CHAPTER 18

Risk all to gain all... he was so very close to it. And yet he turned aside to leave instead.

He almost missed it, had almost turned back through the gates where the doorman was still demanding his entry fee, when out of the corner of his eye he saw Clara fall. She had skated away from the others to the edge of the pool, where the ice ran beneath the branches of the bare trees. She was weaving her way under the trees, a snow queen all in red against the frosted white of the trunks. Then there was a harsh, horrible cracking sound and Sebastian saw the dark water run between the cracks in the ice, saw Clara clutch and miss the branch overhead, and did not wait to see more. He ran. The park keeper was still shouting for his money, unaware of the accident. The other side of the pond. Sebastian scrambled down the bank, careless of the snow and the branches that tore at his coat and his face, and came down onto the ice near where Clara lay.

Someone else had seen now, and was shouting for help, but Sebastian reached her first. She was lying half on the ice and half in the icy water. She did not move. The ice cracked and shifted beneath his feet, but he ignored it. He caught a fold of her skirts and pulled fiercely.

“Clara!”

She moved then and tried to pull herself up out of the ice but it broke beneath her hands. He grabbed one flailing wrist. There was a pain inside him so immense and a panic so smothering that he could not speak. Her wrist was wet and he could feel his grip slipping. She was sliding from his fingers and he was powerless to stop her. There was an immense crack as the ice gave beneath her and she tumbled from his grasp. Seb saw the water close over her head.

The dark images that he had thought buried forever flashed across his mind with vividness. Oliver struggling against the ice, slipping away from him, disappearing from sight, his face white, his mouth open in a soundless scream... For a moment he was still with the horror of it and then he was lunging forward to seize hold of Clara before it was too late. His grasp met nothing but ice and air. He reached for her again and this time, to his inexpressible relief, he touched the material of her gown; he grabbed it and pulled. There was resistance, a ripping sound, and then her skirts were free of the clutching water and he was drawing her to him fiercely. They both tumbled backwards onto the snowy bank, Clara held tight in his arms. He pressed his lips to her hair and tried to pull her closer still, until she made a muffled sound of protest.

The others were arriving now, full of questions and anxiety. Juliana and Kitty plucked Clara from his arms and fussed over her. Martin was shaking his hand and saying something, but Seb was not sure what it was. He felt sick and shaken and afraid. Martin Carried Clara up the bank. Seb could hear her protesting that she was quite well and he felt breathless with relief. They were calling for a carriage to take her straight home. Clara turned to look at him and held out a hand in mute appeal, but he turned away. He was too dazed to speak to her, both by what had so nearly happened to Clara and by the tragic memories it had stirred for him. He did not want her thanks.

The fuss and bustle gave him the chance to escape. He went to a nearby coffee house and, although he could see them looking for him out in the street, he stayed in his own dark corner until the last of their carriages had rolled away.

The coffee warmed him and gradually soothed his shaken emotions. He was able to force the fearsome images of the past back into the dark recesses of his mind where they belonged. Nevertheless, he knew that this was not the end. It could not be, now. For in those moments when he’d held her, he had confessed to Clara that he loved her. Not in words, perhaps, but in the expression in his eyes and the touch of his hands as he clutched her so fiercely to him; he had known it and so had she. And he knew she would seek a confrontation now, stubborn girl that she was. He would have to be ready.

CLARA CAME TO HIM that evening, as he had known she would. He could have gone to his club and avoided the confrontation but he planned to leave first thing in the morning, as soon as it was light, and so he settled upon a final reckoning, as well. When he left, it would be with the truth between them. He would tell Clara about Oliver and explain once and for all why he was not worthy of her. He sat in his study with a glass of brandy untouched on the table beside him and he stared into the fire and thought of Clara. Who had he been fooling when he pretended not to care for her? She had stripped away all but the last of his defenses now. He loved her. He loved her desperately and he had done so for a very long time.

“When Miss Davencourt arrives, please her into the study,” he told Perch, and he was on tenterhooks as the clock ticked on toward midnight. Perhaps she had been injured more than he had realized; perhaps she had taken a chill. It might be better if they did not meet. He could slip away in the morning and ask Perch to arrange for a message and a bouquet of flowers to be sent, wishing her a speedy recovery...

“Miss Davencourt, your grace.”

Perch was ushering Clara into the room. She looked a little pale but he was glad to see that she appeared otherwise unharmed. He was quick to set a chair for her.

“You should not have come out tonight,” he said. “You sustained a shock. Were you injured? You might have caught a chill...” He realized that he was rambling like a nervous youth.

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