In an inebriated fog, he gouged his fingernails into the splintered edge and held on—shoulders overextended to the point of pain and legs flailing wildly. Sharp pelts of rain sobered him enough to react. He caught the rope with his ankle and managed to ease it over and grasp it. Friction burned his palms as he descended.
Lightning lit up the surroundings the instant his boots met the ground. The silhouette awaited him, beckoning in the direction of the peat bogs. Nick nearly laughed at the irony of it all. A month ago, he would’ve followed the butterflies anywhere—especially into death. But now he valued life enough to hesitate.
Impatient, the ghostly image motioned for him to follow. Nick sensed desperation in its persistence. His gaze flitted to the tombstone in the distance. Jasper hadn’t come back from the dead for nothing. He was trying to tell him something urgent.
Against his reservations, Nick complied … mud sucking at his heels as he sprinted into the forest’s looming depths.
Tree branches scored Nick’s shirt as he lifted his arms to protect his face. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry to escape Felicity tonight in the kitchen, he might’ve remembered his rifle-frock coat.
The whiskey’s warmth had long since dissipated in the downpour, as had its numbing effects. Moisture seeped from his hair to his shirt’s neck, inching across his glass-sliced nape like icy snails. Shivering, he folded up his collar.
His throat scratched, dry from heavy panting. He flitted out his tongue to sample the rain gathered on his lips then continued onward. With each step, his soles tugged against the suction of mud, leaving behind a muck of fallen leaves and heavily scented pine needles. Soggy, foot high grasses reached for his shins. They clung like spindly-fingered children frightened by the storm. His wounded thigh ached with the battle to move forward.
Darkness coated the wooded landscape, deep shadows compounded by heavy trees overhead. The canopy blocked any light from the clouded sky.
He had no idea where he was headed. He’d trekked through the sludge for what seemed an eternity. His body was weary, his head spun—disoriented by the lack of light and alcohol. But each time he lost his way, all he had to do was stop and wait. The ghost … Jasper … whatever his guide was, would shove him from behind with a gust of wind.
At last Nick plunged through a fringe of low hanging moss. Lightening rippled through the clouds. In the blink of light, his guide vanished on an explosion of shadows. At the same instant, Nick caught sight of a thousand pale specks floating in the puddles all around, as if it had snowed.
Upon another lightning flash, it registered.
Forget-me-nots.
Jasper had led him to the bog where he’d hiked with Felicity and the girls earlier today. The rains had washed the flowers from their field and deposited them all about the flooded surroundings.
Here in the clearing, the sky opened. The cloud-draped moon shimmered, casting a bluish haze over everything. Nick could recognize shapes … forms. One in particular startled his breath to stall: a four-legged beast grazing far to his right.
Before he could register what kind of animal it was, a faint, mewling cry lifted from the bog. A boom of thunder muffled the sound, so loud it jolted Nick’s heart to pound again—a rampant drumbeat in his chest.
Shivering, he waited, hoping he’d imagined the sound in his drunken state. Praying he was wrong …
Then he heard the cry once more, louder this time. The animal to his right nickered as if acknowledging a familiar voice, revealing itself.
Butterscotch …
“God, no. Lia!” Half groaning, half yelling, Nick bolted to the bog’s edge. Impossible. She could never have found this place alone.
Mortification knotted in his throat as he remembered Felicity’s point that the pony would always know the way to the bog now that it had grazed here.
The memory of Lia’s last words scored his soul: This is my fault. My wish was bad! It was bad!
That’s what she’d meant. She blamed herself for Nick’s fight with Landrigan. And she’d come to stop the badness—to take back the napkin with her wish in it … whatever it was.
No. No!
Rain slammed his face. Lightning torched the sky and revealed a tiny blonde head, trying to stay afloat in the peat bog amidst thousands of severed forget-me-nots. His muscles tensed, ready to dive in.
Quicksand…
Felicity’s warning came back and stalled him. He had to be smart. To do this right. Or he’d be no help at all. His fingers gouged into his temples. Lord, why couldn’t he remember her instructions?
