Charlotte was fast—much faster than Jasper could have expected. Had this been the foot race of their wager, Jasper might have admired her form. Under those circumstances, he might have called out some provoking remark about unfair starts and unmarked courses, and the disgraceful absence of a finish line.
Under the present circumstances, he could barely breathe. “Charlotte!”
She did not stop.
He watched as a branch caught her sleeve. She wrenched free. Another struck her cheek. She stumbled, recovered, and ran harder.
The path dipped towards the stream.
Jasper saw it before she did: the slick bank, the exposed roots, the treacherous slope where spring rain had softened the ground to black paste. “Charlotte, stop!”
“Leave me be!”
“You are going to fall.”
“Then let me!”
It was perhaps the most Charlotte Tolliver answer imaginable, and it frightened him more than the scream had done.
He caught her at last at the top of the bank, grabbing her about the waist. With little elegance, he dragged her backwards just as one boot slid from beneath her.
They went down hard together. There was mud, and grass, a flash of sky, her elbow in his rib.
“Let me go!” she cried, twisting hard.
“I shall, when you stop trying to pitch yourself into the stream.”
She made a sound between a sob and a growl, and shoved at his chest. Jasper caught her wrists by instinct, then loosed them at once, horrified by himself.
She froze at once, and so did he.
Jasper rolled away from her, palms lifted. “There,” he said, rough-voiced. “I am not holding you.”
Lottie scrambled to sit, breathing hard. Her hair had fallen entirely loose now. There was mud across one sleeve and a bright scratch along her cheek. She was holding papers, crushed in her fist.
“I hit him,” she said again. “But I did not kill him.”
“Whatever happened, Charlotte—”
“I did not kill him.”
“I know.” His voice broke, just a little, upon the word. “You need not convince me of anything.”
She stared at him, wild-eyed and pale. “You weren’t there, Jasper.”
“No,” he said. “I was not.”
“Then how can you know?”
“Because I know you.” Jasper swallowed, and the next words came lower, rougher, dragged from some place in him no wit could soften. “Tell me nothing, and I shall stand beside you. Tellme a lie, and I shall not contradict it. Tell me the whole truth, and I shall not flinch. But do not, for God’s sake, stand there and plead with me as though I am another man waiting to decide whether you are worth believing.”
Her face crumpled for half a heartbeat before pride dragged it back into shape. “I wanted to hurt him,” she whispered. “I wanted him afraid. That’s a wicked thing to say, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Jasper said. “It is. And still, I hope the man rots in hell.”
Charlotte looked at him with those wide, furious, devastated eyes, and the last of her composure gave way.
She began to cry, not prettily or tragically, but as though she hated every tear and could not stop a single one.
