“Charlotte!” Even his shout died in his throat, ineffectual.
It was rare that he experienced the sensation of true helplessness. In fact, he couldn’t recall feeling it since he’d been a boy of seven years old.
He’d known even then, he didn’t like it.
He’d resolved to never, ever feel that way again.
And here he was, watching Charlotte Highwood race toward disaster, powerless to do anything but watch.
The mare, it turned out, didn’t want to make the jump any more than Charlotte did.
The horse skidded to a halt on the far bank. Charlotte, however, kept moving. The momentum catapulted her over the horse’s head in a cartwheel of dark velvet and golden hair. She landed headfirst in the stream, making a prodigious splash.
Piers pulled his gelding to a halt. He held his breath, waiting for her to emerge onto the bank.
An eternity passed in every heartbeat. Emotions exploded inside him like buried grenades. Anger, confusion, fear, despair. Everything he’d sworn to never feel again.
His mind shattered into bleak fragments, and each one was edged in blood.
She’s hit her head on a rock. She’s broken her neck. She’s drowned.
She’s gone, she’s gone.
You can’t do anything.
She’s gone.
A few moments ago, Charlotte would have said she’d rather be anywhere other than on the back of that dratted horse.
She would have been wrong.
Being on the dratted horse was better—marginally—than hurtling through the air like a cannonball.
And both those things were better—considerably—than being plunged headfirst into a swift, icy stream.
The water helped break her fall, and she was lucky enough to avoid striking her head—but she banged her shoulder hard against the rocky bank. The emerald-green velvet riding habit she’d been so enamored with in the London dressmaker’s shop acted like a sponge, soaking up all the water in Nottinghamshire, it seemed.
Within the space of a moment, she was disoriented, chilled, swollen to twice her size, and generally feeling like a drunken whale.
Eventually she managed to get a foot under her, brace it against a stone, and flex her leg muscles enough to stand.
She drew a gasping breath.
Then the moss made her slip, and she lost all the ground she’d gained, finding herself submerged to her ears once again.
The rushing water carried her downstream, introducing her to a boulder with a helpful smack.
Ouch.
In retaliation, she clung to the rock with both hands, using it to catch her breath. She’d stopped drifting, but she wasn’t gaining any ground, either. And the water was chilling her further by the second. Her fingers began to numb, and her legs felt heavy.
She would have to make her escape soon, or she’d end up floating all the way to the sea.
She braced her feet beneath her, flexed her arms, and made a lunge for the bank.
Her fingers scrabbled and slid over loose rocks and clumps of turf. The stream’s current tugged at her skirts, tangling them into a knot about her legs. She kicked to little avail, struggling for the leverage to push herself out.
She dug her fingernails into the dirt.
Come on then, Charlotte.
A large, gloved hand gripped her wrist.
The hand’s owner pulled her out.
She emerged from the water slowly. Not by choice, but by necessity. The sparkling green velvet had become a choking mat of seaweed. Her hair was plastered to her face in stringy clumps, obscuring her vision.
And it made perfect, tragic sense when she made her ungainly collapse on the grassy bank, parted the slimy curtains of her hair, and blinked away the remaining river water to take a look at her rescuer to find—
Piers.
“Of course,” she muttered between labored breaths. “Of course it’s you.”
“You don’t seem happy about it.”
She looked down at herself. There was no fetching mermaid or selkie to be found in this scene. No painted Ophelia, clasping her hands at her breast as the waters claimed her with poetic dignity. Charlotte looked as though she’d been tied to the keel of a ship, dredged up and down the Thames a few times, and then left to the eels and barnacles for a year or two.
And he was gorgeous, naturally. Not a knight in shining armor, but as close as a modern girl could find to it. He practically gleamed in his fitted black riding coat, buckskin breeches, polished Hessian boots, and a cravat of crisp white.
His hair was perfect.
It all made her suddenly, irrationally vexed.
“Are you injured at all?”
“I’m fine.”
He offered a hand. “Let me help you stand.”
“I don’t need help. Just leave me be.”
“I will not leave you be. You were thrown from a horse and nearly drowned. You’re chilled, alone, possibly injured, and your mount is on the other side of the stream.”
“Thank you, my lord, for recounting every facet of my mortification so efficiently.”
She pushed herself to her feet, plucking clumps of moss from her riding habit.
His tone gentled, and he put a hand to her waist. “Charlotte. Allow me to—”
She bristled way from him. “I can’t. It’s what she expects, don’t you see?”
“What who expects?”
“Frances. She hates me. She gave me that demonic horse.”
Charlotte flung an arm in the direction of Lady. The dappled gray mare was currently chewing clover in a picture of rustic tranquillity.
“Well, she looks harmless now. But I tell you, she’s possessed.”
“Yes, I saw,” he said.
“I know you did.” She disentangled a dead leaf from her hair.
Charlotte knew she was being churlish, but she couldn’t help it. Everything had gone all wrong. She’d abandoned Delia. She’d discovered a critical error in her investigating. She’d made unwanted romantic advances toward a local widow. Now she had little hope of ever finding the mystery lovers, and even if she could—it wouldn’t matter how long she traveled the world. Women like Frances would never let her live down the Desperate Debutante. They would keep needling, keep whispering about her, even if—no, especially if—she appeared in London married to Piers. Charlotte told herself she shouldn’t care about gossips, but it was all so demoralizing.
“Let’s return to the manor. We can both ride on my gelding.”