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“It seems likely that we are on a path chiefly used by local duck hunters. In which case it is bound to lead to”—

Lightning seared across the sky. A moment later thunder cracked overhead. Pomona gave a little scream and clutched his arm. Rain began to pelt down.

The afterimage of the lighting flash seemed burned into her eyes. As she blinked it away, she realized that West was trying to pry her grip from his arm. She didn’t remember grabbing it. He seized her hand. “We must get off this marsh.”

He didn’t have to explain why. She'd always feared thunderstorms. He tugged her forward into a run. The skies opened in a downpour. The wind lashed the reeds in every direction, and the path became a violently churning tunnel. Wet foliage smacked her across the face until she was half blinded. Rain slashed down. Her boots slipped in the mud. Her wet and heavy skirts caught her legs, and some of the time West’s grip was the only thing keeping her from losing her footing. Her arm felt as though it was about to come out of its socket.

And then, as she ran, she felt the hair on the back of her neck rising by itself. The sky split. Raindrops froze in the pitiless white glare. She could see every blade of grass, every puddle of water. And only a few yards away, where he'd been concealed by the reeds, stood a man. He had a gun. It was raised to his shoulder.

Then the flash was gone. The man was hidden again. There was a roar. She wasn’t certain if it was thunder or the report of the rifle. She screamed, but she wasn’t certain that any sound came out.

Soaking, sharp grasses slapped her across the face. Her ankle twisted. She couldn’t breathe. Her feet landed on cobblestones instead of mud. A shadow loomed through the rain. West shoved open a wooden door and pulled her through it.

She leaned gasping against a wall. Blinding white light flashed again. The loudest thunder that she’d ever heard in her life rattled a roof above their heads.

She couldn’t seem to get enough air into her lungs. Her breath came in sobs. The man—had he followed them? West used a loose plank leaning against the wall to bar the door, and peered out through a crack in one of the boarded up windows. “I do not see him.”

“Then… “ She could barely speak. “Then he was… real?”

“Yes.” His mouth was set in a grim line.

There was another flash and a boom that vibrated the ceiling beams. “He… he was aiming…” She began to cry.

The next instant West was there. He put his arms around her and pulled her close. She found herself leaning her forehead against him, willing her knees to stop shaking. It didn’t help. She was shaking all over. He drew her tighter and stroked her hair. Her bonnet had fallen off.

“No doubt he was some local poacher.” His voice was a reassuring rumble in her ear. “He will be long gone by now.”

She peeked past his arm. Where were they? It seemed to be an abandoned shed. Rain was beginning to drip through holes in the roof onto the dusty dirt floor.

“If he is still out there, he will be either drowned or fricasseed by now. That lighting strike was very close. We got lucky.” He was rubbing her back. “Your spencer is soaked through. It is making you colder" He unbuttoned it with steadier fingers than she had, and hung it on a nail. "Here." He took off his wool superfine jacket and draped it around her shoulders. "We will stay here until the storm passes.”

But the storm didn't seem to be passing. Another flash of lightning made her wince, followed immediately by thunder so loud that the roof tiles vibrated again. The downpour intensified.

Had the gunman really been a poacher? It was the most logical explanation… but somehow, she struggled to believe it. There had been something almost familiar about him, even though she’d only seen his silhouette. Of course, that didn't make sense. But the way that he’d seemed to appear out of nowhere, illuminated by the lightning behind him like some figure of supernatural terror, made the image stick in her mind.

One thing was certain: If they survived this, she would never take another walk in unfamiliar countryside again. And this was absolutely the last time that she would visit an out-of-the-way island in the Venetian lagoon. She would put this episode out of her mind and forget it as though it had never happened. From now on she would do her best to be normal, and accept that she simply wasn't suited to be an authoress.

After all, she hadn’t paid attention to the elements that normally went into chase scenes in gothic novels. If she’d had any literary ability, she would have noticed such details as threatening rocks blotched with hideous lichens in livid tones of ochre, and the cold and icy fingers of a wind laced with terror and despair. Yet she’d scarcely seen the path beneath her feet. It hadn’t even occurred to her to cry “Woe!” She’d been too busy gasping for breath and trying not to fall on her face in the mud. She’d had no elevated thoughts whatsoever.

She simply wasn’t artistic enough to be a writer, and this proved it.

A moment later she realized that West had said her name. She lifted her face away from his shoulder and saw that he was studying her with a concerned frown. “Pomona? Are you well?”

Her face warmed. “I was… thinking.”

“You may be in shock. I said your name three times. You did not seem to hear me at all. You are not injured, are you?”

“No. I am perfectly fine. It is not something that I can explain.”

His frown deepened. “So it is something.”

Oh no. She’d blundered.

And so she did the only thing that she could think to do under the circumstances: She kissed him.

At first she wasn’t kissing him because she wanted to kiss him. She was kissing him because it happened to be the quickest way to change the subject.

But then a wild recklessness surged through her. The entire episode had been terrifying. She needed something that would make her feel alive. She needed... him.