After a quick peek out the window to see if it was still raining – it was, great angry buckets of it – she pulled on elbow length gloves, a pair of sturdy boots, and a navy blue pelisse with sterling silver buttons that would help ward off the chill of Scotland in early spring.
She woke Tabitha with an apologetic smile and together the two women finished packing up their belongings for the long journey back to London.
The last place in the entire world Charlotte wanted to be was stuck in a carriage for hours on end with Gavin, but since there was no getting around it, she supposed there was no use complaining. At least Tabitha would be there to act as a buffer, and when they dashed through the rain to the waiting coach she made certain it was her maid, not her husband, who sat beside her.
“I hope it does not rain like this all the way to London!” Tabitha exclaimed as the carriage pulled forward and the driver roused the team of matching grays into a bouncing trot.
Thankfully the quality of the vehicle was quite high, and in addition to being large enough to fit triple the amount of people currently occupying it, the suspension was impressively smooth. No expense, Charlotte noted as she took a quick look around at the satin lined interior with its plush cushions, gold tasseled window curtains, and mahogany lining, had been spared.
“I hope it does not either.” Slowly pulling off her hat – it was soaked all the way through to the silk lining – she set it beside her and leaned forward to peer out the window. A gray landscape greeted her, the rolling hills blanketed by a thick fog and the sun no more than a faint glimmer of pale yellow in an otherwise cloudy sky. “It appears as though it very well could. I hope the horses do not mind the rain.”
“They appeared to be strong Scottish stock,” Tabitha said. “I am certain they are used to it.”
From his seat directly across from them, Gavin looked up from the collection of papers he was studying, a faint line of irritation creasing his brow. The sleeves of his white linen shirt were rolled up past the elbow and his brown trousers were thoroughly wrinkled at the knee, making Charlotte wonder how long he had been in the carriage before they arrived. “Do you mind keeping your voices down?” he said curtly.
Tabitha’s narrow face flushed with color and she immediately mumbled an apology but Charlotte, never one to overlook rudeness no matter the source or the reason, leapt readily to her maid’s defense.
“She was making a simple observation,” she told him sharply. “If you wanted to read you should have done so before we left. Carriage rides are for watching the scenery and conversing with friends and—”
“Idle gossip between women who have nothing better to do? Tell me, could you even read if you wanted to?”
Tabitha gasped.
Charlotte, who had been expecting an insult in some form or another – Gavin had been bristling with ill temper from the moment they climbed into the carriage – did not so much as blink. “My father was often foul mouthed in the mornings as well,” she recalled. “I fear most men, being naturally disposed to a lazy nature, do not fare well before afternoon tea. And yes, I know how to read.” Reaching out she snatched a handful of papers off his lap and proceeded to recite the first paragraph flawlessly. “Would you like me to repeat it in French?” she asked sweetly. “Or perhaps Italian? Or maybe” – her eyes narrowed – “I should toss it out the window all together.”
She meant the threat as an idle one, but Gavin must have believed her fully capable of it for he lunged forward and grabbed her wrist. Tabitha shrieked, and even Charlotte flinched at the fierceness of his expression.
“Let go,” he growled.
Charlotte let go.
Gavin did not.
Their gazes locked and Charlotte became uncomfortably aware of how near their bodies were. His knee was pressed between her thighs. His fingertips still lingered on the curve of her wrist. He was so close she could see the wild leap of his pulse and she thought: this is not a man unaffected by me.
Then he was back on his side and she remained on hers and the empty space between them might as well have been a ten foot wall. She turned her head aside to stare out the window; he returned to his reading, and not another word was spoken.
Charlotte jerked awake when she felt the ground beneath her rumble and buck. Before she had time to brace herself or even cry out she was thrown up in the air as if she were a rag doll and landed hard on her side.
Shaking her head to clear it and drawing in a ragged breath, she struggled to make sight and sense of where she was and what had happened.
It seemed as though the world itself had been spun on its head, leaving only chaos and confusion in its wake. In the distance she thought she heard someone shouting, but the noise was drowned out by the humming in her ears and the pounding of rain on the roof.
No, not the roof, she corrected herself dazedly. The roof was no longer the roof. The floor was no longer the floor. She must have dozed off, and sometime between falling asleep and her abrupt awakening the carriage had upended itself in a ditch and was now laying crippled on its side.
“Gavin!” she cried, fearing for his safety even as she assessed her own. She was wedged in a corner, pinned between the door and the seat, and even though she could freely move her upper body and arms her legs were caught beneath something quite heavy.
Squinting through the shadowy darkness she gasped in horror when she saw it was Tabitha who was sprawled face down across her calves… and it did not appear as though the maid was breathing.
“Tabitha! Tabitha, can you hear me?” Still unable to lift herself free, she reached as far forward and she could and just managed to grasp Tabitha’s shoulders. Not knowing what else to do she tried giving the maid a quick shake, but it was not enough to wake her.
“HELP!” she shouted desperately, tilting her head back. “SOMEONE, PLEASE HELP US!”
There was no reply. Fighting back the panic that threatened to roll over her in a black, all consuming wave, Charlotte closed her eyes and offered up a fervent prayer.
