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Each stair felt like ascending a mountain beneath the weight of his fear, but he pushed himself faster. The surrounding walls trembled, the floors vibrated beneath his feet. The wooden slats shifted and creaked ominously with each footfall, and an eerie grinding of stone on stone pierced the ringing in his ears. An eternity seemed to pass before he reached the entrance to the turret, and his worst fears turned to reality.
The weathered stone stairs had broken away, exposing the cantilevers and corbels bracing the turret’s weight. Bridget braced herself in the doorframe to the study, which now leaned away from the building. Between them, the slate cliffs collapsed into the sea, taking the structure with them.
“You have to jump,” he shouted, extending his arms for her.
She trembled, paralyzed by her fear. “It’s t-too far. I can’t.”
“You can, you must.” He wanted to peel her fingers off the door frame and drag her to safety, but his weight might disrupt the delicate balance of the turret and send it—and Bridget—into the sea.
He refused to look at the sea below, the chasm widening between them with every breath. “You said we’ve been lying from the start.”
Her gaze lifted to meet his, the green blazing.
“So stop lying now. Be honest with me, Bridget. Please—”
“I’m terrified,” she shouted, her voice cracking. “If I lose this—if I don’t have Ashveil—”
“You’ll have me. Cold comfort, I know, but… You won’t be alone anymore. Never again. I won’t allow it.”
Her breath shuddered, and a tear streaked down her cheek.
“You’re scared, and so am I. But be terrified and jump anyway.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head again. Fear gripped his insides; he should run away, escape before Ashveil Manor claimed his life. But she wasn’t in his arms, where she belonged. He wasn’t leaving. “Come on, Bridget. Come to me.”
He stood with his arms open, ready for whatever came next. If she fell, he’d go with her, but if she jumped—
She gave him little warning when she leaped. She collided with his chest, knocking the wind from his lungs. A protective instinct roared over him, and he banded his arms around her, leaving no space between them.
He buried his face in her neck, breathing in the sandalwood scent of her. Reluctantly, he set her feet on the floor so he could cup her cheeks and push the tears away. “That’s my brave girl.”
He would have held her there forever, but something snapped, violently rending their reunion in two. The turret tumbled away from the building, tearing the trusses from the roof and breaking the masonry to pieces. She grabbed his hand. “Run!”
The floor cracked open beneath them as they ran, leaving gaping voids and revealing the rooms below. In his periphery, the mullioned windows lining the corridors warped, glass shattering as the rigid lead bent like wax in a flame. Thick clouds of white lime-dust burst around them, blurring his vision until he could barely glimpse Bridget running in front of him. He suspected he might be screaming, his throat burning, but he could hear nothing but the twisting and groaning of the building surrendering to nature.
They spilled out the front door of the manor; Bridget stumbled, but he caught her beneath the arms, half-carrying and half-dragging her to a safe distance before they toppled to the dirt.
With one last, deafening moan, Ashveil Manor collapsed into the sea.
CHAPTER 26
The sunset over the sea painted the waves with pinks and golds as the fiery orange horizon gave way to a periwinkle glow. The water itself lapped affectionately at the cliffs, sweeping one piece of debris after another into oblivion. Fractured timbers and a lone leaded window frame punctuated the sky in silhouette, like angry, accusatory fingers looking for someone to blame for their predicament. The portion of the building that survived the collapse—half of the original fortification and the stables—looked lonely, like a bride staring out to sea, waiting for her husband to return home.
Bridget pulled her knees up closer to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins. She could only blame herself for the manor’s fate, and she’d been doing exactly that for the last several hours, seated on the drive in front of the ruins and waiting for darkness. A chill had long since seeped into her skirt and numbed her backside and toes, but she wouldn’t move, not yet. She thought she’d escaped her grief, only to tumble headfirst into it again.
The gravel shifted, and dark boots appeared at her side. “It’s getting cold. You don’t have a cloak.”
“I’m fine.”
“Then may I join you?”
Tears burned behind her eyes, but she nodded. Part of her had been waiting for him, but another part was grateful he gave her time to grieve.
Valebrook sat with a groan, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “I’m too old to sit like this,” he said. “I’ll never get up again.”
“You’re not old,” she replied woodenly. “You rescued me. I would have—”
“Don’t say it.” He placed one large, warm hand on her shin. “I can’t even think about it. If I imagine you jumping over that gap again…” He shuddered. His shoulder bumped hers. “I won’t pretend to understand how difficult this is for you.”
