Gladly Beyond (40 page)

“Where is the blackguard who would keep you from me?” Blackford practically spat the words.

Dimly, Caro noted that Blackford’s hauteur drifted further and further into a Scottish burr. The aristocratic mask slipping.

Caro notched her chin higher, walked a few more steps forward. “He ran the other way. Said he was looking for the back gate. I haven’t seen him since.”

Lie, lie, lie.

Blackford’s gaze said he didn’t believe her for one second.

He took three steps, closing the distance between them.

Caro’s head whipped back before she heard the loud
crack
of his slap. She only barely managed to keep her grip on the tube.

The pain followed a second later. Her cheek stinging, needle sharp.

“You touch her again, and I
will
kill you.” A low voice growled behind her.

Oh, Ethan
.

Caro spun around, helpless to resist his gravity, even though it meant putting her back to the other men in the room.

Ethan stood like an avenging angel, pistol unwavering. Hair disheveled. Dirt smudging his cheeks. No cravat or waistcoat and his shirt open at his throat underneath his overcoat. Blood seeping across his stomach from right to left.

Everything ached for him. For them.

Please,
she pleaded to whatever saint would listen.
Please grant me a life with this man.

“Drop your weapon.” The loud
snick
of pistols being primed sounded through the room. Caro could feel Blackford pressing closer to her.

Without thinking, she took several steps forward, moving toward Ethan. Blackford lunged to snatch her back. She saw his hand out of the corner of her eye at the last second. She dodged to the side, quickly placing herself closer to Ethan. Out of Blackford’s reach.

She whirled to face him, meeting the Duke’s eyes.

“Let us go. Here, take the drawings.” She angled the wooden tube toward Blackford, almost in supplication. “They are what you truly want. We are nothing to you. Please. If you have an ounce of humanity in you.”

Blackford’s gaze slid to Ethan’s, ignoring her plea.

“Drop your weapon,” Blackford repeated, rolling his shoulders.

Ethan held steady.

“If it is me you want, I-I will come with you too.” Caro swallowed.

“No!” Ethan barked behind her.

“If I go with you, will you set Ethan free?”

Blackford’s lip curled in distaste.

“Ethan?” he sneered. “I do not indulge in another man’s bit of muslin.”

Ethan hissed.

Caro edged her chin higher. “I am hardly that sort of woman.”

“Drop your weapon,” Blackford said.

“Let. Us. Go.”

The smallest hint of a smile touched Blackford’s lips. He shifted his gun six inches to his right.

Aiming it at Caro’s head.

The other two men in the room kept their weapons trained on Ethan.

“I repeat.” Blackford fixed Ethan with a steely look. “Drop your weapon. I give you to the count of three. One . . .”

“Ethan, do not do it. He bluffs.”

“Two . . .”

“He would not hurt me.” Caro stared down the barrel of the pistol not ten feet in front of her, eyes wide but determined.

“Thr—”

Ethan’s pistol clattered to the ground behind her.

Caro released a breath. Heart clawing its way up her throat.

Blackford smiled then. An unpleasant thing.

“Ah, young love.” He snorted. Contempt lacing every line. “So pathetically predictable.”

Blackford swung his pistol away from her head.

She saw it move. Flowing through honey. Agonizing precision.

He aimed it past her right shoulder. His finger pressed the trigger.

“Noooooooo!”

Caro jumped to her right, something slamming her in the chest.

An explosion of sound ringing in her ears.

Ethan caught her before she hit the ground. The wooden tube landing gently on her stomach.

“No! Nononono!” He frantically pressed on the wound spreading across her chest, heedless of the fresh gush of blood he felt coursing down his own leg.

“You canna do this to me.” His vision blurred. He wiped his tears with a free hand.

She opened her eyes. Blue as the winter sea. Full of such adoration.

“I love you,” she mouthed.

“Doona leave me. I
command
you not to leave me.”

“Edge . . . of doom.” She smiled then. Blinked. “Always love you . . .”

She took one stuttering breath. Another.

Pain shattered through him. Her blood pooling with his.

Her eyes fluttered closed. Her breaths shallow. Labored.

“Well. How touching.” Blackford’s wry voice sounded above him, edged around with a Scottish burr.

Ethan pressed more firmly on her chest, sobbing gasps wracking. The wooden tube trapped between them, forgotten.

My dearest love,
m‘aingeal!

“I figure we are even now.” Blackford shuffled his booted feet. “You have taken something from me. And now I have taken it from you. Never forget—I always win the game.”

Another loud explosion.

Something splintered the wooded tube. Pushed Ethan to the ground.

The world went black.

Thirty-Three

Dante

I
am floundering in a dark sea.

Spinning. Drowning. Upended. Searching.

I have lost her. She is gone.

My soul flickers. Stutters. Stumbles.

I must find light. I must find
her.

My love, I will protect you. We will be together.

A vise lashes my chest, crushing.

Power scours me in searing waves of black.

I fracture.

Crack.

I am Ahmose.

Egyptian. Born to poverty but risen to fame within Pharaoh’s court.

