If I Fall (46 page)

He had her hand. His body laying flat on the landing, straining to hold their combined weight.

“Don’t let go!” she managed to say, her vision still fuzzy, but she focused on him. Focused on him, and only him, and suddenly, things began to be clear again.

Jack had her. And Jack, more than anyone, would never let her fall.

“Never, sweetheart. I got you.”

“Let me go!” came Georgina’s voice, as she struggled against the death grip Sarah had on her forearm.

“If … if I let you go, you’ll die,” Sarah replied, her voice coming back to her.

“I’ll take my chances!” Georgina screamed, her eyes as red as her face, the madness no longer in check. But when Sarah’s grip didn’t lessen, Georgina began to thrash. To move like a fish on the end of a hook, doing anything to get free, screaming, as her joints twisted and pulled against Sarah’s grip.

And it was working.

Because her thrashing made the landing, already stressed
under the weight of three people hanging off the side, begin to creak, and shudder. And then…

One of the supports gave way.

As the landing angled down, Jack slid down with it, stopping only when his feet caught on the mouth of the iron door, and Sarah held onto his arm with more strength than she knew she had.

But it wasn’t enough.

Sarah couldn’t help it. She was slipping. Slipping. And to save herself, she had to give Jack both hands. Her body made the decision for her. Her hand let go of Georgina before her mind could protest.

Georgina didn’t scream on the way down. She just went, landing with a thud on the bottom, some four stories below.

Sarah met Jack’s eyes. It didn’t matter now. Georgina didn’t matter now.

Later, of course, they would question how she had survived. There would be no body at the base of the tower, as they finally made their way down, helping Sir Marcus down as they went. He would sway in and out of consciousness, but he was in command enough to tell the guards who finally managed to break into the tower not to shoot Sarah and Jack, as they were the heroes of the situation. And there would be no sign of Georgina when word got out to search London high and low for her. Her escape had long been planned.

But, as it has been said, none of that mattered now.

All that mattered was that Jack had caught Sarah. And he would never let her fall, ever, ever again.

“W
E
are going to miss it!” Sarah cried, worrying at her fingernails.

“We are not going to miss it,” Lord Forrester replied, as Bridget reached over and took Sarah’s hand, forcing her to stop her nervous picking. “We have timed this perfectly. It’s high tide, after all.”

“Exactly!” Sarah cried. “It waits for no man! Nor wife.”

It had been a tumultuous three days since the events at the Horse Guards. There were messes to be cleaned up, in both the attic room of the Horse Guards and the Duke of Parford’s study (not to mention an alleyway a few blocks removed from Somerset House), and Sarah and Jack had to sit inquisition for those messes.

Marcus required surgery. He had feinted around the knife when Georgina had stabbed him, but not enough it seemed, as he was stuck through a fleshy bit of his side. Phillippa had said she was never so happy as to realize that the bit of weight he’d gained in marriage had saved his life. But before the surgery, he made it clear to any agency that asked that Jack and Sarah were above reproach in this matter. Luckily, no agency really questioned the new head of the War Department, and with
Marcus’s secretary’s help, as well as Phillippa, they were sent home, free of any charges or scandal.

Of course, once they got home, they had some explaining to do.

First, they explained to Sarah’s parents. Contrary to Jack’s fears, the Forresters were delighted to welcome him to the family as a son-in-law-to-be, and gave their blessing for a union between them fully and completely. While Jack and Sarah might have glanced over some of the more unusual aspects of their romance—Blue Ravens, false moustaches, that Sarah’s room is easily accessed from her window—the way they held on to each other was plain enough that further explanation was decidedly unnecessary.

It was also unnecessary to explain the circumstances to Bridget, who shook her head, and sighed, “Finally.”

Amanda simply wanted to know what color her bridesmaid dress would be.

It was gold, as the best they could do on such short notice was to let down the hem of one of Sarah’s ball gowns.

Sarah herself wore white, and walked down the aisle of their church and married Lieutenant Jackson Fletcher under special license (which Lord Forrester had moved heaven and earth to acquire, once he saw his daughter’s insistence, and guessed the reason for it) and under a blue sky, a mere twenty hours before the
Dresden
was meant to depart.

