COLD. ICE TRICKLED through her veins and numbed her lips. It permeated every inch of her skin and seeped into her bones. Rose blinked sluggishly and gasped for breath. Gasped for breath—she could breathe! Her throat wasn’t crushed by her father’s hand, and she eagerly gulped in air.
Where was he? Where was her father? Rose stumbled and clawed her way along the wall, her fingers scrabbling for a hold to steady herself enough to run from this room. From her father. From the man who, she knew without a doubt, planned to kill her.
All James feared, all he’d ever said to her about his fears, was true. He knew and tried to warn her of this. Was this a warning from the past? Or her inevitable fate?
Robert continued to cross the room, each menacing step a thudding echo in the empty study. Rose stumbled and caught herself on the wall—the wooden wall, not the stone wall of the castle. Her tender wrist bent and she cried out, no longer caring if she showed fear or not.
He seemed oblivious to it, anyway, intent only on her. On his own anger, his own slights, his own revenge.
Rose blinked and saw not Robert but James. For a moment she thought he was there, in the study. That somehow Wilson or Mrs. Shelley found him and directed him to Robert Kendrick’s house. But then she felt the cold, fresh wind on her face, smelled the scent of decaying fields, of death and destruction, and experienced screaming hopelessness.
She was in Scotland.
Rose tried to turn, but had no control over her body. She looked down and realized she…hovered. Her body drifted several feet above the ground by the crag, the one she promised to meet James at, their crag, their special place.
James made his way down the rocky incline, haggard and worried and looking so much older, wearier than when she last saw him. She tried to call out, tell him what happened. Promise her love, that she didn’t forget him. No words emerged, no matter how she tried.
His redcoat was stained and torn, and his beard thick, as if it’d been days rather than mere hours since she last saw him.
Rose tried to follow, but it seemed her body obeyed an instinct or force beyond her. Then again, she was dead, was she not? Best not think on that, because she felt alive. And knew she was. Yes, she was, maybe not here, but she still lived.
James stilled, halfway down the incline. His fingers bled from the rocks and branches, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“No!” The ragged cry tore from his chest, a horrible, desperate sound that shook Rose to her core.
“James!” she tried to say. To shout, to gain his attention and assure him she was safe.
But then she saw what he did. That coldness seeped into her bones again, brittle and frail. Her chest tightened, as if a hand closed around her lungs. That was her. Her body down there. She couldn’t see her face, not clearly, the dark, matted hair covered once-delicate skin.
Rose knew. As surely as she knew the English soldier she saw was her husband James and the man who tried to kill her—had killed her—was her father Robert, Rose knew that broken body in the pit of the ravine was her own.
James said more and brushed the tangled hair off her face—no, not her. She was not dead in that ravine.
Rose swallowed, unable to tear her gaze from the sight below her. Of James so tenderly rocking her dead body. Pressing soft kisses to her bloody forehead. Gathering her into his arms and holding her tight.
“I shouldn’t have left you,” he said, the words drifting over the crag to where she hovered.
He moved, hugged her body closer. His fingers still brushed her hair so tenderly it broke Rose’s heart. “I should never have let you go alone, or at all. He wouldn’t have been able to find you.”
James pressed his face into the crook of her neck and cried. Even hovering so far from him, Rose knew he cried. “I promise I shan’t leave you again. I promise. I’ll keep you safe.”
She knew, without needing to see it, Rose knew James had never left that crag.
Tears clogged her throat and stung her eyes. Oh, James. She tried to breathe deeply, to swipe at the tears, but hadn’t a physical body.
Rose gasped.
And the room spun again. Robert continued to advance, furiously angry, murder in every step. His gaze locked on her, followed her as Rose inched along the wall. She needed to escape, to run no matter how her stomach rebelled or how the room spun dizzily.
Using her good hand, she grasped for anything to throw at him. Her fingers closed over an inkpot and she threw it at him.
Robert lunged and Rose dodged him. She refused to make the same mistake again and ducked, falling to the floor. Rose didn’t stop; she ignored the white-hot throbbing in her wrist and the sickening twist in her belly and crawled along the floor.
She grabbed onto the bookcase and used it to lift herself, keeping an eye on the steadily walking man, who she thought was her father, a man who was supposed to protect her and care for her.
“Stop this!” she shouted and stood, tangling her skirts. She ripped the beautiful green material and somehow made it to her feet. “I had no idea what James planned! Father!” she shouted, trying to snap him from this rage, even though she didn’t truly wish to have his attention on her. “How could you want to hurt me?!”
“You were the burden I carried,” he snarled and lunged again. “And now you’ve taken everything.”
She wasn’t fast enough. Robert moved with inhuman speed and rage that eclipsed all else. He pinned her to the wall by the door. She was so close to freedom, she almost tasted it. Rose thought about screaming for Sally, but knew the maid wouldn’t help her. She always cowed to Robert, she’d not help now.
