A terrible chill chased down her spine. The carriage lurched forward, increasing its already furious speed. She dropped back inside the carriage, swiping a gloved hand at her dripping face as she was tossed about like a marble inside a box.
She glanced around wildly as though a weapon languished in the confines of the carriage, waiting to be snatched up for just such an event.
Then her world turned over. The carriage rolled. Her shoulder struck a wall, then her back smacked the ceiling. She screamed, her hands groping, clawing for something, anything to hold on to. She rolled, spun like a child’s toy inside the constantly spinning space. Bile rose in her throat. She bit it back, swallowed. Fought the hot swell of panic.
Then, everything stilled. The carriage stopped, seemed to hang on the edge of a precipice. Horses screamed, whinnied wildly over the clap of thunder.
Adrenaline pumped through her blood, numbing her to the cold. She panted heavily, her knuckles white and bloodless where they clutched the wall. Several wet strands of hair hung in her face. The dark pieces of hair fluttered with her every exhalation. She swiped at them to better see and take measure of her situation.
It wasn’t good. The conveyance had somehow turned on its side. She was sprawled on the inside wall of the carriage, the door above her head. The carriage wobbled suddenly, moaning like the storming winds, and she sobbed a gaspy breath, fingers clinging tighter, knowing it wasn’t over. She wasn’t safe yet.
Wood creaked, groaned as the carriage tottered. Deciding she couldn’t remain inside, she sucked in a breath and stretched a trembling hand for the door above her head. Her thin, wet fingers stretched long as she tentatively rose to her feet, afraid to upset the carriage’s precarious balance.
The horses’ screams had quieted to panicked whinnies. Where was the driver? The groom? The highwayman?
Her thoughts for them all abruptly fled. She screamed as the carriage shifted, plunged down with a shattering force that sent her crashing into the wall.
At impact, her vision grayed, edges blurring to black. Stunned, her body ached. She shook her head to stay awake, to move, to act.
The roaring in her ears altered. Became something else. Not the storm. Not the crush of adrenaline. Blinking, she shrieked as water rushed inside the carriage, penetrating every crack, seen and unseen.
Tears, burning-hot at the back of her throat, choked her as she struggled to rise. The water, black and thick as the pond she used to throw rocks in as a child, overcame her, sucking her down, eating up her body with a speed that she could not fight.
She tilted her face to the ceiling above her. The door seemed so far staring down at her. She reached a hand for it, a single cry reverberating through her heart.
Ash.
Ash vaulted off his mount before the horse ever came to a full stop. His boots sank ankle deep into the mire that was once a road.
“Mr. Courtland!” His driver shouted from the side of the road where he had been thrown, waving an arm weakly for him. “I thought you were a highwayman!”
Ash didn’t bother to comment that facing a highwayman would have been a less dangerous prospect than crashing the carriage.
His groom was already to the bridge where the carriage went over. With Marguerite in it. He sprinted to join him, his heart in his throat, two words a mantra rolling through his head. Not her. Not her. The screaming horses thrashed in the water, fighting to keep their heads up, fighting to pull the carriage from the depths of the stream.
“Should I cut their reins?” the groom cried.
And let the carriage sink deeper? “No!” he shouted the instant before jumping over the small brick wall.
The shock of icy-cold affected him little, didn’t stop or slow him from diving beneath the opaque water. The carriage was easy enough to locate. Every second seemed to crawl until he located the door, however. Until his fingers closed around the latch and wrested it open.
Lungs afire, he reached within, his arm sweeping wide, fingers clawing through lightless water, brushing something soft. The silkiest of seaweed grazed his fingertips.
Exulted, he kicked himself closer and pulled Marguerite up by a fistful of hair. Her limp body tumbled into his arms. The seconds stretched, felt like forever before he broke the surface and dragged freezing air deep into his constricted lungs.
He swam to the water’s edge, shouting at his servants for their clothes—anything to warm her.
Emerging, he carried Marguerite a few feet before dropping down and lowering her to the ground. The sight of her gray face, her lips a chalky blue, struck terror to his heart.
“Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead.” Air blew from his lips like hot steam as he choked out this new mantra.
He rolled her to her side and pounded her back with fierce whacks. Water dribbled past her lips, but he had no idea if that was enough. He flipped her to her back again and pressed an ear to her chest. Nothing. Not a sound. Not a movement.
“Marguerite, no!” He pushed on her chest, not really knowing what he was doing, but knowing he had to get her slight chest to rise and fall with breaths. “Sweetheart, breathe! Breathe!” he shouted, pumping his hands over her chest again and again, willing it to move, to rise. Willing her to live!
Still, no sign of life. She didn’t stir.
A great sob built in his chest as he grabbed her icy-slick cheeks in his hands. Holding her face close to his, he pressed his lips to hers, half-kissing, half-blowing his breath into her parted mouth. Willing her to take his own air, willing her to live, to be again.
“Please, Marguerite.” His voice broke against her frozen lips, tore and twisted into a sound he had never heard from himself. Not even when his sister died. Raw, ugly sobs burst from his lips, pulled from some place deep and forgotten, never touched before. “Please, Marguerite. I love you.”
The sound of her name on Ash’s lips washed through her, tugging, pulling in a strange way. Consciousness returned gradually.
