The weight lifted, and Clara was hoisted to her feet. Mr. Forrester’s arms clamped around her waist in a vicelike grip as he dragged her back to the shed. Up ahead, Mr. Theodore ran on, unaware he ran alone.No!
Regaining her breath, she let out a scream and swung her elbow backward, striking Mr. Forrester in the face. He cursed and retracted his hold.
Clara broke into a run, gaze fixed on Mr. Theodore, who now ran to meet her.
A hand snatched at her skirt, and she fell headlong as fabric rent. Mr. Forrester landed beside her in the grass, seething and clutching what had once been her pocket. She tried to get to her feet, but he lunged for her, hands grasping at her ankles. Her skirt. Her waist. She landed a few kicks, but she couldn’t break away.
“Unhand her!”
Suddenly, Mr. Forrester was removed, and Clara freed. She rolled over and witnessed Mr. Theodore landing a punch to her ex-fiancé’s jaw. Reeling backward, Mr. Forrester landed in the waiting arms of two policemen, backed by nearly a dozen other uniformed men.
Back at her side in a flash, Mr. Theodore helped Clara to her feet and held her steady with a hand on either shoulder. “Are you hurt?”
“I ... I’m just glad it’s over.”
“This is far from over, Clara! Do you hear me?”
A shudder provoked a wave of nausea, but Clara leaned into Mr. Theodore’s support and faced Mr. Forrester boldly. Blood trailed from his nose as he strained against the policemen’sgrasp. Dark eyes seared her with hatred, glowing like embers on the verge of bursting into flame.
As the policemen hauled him away, Mr. Forrester clutched the torn pieces of her pocket in fisted hands, determined to never let go. “Mark my words, Clara. You will see me again.”
CHAPTER
36
When masculinity donned the gleaming armor of protector and came to one’s defense, my but was it beautiful. And stars above, how it made one blush!
Clara sat before a looking glass, hours after being conveyed on horseback to the Gingerbread Gnome, and her cheeks were still flushed as though permanently stained. She had always considered herself a genteel woman with refined sensibilities. Never would she have thought herself capable of deriving girlish glee from a knuckle-cracking uppercut!
“Porcupine quills.”
Clara passed a few hairpins over her shoulder, eyes fixed on Mum’s dear reflection and heart overcome with gratitude. God had taken care of them all, and her shoulders had never felt so light. Mum handed the pins to Fred, who clasped them between his pointy teeth, holding them at the ready. She then proceeded to gather Clara’s hair into a low bun.
“Do continue, ducky. This story gets better with each telling, and this part is my favorite.”
“And here I thought your favorite part was when I fell into your arms and promptly burst into tears.” As any grown woman would upon being reunited with her mum after a traumatic interlude.
“I enjoyed that part too, of course. But ... I do so love fisticuffs! Tell me again how our Mr. Kingsley walloped that man.”
Mr. Theodore Kingsley. How well the name suited him. How taken aback she’d been to hear him reclaim it as the police escorted them to the Grande Île in a triumphal procession.“If I told you mysurname, I should want you to keep it too.”The hue of Clara’s cheeks deepened from rosy pink to crimson. At some point, she was going to have to reckon with this blush and the feelings it betrayed, but not yet.
At present, she just wanted to revel in the joy of this moment. “You should’ve seen Mr. Kingsley, Mum. He hauled Mr. Forrester off me as though he were nothing and then—thwack!—his fist struck with the force of a lightning bolt and felled Mr. Forrester like an oak.”
The pair laughed as Clara lowered her gaze to her skirt, and Mum secured the underside of her coif with more pins. Thankfully, Mr. Kingsley had recovered all the metal breadcrumbs she’d dropped, including her silver needle case with spare thread and tiny sewing shears, which Mum had then used to make quick work of mending the rips her traveling dress had incurred. With her reassembled chatelaine gleaming atop the brown corded silk, it looked good as new until compared with the pristine fabric of her reserve pair of cream-colored gloves.
She twirled the silver pen between her fingers. “Last night’s rescue would make for an exciting addition to a book, for it had all the makings of a swashbuckling adventure. When the police rallied around Mr. Kingsley, clapping him on the back like a band of brothers, he was the very image of a gallant knight of yore.”
“I don’t doubt it, ducky. I shall ever be grateful to our gallant knight and the Strasbourg police for rescuing my girl and bringing that man to justice.”
As would she.
“That man should be gratefulIwasn’t among your rescuers. If I had been, he would’ve suffered a worse fate than incarceration.” Mum stabbed pins into Clara’s hair with increased violence. “No, indeed. Instead of confiscating his pistol, I’d have put it to use. To think you could’ve been—”
“But I wasn’t.” Clara secured Mum’s shaking hand and met her eyes in the glass, noting the shadows beneath them. The tinges of red haunting the inner corners that evidenced an empty well of tears and a heart brimming with love. Clara prayed her words would douse any remaining cinders of fear. “I was never alone.”
A quiver unsettled Mum’s chin, and she nodded as if she’d known as much but was relieved to be told all the same. “Nor was I, ducky. Nor was I.”
Clara squeezed Mum’s hand three times.I love you.