Shaking off his dizziness and cursing the whiskey for thickening his thoughts, he called Lia’s name again.
Her answering cry—weaker now—was the only incentive he required. His pulse raged and he sobered immediately.
“I’m coming, angel!” What was it Felicity had told him? Find nearby vegetation attached to solid ground. No jerky movements. Lie flat with your limbs spread wide.
“Grab onto something sturdy! Pretend you’re a water bug, Lia. Do you hear me? Spread out your arms and legs. You’re a water bug!”
A wailing sniffle answered and he thanked God she was somehow managing to stay afloat enough to breathe.
Though he could barely make her silhouette out for the rain and shadows, he waded into the icy depths in the direction of her whimpers. He kept up a stream of constant chatter, his voice gentle in hopes to soothe her, knowing if she struggled she’d get drawn in deeper.
When the frigid depths deepened and the bottom sucked at his feet, he filled his lungs and allowed his legs to drift upward in an effort to float. The stench of stagnancy overwhelmed. Wetness seeped into his clothes and the tiny blue flowers clung to his face and neck. He felt his way with his hands much like Felicity had with her feet, grabbing nearby vines and vegetation connected to mats of solid ground to drag himself along the water’s surface.
The rain started to pound harder, slapping the water in a steady rhythm so he had to strain to hear Lia.
Several consecutive blinks of lightning lit up the scene and he saw her hanging onto the very tree that once held her wish at its tip. Its mat had fallen over—a result of the rising water.
“Good girl! Just keep holding on, little water bug.” He was almost close enough to touch her now, and his every nerve jumped in anticipation. To embrace her. To keep her safe. That’s all that mattered.
At this proximity he should be able to see the glitter of her eyes as her lashes fluttered upward, to see splotches of mud upon her tiny face. But he could only see a bush of matted hair interspersed with soggy forget-me-nots.
“Lia … look at me, child.”
For some reason, she wouldn’t turn her head.
“M-m-mister S-s-sir,” she sobbed and shook simultaneously. Poor little sprite had to be freezing.
“I’m right here.” He clasped at a sturdy mat about four feet away then cast out his free hand, gulping a grateful breath when her cold, pruned fingers clasped his. “Let go of the tree now, baby. C’mon. Come to me.”
“I c-c-can’t! M-m-my hair…” She sobbed again.
Nick bit back a curse. That’s why she couldn’t turn her head. Her hair had tangled in the branches. The memory of her asking to wear it down tonight taunted him. He tried to draw her closer … to pull the tree his way, but it was embedded by its roots.
He considered the knife in his pocket. He could cut her tangles loose. But to get to her, he’d have to relinquish his grasp on solid ground. And if he joined her on the tree, it might sink beneath their combined weight.
Thunder clapped overhead and the horrifying image of his stillborn son, blue and breathless, stamped his brain. He would not let Lia die alone like Christian had. He would not let her die at all.
Turning loose the grounded mat, Nick drifted to the whimpering child.
Her icy body clasped him when he joined her at the tree. With one arm he looped the spiky trunk, and with the other enfolded her.
Her tremble
s shook his body.
“Shhhh. I’ve got you now.” He spoke into her knotted hair to shush her cries and tasted the slime and putrid mud coating the strands. Pity engulfed him for all the terrors she’d faced this night. “It’s all right, tiny beauty. I won’t let you go.”
And I will never leave you.
She managed to slant her face enough to grind her nose into his neck. Her hot tufts of breath warmed his freezing blood. “I d-d-don’t want to be a w-w-water bug anymore.”
Surprised by the untimely humor in the statement, he smiled bitterly. His eyes burned with tears. Grateful she couldn’t see them, he forced his voice to be strong. “All right. But for us to get out of here, I have to cut your hair with my knife.” Remembering how she’d witnessed his rage tonight, he worried she’d resist. “Do you trust me to do that?”
