Chapter 20

Elise woke up with a throbbing pain, and she gently touched her temple. Her fingers came back sticky with blood, which looked black in the moonlight. Lord, she was bleeding. Why was she bleeding? She couldn't remember how she'd gotten here or why she was hurt. Had she fallen?

Her questions were answered by the sounds of two men fighting at the edge of the nearby cliff. She turned. It was Prospero and the man she'd met at the ball a few nights ago... Adam Jackson. It was hard to gather her thoughts together as her head throbbed. Adam was trying to kill them.

She scrambled to her feet as Prospero began to lose ground, forced back toward the edge of the cliff.

"No!" Adam had boxed Prospero in, with no way of getting past him to safety. Jackson thew a punch, and Prospero stumbled back over the cliff. One terrifying second later, he vanished from view.

"Prospero!"

A raspy laugh escaped Jackson as he turned and came down the slope after her. He didn't bother to run at her—he took his time, his evil grin widening as though he was imagining how he would take his time with her.

Well, she wasn't going to go down without a fight. Elise bent and tugged a small digging knife free of her boot. She'd kept it with her just by habit when she wore her digging clothes, but now she prayed it would save her life. She raised the knife, the blade flashing white in the moonlight as she prepared herself for his attack. When he was within a few feet of her, he looked down at her tiny weapon and laughed.

"What a pretty little blade. All the better to slice you to ribbons with." He lunged and she dove to the side, slicing at his chest. She scored a hit, and he howled and whirled. She lost the advantage in an instant, though, because his arms were too long and she was still in reach.

He backhanded her across the face so hard she went sprawling down the hillside, tumbling over and over before she came to a stop, her knife lost in the darkness of the night. Stars dotted her vision, and her ears rang so loudly she couldn't hear her own panting breaths.

Elise tried to stand, but her knees buckled and she had to brace her hands on her thighs until she could move again. Her first few steps were more like stumbles, but she had to get to the cliff. There was a chance Prospero had fallen into the sea. Perhaps he'd survived the fall. That feeble hope was the only thing that kept her moving.

Then hands, cold and hard, latched onto her from behind, jerking her to a stop.

Jackson spun her around to face him. "I'm going to take my time with you, little bitch." He gripped her throat, squeezing.

No air moved in or out of her lungs as he slowly crushed her windpipe. She was going to die. The thought sent her mind spiraling. Each time she blinked, the world seemed to move slower and the sounds grew fainter. Her mind, deprived of oxygen, began to pull up memories for her to see, perhaps to comfort her in her final moments.

Prospero standing in the doorway of her office at the society's headquarters, a dashing figure with eyes that shone with surprise and curiosity... bent over the display of beetles at the British Museum, marveling at their shiny iridescent wings... whispering words of love on their wedding night...

Darkness closed around her vision, tunneling toward a distant glimmer of some yet-unnamed star. Whatever her body and his became after death, at least she would be with Prospero, as all things on this earth would be and had always been. Stardust to stardust...

A deep voice rang out sharply across the hill. "Jackson!"

Elise opened her eyes just as she heard a gun fire.

Jackson's grip on her throat eased and air trickled into her damaged airway, making her wheeze as she tried to breathe despite the pain. The cold grin on Jackson's face faltered, and he glanced down at his chest. Blood swelled around a spot close to his heart. To Elise's air-deprived mind, it looked like a blooming rose.

Though his grip had loosened, he still held on to her throat as he stumbled toward the cliff's edge, taking her with him. Despite his mortal wound, he carried her as though she were nothing more than a child's doll.

"Elise!" The voice was closer now, but whoever was coming to her rescue had come too late. She couldn't free herself of Jackson's hand as he toppled over the cliff, taking her down with him. She screamed as the wind whipped around her body and the ground spiraled beneath her.

Something caught her arm. Pain ricocheted through her as she heard a sickening pop from her shoulder, and she passed out from the sudden shock of pain.

When her eyes fluttered open, she lifted her head to stare at the steep white cliff face of Culver Down.

She was nearly fifteen feet down from the top of the cliff. There was a ledge that jutted out, and she was hanging suspended by her arm from that ledge. How was it possible that she'd managed to stop her own fall partway down the cliffside? She tried to see what had caught her. Had her hand become caught in a jutting rock, or...?

No. Another hand, a large, strong male hand, had hold of her wrist. Through the fog of pain, she saw a face staring down at her over the ledge just above her.

"Got you!" Prospero grunted.

Dear God, he was alive! Bleeding, in bad shape, but beautifully alive. Tears from pain, joy, and sweet relief blurred her vision. Blood dripped onto her face from his other arm, which he braced on the ledge.

"Hang on," he grunted. "I'll haul you up."

