Page 73 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

“I did, rather.”

“I knew you would.”

“You knew better than I.” She loosened her grip on his arm. “Forgive me for clutching at you. I can’t seem to help myself.”

“It’s what I’m here for.”

She laughed. “You may feel differently tomorrow when you see the bruises left by my fingers.”

He looked down at her, his gray eyes suddenly solemn. “And how are your bruises? Better, I hope.”

Her smile dimmed. She was painfully reminded of the night he’d rescued her from the cliff’s ledge. It was a shameful memory and one she wished they could both forget. “They’re fading.” She kept her voice light. “Every day they ache a little less.”

“I’m glad. I don’t want you to be in pain.”

“Nor I you.” She let her gaze drift to the open collar of his shirt. The burns on the column of his neck were the same sort as on his jaw. They were puckered and red, disposed in thick, slashing lines, one over the other. “Do they hurt?”

“Rarely.”

“How…?”

“A hot poker,” he said brusquely. “They held it in the fire and then they held it against me.”

She bowed her head. “Oh, Justin.” She wanted to weep for him. “How on earth could you bear it?”

“I had little choice in the matter, my dear.”

“I know that, but—”

He squeezed her waist. “It’s over now. Part of the past. I don’t refine on it too much. You shouldn’t either.”

Hiran chomped at his bit and tossed his head.

“He thinks we’re dawdling,” Justin said.

Helena swallowed back her emotions. If Justin didn’t wish to dwell on his time in India, she had no business forcing him to do so. She reached down to give Hiran a scratch on the neck. “He likes to run, does he?”

“He enjoys nothing better.”

“Are all his gaits as smooth as his canter?”

“His gallop isn’t bad.”

Her heart pounded. “Can we…?”

But she didn’t have to ask. Justin was already urging Hiran forward, first into a canter and then into a gallop.

The pace fairly stole her breath away. She’d never gone so fast on a horse. It was like flying. As if his hooves never even touched the ground. The sand and the sea slipped by them in a blur of color. She wondered if this was how jockeys felt when they raced at Newmarket and Epsom.

After a time, Justin drew Hiran back to a canter. They had galloped the length of the beach. The treacherous cliffs of Abbot’s Holcombe loomed ahead, the surf frothing violently beneath them amidst a jagged array of stone.

As Hiran slowed to a walk, Helena gazed up at the cliffs. She could sense Justin looking up at them as well.

“How far up was Neville when he fell?” she asked.

“He was nearly at the bottom. The rock crumbled beneath him. His head struck one of the stones and then he plunged straight down into the sea. It was the space of an instant. One moment he was there and the next—gone beneath the waves.”

“Was it you who went in after him?”