Lord Perfect (The Dressmakers 3)

He might as well deserve it.

He grabbed her arm and dragged her away from the stairs and toward the nearest opening between the trees. “Run!” he shouted. “Just run!”

THOMAS WAS RUNNING down the path. Benedict started after him in time to see Peregrine grab Olivia and plunge into the woodland to their right: the lake side of the hill. The steepest side.

Benedict could hardly believe his eyes. “Stop!” he roared. “Are you mad?”

The children didn’t stop.

He quickly calculated the best angle for intercepting them, and charged into a narrow path nearby. . . . With any luck, he’d catch them before they got far.

He heard the hunting horn’s blare.

The signal, summoning the other men from all parts of the estate.

Benedict didn’t pause.

“Olivia!” a voice cried.

Bathsheba, calling her daughter.

Benedict didn’t look back or waste breath telling her to stay where she was.

He pushed past branches and leapt over roots.

The ground was slick with fallen leaves and pine needles. He ran, wishing she wouldn’t run, too, yet knowing she would.

Please, don’t fall and break your neck.

As he raced down the slope toward the lake, the pathway narrowed, the forest giving way to shrubbery nearly as tall and much denser.

“Peregrine!” he shouted. “Olivia!”

No response.

Evil children. When he got his hands on them—

“Olivia!” came Bathsheba’s voice again from somewhere behind him.

He ran on. The rain beat down now and the curst path twisted and turned, but in the wet it offered surer footing than the children would have among the trees and undergrowth, where wet leaves and pine needles carpeted the sloping ground.

Curse the brats! When I catch them, I’ll throttle them.

That was his last coherent thought. His toe caught on a gnarled root, and Benedict pitched forward.

PEREGRINE HEARD THE shouts behind him.

He heard Olivia, too, panting behind him, so close she was.

A part of him wanted to stop, but another part wouldn’t, couldn’t. He kept on, though he was wet through, and he’d lost the path. It was harder here, because there were fewer trees and more shrubs. The low branches grabbed his clothes and slapped his face. He kept running.

Then he saw it: an opening, at last.

He burst through it—and saw, too late, the short, steep embankment and the swirling water below. He grabbed for a branch, but his feet slid out from under him, and he tumbled headlong down the slope.

“Olivia!” he shouted. “Look out!”

His hands and feet skidded over the slick mud of the embankment, and he plunged into the rushing water.

RUNNING ONLY A few steps behind Peregrine, Olivia heard his cry an instant too late. She was already stumbling after him, arms flailing. As she slid over the edge of the embankment into the water, her hand struck something rough and thick, and she caught hold and held on tightly with both hands.

“Help!” she screamed. Icy water swirled around her, tugging at her, while the rain beat on her head and her hands, which were turning numb. She saw Peregrine thrashing in the water while the current carried him away.

“Lisle!” she cried. “Peregrine!”

His head went under the water.

THOMAS ARRIVED A moment after Benedict fell. The footman hauled him to his feet.

“Mrs. Wingate?” Benedict gasped, brushing muddy leaves from his face. “Where?”

“Caught her dress on a bush,” Thomas said. “I begged her to stay there and show the way to the others. Then I run off before she could say no.”

That was when they heard Peregrine’s shout. Olivia cried out an instant later.

The two men hurried downward, toward the sounds.

Benedict stumbled through the bushes and out onto the path along the embankment.

No Peregrine.

An instant later, the pale head popped up, and Benedict’s heart began to beat again.

“Help him!” came a cry from his right.

He turned that way, and saw the girl, clinging to the branch of a fallen tree.

The rotten tree had caught on something. That was why she wasn’t yet drifting down the waterway after Peregrine. The boy, meanwhile, was struggling against the current.

“He’s tiring, sir,” Thomas said.

Another fifty or more yards and he’d be tumbling over the cascade . . . and breaking his neck, if he didn’t drown first.

Benedict’s gaze shot to the girl. Any minute now, the swollen river could carry away Olivia’s tree.

“I can swim it, sir,” said Thomas.

“No, keep to the lake path and go to the cascade,” Benedict said. He pointed. “Try to stop him going over. I’ll come as soon as I ca

n.”

Even while he spoke, he was climbing down the slippery embankment and making his way along the water’s edge toward Olivia.

Thomas set off at a run toward the cascade.

“Not me!” Olivia screamed. “He’s going to drown!”

Benedict stepped down into the water and continued toward her. Though bitter cold and thick with mud and debris, this part of the stream was not as deep as he’d feared. It rose no higher than his waist.

Still, the current was surprisingly strong, forcing him to move more cautiously than he wanted. It seemed to take hours to cover the few yards to the girl.

“Not me!” she screamed. “Not me! I told you!”

“Hush,” Benedict said. He prised her stiff fingers from the tree branch, dragged her up into his arms, and staggered back to the embankment. He hoisted her up and set her down on the wet ground.

“Are you hurt?” he said, trying not to gasp.

“N-n-no,” she said through chattering teeth. “I t-told you. Get him.”

She was soaked through. Rivulets of water poured down her face. She was shaking in every limb. And furious.

She was so like her mother.

“Stay,” Benedict said. “Stay right here.”

“Yes, yes, only go, please.”

Benedict went.

BY THE TIME Benedict caught up with his footman, Peregrine had drifted dangerously near the cascade. The water here was over his head. He was trying to swim, but he was too tired—or hurt or both—and the current carried him on toward the cascade, not a dozen yards away.

Thomas was already starting into the water. Benedict went in after him. “M’lord,” Thomas protested.

“We need to make a chain,” Benedict said.

He didn’t have to explain.

Thomas moved deeper into the water. Grabbing his hand, Benedict pushed on toward his nephew. Each step took him deeper, the water rising to his shoulders. The current tried to pull him off his feet, but Thomas kept him steady.

“Peregrine!” Benedict stretched out his arm. The boy grabbed for his hand, missed, tried again.

The second time his fingers caught, and clung to Benedict’s.