She clawed at the rock in front of her, trying to help as he pulled her up to the ledge that protruded from the side of the cliff. A shriek of agony escaped her as he grabbed her bad shoulder to haul her up. The second she was up on the ledge, he tucked her against his side. They both lay on their backs, panting and staring up at the cliff and sky above them. For a long time, neither of them spoke.

"I love you." Prospero's ragged voice was edged with pain.

Too short of breath and in too much pain to speak, she merely lifted his hand up to her lips and pressed a kiss to his bloodied knuckles. A distant shout from above then came down to them.

"Lady March!" The voice was familiar, but her thoughts were too murky to recognize it.

"Is... is that Sherlock Holmes?" Prospero asked, his voice shaking.

It took her a moment for the name to make sense. She hurt so badly, and her body was still quaking.

"Lady March!" the voice called again, and finally her memory connected it to her irritating neighbor.

"Here!" Prospero called out. "We're here, Holmes." It sounded like those words cost him everything, but he had managed to cry out, and for that she was glad. She still had no ability to talk.

Holmes's head appeared over the top of the cliff as he searched for and spotted them. He had a pistol in one hand, but he put it away when he saw it was only the pair of them. So he must have been the one to shoot Jackson, Elise realized.

"Lord March! Thank Christ. I thought I was too late for either of you. Stay there."

"We await you at your leisure, Mr. Holmes," Prospero replied with a pained chuckle.

A while later, or at least that's how it seemed, something thick and snakelike tumbled down over the cliff and landed next to them with a thump.

"It's a rope," Prospero murmured. He lifted the rope, his brows drawing together. "Surely he can't expect us to climb?"

Elise, finally able to gather her wits, forced herself to sit up and examine the rope. Pain, dull and leaden in her dislocated shoulder, still made her thoughts terribly foggy.

"Lady March," Sherlock called down to her. "Do you perchance know how to tie a figure-eight knot?"

"Y—yes," she called up to him as her teeth started to chatter. She was going into shock, but she was still able to focus on what she needed to do.

"You do?" Prospero asked in surprise.

"Yes, I learned from a naval officer who came to the society last year. He instructed us on various styles of knots. The figure-eight is the best knot to lift something heavy, such as a body. But I'm afraid I shall need you to do it for me. I cannot move my left arm."

"Of course. Tell me what to do." Prospero grasped the rope, and she carefully instructed him.

"Now put the rope around you, and Mr. Holmes will be able to pull you up."

Prospero gave her a hard look. Then, without a word, he dropped the rope around her and tightened it.

"But—"

"Hush, wife. You and I can have a long discussion about whose safety matters more once we are safely off this ledge." He checked the strength of his work and then gave a small tug on the rope to test the strength of whatever weighted it on the other end.

"But what about you? You're bleeding! You've been hurt!" Elise protested and reached out, grasping his hand. He leaned forward, still kneeling on the rock ledge, and pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes.

"It isn't a deep wound. I'll be up right after you, darling."

"You promise?" A level of hysteria entered her voice that she couldn't help. The pain and fear of the last several minutes was taking its toll. And she knew he was lying about it not being a deep wound in his shoulder—he was so pale, it terrified her.

"I haven't let you down yet, and I have no plans to." He kissed her softly, and for a wild, panicked moment, she was terrified of leaving him alone on the ledge. What if it collapsed and?—

Prospero called up the cliff face. "She's ready, Mr. Holmes!"

The rope suddenly tightened, and she was jerked up into the air. She kept her gaze locked on his face as she climbed higher, leaving him behind.

When she reached the top, she saw that Sherlock, Mary, Conley, Mrs. Godwin, and even the young housemaid had all helped pull her to safety. Sherlock leaned forward and grabbed her bad arm to pull her the rest of the way up. She cried out, and he grasped her right instead, pulling her fully up over the side.

"It's... dislocated," she told him.

"Ah, I see... give me a moment." He removed the rope from her body and then took her bad arm, lifting it and moving it until the shoulder shifted back into place. She whimpered, but the pain suddenly lessened and breathing became easier.

"Better?" Holmes asked as he crouched beside her. His face was lined with weariness, made him look far more human than she'd ever seen him before.

She nodded. "Thank you."

"'Twas a simple technique Watson once showed me."

"Please, help Prospero. I fear that ledge won't hold him forever."

Holmes left her to rejoin the others as they began hauling up her husband. Soon, Prospero's bloody arm appeared over the ledge as he tried to pull himself up over the top, but ultimately he required Holmes to hoist him to safety. Only then did Mary drop her part of the rope and rush over to Elise.

"My poor dear," she cooed, as though Elise were a child who had fallen and scraped her knee. Mary wrapped her arms around Elise, holding her until Prospero was helped to his feet and was able to join them.

