No rush. Never hurried. One small step at a time, steady and sure.
Behind him, the squall drew steadily nearer; the light started to dim.
He slipped on a patch of seaweedy slime he hadn’t been able to see against the wet rock. He swung over the gaping hole-if he fell, he’d be swept into the chamber to a certain death. For an instant, he hung, fingers aching, muscles screaming, then he searched and found another toehold, and steadied.
He didn’t think of anything but Jacqueline. Just her. Not what was going on above his head, but the feel of her in his arms, the scent of her in the night.
Spray and spume surrounded him; the roar in the blowhole chamber was gaining in intensity. He shut his ears to it, thought of Jacqueline’s laugh-he hadn’t heard it often enough yet for either of them to die.
What will be will be.
He clung to Timms’s message like a promise, closed his mind to the pain in his wrists and grazed palms. Didn’t think of the gashes on his feet, across his fingers.
Beneath him, the sea surged and crashed, demanding his attention, demanding he stop and look down. He ignored it and climbed.
The edges were more jagged the higher he went, less worn by the waves, sharpened by the wind. Clouds had blown in and now covered the sun; the wind freshened further, hurling froth and lashing the waves. He was soaked to his thighs, and was starting to lose sensation in his feet, but he was almost there.
Almost at the point where the vertical face ended and the rock curved toward its flattened summit. The first gradual slope would be the most crucial; he wouldn’t be able to stand until he reached more level ground nearer to the blowhole, but throughout he’d be exposed, visible to those watching, and to Jordan if he turned around.
He was almost surprised to find himself lying prone, catching his breath on the top of the rock. He’d kept his head down; he hoped no one had yet sighted him. Drawing in a steadier breath, feeling his heart slow to a more normal rhythm, he focused on the discussion taking place mere yards away.
It had reached its culmination.
“Enough!” Jordan sounded harassed. “Just write a straightforward pledge, nothing fancy, stating you give Hellebore Hall and the entire estate to me, now, as of this date, that you promise that Jacqueline will marry me, and that you swear I’m not guilty of killing Thomas Entwhistle, Miribelle Tregonning or Millicent Tregonning.” Jordan paused. “Just write it!”
No one moved; no one spoke.
Gerrard risked lifting his head.
Just as Jordan lost patience. He swung Jacqueline out over the edge-her feet left the rock and she shrieked. She clutched at Jordan’s arm around her waist; he drew her back, but left her teetering on her toes, wholly dependent on his arm to keep her from sliding to her death.
“Now,” Jordan snarled, “are you going to start writing?”
Gerrard rose into a crouch. All the men arrayed about the rock facing Jordan saw him. His eyes locked on Jordan, he crawled swiftly forward, until he was on sufficiently level ground to stand.
For one instant, he remained still, gathering every ounce of strength he had left, gauging what he needed to do.
Cyclops’s eye was two yards wide, black and gaping. Jordan stood to one side with his back to him; he held Jacqueline balanced precariously over one sloping edge. She, too, was facing the other way. Even as Gerrard watched, there was a roar from beneath, then Cyclops spewed froth and water up and out over the rock, covering Jacqueline’s ankles.
The salt water stung his cut feet. Her slippers were soaked-she’d have no purchase at all.
Any second Jordan was going to notice the direction of many of the men’s shocked gazes.
Barnaby shifted, mouth opening, but Sir Vincent beat him to it. He tapped Mitchel on the shoulder. “Here-I’ll kneel down. Rest the paper on my back and write what he wants.”
“Just get on with it.” Jordan spoke through clenched teeth.
“The deed first.” Barnaby looked at Lord Tregonning. “What’s the legal name of the estate?”
Jordan looked at Lord Tregonning, then looked further. His head moved as he scanned the faces.
He started to turn, to glance behind.
Gerrard exploded into a sprint, then launched himself in a flying tackle across the open hole.
Jordan saw him; stunned, he swung to face him-and let Jacqueline go.
She screamed, twisted as she started to slide.
Gerrard slammed into her.
He grabbed her about her waist, yanked her to him and let his momentum carry them on.
Jordan lunged for them, stabbing with the knife-missed.
Gerrard juggled Jacqueline as they fell, cushioning her against him as they landed heavily and skidded across the stone.
They were facing the hole when they landed. Both saw what happened next.
Jordan had assumed Gerrard would come for him. He’d braced, then, realizing his error, lunged forward to strike at them. Too late.
He overbalanced and toppled into the hole.
They saw his face as he went in, eyes wide, incredulous that any such fate would come to him.
His mouth opened in a scream, then he was gone.
The scream abruptly cut off, smothered beneath the cauldron of surging waves in the blowhole chamber.
For an instant, there was no sound beyond the crashing symphony of the sea and the eerily distant call of gulls.
Then exclamations exploded all around. Men rushed onto the rock, clustered around the hole. Someone called for rope, but they were a mile from the house.
Lying on their backs on the rock, catching their breaths, Gerrard and Jacqueline sensed the gathering roar before anyone else. They turned their heads, met each other’s eyes, then Gerrard reached for her, wrapped her in his arms, kissed her temple.
She clung, wept, relief and joy, sorrow and loss intermingling.
He held her close, then slowly gathered himself and rose, lifting her with him as the roar built.
And broke.
Water gushed five feet above the hole as all the men leapt away.
“Good God!”
“Dear Lord in Heaven.”
Numerous other horrified exclamations fell from shocked lips as everyone stared at the small fountain. At what it contained.
A high-pitched, unearthly scream rang out. Eleanor had fought free; she raced out onto the rock.
She flung herself at the hole.
They caught her, restrained her.
Jacqueline’s last sight of her was Eleanor kneeling, keening as sea-water stained with her brother’s-her lover’s-blood spread out on the rock about her.
The squall hit, raged briefly, then swept on, leaving them and the gardens drenched, cleansed. The majority trudged back up the paths, shaking their heads, shocked but relieved.
Gerrard’s feet were so badly cut, he couldn’t put on his boots, much less walk back to the house. He sat on the rocks edging the rising bed bordering the path.
Jacqueline crouched before him, examining the damage. “I can’t believe you did this.”
She repeated the horrified comment three times, increasingly choked, before Sir Vincent, one of the gentlemen discussing Gerrard’s predicament over his head, bethought himself of the rowboat in the next cove. Matthew volunteered to hie over and row it around; Gerrard decided he would have to appreciate Matthew and Sir Vincent as they deserved from now on. Richards left to saddle up a steed to carry him up to the house once they reached the cove.
Jacqueline, of course, took charge.
She’d been horrified by the state of his feet; when she saw his hands, when he winced as she turned his right wrist, the one he’d landed on, she was so upset she couldn’t speak-not even to upbraid him.