Face still pressed into his neck, she nodded and sniffled “You’re the p-p-prince. Auntie’s hero…”
Though the words razed his raw heart, her faith gave him hope. But that hope was short-lived, for the tree started to sink the instant he drew out his blade.
Chapter Thirty-five
Nick was determined to beat the odds.
The rain hadn’t let up. Wavelets licked his shoulders, rising too fast. He tilted Lia’s side of the sinking trunk so it would buoy her out of the water.
He couldn’t acknowledge the hopelessness. That even once he got the child free, they had little chance of escaping the bog. Most of the mounds of land he’d used to draw himself here were treading water by now.
Gravely, he sawed at Lia’s beautiful hair, cutting as close to the branches as possible. With little visibility, he took extra care to slant the blade away from her. When she’d whimper from the pulls at her scalp, he’d stop and give her quarter for no more than a moment’s breath, knowing that each such hesitation cost them precious time.
His fingers grew numb, making it difficult to be accurate. He was finishing the last clump, sawing the blade back and forth, when a splitting sound erupted over the raindrops. It started as a whispering hiss beneath them then escalated to a popping snap all around. Shivering from the cold, he sliced the last of Lia’s hair free, dropped the knife, and tightened his grip around her waist.
“Hold your breath!” He shouted just before the tree trunk buckled in half and the side they held plummeted into the water. Icy depths submerged and separated them.
He lost the knife as Lia’s chilled fingers clawed at his body. Blindly he tugged her to him as he kicked his legs, propelling them upward. He broke them out, but Lia leeched onto him and acted as an anchor. They only surfaced long enough to grapple some air before being pulled under again. The descending tree’s branches caught his feet, towing him down.
Dark dread cloaked his thoughts. He had to get Lia above the surface or she’d die. Fighting every urge to inhale water, he pried her off of his torso and guided her upward, helping her settle on his shoulders. Her pant legs bunched his nape and billowed around his face in the current. Holding tight to her ankles, he managed to wrestle his legs free of the branches just as the trunk met the bottom and jolted to a stop.
By some miracle, the busted tree landed perpendicular and Nick balanced precariously on its jagged tip. Fully submerged himself, he lifted Lia high enough out of the water so she could angle her nose and catch breaths. The current’s undertow threatened his stance. His lungs curled and wilted, craving oxygen.
The knowledge he was going to fail her severed deep.
Just when he started to fade away and lose balance, Lia’s legs tightened around his neck, as though she reached for something. He felt her being lifted. Half-dazed, he kept hold of her ankles, and upon emerging, gasped for precious breath. His lungs ballooned and inhaled—hungry for life.
Blinking wetness from his eyes, he could see them being dragged toward the bank. Though the image blurred, Felicity’s voice rang loud and clear. Lanterns lined the embankment. Everyone was here—Felicity, Binata, Clooney, the stable hands, Cook, even Donal—towing on the line that Lia held tight in her little hands.
Soon, he and the sprite were pulled into the shallows and aground.
The stable hands and Donal lifted Nick onto the banks and rolled him to his side. Water and sludge spewed up from his lungs with hacking coughs. Clooney and the others tended to Lia who wept hysterically, caught somewhere between elation and horror.
Amidst the fuzz of oxygen-deprived thoughts, it registered Felicity had somehow used her whip to ferry them out. Everyone else had formed a chain with their bodies to extend it far enough. Pale blue flowers clung to his rescuers’ drenched clothes in tribute to their efforts.
Everyone started bustling around him and Lia—wrapping them in blankets and holding up lanterns to check for wounds. Nick glanced up as Felicity turned from the child momentarily, her face lit by the soft glow.
“Her hair,” his voice came out in a coarse whisper. “Was tangled. Had to chop it…”
Felicity nodded and knelt beside him, her once lovely dress streaked with mud. The sleeves must’ve torn in her battle to get here through the clutching trees and they fluttered about her shoulders in the wind, like wings.
No other woman but his bride could make rags look like the raiment of a butterfly.