But for those twenty hours, Sarah and Jack reveled and loved, and if either of them worried over the upcoming separation, or the wait that would be their only comfort for the next two years, neither allowed the other to see it. Indeed, they acted as if they had all the time in the world.

But that didn’t mean they had all the time to make it to the London docks to see the
Dresden
off!

“We will never make it,” Sarah breathed, once again angling out the window to see the traffic.

The roads were surprisingly cramped for dawn. But the
Dresden
was a large ship, with a sizeable crew and cargo. And everyone had to get on board, or wave good-bye to those who were.

Jack had left her bed hours earlier, to come to the
Dresden
and familiarize himself with her decks and holds, captain and crew before they set sail.

She didn’t want that to be the last time she saw him—her half-asleep, him tiptoeing out the door. They had to get there before the
Dresden
set sail. They simply had to.

“You had to do your hair just so, didn’t you?” Sarah shot Bridget a look. Bridget blinked back innocently at her.

“How did I stall us? You are the one who changed gowns twice.”

“I was ready to go in the carriage ten minutes before you came down—”

“Girls,” Lady Forrester said calmingly. “Blame does no good at this point. Sarah, why don’t you hop out and run for the docks. You’ll move faster on foot.”

Sarah didn’t have to be told twice. She was out of the carriage before the driver could even draw to a complete stop.

She wove her way in and out of the fisherman setting up their stalls, the men hauling heavy cargo over their heads. As she got closer and closer to the ship, to the dock where the
Dresden
stood, proud and tall, she couldn’t help feeling a sense of dread. People were no longer standing and blocking her path … they were moving in the opposite direction.

Suddenly, she burst out of the maze of buildings and onto the clearing of the docks. She was there! She made it!

Just in time to see the
Dresden
fade in the distance, moving down the Thames.

“No!” she cried, her breaths coming in heavy gulps from running. The crowd of people had given up on waving good-bye to their loved ones and begun dispersing, making it easy to run right up to the edge of the dock.

“No! Jack!” she yelled out, waving like a madwoman, any pretense that she was once (and still was) the toast of the ton now officially dropped. “Good-bye, Jack!”

“Well, thank goodness you’re saying good-bye,” a familiar gruff voice drawled next to her. “I thought for a moment you were about to dive in the water, and I would have had to jump in after you.”

Sarah turned abruptly, and stared right up into the face of Jackson Fletcher himself.

Her entire body jolted at the sight. Her head whipped around, to the ship, receding in the distance, to Jack standing tall and proud before her, grinning like a fool.

And in civilian clothes.

“But how…” she stuttered. “Why … Jack you’ve missed your ship!”

“Interestingly enough, it’s not mine anymore.” He took her arm, and turned her away from the edge of the docks, making them seem for all the world like just another strolling couple. “I had a conversation with Phillippa at the wedding yesterday. She gave me a letter from Marcus—he’s doing much better and recuperating with Phillippa as his nursemaid. By the bye, you might want to call on her and get her out of the house, she’s likely to drive Marcus mad. Anyway,” he continued, when Sarah shot him a look, “he wrote that they need someone to follow up on Georgina’s employers. See if the bits of information the Comte let spill would yield any fruit. And since he is still recuperating, he needed someone familiar with the situation to head it up. And it would also help if this person had some experience in espionage.”

“You mean … you’re working for the War Department?” Sarah asked.

“At a remarkably high pay grade, with a rather, er, colorful pseudonym,” Jack returned, winking at her. “Of course, this means I’ll now be based in London.”

“Will you?” Sarah smiled as her heart soared.

“Yes, a fact your family thought you would approve of.”

Sarah looked to where Jack indicated. There, in the middle of the docks, stood her family. Her mother looking teary, her father proud. Bridget looked smug, and Amanda simply bounced with the anticipation of what was to come next.

