you’d be more concerned about repairing the tavern.”
“That tavern is perpetually in need of something.” Frowning with concentration, she folded her lip under her teeth. “There,” she said, cutting off the final window measurement. To Darryl, she continued, “I just want this place looking nice by the time Rhys comes back. Looking like a home.”
Darryl chuckled. “Mrs. Maddox, Lord Ashworth’s not coming back.”
“He is,” Meredith said. “I know he left, but he’ll be back. Eventually.” Hopefully before another fourteen years passed. But no matter how long it took, she’d be waiting. Call it destiny. Call it faith. Whatever it was, she seemed to have caught the brain-addling contagion from Rhys, and she didn’t want to be cured.
“No, Mrs. Maddox.” Darryl’s voice was strangely confident. “He isn’t coming back.”
Meredith turned her neck slowly. “What do you mean?”
His left eye twitched as he gave her a placid smile. “He won’t trouble this place anymore. I’ve made certain of it. Buckleigh-in-the-Moor is free of the Ashworth line. Forever.”
Her heart began to beat a little faster, though she bade herself to stay calm. This was Darryl Tewkes talking. Surely this was just another of his wild, imagined tales. She stepped down from the crate, and her feet hit the floor with a hollow thud. “Darryl, what are you saying?”
“I fixed matters for you. For everyone.” He picked up a length of lace and began folding it. “Aren’t you pleased?”
“No. No, I’m not pleased.”
“Now, now. I know you’re an independent woman and you like to do things your way, but you mustn’t be angry with me, Mrs. Maddox. He left me no choice. We tried to give him the suggestion to leave, but the man can’t take a hint. First the torches didn’t work, and neither did moving his rocks about. Tried pitching a stone at him, and that didn’t work either.”