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‘Let her go, come here and I will fight you, man to man, with a damned knife if that is your weapon.’
‘Why should I?’ Salterton was edging Nell closer to midstream, perhaps eight feet from the bank. Under their feet the creaking became cracking. ‘She’s mine. You won’t touch me while I hold her—you think I care for your foolish notions of duels and honour?’
‘No, it is plain you do not,’ Marc said, his voice contemptuous. ‘You are no gentleman.’
‘But I have the woman,’ the dark man pointed out. ‘You will not attack me while I hold her, and soon, very soon, she will be where you will never find her, enjoying a man who is just that—a man, not some aristocratic parasite hiding behind his valet and his butler.’ He pulled Nell back as he spoke and rubbed his cheek possessively against hers. ‘Mine, you see?’
Nell jerked away as far as his hold would let her, and the long barrel of Marcus’s rifle came up, unwavering. She stared at the tiny black hole of the muzzle.
‘I
’m sorry, Nell, I cannot let that happen,’ Marc said.
Nell gasped. He was going to shoot her rather than let Salterton ravish her? She wanted to shout out, but her voice was dry in her throat.
Beside her the dark man chuckled. ‘Bloody fool, with his gentlemanly dramatics. He thinks you would rather be dead than dishonoured? You have not changed at all, Marcus.’
‘I love you, Nell,’ Marc said, his deep voice projecting across the still air. ‘Remember how I held you on the ice when we skated? Remember that, how it ended?’
The skating? What on earth? Nell stared back at the rifle and realized what he meant. She let her feet slide out in front of her and dropped like a stone through Salterton’s clutching arm to land heavily at his feet.
And as she fell she heard the shot, its sharp report mingling with the sound of the ice. Above her there was a sobbing gasp. She scrabbled with hands and feet, seeing the long cracks beginning to radiate outwards, and Salterton fell, landing even more heavily than she had, and the cracks opened, the world tilted and she slid down, hitting icy water that knocked the breath from her lungs.
Beside her, Salterton thrashed, twisted, and got one brown hand up and onto the edge of the ice and the other locked into her hair. There was blood in the water and his face was distorted in a rictus of pain and effort as he fought the current that was dragging them both under, away from the hole.
‘Nell!’ And Marcus plunged in; his hands supported her as he fought to lift her. She felt her hair freed, then the other man had his hand under her armpit and was pushing, working with Marcus, and she was lifted towards the surface and Hal’s reaching hands as he lay on the ice.
Marcus kicked against the pull of the river, his boots filling with water, his coat a dead weight around his shoulders. But Nell was half out now; he glimpsed his father kneeling beside Hal, reaching for her.
‘Together,’ a voice rasped, and he realized it was the dark man. With a great effort he lifted, and Nell slid out onto the ice. Hal pushed her towards their father, then leaned in again, his hand closing over Marcus’s wrist.
‘Here, hold the edge, we’ll get you out.’ Marcus turned in the water, reaching for the other man with his free hand.
Like a gaffed fish, the dark man twisted away, his face stark with rejection.
‘Don’t be a fool, you’ll drown.’ But he had gone, swept away under the ice into the green gloom.
‘Can you get out or am I going to have to come in and get you?’ Hal demanded through gritted teeth. ‘My bloody arm is half out of its socket.’
Marcus took the other hand held out to him, kicked, and was hauled out onto the ice. ‘The damn fool wouldn’t let me save him,’ he gasped, sprawled on his belly, coughing up water.
‘That’s an economy then,’ Hal said, his tone at odds with the urgency with which he was dragging Marcus’s coat off him and wrapping him in his own. ‘No trial and no hanging.’
‘Nell?’ Marcus turned to find her cradled in his father’s arms, his greatcoat round her as the earl chaffed her hands.
‘She’s fainted,’ he said. ‘We need to get her back, now.’
‘We all need to get back,’ Marcus said, finding his feet and limping towards the horses. ‘Hal, can you lift her up to me?’ he asked as he got up onto Corinth. He wasn’t sure how he kept going, but he was damned if anyone other than himself was taking Nell home.
She came to as he snuggled her against himself, one arm around her, one hand for the reins. ‘Marcus? I knew you’d come. I’m very sorry. I thought I could find out…’
‘And I thought I’d lost you,’ he said gruffly.
‘Not when you can shoot like that,’ she murmured against his sodden shirt front. ‘He’s gone, hasn’t he? Under the ice?’ she asked, her voice stronger as she turned to face the river.
Marcus saw his father and brother looking at him, their eyes reflecting the hope—and the doubt—that he knew was in his. ‘Yes, he’s gone,’ he said firmly, with a shake of his head to the other two to keep them silent, and sent Corinth into a smooth canter towards home.
‘Where am I?’ Nell asked, confused. She was in a room that was not her own, surrounded by a babble of voices and bundled up so tight in a cocoon of blankets that she could not move or see properly.