His shoulder was bloody, as was his head, but he was walking, moving, and that meant he might be all right. Elise scrambled to her feet with Mary's help, and he took her into his arms.

Prospero held her, stroking his hand down her back. He kissed the top of her head before he let out a slow sigh, and the muscles of his body seemed to lose some of their tension.

"It's over," he said.

She nuzzled his throat with a sense of relief, losing herself in the moment of just being alive with him.

"Lady March...," Sherlock began uncertainly.

His voice made her mind start to work again. She turned to the detective.

"How did you find us? Did you know that Jackson would come after us?"

Holmes's face paled. "A few days ago, I saw him examining an entry in the betting book in Berkeley's. That's when I realized there might be an issue with him."

"Bet? What bet?" Prospero asked.

"Your friend Lord De Courcy placed a wager that the two of you would be married by Christmas. Mr. Jackson read the wager after De Courcy left the room, and his expression warned me that he still held a great resentment toward you, March." Sherlock cleared his throat. "Once I received your wedding invitation, I took it upon myself to tail the man on and off the last few days. Lady March, I'm terribly sorry..." Sherlock was uncharacteristically sympathetic in his tone.

She felt a pit of dread forming in her stomach. "Mr. Holmes, what is it?"

"Jackson came searching for you and March the other night. He broke into your home and attacked your servants. Your father fought him off, but he suffered an attack of angina pectoris—an attack of the heart... I'm sorry. He's gone."

The rest of Sherlock's words faded as Elise's knees gave out and she sank to the ground.

* * *

Prospero caught Elise as she collapsed and tried to lift her up, but he could barely manage it.

"Let me take her," Conley said. "You've been wounded, my lord. It would only injure you further to carry her back to the cottage. Please."

Prospero reluctantly passed his wife over to the valet. As they began the long walk back to the cottage, he listened to Sherlock explain what had happened, but his focus was still on Elise. She stared straight ahead, unaware of her surroundings. She'd gone into shock.

"Celine Perkins, Jackson's sister, was also at John Hamblin's home and was injured in the fight as well."

That caught Prospero's attention. "Celine was at Hamblin's townhouse?"

Sherlock patted his pockets as if searching for something, possibly his pipe, which Elise had told Prospero he always carried with him; not finding it, Sherlock frowned and continued. "From what I understand, she had hoped to warn you and your wife, but Jackson followed her, suspecting betrayal. Watson stayed behind to see to her and the injured servants. I came straight here. Thank God Jackson did not hide his trail well. The man was more of a Brutus than a Caesar in his thinking. I can only assume he had some silly intention of making your wife's death a murder and yours a suicide."

"He said as much while we fought," Prospero said, his tone grim. "He's mad."

"I agree. In my many years of study, I have come across some men who possess a thirst for pain and violence. Oftentimes, those who are prone to violence or the abuse of others had childhoods or environments that cause them to express themselves with violence, foul as it is. But men like Jackson are born without souls, without the desire to feel anything but the excitement of causing pain to others. It is my belief that such men are not meant to be a part of society. They are dangerous and destructive."

Prospero was relieved when they finally stepped inside the cottage. He wasn't sure he could have walked much farther. He'd lost too much blood and his head felt damned light.

"I shall have a hot bath drawn for you and Elise, my lord," Mary said, then ushered Conley, who still held Elise in his arms, into the master bedchamber.

"I shall be there in a moment, Mary," Prospero said before he turned back to Sherlock. "I trust that you will inform the authorities of what has happened tonight?"

Sherlock nodded. "I will indeed. They may require statements from both you and your wife, but I imagine that can wait until morning. Until then, you need your shoulder examined. I am no doctor, but I am quite familiar with human anatomy and have observed Watson's work on a number of occasions."

Prospero stared at his blood-soaked sleeve. He'd practically forgotten about it in the fight, and afterward his only worries had been for Elise. He pulled his waistcoat and shirt off, wincing at the waves of pain the movement caused. Sherlock called for the housemaid to fetch a bottle of scotch and some cleaning cloths. Prospero held still as the sting of alcohol was placed on his wound and the blood was wiped away. Then Holmes examined the back of Prospero's shoulder.

"Well, the good news is that it went through your shoulder and exited the other side," said Holmes as he applied a bandage. "But it will still take a damned long time to heal. We should have you see a proper doctor as soon as one can be sent for."

Prospero wasn't really listening. His mind kept going back to when he saw Elise falling over the cliff, coming straight toward him, and knowing he had but one chance to save her. The moment played over and over in his mind. What if he hadn't caught her? His hands shook.

