Claiming the Forbidden Bride

The height was not so great as he’d feared. Below him, caught in the slowly moving current, a foam of white petticoat was clearly visible. The girl’s long hair, darkened by its immersion, floated behind.

He examined the bank, desperately searching for a way down. There was none. Other than that which the child had just taken.

His searching gaze found her again in time to see her disappear beneath the surface. Without another second’s hesitation, Rhys jumped, following her into the water.

It was far colder than he had expected, even for September. He fought his way to the surface, the weight of his boots pulling against him.

As soon as his head broke free, he began to scan the surface. Kicking, stroking with both arms, unconscious now of the pain and the limited range of motion of the left, he kept himself afloat as he waited for the child’s re-emergence.

As soon as he’d spotted her, he began to swim. He had always been a strong swimmer, but as during that frantic race across the meadow, he felt as if he were making little progress.

The little girl was being carried downstream by thecurrent more swiftly than his one-sided stroke could propel him. If she went under again…

Frantic at that thought, he urged his tiring body to a greater effort, one he would not have believed possible only seconds before. There was no time to look for her. He swam by instinct, or by faith, and finally was rewarded.

The fingers of his right hand, extended to the limit of his arm’s reach, touched something, only to have it slip away from his grasp. In some diminishing corner of rationality, he knew that what he’d felt might have been anything. A broken limb or some other piece of flotsam.

If it were, then all was lost. The only chance he had to rescue the child was if she were indeed the object his hand encountered. He knew she would not surface again.

Trusting once more to his instincts, Rhys dove beneath the surface, kicking with the last of his strength to force his body deeper. He opened his eyes, straining to see through the silt, and caught a glimpse of something that glittered before him like threads of gold.

He reached for them, strands of her hair gliding through his fingers as she continued to sink. Desperately he closed his fist around a handful.

Once his hold was secure, he began the laborious process of dragging himself and the drowning child to the surface. Sunlight beckoned from above. The same glint that had warned him before of danger now offered the promise of safety. If only he could reach it and then fight the current to shore.

His head finally broke the surface, his mouth open to draw in a gasping, shuddering lungful of air. At the same time, he awkwardly manoeuvered the child’s body so that her face, too, was above the water.

She had appeared so small when viewed from above. Now her weight seemed more than his numbed arms and fading strength could manage.

He had come too far to turn back, he told himself, calling on the same determination that had seen him through every danger and deprivation the French could throw at him. He would get her out or die trying.

And he well might, he conceded, when his eyes found the nearer bank. The distance seemed overwhelming, as did the child’s weight.

He glanced down at her face. Translucent eyelids, through which he could see a delicate cobweb of veins, hid the blue eyes. The water spiked colourless lashes, which lay like fans against the paleness of her cheeks. Her lips, blue with cold, were open, but no breath stirred between them.

Rhys had seen death more times than he could bear to remember, but never that of a child. And despite the damning evidence before him, he was unwilling to concede this one.

If he hadn’t startled her, perhaps she wouldn’t have taken that final step toward the edge. Her death would be on his hands, something he was unwilling to live with for the rest of his life.

There was nothing he could do for her here. Her only chance—his only chance—was if he could get her to shore.

Lungs aching with cold and fatigue, he forced his damaged arm around the child’s midriff. Then he leaned to his right, almost lying on his side in the water. Using his good arm, he laboriously began to swim toward the bank.

The girl lay practically atop his body, but his hold on her was precarious. Several times he had to stop and grasp her more firmly around the waist. The second time he did, she stirred, coughing a little.

That small sign of life gave him a renewed burst of courage, and he continued to pull himself and his burden across the deadly swiftness of the current. He refused to look at the shore, afraid that the distance remaining would defeat the thread of determination, all that sustained him now. That and the thought that if he let this little girl die, her blood would be eternally on his hands.

He was almost too exhausted to realize what had happened when his hand made contact with the bottom. He turned his head and saw that only a few feet separated him from his goal.