She had heard of this happening before, of course. Carriages were notoriously unstable things and it did not take much to send them careening off the road, especially during a heavy rainstorm. But to hear second hand of something happening and then to actually experience it were two very different things and as the minutes passed by and help did not arrive, her anxiety and fear started to build.
Curling her hands into fists she began to pound against the side of the carriage in a desperate attempt to draw outside attention, stopping only to try to rouse Tabitha, whose face and arms had turned alarmingly pale. The maid’s teeth were softly chattering and her lips were the slightest shade of blue. When Charlotte touched her skin she found it cold, but as she looked helplessly around the overturned carriage she found there was nothing within reach she could use to keep Tabitha warm.
She tried to take off her pelisse, but it was twisted beneath her and since she could not stand it was impossible to remove. Grinding her teeth in frustration, she began to strike at the mahogany paneling in earnest, crying out for help as loudly as she could until her voice was nothing more than a hoarse whimper and her hands were numb, the knuckles bruised and bloody.
Then, just as she was about to give up all hope of rescue, Gavin appeared.
Like some avenging angel he wrenched the door open and shoved his upper body through, bracing both arms to keep himself from falling inside. Above him the sky was an angry, swirling mix of dark blues and purples. Rain lashed out, pummeling his shoulders and sluicing through his hair. There was dirt smeared across half his face and a cut that dripped blood above his right eyebrow. One of his shirt sleeves was ripped above the elbow, exposing a long gash in his forearm.
He certainly looked worse for wear. Charlotte had never seen a more handsome man in all her life.
He bellowed her name, flinging water as he tossed his head left and right.
“Here!” Realizing he could not see her given the angle of her body in relation
to the door, she waved her aching arms high in the air. His head swung around and she knew the exact moment he spied her amidst the calamity inside the overturned carriage for his eyes widened and his entire body went rigid.
“My God, are you hurt? Do not move,” he ordered. “I am coming down.”
Did he think if she could move she would remain pinned in a corner?
She considered saying as much out loud, but then thought better of it. Now was not the time for sarcasm. Later, she decided. Later when she was warm and safe and dry she would be sarcastic all she liked and Gavin would simply have to deal with it.
She tipped her face up and guarded her eyes from the rain with her hand as he began to ease himself through the door, lowering his massive body inside inch by precious inch. But he had not gone more than a foot when the carriage gave way with a heavy groan and began to slide, eliciting a startled shriek from Charlotte and a biting curse from Gavin.
“The ground is too unstable for the rig to take my extra weight,” he shouted down to her.
“I – I rather gathered that,” shr said weakly.
“You will have to give me your hand and I will lift you out.” He gritted his teeth and reached down with his left arm, the muscles bulging and twisting as he stretched as far as he could, but Charlotte shook her head and grasped Tabitha’s shoulders protectively.
“No, no I cannot! My maid… She… I think she struck her head. She is unconscious and must be carried out. You… You will have to try again. Perhaps if you go more slowly…”
Gavin’s jaw clenched. “Charlotte, if I move any further, the carriage will slide again.”
“So let it slide!” she cried.
“We are resting on the edge of a cliff.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Oh. That does not sound very good.”
“It is not very good at all.” Rain continued to lash at Gavin’s back. In the distance thunder boomed, an ominous warning the storm was only growing worse. Undeterred by the elements, he gave an impatient toss of his head to clear his vision and flattened his stomach out along the edge of the doorframe, stretching his hand towards her yet again. “If you could reach me, I can pull you out and—”
But Charlotte was already shaking her head. “No, that will not work. My legs.” She gestured helplessly to her lower limbs, which were still pinned beneath Tabitha’s unmoving body. “I cannot move. You have to get her out first.”
Now that she knew the true danger of their predicament, the panic she had managed to suppress returned in spades. It clawed at the edges of her mind, urging her to thrash and kick and fight to free herself, but she knew any movement at all could be enough to send the carriage tumbling over the edge into an endless abyss.
Keeping one arm on Tabitha, she wrapped the other around her middle in a vain attempt to stop the sudden trembling that had overtaken her body and closed her eyes.
“Gavin, I am afraid,” she whispered.
“Open your eyes, Charlotte.”
She shook her head with a whimper.
“Open your eyes, damn it, and look at me!”
Reluctantly she blinked the rain from her lashes and stared up, up, up to where Gavin hovered above her. With his torn shirt, long hair dropping water, and dark features illuminated by bolts of lightening that had begun to streak in silvery bursts across the sky he looked like a savage warrior of old, and all at once a sense of calm descended over Charlotte and she knew, as surely as she had ever known anything, he would not let any harm befall her.
Mustering all of her remaining courage, she managed a tentative, trembling smile and Gavin nodded his approval.
“There is my brave girl. I will be right back. Do not move.”
He was leaving her? “Wait!” Without thinking of the consequences, she jolted forward. The movement was slight, but it was still enough to send the carriage sliding a few more precious inches through the muddy soil. Charlotte froze, her heart pounding with fear, and when the bulky rig groaned and settled back into place without toppling over the edge of the cliff both she and Gavin breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
“Do not do that again,” he snarled. “Do you understand me?”