Marguerite looked down and knew the sight should have confused her, panicked her, but a great calmness filled her. A lightness. A peace she had never known.
It was done.
It had come to pass as Madame Foster said. Ash had somehow found her. He was over her, holding her … with her at the end. Only it wasn’t her anymore.
She hovered above herself, above Ash. Floating weightless, free. No longer cold. No longer afraid. A great warmth suffused her. And yet even in her warm, tranquil state, she could not fight her sadness as she stared down at Ash clutching her sodden, mud-soaked body.
His whispered words reached her. “Marguerite, I love you.”
How she longed for those words in life.
He wept, his great shoulders shuddering. His sobs scraped the air, the sound raw and ugly. She never thought Ash capable of tears. Tears for her.
She wished she could tell him to stop, reassure him. She wished she could whisper her love for him in his ear, but it was too late.
The light grew, swelled in a warming puddle all around her, lifting her, floating her higher … moving her away.
Marguerite. She heard her name. Not from Ash but another source. It wasn’t spoken. Not like sound passing over lips. The voice spoke her name again, a stroking caress to her soul.
She wasn’t alone on whatever unearthly plane she found herself. In the bright light, her mother stood, as young and beautiful as she remembered.
Mama?
They embraced. Held in her mother’s arms, Marguerite felt like a small child again. Safe and happy in a way that only innocent youth can feel. Contentment swelled through her. And yet there was still that clinging sadness: pervasive and deep, it filled her heart. She couldn’t help but pull away, drift back down from the light, from the love she felt in that glow—in her mother’s arms.
Marguerite’s gaze sought Ash again. He still hadn’t given up. Clutching her shell of a body, he tried to blow his own breath into her, revive her, bring her back to him.
Love for him coursed through her, eclipsing everything else, every blissful emotion she felt in the wondrous light.
Ash continued his plea, calling her name. Each cry tugged at her, pulled her spirit back toward him … toward life.
Unable to resist, she faced her mother again. Mama, I have to go back.
Her mother’s beatific face smiled down at her. I know, Marguerite. His love is strong—it pulls you. And you want to go.
She already felt herself slipping away, returning, the warm glow veiling her ebbing and fading like smoke.
We’ll be together someday, Marguerite. Go now. He’s calling you.
Her mother’s face vanished with the light then, her words ringing through Marguerite as she was sucked back into herself. Into the burning cold, into the pain of her battered body.
Back to the living—to Ash’s arms.
Marguerite’s body jerked to life in his arms. She released a choked breath, murky water sputtering from her colorless lips.
“Marguerite!” Ash shouted, hauling her into his arms and hugging her as though he would never let her go. And he wouldn’t. Not again.
“Easy, love,” she chided, her voice a dry croak in his ear.
He loosened his arms, pulling her back so that he could stare into her face and assure himself that she lived and breathed and spoke. That she was not in fact lost from him and he had not recreated her in his mind as a result of his grief.
“Marguerite, I’m so sorry.”
He grasped her chilled hand, guiding it to his face. She pressed a palm to his raspy cheek, curving her fingers to his face, her look achingly tender.
“You came back,” he choked.
“Of course.” A tremulous smile shook her lips. “You brought me back.”
Epilogue
The following Christmas …
Long after everyone had retired to their rooms for the evening, Marguerite left her husband n**ed in their bed, pausing to admire the taut curve of his backside before she skulked downstairs. Slipping on her dressing gown, she crept silently from the room, Ash’s gift wrapped prettily in her hands. She’d visited every watchmaker in Town to find Ash the perfect timepiece, and she couldn’t wait to see his face when he unwrapped it in the morning.
Entering the drawing room, she approached the nativity scene she’d arranged upon a bed of holly near the hearth. Presents were already grouped around the little scene. The sight of all the lovely packages warmed her heart, made her think of all the blessings she had in her life beneath this very roof. A husband who adored her. Fallon and Evie and their families asleep upstairs. This Christmas, she had everything she ever wanted. A loving husband, a splendid home, her closest friends together with her. Life.
Squatting to position her gift among the others, she froze. The nativity no longer consisted of the three figures Ash had crafted for her a year ago in Scotland. Indeed not. A full set of figurines spread out over her bed of holly. Three wise men, a shepherd—even several barn animals. Nothing was forgotten. All matched the original Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus—clearly fashioned from the same hand. Most beautiful of all was the angel with its delicate fan of wings. Tears clogged her throat as she touched a fingertip to one wing.
“I promised you I would finish them for you before our next Christmas.”
Marguerite whirled around at the deep voice.
Ash approached, his dressing robe belted loosely, revealing the broad expanse of his muscular chest. The sight still tied her up in knots.
She glanced back at the nativity. “My next Christmas,” she whispered, remembering how she had not thought to be here. Elation swelled in her chest … and love. A love for him that, incredibly, was even greater tonight than on that day he pulled her from the submerged carriage. When his love pulled her from death.
“I heard you sneak down here. I had to follow you. I wanted to see your face.”
“Ash, they’re beautiful. When did you find the time … without me catching you?” They spent so much time together. When he visited his gaming hells—something he didn’t do nearly as much anymore—he often brought her with him, appreciating her input and inviting her involvement in the business.