He allowed his feet to drift downward, feeling the silt shift beneath them. Holding the girl now in both arms, he dragged himself from the water. Staggering under the weight of his burden and his own exhaustion, he had taken only a couple of steps onto the verge before his knees gave way.

He attempted to break his fall, but his left hand slid across the slick rocks, throwing him forward. Unable to use his right arm, which was still wrapped around the child, to cushion his landing, his temple struck one of the stones.

The girl he had carried from the water rolled out of his arm to lie beside him. Wide blue eyes, opened now and staring into his, were the last thing he saw before the world faded into oblivion.

Nadya Argentari watched her grandmother sort through the goods in the peddler’s wagon. The quick movements of her gnarled fingers expressed contempt for their quality, but the three of them understood that was part of the timeless ritual in which they were engaged. Items would be selected, bartered for and finally accepted with the same lack of enthusiasm the old woman displayed while assessing them.

Having watched this process a hundred times, Nadya lifted her eyes to survey the somnolent encampment. She realized only now that, while she’d been helping her grandmother, the sun had slipped very low in the sky.

Anis should have brought Angel home long before now. Almost before the knot of anxiety had time to form in her chest, Nadya saw the fair hair of herdaughter catch the dappled light under the beech trees as she and the girl who had been instructed to take her for a walk moved toward the centre of the Romany camp.

Nadya raised her hand to wave. Angel broke away from her caretaker, running toward her mother and great-grandmother. She threw herself against Nadya’s legs, burying her face in her skirts. Laughing, Nadya put her hand on the little girl’s head, running her fingers through the colourless silk of her hair.

‘Did you have a good walk?’ she asked, raising her eyes to the twelve-year-old who trailed behind her charge.

The older girl nodded, her eyes shifting quickly to the old woman, who was still occupied with her examination of the goods in the cart. ‘I need to help my mother now. If that’s all right, drabarni,’ she added deferentially.

Nadya was accustomed to such deference. After all, the Argentari were one of the kumpania’s most prominent families, and her own reputation as a healer was unsurpassed among their people.

Nadya had almost nodded permission before she began to wonder why the girl was in such a hurry to be away. Her earlier anxiety resurfaced, causing her to pry her daughter’s fingers from her skirt so that she could get a good look at the little girl’s face.

The smudges on Angeline’s dress and her disordered hair didn’t concern her. Released from the confines of the camp, her daughter tended to run wild through the fields that lay just beyond the great forest. Perhapsshe’d fallen, and Anis was afraid she would be blamed for the accident.

‘Did something happen during your walk?’

The older girl’s downcast eyes flew upward. Her mouth opened and then closed, but eventually she shook her head.

‘Then why are you lying to the drabarni?’

Until her grandmother’s question, Nadya hadn’t realized Magda was listening to this. She knew the old woman would be angry to have her bargaining interrupted. Still, Magda had grown to love her great-granddaughter with a fervour that almost matched Nadya’s own.

‘You think she’s lying?’ Alerted by her grandmother’s observation, Nadya examined the girl’s face.

Anis’s gaze darted from one to the other, but it was Magda she answered, as befitted the old woman’s esteemed position in the tribe. ‘Nothing happened. I swear it, chivani.’

‘Be careful what you swear to, little one. Tell the truth, and I’ll see to it that no blame comes to you.’

‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep,’ Nadya warned, kneeling to examine her daughter more carefully.

By now she had recognized that her grandmother was right. For some reason the girl who’d been instructed to look after Angeline was lying.

As Nadya put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, what she had failed to notice earlier became apparent. The child’s clothing was damp.

‘Why is this wet?’ she demanded.

Anis licked her lips. Her eyes moved again to Magda. Whatever warning or promise of succour she saw there convinced her to tell the truth. ‘Because she fell into the water.’

For a moment, the words made no sense. The only stream within walking distance ran through the small gorge it had cut into the chalk cliffs.