Tears streamed her cheeks … or was it rain? In a knee-jerk reaction, he started to wipe them away. Felicity caught his hand, sandwiched it between both of hers, and pressed her lips atop her knuckles. After one long, gasping breath, her shoulders began to shake with shuddering sobs—and he knew she’d held strong for everyone and only now could let her defenses down.
In a dreamlike stasis, he pulled her closer and rubbed his mouth across her hands. Her wet skin tasted like salt and honey.
Gratitude bridged her gaze to his, so sincere and beautiful every bit of residual anger shirked from its presence. How could he blame her for her choices? Now, more than ever, he understood with cutting clarity the lengths a person would go to protect a child they loved.
“Thank God for you,” she whispered, stroking his face from his temple to his jaw. “Thank God for you.”
The numbing fog started to lift, and reality overtook. He sat up, allowing Felicity to help him stand.
Tobias, Fennigan, and the Irishman were off in the distance rounding up the hobbie.
“Donal…” Nick said. “He’s helping?”
Felicity glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the bog pony’s stubborn whinnies. “After you left the castle, he broke down in the parlor. I suppose Lia’s attention at the gate affected him deeper than he expected. Or perchance you knocked some sense into him. He’d never realized how deeply he was hurting the children by hurting me. He told his aunt of his efforts to poison my passions vines and scare me with a snake. Even admitted the other schemes he’s been behind. Could be he thought you might let him live and still have partial ownership of the bogs, were he to come clean. But there was some sincerity there, for when we realized Lia was missing, he insisted he help in the search.”
“How did you find us?” Nick asked.
She peeled some flattened forget-me-nots from his neck. His skin buzzed everywhere she touched and he had to step back. He wasn’t ready to act on the intensity of his feelings for her. His emotions were too raw, too fresh to trust just yet.
Felicity looked down and crushed the blue petals between her fingers as he withdrew. “Lia wasn’t in her bed,” she answered, a tremble in her voice. “She’d tucked pillows beneath the covers to make it appear she was. We looked everywhere for her. But when we arrived at the stable and found Butterscotch gone, we knew. It made sense that she’d come here for her wish.”
Weakened by his fight with the bog, Nick struggled to hold balance against weighted legs. He studied his wife’s wrinkle-free face, surprised she would let everyone see her bared in such a way. Then again, circumstances had warranted expediency. He craned his neck to look over Binata and Clooney who were bent across the child, tending to her.
&
nbsp; The rain had finally ceased, and the sound of the ocean could be heard in the distance over the drips which fell from the cliffs and forest trees. But he couldn’t pull his attention from Lia and her quiet whimpers.
Felicity’s fingers tightened on his arm for support. “She’s going to be fine. You saved her life. You’re her hero. How did you know, Nick?”
He stiffened, suddenly remembering what led him here. “Your … brother…”
Felicity’s eyes widened but before she could respond, Clooney lifted Lia and walked over. The child yawned and buried her face in the old man’s neck. Her hair stuck out in a cropped, haphazard mess all about her head, and Nick fought a pang of remorse for those shimmering strands floating away in the bog. Truth was, he felt worse for that loss than his own knife.
In his mind’s eyes, he saw the child vividly as she’d been this morning—spirited and spritely. Not once in the past month had she looked haggard like she did at this moment. “I should carry her.” He tried to step forward but tottered, unsteady. Felicity caught his elbow.
Clooney shook his head. “You’ve done enough tonight, Son. You’re just as worn as her. Need to get you both to bed. Get you warm. You should walk only with help.”
Fennigan offered a shoulder for Nick to lean on and he reluctantly accepted. Tobias took the other side, giving support for the hike back. Donal walked ahead with the pony in tow.
“Aislinn.” Nick had just realized she wasn’t there. “Where is she?”
Felicity fell into step beside him as they ducked through the moss and into the shadowy depths of the forest, following Clooney and the others who were now out of earshot. “With her father. And as you’ve already met informally … it’s time for a proper introduction.”
Nick had been prepared to meet a ghost. Not a living, breathing man.
The Glass Butterfly Page 36