He glanced at Elizabeth, who’d come down from the terrace to join them. “She’s not in the house. Judson said she’s probably gone down to the weir.”
Edward looked at Michael. “There’s a cottage—a retreat she often disappears to. She’s most likely there.”
“Or on her way there,” Elizabeth said. “She couldn’t have left that long ago, and it takes twenty minutes to walk there.”
Michael nodded. “I know the place.” He looked at Edward. “I’ll catch up with her. If she’s not there, I’ll come back.”
Edward grimaced. “If we find she’s still here, I’ll stay with her.”
With a salute for Elizabeth, Michael strode back down the lawn, then took the path through the shrubbery, retracing the route he and Caro had taken the day before. He reached the gate; it wasn’t latched. He’d latched it yesterday when they’d returned.
Going through, he strode quickly along the path. It didn’t surprise him that Caro had a habit of walking alone through the countryside. Like him, she spent most of her life in ballrooms, drawing rooms, and elegant salons; the sense of peace he felt when he came home, the blessed contrast, the need to enjoy it while one could, was something he was sure she shared.
Nevertheless, he would much rather she wasn’t rambling all alone. Not just at present, when he felt sure someone had designs on her life. Designs he didn’t understand; designs he absolutely could not allow to succeed.
He didn’t question from where the grim and steely purpose behind that “absolutely could not allow” came; at the moment, wherefores and whys didn’t seem that pertinent. The need to protect her from all harm was deeply entrenched, as if etched on his soul, an immutable part of him.
It hadn’t always been so; now it simply was.
Premonition stroked, chillingly cloying, again; he strode faster. Cresting a rise, he saw her, clearly visible in a pale muslin gown, her nimbus of fine hair glinting in the sunshine as she strolled across a meadow some way ahead. She was too far away to hail; she walked steadily on, looking down.
He’d expected to feel relief; instead, his instincts seemed to tighten—to urge him to hurry even more. He couldn’t see any reason for it, yet he obeyed.
A little further on, he broke into a loping run.
Regardless of his insistence on watching over her, his rational mind did not expect another attack, not here on Geoffrey’s land. Why, then, was his chest tightening—why was apprehension filling him?
He was running when he broke into the final clearing—and saw, across the meadow, Caro halfway across the narrow bridge. She was still steadily walking, looking down. Smiling, pushing aside his distracting premonition, he slowed. “Caro!”
She heard. Straightening, lifting her head, she turned, reached for the handrail as she grasped her clinging skirts and flicked them about. She smiled in glorious welcome. Grasped the rail as she released her skirts and raised her hand to wave—
The handrail broke. Fell away as she touched it.
She valiantly tried to regain her balance, but there was nothing to clutch, to cling to.
With a faint shriek, she toppled from the bridge, disappearing into the swirling mists boiling up from the racing waters funneling through the narrow gorge, hurling themselves into the deep waters of the weir.
His heart in his throat, Michael sprinted down the meadow. Reaching the bank, he frantically searched, simultaneously hauling off his boots. He was shrugging out of his coat when he saw her surface, a bobbing white welter of muslin skirts flashing into sight at the mouth of the weir. Her silk-fringed shawl dragged at her arms as she struggled to raise them, to stroke, to float.
The rushing current pulled her back down.
She was not a strong swimmer; the current, fueled by the torrents gushing past either side of the island, was sweeping her into the weir.
He dived in. A few swift strokes brought him to where she had been. He came up, trod water, trying to glimpse her, to more accurately gauge the current’s direction. The undertow was ferocious.
She resurfaced, gasping, some yards farther on. He plunged back into the swirling waters, went with the tow, added his own powerful strokes to it—glimpsed a murky whiteness ahead and lunged for it.
His fingers tangled in her gown. Grabbing, grasping, he closed his fist about a handful—remembered just in time not to yank. Wet muslin would simply tear, rip away; desperate, he lunged again, touched a limb—latched his fingers around her upper arm and locked them.
Battling the powerful undertow, he fought not to get swept further into the convergence of the two arms of the stream. There, the water churned, its force powerful enough to pull him under, let alone her.
She was exhausted, gasping, fighting for breath. Steadily, he pulled her to him until her clutching fingers found his shoulders, until he could wrap one arm about her waist.
“Easy. Don’t thrash!”
She responded to his voice, stopped flailing, but gripped him harder. “I can’t swim well.”
There was panic in her voice; she was battling to contain it.