The woman’s thick gray brows drew together. “A few hours perhaps. But it shouldn’t be so hard to find her. She left with a great, silent, bearded fellow. On foot. They can’t have gone far.”
Chapter 10
They could not find Matilda.
Henry gripped the reins of the stolen gelding and squeezed his knees into the horse’s flanks. The motion brought his thighs tighter around Margo’s lush hips, but he forced himself not to focus on the sensation.
Darley Dale was just at the southern end of the Pennines, and the land here was wilder than he would have expected. The rolling hills had quickly shifted to barren stretches of moorland and rocky outcroppings made of limestone and shale.
Mrs. Turner, the tavern keeper, had told them she was certain Matilda and Ashford had not taken a horse or coach. Margo had demanded to know whether Matilda had seemed frightened or out of sorts, but Mrs. Turner had shaken her head. “Wanted Chelsea buns,” she said, “but took my caraway buns in the end.” One corner of her mouth lifted. “A high-spirited lass.”
Margo’s hands had been in fists on the table. “And you don’t know where they were going?”
Mrs. Turner gave an apologetic shrug. “I did tell her of a waterfall near her. Maybe three miles’ walk, but it’s hard going in the High Peak. Might take her an hour or more to get there.”
So they’d set off for the waterfall, having no better direction. It had not been easy travel even on horseback, and Henry found himself growing increasingly concerned. A picnic sounded a pleasant enough interlude—but would they truly have walked so far just to eat caraway buns?
“Surely it must be that way,” Margo said, tugging on his right jacket sleeve. He looked in the direction she indicated.
“What makes you say so?”
“The sheer power of my futile hope?”
Henry sighed and turned the horse. He knew all about futile hope and the impossible imaginings it engendered. “Good enough for me. I think there’s a trail there, near that pile of rocks.”
They found the path, though the uneven ground soon forestalled riding. Henry looped the horse’s reins around a stubby hawthorn tree, and they continued on foot. The trail, flanked by gorse and a few scraggly larches, wound down into a little valley. As they descended, the track grew increasingly sheltered by trees, and Henry caught the sound of water.
“Do you know,” he said, “I think you were right.”
She laughed, but to his carefully Margo-calibrated ear, it sounded forced. “What an event! It’s like an eclipse. Or a duke marrying a seamstress. Rare enough to be worthy of a proper headline.”
“Margo—”
But they’d come around a stand of birch trees and found the waterfall. Four separate columns of froth spilled down into a rippling cove, its water clear enough to see the flat rocks and pebbles and scattered leaves at its base. Everything was sun-dappled, shades of white and gray and brown, and Margo’s hair was a beacon for the light.
There was a blanket, spread across a large rock near the foot of the waterfall. On it lay a traveling pelisse, a man’s hat, an empty wine bottle, and the remains of several caraway buns.
“Matilda!” Margo gasped, and then she raised her voice in a shout. “Matilda!”
She shouted twice more, but her voice died beneath the headlong rush of water.
Henry raised his voice to shout as well, but it was useless. The waterfall drowned out their voices. Margo clutched his hand, and the feeling of her palm in his—the cool firm pressure of her fingers—rooted him to the spot.
“You don’t think—she’s—fallen in the water, or—”
“I don’t think she’s fallen in the water.” He squeezed her fingers. Her eyes were big and blue and endless, her mouth caught in a frown. “I think she had a picnic here with Ashford. I think they’re probably somewhere nearby.”
She kept her hand in his while they circled back through the trees and down the path. He didn’t let her go.
They searched and shouted, but found no trace of Matilda or Ashford. It seemed absurd, impossible. Where could they be hidden?
Eventually, Margo bit her lip and pulled him to a halt. “I think we should split up.”
He shook his head, an instinctive denial on his lips before she had even stopped speaking. “It won’t—”
“Please, Henry,” she said. “We can cover twice as much ground. We’re so close—we’ve nearly found her. Wemustfind her, before it starts to grow dark and she heads back to Darley Dale—or worse, leaves altogether. Please, just—do this one last thing for me?” Her fingers were still tangled with his. “This is the final thing I’ll ask of you. I promise.”
He was helpless to deny her. He didn’t even need rain to push him into capitulation. “All right. Meet me back at the waterfall in thirty minutes.”
