Rain came without warning. Not the tentative drizzle that had threatened all evening but a sudden, vicious downpour that hammered the roof like gravel and turned the cobblestones to rivers within seconds. Nicholas pressed his face to the window, watching the lane ahead dissolve into sheets of water, the carriage lanterns barely cutting through the murk.
Come on. Faster…
They had just turned onto Walton Street when the wheel hit a rut.
The sound came first. A splintering crack so violent Nicholas thought the carriage had been struck by lightning. Then the whole vehicle pitched sideways, throwing him hard against the door.
His shoulder took the brunt of it, a hot burst of pain shooting down his arm as the carriage groaned, shuddered, and came to rest at a sickening angle, one corner sunk low where no corner should have been.
For a moment, he could not move. Rain roared against the tilted roof. His shoulder throbbed. Something warm trickled near his temple where his head had met the window frame.
The driver’s voice came muffled through the downpour. “Your Grace! Your Grace, are you hurt?”
Nicholas shoved open the door, which now hung above him like a hatch. Rain struck his face immediately, blinding him. He hauled himself out and dropped into mud that swallowed his boots to the ankle.
The front axle had snapped clean through. The wheel lay three feet away in a puddle, spokes fanned out like broken fingers. The horses stamped and tossed their heads, eyes white with fear, and the footman was already at their bridles, fighting to keep them still.
“She’s done for tonight, Your Grace,” the driver shouted over the storm, crouching by the wreckage. Water streamed from the brim of his hat. “I’ll send the boy for a wheelwright, but it’ll be morning before—”
“How far to Cornmarket Street?”
The driver gaped at him. “On foot? In this? A mile and more, Your Grace. You cannot mean to—”
“The distance, Blaire. That is all I asked.”
“Your Grace, you are bleeding.” The driver stepped toward him, one hand raised as though approaching a spooked horse. “Please. Get back inside the carriage and let me send for help. You’ll catch your death out here, sir, and then what good are you to anyone?”
Nicholas touched his temple. His fingers came away dark. He looked at them a moment, then at Blaire, then at the long black road ahead, where the rain fell so thick it swallowed the lamplight whole.
“A mile, you say…”
“Your Grace—”
“Find an inn. Go back to Riverside Court when the weather settles.”
Something in his voice must have settled the matter, because the driver did not follow him. Nicholas heard the man call out once more behind him, the words lost beneath a crack of thunder that shook the ground under his boots.
Then there was only the rain, and the road, and the dark.
He walked.
The cold found him quickly, burrowing past his coat, past his skin, settling somewhere behind his ribs where it throbbed alongside his shoulder. His vision swam. The cobblestones beneath his feet seemed to tilt and buckle, and more than once he was unsure whether his next step would find solid ground or send him sprawling.
He thought of her face. That was all. Just her face.
The rest of Oxford fell away.
Amelia set the last of the fairy wings on the shelf above the coat pegs and stood back to survey the room.
The kitchen was quiet. Upstairs, thirty-two children slept in their beds, exhausted from the evening’s triumph, their painted faces scrubbed clean by Mrs. Thatcher’s ruthless hand. Mr. Marsh had poked his head in ten minutes ago to announcethat all was settled, that Mrs. Thatcher had retired, and that he intended to do the same.
“Will you be needing anything else tonight, Amelia?”
“No, Mr. Marsh. Thank you. I will not be here much longer.”
He had given her a look she did not have the heart to interpret and shuffled off to bed.
Now, Amelia stood alone in the kitchen with her trunk by the door and her traveling cloak draped over the back of a chair. Freddy was waiting at the inn on the Abingdon Road. The coach to Southampton departed at four in the morning. Everything was packed. Everything was decided.
