Bexley-Smythe Quintet 02 - Rhyme and Reason Read Free

only. But they’ll understand. Won’t they?”
    I hope they’ll understand . The time for regrets was long past, however. Mattie was well ensconced in North Yorkshire, and Freddie, Edie, and Mama had traveled to Surrey with Monty to be with Georgie for her lying in.
    She regretted that she couldn’t be with Georgie as well, but Mama and all her sisters had insisted Mattie must go. “What other chance will you have to possibly make a match?” they’d said. “You must go. And you must do anything you can to make a match.”
    They had been right. So she’d come.
    And now, here she was.
    The limestone cliffs angled down toward the water at a steep slope. “Let’s go a little closer to the edge, shall we?” Mattie ignored Lizzie’s sounds of protest and made for the cliffs.
    How often in one’s l ife could one see such a sight?
    She had every intention of experiencing every bit of freedom this time away from Percy and the scandal perpetually following in his wake would allow. Heaven only knew what was in store for them all in the not-too-distant future.
    After walking right up to the very edge, Mattie strained her neck and looked down just in time to see a giant wave crash against the rocks beneath her. The spray from the water flew up into the air, so high she felt like she could reach her hand down and touch it.
    “Milady?” Lizzie’s timid voice trembled through the air between them. “Not so close, milady. You might lose your footing.”
    She’d always been fairly sure-footed, so she paid the maid’s complaints little heed. There was truly something very freeing about standing above the vast expanse of water in such a way. Still, Mattie turned her head to look back, a smile upon her face she was powerless to stop. “Heaven help me if I do,” she said on a laugh.
    Then she saw the sheer terror etched into every line of Lizzie’s face. The girl must be petrified of heights. Or maybe it was the water that scared her. Either way, she had remained quite a good distance behind. Mattie immediately regretted her jest.
    Lizzie blanched further, her already pale face turning such a stark shade of white it was a wonder she could have any blood in her body, her fingers so tight around the parasol’s handle she was liable to break it in two.
    It wasn’t like Mattie to make light of another’s concerns. Gracious, but all this business with Percy had started to change her , and not in a good way. “I’m so sorry, Lizzie.” She turned around fully so she could return to the frightened maid, leaving the ocean at her back.
    “Damnation, Danby!”
    The curse that ripped through the air startled Mattie so much she jumped. Her half-boot slipped against the limestone. She felt herself falling before her mind caught up and recognized what was happening, and a scream which might have been her own cut through the subdued sounds of water crashing into rock.
    “Milady!”
    Mattie’s nose and forehead slapped against the rock beneath her even as the weight of her body pulled her backward.

 
    The lady—whose maid was too distraught to do anything but stand in place and scream—was drifting backward along the limestone. The force of gravity threatened to pull her down the massive drop to the ocean. By the time Thomas reached her, her feet and legs (all the way to her knees) had slipped past the edge of the cliff.
    Thank heaven her torso remained solidly on the rock.
    He dropped to his knees and pulled her into his arms lest she slide further down . The maid blessedly stopped screaming, watching his every movement in abject horror. The lady in his arms moaned slightly—a good sign—but her eyes were closed tight and a small stream of blood trickled from her right temple, staining the blonde ringlets of her hair.
    Once the maid’s eyes fell upon the blood, her screams began anew in earnest.
    Thoma s spared the maid a brief glare and then checked her mistress for other injuries which might not be so readily apparent.