Matilda did not go alone. As she had done when she’d set off for St. James’s Park in the middle of the night, she brought two grooms and a footman. Most of the searchers had come back, she realized, when she went out to the stables and found them crowded anxiously together, rubbing down the puffing horses.
Almost all. Christian and the groom he’d taken with him had not returned.
It was bitterly cold; she was swathed in wool—stockings and gown and cloak—and the chill still crept beneath, finding the edges of her gloves and the bare tip of her nose. They carried lanterns against the dark and walked their horses down onto the beach, shouting Christian’s name into the wind.
It carried their voices away, and Matilda felt furious and afraid.
He was searching, of course. He would not give up searching until he found Bea. He would be so relieved when they discovered him and told him that all was well.
She tried to fix her mind on that as they searched and shouted: the solace she would bring him, the half-smile that would light his face.
And then they found Findlay, Christian’s young groom, stumbling down the beach, his head bare and his trousers sodden to his knees.
For the first time, Matilda felt terror in a fist around her lungs.
She dropped the reins of the horse she was leading and ran. She was at Findlay’s side in a moment, clutching his gloved hands in her own. “Where is he?” she demanded, and then, her words tumbling over each other, “Are you well? Is he well?”
“Aye, miss,” said the groom, “he’s alive—but his horse, she fell in the flats—went lame—the great fool, he said he wouldn’t leave her there—”
Matilda’s eyes burned. It was the wind, she told herself. The wind, and the cold.
She could picture it—the horse down on her knees in the frigid salt water of the sand flats. Christian’s mad, stubborn refusal to leave the animal behind.
“I told him I’d go for help,” Findlay said. His voice was hoarse—perhaps he too had been shouting. “We’re not far—but damn fool that I am, I tripped on some rocks and went down on my way back.” He gripped her hands. “Got turned round. We’re not far though.” He looked behind him, his blue eyes tearing, his disorientation apparent. “I don’t think we’re far.”
The other grooms had caught up now, leading her horse with theirs. She passed the dazed Findlay to the footman with hurried instructions to take him home and get him warm. To the other grooms, she related Findlay’s information.
The taller groom nodded. “The sand flats, aye. We’re close. If he’s not too far in, he’ll be able to hear us soon enough.”
Matilda wanted to ride. She wanted to gallop headlong in the direction of the flats, wanted to find Christian and drag him back to the house herself.
But she forced herself to walk with the others. She forced herself to stay quiet and listen for Christian’s voice in the dark, for movement in the bright circles that spilled from their lanterns.
When they reached the sand flats, Matilda shuddered. It was too dark to see well. They sloshed in and out of shallow tidal pools, and the stinging water went straight through the lace-holes in her boots.
They shouted his name. “Ashford!” called the grooms. “My lord!”
“Christian,” Matilda called.“Christian!”
Until finally he answered.
The echo of his reply was so faint, they almost didn’t hear it. Matilda’s ears picked out the sound even as she saw a hint of movement in the darkness. She shushed the others frantically, and they all listened hard. Matilda pointed in the direction where she thought she’d seen movement, and they moved steadily toward where she pointed.
She heard it again. A rasping voice, muttering her name. And then, as if his voice had summoned his image into being, she saw him.
The horse was down on her side. Christian had obviously tried to push her and pull her back out of the mucky, icy sand, but she’d had none of it. He was on the ground too, his shoulder pressed against the horse’s sweat-dark flank. His eyes were closed.
Matilda threw herself at him, heedless of the water in her boots and the wind that burned her cheeks. She went down onto her knees, her dress sodden and heavy now with salt water and precipitation.
“Christian,” she gasped out. “Oh, thank God. Thank God you’re all right.” Her hands were on his shoulders, his face, combing his hair back from his face. She kissed him, and then drew back with a start. His lips were stiff and ice cold.
He did not move or speak as she pulled back from her abbreviated embrace. His eyes fluttered open as she watched.
“Christian.” She cupped his face in her hands.
He looked at her, looked hard into her face. And then he smiled.
It was a sweet, wide smile. She had never seen him smile like that, happiness undiluted by loss or pain or fear.
