Prince of Ravenscar (Sherbrooke Brides 11)

“What do you mean? What happened to her?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? She caught a putrid inflammation of the lung and died. I believe it was soon after Lily died. There is so much death in the world, don’t you think? I’m very glad I’m not dead.”

Leah nodded numbly. She couldn’t look away from the pale-faced woman in the mirror. She again met Vicky’s eyes in the mirror. “It must have hurt Richard very much to believe his best friend killed his sister.”

Vicky shrugged, lightly tugged a small curl out of the braid to pull it down along Leah’s cheek. Then she studied the braid, pulled down another bit of hair on her other cheek. “That softens your face, but it is a pity you don’t look as fine as Lily did without the dangling curls. What did Richard really think of the prince? They were close, I suppose, but it was Lily who held Richard’s heart.”

Vicky leaned close. “Do you know, Richard always believed Lily the most beautiful girl in the world? And perhaps that is why he never allowed himself to really see other ladies, you know? But now here you are. You are the first.”

67

The two women stood atop the cliff, watching Julian and Devlin make their way down the path. The rain had stopped, but the footing was treacherous.

“It’s not really a path,” Roxanne said. “It’s so dangerous, and Devlin is still hurt.”

“I don’t care if we have guns or not,” Sophie said. “Those men chasing you—surely they must realize they can’t get to you now.” They saw the men’s indecision, then all three of them turned and ran back up the beach toward the upward path.

“I don’t think Julian and Devlin can catch them. Oh, no, Devlin slipped. Thank goodness Julian caught him.”

Sophie turned and pulled Roxanne close. “We were so worried, so scared, but Devlin said you were smart. He said it over and over, he knew you would manage to get yourself free. But how did you get up that path when it isn’t a path at all?”

“I prayed,” Roxanne said. She kissed Sophie’s cheek and pulled away to look down at Julian and Devlin. They’d stopped halfway down the cliff, staring after the retreating men. Then they turned and began the climb back up.

Roxanne said, “I know where the cottage is. I think we can beat them back there, because that’s where they’ll return, since they left their horses there.”

Julian helped Devlin to the top of the cliff. He threw back his head and laughed. “I heard you, Roxanne. Let’s end this, ladies, once and for all.” Then he stopped cold, saw they were all soaking wet, Roxanne’s hair in wet ropes down her back. She was shivering, so pale he thought she’d surely drop into a dead faint. Sophie looked drowned as well, her heavy clothes weighing her down, her hair straggling down her back from beneath her scarf. But there was such fury and determination on her face, he knew if he said anything, she’d very likely try to hurl him off the cliff.

Devlin was looking even paler than Roxanne, yet he was shrugging out of his cloak, wrapping it around her.

Roxanne looked at him even as she felt the warmth from his cloak sink through the wet material to her skin. “No, this isn’t right. You were hurt, Devlin, you must—”

Devlin lightly laid his fingertips over her mouth. “Hush, dear one. Do you wish to show us the cottage, or do you wish to stand here arguing with me?”

“Let’s go.”

It was only a ten-minute ride back to the cottage. How could that be, Roxanne wondered, when she had run for so very long?

“It looks as if we’ve beaten the men back,” Julian said. “Roxanne, you and Sophie see if there are any more weapons inside. Devlin, let’s take care of their horses. We must hurry.”

It required only five minutes to walk the three horses, one of them a very fine Thoroughbred, a goodly distance away from the cottage and tether them in a copse of maple trees.

“I found this,” Sophie said, and showed them a pistol.

Julian took it, saw it was loaded.

Roxanne said, “There was nothing else. Listen, I hear them coming. I still can’t remember where I’ve heard the one man’s voice, but he is educated, unlike the other two.”

They raced across the clearing to huddle down behind some thick yew bushes.

“It ain’t fair, jest ain’t fair.”

“Shut yer trap, Crannie, if only ye’d tapped the little pigeon ’arder, she wouldn’t ’ave escaped.”

“Ye were saying I ’it the littl’ gal too ’ard!”

“I can’t believe she gots ’erself through that window, thin as a sliver of ice that window is. I saw ye looking at that window.”

“Both of you, be quiet.” Roxanne saw the third man was well dressed, unlike his compatriots, in buckskins and a long cloak, and he carried a gun in one hand, a riding crop in the other. All of them were soaked to their bones.