"March, you must pull yourself together, for your wife's sake. You both nearly died tonight, and she's just lost her father. Women are fragile creatures. They?—"

"Women are the farthest thing from fragile," Prospero growled, though his tone was quiet. "You spend an inordinate amount of time ignoring women because they do not interest you, Mr. Holmes, but I dare you to take a closer look at them. They live beneath our feet, trampled under men's callous desires and baser needs. They are denied autonomy of their bodies and their minds. They carry children within them, and often perish when their bodies break apart by bringing those children into the world. They are told they are weak, that they are foolish, that they are ignorant and do not require education. But it is men who have kept them thus. Still they do not give up. Women take blow after blow and yet they rise. Hope still shines in their eyes as they dream for better lives. I know that I have you to thank for meeting my wife in the first place. A wager regarding whether or not she could come to understand the inner workings of the human male? Perhaps you should take that same wager and take a closer look at the fairer sex you so quickly dismiss.

"So I ask you, Mr. Holmes, what have these events taught you about women and their strength? My wife had a dislocated shoulder. Yet while blinded by that pain, she taught me how to make a figure-eight knot and then insisted that I go up the rope before her. These are not the signs of a weak creature, wouldn't you agree?"

Sherlock was quiet, but his stiff shoulders loosened after a moment.

"I suppose you are right, and it is most certainly my fault that this danger came to your door. I should have warned you, but I wasn't certain that what I feared would come to pass. I should have trusted my instincts." He collected his coat and hat. "I will go to the authorities at once to report what has happened and will be present with you tomorrow when you speak to them."

Homes took his leave, and both Conley and Mrs. Godwin came in to fuss over Prospero. It took him a while to reassure them that he was all right. Then he stepped into the master bedchamber to find his wife already in a tub of hot water. Steam rose from the large copper bathing tub. When Mary noticed he'd entered the chamber, she came over to him and, after a quiet discussion, left him to tend to Elise.

Elise sat with her knees pulled up, her injured arm wrapped around herself. Her bare shoulder was dark with the beginnings of bruising, and her hair lay in thick dark-gold ropes down her back. She stared into the distance, lips slightly parted.

He stripped out of his clothes and climbed into the tub behind her. He was tall enough that the water only came up to the middle of his chest, leaving his bandaged shoulder dry. He curled his good arm around her waist, and she flinched at his touch.

"Easy, my love," he said as soothingly as he could.

It was breaking his heart to see her so hurt, inside and out. He examined her swollen left shoulder, as well as the cuts and scrapes over her arms and hands. A bruise was forming on her right cheek, and blood was matted on her temple, even though she'd washed her hair. He wet a cloth and wiped the remaining blood away. She didn't flinch this time, but instead angled her face toward him to let him clean her more easily. As she did so, he saw the fresh tracks of her tears gleaming in the lamplight on her cheeks.

Seeing this beautiful, intelligent, caring woman cry without making a sound... Lord, it was killing him. Sherlock was so wrong about women, so very wrong.

So many unsaid words hung on Prospero's lips as he tended her because none held the depth or breadth of what he felt in that moment. To love this woman was to be caught in the twisting winds of a hurricane before he was pulled safely into the eye of the storm, where all was calm with a pure, mysterious peace. She was a force of nature, a thing to love and worship with all his heart. To live without her was to live no life at all.

So he said the only thing that could come close to what he felt, even though it lacked any poetry to it. All that mattered was that it was true.

"I love you."

Only the fire in the hearth with its popping and cracking of logs disturbed the stillness of the room. Then she leaned back against him, her soft breath a reassurance he desperately needed.

"I know." She took one of his hands and pressed a kiss to his bruised knuckles as she had done when they lay side by side on that tiny ledge. "If you hadn't caught me..." Her voice wavered.

"But I did." He curled his other arm around her waist. "I will always catch you. I know you don't want to think about what will happen once we leave this cottage, but whatever does happen, we will be all right, because we will be together."

Perhaps if he kept saying it, it would come true through sheer will. But the truth was, everything had changed.

John was gone. Certainly, John had believed that he didn't have much time, but to learn that his death had come under such brutal circumstances, and because of Prospero's past...

The truth was, Prospero wasn't sure if Elise would ever forgive him for that. He certainly would never be able to forgive himself.

The water began to lose its heat, and it was time to put his wife to bed. He got out of the tub and dried off before he helped her out and wrapped her in a large white cloth, rubbing the water from her skin. She allowed him to drop her nightgown over her head, and then she walked over to their bed, quiet as a lamb, and almost as meek.

He tucked her beneath the sheets, mindful of her injured shoulder, before he joined her. She was asleep even before he settled in beside her. So he held her close as he lay awake, trapped in his own thoughts. He was afraid to sleep, lest he face whatever troubled dreams were waiting for him.