His throat aching, Charles summoned every ounce of his strength, then roared out again.
“Olivia, my love…Olivia!”
His heart hammering, he leaned forward as the world before him blurred and he clung to the reins to steady himself, willing the pain in his head to subside, praying that she would be safe.
But he was met with silence, save for the angry voice of the river below, mocking him with its vicious vitality.
He dismounted and, shaking, approached the edge and looked over. Then an invisible knife sliced through his heart as he caught sight of a shape at the bottom of the ravine.
It was the body of a woman—broken and twisted, lying at the water’s edge.
Olivia…
He dropped to his knees and dug his hands into the earth, curling the fingers into claws. Then he lifted his head and let out a roar, cursing the world where the cruel and envious thrived but the virtuous and kind were destroyed.
It was a world he no longer wished to live in—not without hisbeloved Olivia, the woman who, despite his being so undeserving, loved him without condition, without expectation.
He’d never been able to tell her how much he loved her. And now, his chance had gone.
Charles…
Her softly whispered voice slipped into his mind.Devil’s breeches.Was he being taunted by her ghost?
“Wh-who’s there?”
He stiffened and looked up.
It washervoice.
He crawled toward the edge, his stomach knotting at the prospect of seeing her broken body once more. His last memory of her should be her smiling face, her beautiful eyes filled with love.
Then he peered over, his gaze drawn to the angry, swirling river below and the lifeless form at the water’s edge. Conquering his fear, he leaned farther over, casting his gaze along the wall of the ravine. Then he almost cried out as he caught sight of a white face looking up at him from about six feet below.
Clinging to a sapling that protruded from the rocks was his wife.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The cold hadlong since seeped into Olivia’s bones until she could feel ice in her veins, fingers of frost curling around her insides.
Darkness, blessed darkness, called to her, promising respite from the cold and the pain in her hands. But each time she shifted toward oblivion, the fear gripped her once more and she tightened her hold on the branch—the only thing that stood between her and death.
But she couldn’t hold on forever. Her strength was draining from her, a great weight pulling her downward, toward the lifeless form below.
Nicola’s screams still circled in her mind—the roar of triumph and hatred, followed by the scream of terror as Nicola had toppled over the edge, before it had been abruptly silenced.
Olivia glanced up, her gaze falling once more on the fissure higher up on the wall—large enough to shelter in, close enough to taunt her with its nearness, but too far out of reach to risk relinquishing her hold on the sapling.
Henrietta Thorpe would have scaled the wall with little effort. Eleanor always said how skilled Henrietta was at climbing trees. But Olivia was not Henrietta. She lacked both the strength and courage to scale a wall where the smallest mistake could result in her sharing Nicola’s fate.
If only she’d listened to her heart rather than her fears! But it wasNicola who’d placed those fears in her heart—seeds of doubt that had sprouted into dark shoots, choking her soul.
Oh, Charles, why couldn’t I have trusted you?
A cacophony of caws filled the air, warring with the angry rush of the river below. Something had disturbed the roosting birds, which squawked and protested. Shivering, Olivia tightened her grip, her heartbeat thrumming in her ears. The light was fading now the sun had dipped below the horizon. Soon, the night hunters would emerge to claim the world and await her surrender to the inevitable.
The heartbeat intensified until the earth seemed to thrum with it, as if a herd of beasts pounded on the ground with heavy, hungry footsteps.
Then she heard a roar, primal and savage, and her insides knotted with terror. It was the roar of a beast, deep and dark…