Robert’s hands closed around her throat. She fought, pushed at him, scratched his face, kicked him, but he didn’t move, didn’t so much as budge.
“Rose!” James roared.
He stormed in like a whirlwind, rage and panic in his wake. Rose looked to him, or tried. James snarled, his face a twisted mask of fear and anger. He said something else, her name again, she thought, and physically pulled Robert from her.
He clamped his hands on the man’s shoulders and tore him away, tossing him across the room as if he were nothing. Rose gasped, her hands going to her throat, struggling for air. She sank to her knees, shaking, struggling for that air. For sanity.
“Never touch her again!” James ordered.
She blinked and thought she saw him in uniform—the bright red, the polished boots, the crisp, clean regalia of a soldier, not of a desperate man searching for his lost love. Rose blinked again and it was her James, her lover, standing between her and Robert.
Dressed in trousers and a dark coat, he did look like a soldier, his stance sharp and straight, his fisted hands at his side.
“James,” she whispered the word through a throat on fire.
He immediately turned to her, his face softening. She stumbled to a stand and he caught her, pulling her close. His fingers brushed her sweaty hair off her face, and his lips touched her forehead, her temple, her cheek.
“Rose,” he whispered. “Rose. You’re alive.”
She only nodded, unable to say anything, and hugged him. Safe. She was safe in his arms now, safe from her father.
Rose stepped back and looked at the man who was her father. His face twisted into animalistic rage, so terrible she didn’t recognize him. The sunlight glinted off a knife, and she jerked back. She didn’t scream, but James knew. He whirled and faced Robert, pushing her safely behind him.
Cradling her sprained left wrist, Rose stumbled back. Robert held a knife, ready to attack.
The intricate silverwork on the handle, the sharpness of the blade, she knew that knife; he’d had it forever. It was his favorite, he often said.
With steady hands, he swiped the knife at James. Her husband stiffened and bounced just slightly on the balls of his feet and waited. Rose once more felt for something to use, a book to throw or a candlestick. Robert lunged, startling her. He let loose a wordless howl and leaped at James.
Rose watched it, as if everything moved underwater or through treacle. Slowly, every movement played out before her. Robert lunged, the knife straight as he aimed for James. But James pivoted and easily caught Robert’s wrist with both hands and used Robert’s own momentum to twist the knife.
James stepped forward, still holding her father’s wrist. The knife plunged into Robert instead.
Suddenly it was over. Robert dropped to the floor, the knife he loved so much protruding from his chest. He gurgled and gasped for air. Rose tried to move, to go to him, but her limbs refused to obey.
He tried to kill her. Her own father tried to murder her. Had, she remembered, in the past. In that other life she and James lived.
Robert twitched, his legs jerking as blood pooled over his shirt, around the once beautiful silver-handled knife. She watched him, unable to go to him yet unable to look away.
“Rose.” James blocked her vision, his body solid and alive before her.
She looked up, relief making her dizzy. He pulled her to him, hugging her tight.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. His hands held her so gently and he cradled her to him as if afraid to hurt her. Afraid to break her. “I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry about your father.”
“It’s all right,” Rose whispered in assurance. She ran her hands over his shoulders and pulled back just enough to cup his face. “It’s all right, James. I did not know it was he who was mad.”
His gaze flickered over her face, landed on her throat. His fingers brushed, impossibly light, over the tender skin of her throat. “It should never have come to this.”
“James.”
A startled female gasp interrupted what Rose was about to say. She turned sharply, ready for she did not know what, but given all that happened since arriving here, she was prepared. Sally stood in the door, looking an odd mixture of horrified and calculating.
“You would have let me die,” she snapped at the maid.
“What could I do?” Sally asked in a panicked, high-pitched voice. “What could I do?”
“You can starve,” James snapped at her. “Leave this house with nothing.” He didn’t release Rose but turned once more so his body protected her. “Get out now.”
Sally didn’t move but paled and looked from James to Rose and back again. Her mouth was open, as if to plead.
“Get out now!” James shouted.
Sally jumped and turned from the room, running down the hall to the door. Rose turned to follow but James was there, gently helping her walk. She almost laughed at him and told him she was fine, but she didn’t want him out of her sight as much as he wanted her beside him.
Sally ran out the front door, fast as she could. Rose thought she might regret that later—the woman didn’t have so much as a coat or gloves. But right then, she didn’t. Sally always followed Robert’s orders, no matter what they were. She catered to him and fawned over him so much that it sickened Rose.
Now, knowing Sally was in the house this entire time but did nothing to help her, Rose did not feel regret. Only a tired anger that dragged her down.
“Let’s go home, James.” She looked up at him and managed a smile. “I want to go home now.”