“Never mind the blasted pistols! Come down from there at once before you—”
Crack!
“God in heaven! Jump, dearest! Quickly!”
Jump?The very thought of leaping into the darkness froze her blood to ice. “You just told me not to move!” Surely, there must be another way?
“Yes, but I’m afraid… well, you’re going to end up on the ground one way or another, aren’t you? Better here than at the bottom of the hill! Just, er, make certain you leap as far wide of the carriage as you can, as the jolt is sure to send it careening over the edge.”
Was that meant to be reassuring? Because it wasn’t, at all.
Juliet peered over the side of the carriage—a mistake, as the ground seemed much further away than it had when she’d climbed up, but Lady Fosberry was right—it was a great deal closer than the ground at the bottom of the hill.
Well, then. That answered that question, didn’t it? “Stay back, my lady. I’m coming down!”
“Wait!” Lady Fosberry was babbling something, a stream of incoherent words in a shrill, piercing shriek that carried through the darkness, but her voice was drowned out by another noise—the sound of a horse’s heavy snort, the squelch of hooves in the mud and… men, shouting?
Juliet wiped the rain from her eyes and squinted into the darkness, but once again a swatch of unremitting black met her eyes. Had someone come? Or, dear God, was she becoming delusional, like poor King Lear?
She crept closer to the edge, one tiny movement at a time, her heart pounding against her ribs at every infinitesimal shift of the carriage beneath her, until at last she was clear of the wheel, with nothing standing between her and the ground but…
Air. Empty, gaping, yawning space, a bottomless chasm.
Sweat trickled from her temple, and her hands… what was wrong with her hands? Her fingers and toes were tingling, her knees shaking, and her head, well, it didn’t feel right. It was too light for her body, and swimming with dizziness.
Oh, but heights were dreadful, terrible things! She’d never liked them, and she liked them even less in the dark, but the ground must be down there somewhere, mustn’t it? Just because she couldn’t see it didn’t mean she was about to leap into an abyss.
Did it?
“Wait, Juliet! Just another moment—”
Lady Fosberry was cut off by another sickening crack.
Was that the third spoke snapping, or the fourth? She’d lost count, but by the time she’d drawn another shuddering breath, it no longer mattered. The floor tilted, and then with a final terrifying groan, the carriage vanished from underneath her feet. She let out a breathless cry, cold rain flooding her mouth and numbing her tongue, but the wailing wind snatched it, and snuffed it into silence.
For an instant she seemed to hang in mid-air, legs flailing uselessly, black stars—was there such a thing? bursting at the edges of her vision, then she was falling, her lungs grasping uselessly for air, the ground rushing up to meet her. She squeezed her eyes shut, shattered bones and pools of blood etched on her eyelids…
But the ground wasn’tthere. Something else was in its place, something quick and powerful that plucked her from the darkness, closed around her like a vice, and jerked her from mid-air into a hard, solid wall.
“Juliet!” It was Lady Fosberry’s voice, high-pitched with fright. “Is she hurt?”
Was she hurt? She hardly knew. She tried to answer, to reassure her ladyship, but her mouth was clumsy, the words tangling in her tongue, and she couldn’t hear herself over the wind and the roar of blood in her ears, or see through the darkness and the streaks of rain in her eyes, and she was tired, so tired, her limbs weighted, sinking…
Then, blessed silence.
When she woke again, the wind was whipping around her in driving sheets, and water was trickling in icy rivulets down the back of her neck, but she was huddled inside something warm, and surrounded by the rich, dark scent of it.
A horse swayed beneath her, a pair of large, long-fingered hands gripped the reins in front of her, and Lord Cross’s voice murmured in her ear, his warm breath drifting over her neck, “Welcome to Steeple Cross, Miss Templeton.”
ChapterThree
One moment Miles was riding through the trees, squinting against the torrent of rain blasting into his face, and the next, a cold, wet, squirming lady had tumbled from the sky, and fallen right into his arms.
A second lady darted from the trees, streaks of mud and a bedraggled hat obscuring her face, but he would have known Lady Fosberry anywhere. “My lady, are you—”
“Juliet!” Lady Fosberry rushed toward him, features twisted and her face white with panic. “Is she hurt?”
Juliet?Surely, she didn’t mean…