Truth be told, Sarah was bouncing, too. But…

“Jack, will you miss it? The sea?” She asked, tentatively, looking to her toes. “You’ve been a navy man your entire life, and now.…”

“Now, I’m something else,” he nudged her chin up with a gentle hand. “A life of adventure and service to the Crown need not be found at sea, I’ve discovered.” When she still seemed skeptical, he sighed, and took her hand. “I was a child when I joined the navy, looking for honor and adventure. But it didn’t satisfy me. Not really. Now, I want a different kind of adventure. And I want it to start right away.”

Sarah’s eyes went wide as Jack slowly dropped to one knee.
Her eyes never left him, even though she could hear her mother’s gasp and her sister’s squeal.

“Sarah Forrester, Golden Lady,” Jack began, taking a ragged breath. “I’ve loved you since before I knew what love was. We may have been married yesterday, but I realize I was remiss. It was always assumed you see, and so I never even asked the question. But you do need to be consulted, considering recent events.”

“I do, indeed,” Sarah managed through the rapid beat of her heart.

“You may decide you would rather not be married to a security section man, rather than a naval lieutenant. After all”—he gave a nervous laugh—“at one point you had been expecting a Duke.”

“I don’t want—”

“I may not be a Duke,” he continued, “we won’t be able to live that high, but I will keep you in comfort, and better still, I’ll be by your side the whole time. But I only want to go on this adventure with you. So…” His face split into a grin, as Sarah felt tears of happiness stain her cheeks. “Would you like to go on an adventure with me?”

It was not a ballroom in front of a thousand glittering people. It was not elegant, or by any means refined. Instead, it was on the docks, somewhat after the fact, in front of only her family as dawn broke against the sky that Sarah found herself proposed to. By the man she had fallen in love with and married not the day before.

They arrived at it crookedly. And by no means perfectly. But it was perfect for them.

And so it was in those golden moments, lit by the rising run against the London docks, as men and women milled around them, going about their day’s work, and her family cheered and cried, that Sarah Forrester accepted Jackson Fletcher’s hand, and said yes to an adventure.

T
HE
summer sun faded into autumn late in the south of France. Indeed, it barely faded at all, which was what Georgina preferred. The months spent in England, through a wet, chilled spring and a tumultuous summer, all in the pursuit of a goal that was just now coming to fruition had taught her an appreciation of the more temperate climates she had grown up with.

A little over a month ago, the Burmese had taken the island of Shapuree, which the British had claims to. All of those weeks of whispered words in the right ears were now bearing fruit, as the Burmese were no longer seen as a nuisance, but a threat to the growing British Empire. The desired war—and the desired profits from it for her employers—would soon follow.

Granted the mess in England had put a slight damper on her reputation, and she bitterly regretted being unable to deliver the coup de grace she needed to send the English into a full Protestant fury, but surely her employers would see the right of the situation, recognize her hard work, and pay her the remaining sum they owed her.

And if they didn’t … well, she had other means by which to take what she was owed.

Thinking about the mess in England set Georgina’s face to a scowl, which did not mesh with the symphony of beauty that was Montpellier in October. She forced her expression to clear, careful that anyone that chanced to look at her face would not know her true feelings. Not that it was likely that anyone would look at her. Even if her arm hadn’t hung limply, loosely at her side, rendered useless by twisting it free from Sarah’s grasp, and then landing badly in her fall, Georgina knew she would be outshone by her newly chosen protégée. Chloe, nineteen, lithe, and French, possessed all the charm and beauty of Jean de Le Bon as well as the more fluid moralities of Mrs. Hill, making her the perfect specimen for this line of work. She was young, moldable, although not yet entirely controlled—but they would work on that. Above all else, Georgina relished control.

She glanced over her shoulder, where Chloe was testing her wiles on the clerk of the grand hotel they were staying at, overlooking the deep blue Mediterranean. If she succeeded, Chloe would be purring with pride, and perhaps their rooms would be gratis that evening. If she didn’t … she was very likely to make the clerk feel as bad as she did. Georgina hid a smile at the thought. Impetuous child, but really the best Georgina could have possibly found, and on such short notice.