Chapter 29

“ R upert !” Clarissa screamed. “ Noooooooo !”

He collapsed in the snow and lay unmoving. Clarissa hurried to his side… which was stupid, she knew. Phyllis Cuthbert was still there, bent on murder.

But Rosalind Baxter suddenly seemed to recall that she was the great sportswoman in the family.

And Phyllis no longer had the advantage of a loaded gun.

Rosalind let out a bellow of rage. She came charging through the maze and tackled her cousin, and the two of them landed with a hard thump in the snow.

Rupert lay crumpled, face-down. Clarissa turned him over and pulled him into her lap. She caressed his beautiful face, which was almost as colorless as the snow beneath him.

“Rupert,” she begged. “Talk to me! Please , tell me you’re all right.” His eyes refused to open. She shook him, needing him to wake up. “You can’t be dead, Rupert. You just can’t. I—I can’t do without you!”

His head listed to the side. She pulled it up gently, stroking his brow.

A tear coursed down her cheek. This couldn’t be happening. They had only just found each other! This was supposed to be the start of their life together. Suddenly, a life without this wonderful man beside her loomed before her, colorless and devoid of joy. Because that was what Rupert was—joy in its purest, most unadulterated form.

“Please, Rupert,” she begged, her voice breaking. “I love you.”

Her eyes were blurred with tears. She, therefore, felt rather than saw him stir.

“Rupert?” she asked, framing his face.

His only answer was a groan.

“Rupert!” she cried, shaking him. “Rupert, are you alive? Please tell me you’re alive!”

“I’m not,” he said in a groggy voice.

She chanced a glance down at his torso, fearing the worst. His cravat had been blasted to bits, and there was a hole in his shirt just over his heart.

But there wasn’t a speck of blood anywhere. How was that possible ?

Hope flared in her heart. “Rupert, wake up! You’re not allowed to die. I need you.”

He tossed his head but didn’t open his eyes. “I’m definitely dead.”

She stroked his brow. “Does it hurt terribly, my love?”

He drew in a shuddering breath. “It doesn’t hurt at all. Claire said she loves me!” He shook his head, burying his face in her lap and wrapping his arms around her waist. “I’ve obviously died and gone to heaven.”

She let out a little sob, but she was smiling. “Ru-pert,” she said, gently turning him so he was facing up again. “Open your eyes.”

Frowning, he opened them just a slit as if terrified of what he would see. His face went slack when he spotted her smiling down at him. “Claire!” he cried, reaching up to cup her cheek. He glanced around, confused. “I—I’m not dead?”

She smiled through her tears. “I don’t believe so, no.”

“And you… you love me!”

“ So much .” She cradled him against her. “I didn’t realize it would come as such a surprise. I told you last night.”

An adorable look of befuddlement stole across his face. “You did?” He ducked his chin sheepishly. “I think I might have fallen asleep.”

She laughed, wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Well, that’s my fault for asking you to marry me when you were falling down from exhaustion.”

His eyes went wide. “Asking me to—” His voice suddenly sounded gruff. “Do you mean it? You really want to marry me?”

She pressed a kiss against his forehead. “Of course I do. I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Oh, Claire!” Suddenly, he was kissing her all over her face. “I love you so much. I can’t believe it. I never thought that you would want a great dunce like me .”

She squeezed his hands. “We’ll have no more of that talk. You’re the most wonderful man I’ve ever met, and I won’t hear a word against you.” She pressed her forehead against his. “Even from you.”

He kissed her then, and in spite of the fact that her knees were going numb with cold and her groom-to-be was wearing half a shirt and smelled of gunpowder, it was, without question, the most perfect moment of Clarissa’s life.

When he lifted his head, they were both smiling. “But how did you survive, Rupert?” she asked. “That bullet tore your cravat to shreds.”

“I suppose it must’ve been a miracle.” He started feeling around his chest. “Oh—here’s the bullet, I think.”

He pulled something out of the hole in his shirt.

It was his locket, the one his aunt had given him all those years ago. It was mangled beyond recognition, with a bullet embedded in the silver-colored metal.

Suddenly, Clarissa wasn’t the only one crying. Rupert was blinking rapidly, and he scrubbed at his eyes with the side of his hand. “Auntie Imogen,” he whispered.

Clarissa squeezed his hand. “She really is watching over you!”

He nodded, incapable of speech.

That was when the strangest thing of all occurred.

Rupert was holding up the locket, Clarissa’s hand wrapped around his.

Suddenly, a delicate yellow butterfly fluttered down into the hedge maze. It circled them once, then landed on the locket.

Clarissa gave a startled laugh. “A butterfly? In December?” She smiled as the butterfly crawled down the locket and perched on her finger. “Where on earth did you come from?”

The butterfly didn’t answer, of course. It flapped its wings three times, then wafted into the air. It flew around them once more, landing for a split-second on Clarissa’s nose, then flitted off toward the pale blue December sky.

Rupert laughed. “Would you look at that? It almost seems like a—”

He didn’t get to finish that thought, on account of Rosalind giving a high-pitched shriek.

Clarissa and Rupert swung their heads around, suddenly recalling that they had an audience.

“I’m sorry,” Rosalind grunted, struggling to subdue her cousin, whom she was holding face-down in the snow. “I was… ugh … trying not to spoil the moment. But she bit me!”

Rupert was already on his feet, pulling Clarissa up behind him. “Sorry, Mrs. Baxter.”

“Please,” she said through gritted teeth, “call me Rosalind. If I never hear the name Baxter again, it will be too soon.”

Clarissa hastily brushed the snow off her knees and hurried over. “More than understandable. Please, call me Clarissa.”

“And you must call me Rupert.” He started to grab Phyllis’s arm but then paused. “Sorry, it’s just… never thought I’d find myself laying hands on a woman. I know we’ve got to turn her in to the authorities and whatnot. But it’s deuced awkward, is what it is.”

“Don’t fret, my love,” Clarissa said, grabbing Phyllis’s arm and yanking her none-too-gently to her feet. “Rosalind and I are more than capable of handling it.”

Clarissa fancied that she would never forget the way Rupert smiled at her. “I know that. Without a single doubt.” He bent over, scooping up Phyllis’s spent firearm. “Now, who remembers the way out of this maze?”