Pharaoh’s adviser wants my Sitre for himself. Powerful and ruthless, he will take my love from me.

I stare down the chariot racing toward me. We had hoped to escape.

Somehow, someway . . .
he
has found us.

“Run, Sitre!” I scream.

She whirls to stare at me, eyes wild. Black hair billowing behind her.

“Run!”

She does run, spear in hand.

But not away. Sitre
never
runs toward safety.

No!

She dashes straight into the path of the chariot with its pounding horses, throwing herself under their hooves to save me—

No! My love . . . I have lost her . . .

Again. We will try again.

Crack.

I am Gaius.

The cliff is high as I inch closer to it. Surf pounds below.

He grins at me, maniacal, laughing. He swings a knife.

How did
he
find us? How?!

“Aurelia! No!” I scream.

She launches herself at him, knocking the knife away at the last second.

But her momentum is too much.

She snags his hand, pulling him with her as they both sail over the edge of the cliff—

No! My love . . . she is gone . . .

Again. We will try again.

Crack.

I am Wulfric.

Only my sword holds me upright.

Despite all our efforts to hide, he found us.

I stare him down, sighting along the crossbow he holds.

“Run, Sunniva!”

But she does not listen. She never heeds me.

She whirls just as he releases an arrow—

No! My love!

Again.

Crack.

I am Duncan.

How did he find us—

“Elspet! No!—”

Again.

Crack.

Again.

Again.

My soul breaks.

I am sightless and cannot find her.

Beyond. I need to move beyond.

But instead I—

Crack.

Thirty-Four

Claire

H
ow do you describe the sensation of dying?

The pain. The shock. Inky, suffocating blackness closing in.

That stretching and reaching and hoping toward a light that you’re not quite sure is coming. Knowing there is no going back.

The loss of hope and future and
together
.

I hated that I hadn’t seen anything past that blackness—

Had Ethan and Caro found each other in whatever stood beyond—

Wait.

I
was
Caro. Dante
was
Ethan.

They hadn’t spent eternity together playing harps and dancing through puffy white clouds.

No. They had been reborn and started over again.

It begins. It repeats.
Like the gypsy said on that first day in Florence.

Were Dante and I trapped in an eternal cosmic feedback loop? An old-fashioned record player . . . permanently stuck, playing the same snippet of sound over and over?

I was shattered and confused and traumatized and a thousand other emotions.

Dante and I surfaced at the bottom of the stairs, just turning into the long hallway to the refectory. Feet grinding to a halt.

Dazed. Confused.

One of the brothers yelled at us, stomping down the hallway, gesturing wildly. Dante said something in Italian, arm tight around me, dragging me with him . . .

Next I knew, I was sitting on the loggia stairs where we had first entered. Snugged against Dante’s chest.

Sobbing my heart out.

Clinging to Dante like the lifeboat he was.

I cried for the life they had never lived. The ‘I love yous’ never shared. The children never born. All that living cut short—

Dante held me close, drawing my legs across his lap. One hand wrapped around my waist. The other cradling my head against his chest.

Both my arms were around his waist, trying desperately to drag myself closer to him. To somehow
become
him.

Something wet hit my forehead. I drew back.

His eyes molten pools of flecked chocolate.

I pulled my hand from around him and wiped the tears from his cheeks.

“He-he didn’t tell her . . . in that moment—” Dante’s voice broke.

“Wh-what?” I hiccupped.

“Ethan.” He stroked a finger down my cheek. “He did—H-he didn’t say ‘I love you’ before she died—”

Oh!

“But he loved her. He l-loved her so m-much—”

“Oh, Dante. She knew. I know she did.”

I cupped his cheek and arched up.

He met me in the middle.

It was grief and need and
hallelujah-I’m-alive-and-with-you
—

I tasted his tears. Reveled in the feel of his mouth on mine. Ached for what had never been. Yearned for what could come.

Love . . . the breaking of your soul upon my lips . . .

Somehow, I was Caro and Claire and an eternity of other women . . . all who had loved this man.

I surrendered entirely to him. To us.

We kissed for an indecently long time.

And then Dante held me. Cradled into his shoulder. Tenderness and security.

Still sitting on those stone steps, worn with the footsteps of countless others before.

Both of us stared through the arched loggia to the countryside beyond. Water dripping on the stretching vineyards and olive orchards, rain tamping down the hanging humidity. Streaks of sunlight broke through here and there on the horizon.

The Yorkshire group murmured as they left through the doorway below the loggia.

Dante’s heartbeat thrummed firm and steady under my ear.

I closed my eyes, reveling in the safety of him. How fully I had let him deep inside my walls . . . into my heart.

This man
was
my heart.

“I’m never letting you go.” His lips brushed my hair. “Just thought I ought to warn you.”

“Good. Cause I’m never leaving.”

His arms clutched me tighter.

Anger pulsed behind my grief.

Blackford. He had killed them.

I cuddled closer, wiping my eyes.

“Should we be worried about history repeating itself?” My voice muffled against Dante’s chest.

“Yes.” Not a trace of hesitation.