“I – I won’t.”
“I have to find something to pull Tabitha up with and then I will get you out.” His eyes were dark and fierce and he was staring at her with such a burning intensity she felt the heat of his gaze as though she were touching an open flame. “I swear to you, Charlotte. I will get you out.”
“I believe you.” In that moment she would have willingly followed him through fire if he asked it of her. Still, the time with which he was gone was the longest of her life and she nearly wept with relief when at last he reappeared and began to lower a long, skinny piece of black leather into the carriage.
She grabbed at the end of it once, twice, and managed to secure it the third time. The leather was slick with rain and smelled of mud and… horse?
“What is it?” she yelled up to Gavin who was once again braced in the doorway with only his upper torso and long arms visible.
For the first time it occurred to Charlotte if the carriage shifted he could easily slide off the top of it and meet his death at the bottom of the cliff. She blanched, her pulse quickening as she began to imagine one grisly ending after another.
“A trace,” Gavin shouted, wiping the rain from his eyes with one hand and holding fast to the end of the leather with the other. “From the harness. Do you see the buckle on your end?”
The heavy brass fastening was impossible to miss. “Yes! Yes, I see it.”
“Good. See if you can wrap the trace around Tabitha, right under her arms, and buckle it as tightly as you can. I will lift her up, and then you will do the same for yourself. Do you understand?”
He was going to pull them out of the carriage one at a time with a piece of harness? Leather stretched when it was wet. At least, she thought it did. What if the trace stretched and snapped while she was dangling in midair? What if it slipped from Gavin’s hands entirely? This was his grand plan? It was suicide!
“Is there any rope?” she called up hopefully.
Gavin shook his head and grasped his end of the trace with both hands. His jaw was set, his expression determined. “Do as I say, Charlotte, and be quick about it. There is no telling how much longer the ground with hold.”
The man certainly knew how to build a girl’s confidence.
“I can do this,” she muttered to herself. “I can. I can do this.” Sweeping her wet mass of curls over one shoulder, she leaned as far forward as she dared and began to carefully loop the trace around Tabitha’s body. The leather was surprisingly pliable and she was able to slip it beneath the maid’s shoulders and buckle it snugly under her breasts.
Poor Tabitha was still unconscious, but her chest was rising and falling at regular intervals which Charlotte took to be a good sign.
She whispered one final prayer and then could only watch as Gavin pulled the trace taut and began to lift Tabitha slowly but surely from the depths of the wrecked carriage.
When it was her turn she buckled herself so tightly it was difficult to breathe, and kept her eyes pinched shut from the moment she felt her feet lift off the floor to the moment she felt Gavin’s arms wrap around her. They slid onto the muddy ground together before Gavin plucked her up and cradled her firmly against his chest as one would a child.
“Tabitha?” she asked, twisting in his arms to catch a glimpse of the maid. “Where is she?”
“She’s safe. My driver is with her. There is an inn a short distance from here and—”
Gavin’s voice was drowned out as the carriage, with a sharp groan and protesting rumble, began to slide in earnest. Charlotte gasped and buried her face in her husband’s wet chest, unable to watch as the carriage disappeared from view over the edge of the cliff and splintered with a crash of wood and screech of metal on the rocks below.
“Everything is fine,” Gavin murmured, drawing her even closer and cuppi
ng the back of her head. “An outrider has already been out and a coach is on its way. They have a room and food and a fire prepared for us at the inn. A doctor will be there as well to look at your maid.”
Charlotte burrowed into his warmth with a whimper of relief. He felt so good, she thought. Safe and strong and secure. “Thank you,” she whispered, her voice so soft she doubted he would hear, but his arms tightened and she felt his smile against the top of her head.
“You are welcome,” he said simply.
Turning so she could look up at him, she saw the cut above his brow was still bleeding, the red turning to rust as it slid down the side of his face and dripped onto his shirt collar. “Put me down.” Fretting, she said, “If you are injured I am far too heavy—”
“You are light as a feather. I could carry you anywhere.”
Stubborn man. “Not anywhere,” she sighed. Her eyelids were becoming extraordinarily heavy, as were her limbs.
And yet, even though it was still raining and the sky was still booming with the sound of thunder she felt completely at ease in Gavin’s arms, as though she were a tiny bird that had finally managed to find its nest amidst the storm. “You could not carry me back to London.” She felt as much as heard his chuckle, and it roused a sleepy smile from her lips. “What is so amusing?”
“I could say the sky is blue and you would argue it was bright orange, wouldn’t you?”
“Well, sometimes it is… bright orange,” she said with a yawn. “At sunset it turns orange and pink and purple.”
“You need to rest.” Carefully combing her hair back from her forehead, Gavin pressed a soft kiss upon her temple. “There will be plenty of time to disagree with me in the morning.”
Charlotte did not want to fall asleep. She was loath to give up control, especially when so many things still needed to be done. But she was so very tired… and so very comfortable… that when she closed her eyes for only a moment, sleep came instantly.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Charlotte woke to a great weight across her chest.
The Runaway Duchess Page 11