To Wed A Rebel (30 page)

That was all that mattered.

The pistol was motioned towards Ruth, forcing her to take a step back, to where the ferns gave way to long grass and unsteady soil.

“That only leaves you, Mrs Roscoe.”

“Please, no, father don’t,” shrieked Lottie, begging, making promises, hands clasped as if in prayer until one glare silenced her. Lottie flinched and put her hand up to her cheek. Ruth could see now, in the rising light, the dark bruise across it.

Ruth looked back over her shoulder, hair falling across her face, and saw the sharp, sudden drop into the sea below. The wind grasped her dress and whipped it around her ankles, a threat. A strong gust could easily sweep her right off and away, if it so wished.

“When they find your body on the rocks, they will assume that Albert’s death drove you to suicide,” said Griswell, preparing to fire, drawing the pistol’s hammer back. “They will say you still loved him and it will incriminate your husband even more.”

Chin up and her mouth set firmly, Ruth did not betray the fear that lanced through her.

“You will have to shoot me, sir, for I will not jump.”

Griswell seemed to take no pleasure in the moment, as if she were a small nuisance to be dealt with, little more than a bad business venture to be let go. “So be it.”

Chapter Three

Isaac

Isaac was almost too late. Disembodied voices, half-drowned in the sea breeze, compelled him to run. There was a stitch in his side, his lungs burned, every muscle ached. The horses had been left where the path grew too steep and he wished for their speed now as he crashed through the bracken. William had fallen behind long ago, struggling to keep up, swearing profusely as his wound slowed him down.

Three shapes stood by the cliff edge.

Griswell’s snarl met his ears. “Get in my way again and you will join her.”

“But I am your
daughter
.”

Lottie’s words seemed to make no difference to the merchant’s actions, as he flung the girl aside and levelled a weapon at Ruth once more, who had dared to dart forwards and protect her friend.

“
STOP
.” Isaac bellowed the command before he knew what to do, what to say next, how to act.

There was no plan, no options, no way in which he could remedy the situation. Rage coursed through his veins, for his fists were useless here. He could not fight his way out.

The surprise on Griswell’s face soon turned to annoyance. “They released you? No, you escaped, didn’t you?” He did not let his pistol drop. Instead he took two short strides towards Ruth and roughly grasped her arm. She could not resist. She could not back away, for the wrong move would send her tumbling down into the cold ocean.

Isaac clutched his own weapon tightly, his palm clammy, though it would do little good here.

“You do not need to hurt her,” said Isaac. “You can leave now, a richer man, and you’ll never hear from us again.”

“Throw your pistol aside, Roscoe.”

It was Isaac’s only leverage. He turned to face Ruth, felt the rising sun on his back, and saw the slight shake of her head that told him to remain armed.

“You cannot shoot me, Roscoe, for you’ll risk hitting your wife.”

He was right.

Isaac dropped his weapon.

Where was William?
Bleeding to death along the path. He’s too weak; he won’t make it.

“How fast can you run, Griswell?” Isaac stared him down. The hills were shot through with gold, the sea glittering. “Do you think I’d let you hurt Ruth and then slip away like the rat you are?”

Footfalls on the ground, calls and warnings met them. Captain Gibson’s men had finally discovered his absence and had come to subdue the escaped prisoner – and they’d find William too – if they hadn’t already.

Time was running out.

“I do not have to shoot her,” said the merchant, so self-satisfied, so self-assured. “You won’t come after me, not when you’re trying to save her.”

It was a splinter in time, a fractured second when Isaac held Ruth’s gaze, when they both knew what would happen and were incapable of stopping it.

Ruth stood no chance at retaining her balance, for she was too close to the edge. Griswell shoved her with all his might and her hands couldn’t find a purchase on him, failed to drag him down too. One second she was there, the next she was gone.

Then Isaac heard the shot, felt it almost as though it had pierced his own flesh.

Lottie screamed – at her own actions, at the weapon she held, the one Isaac had abandoned – and at the red spot that began to blossom upon her father’s shirt. Griswell groped at his chest, mouth slack, before he too toppled over the edge. Whereas he was most certainly gone from this world, there was still hope for Ruth.

“I didn’t mean – I didn’t – he pushed her – I didn’t,” said Lottie, while Isaac ran to the cliff edge, hesitating only for long enough to scan the foaming edges.

“I think she missed the rocks,” said Isaac, as he dragged off his jacket, with Lottie close behind him, clawing at him.

“She cannot swim. Oh God, Ruth cannot swim.”

“I know,” said Isaac, steeling himself, before he plunged down after her.

***

The ocean punched the air from Isaac’s lungs. It was deafening, along with the blood rushing in his ears, skin smarting from the fall. Disorientation seemed to last for an eternity, while pockets of air coiled around him, spiralling upwards, telling him the way to go. He followed them, kicking hard and finding the cold shock of the surface. He pulled in deep breaths as he sought Ruth, pawed through the water, and found nothing.

How long had she been underwater? How much longer could she last?

“
Isaac.
”

He heard his name, saw her face for a second, found her clinging onto a rock before the swelling sea crashed into her and stole her away. Isaac went after her, plunging down into the murky ocean, straining to keep his eyes open, reaching out into the unfathomable blue – before he found her. The material of her dress had billowed up and he grasped it – and her – pulling her up when her hand found his. It was a slow slog, his lungs were straining, his energy was dwindling and Ruth’s hold on him had slackened.

Do not let me lose her.

At last, after an age, their heads made it above the water.

Ruth was limp in his arms. Isaac pulled her with him, kicking against the tide, guiding them to shore while the swell continued to edge them closer to the rocks. It was a battle to get them onto dry land, for their clothes were saturated with water, his muscles felt weak and stretched, and Ruth was unresponsive.
Dead?
When they were far enough from the waves, Isaac sank onto his knees, beside his wife. She was pale, her hair in a ragged mass around her face, lips parted, lifeless.

“Don’t do this to me,” he begged, hoarse, exhausted, lifting her up against him and holding her tightly. “Don’t you dare leave me, Ruth.”

After everything, how far they’d gotten, it wasn’t fair for it to end now. Not like this.

“All I have done is ruin your life. I don’t want to have taken it as well.”

A sudden, choking cough fell against Isaac’s neck. His despair left him as he rubbed Ruth’s back and gave her space enough to clear the salty water from her airways, though he longed to touch her, embrace her.

“I thought I had lost you,” confessed Isaac, smoothing her wet hair back from her face when at last her coughing fit had settled.

Tired and drained, Ruth pushed against him, nails hard on his skin.

“Let go,” she ground out. “Let go of me.”

Isaac did not obey her at first, worrying he’d hurt her, that there was an injury he could not see. His attentions distressed her more and she fought him and shoved him back further, scrabbling in the sand, the heels of her boots leaving grooves amongst the shells.

“Don’t you touch me, Isaac Roscoe.”

“Ruth, what’s wrong? Tell me.”

“What’s
wrong?
” She laughed at him, though there was no heart in it. “How can you ask me that?”

“You cannot still think I killed that man?”

“No,” she replied. “You’re a liar, not a murderer, but I knew that when I married you. And yet I stayed. I hoped it might be different. I thought you had changed.”

“What is this about?” Isaac did not have the strength to stand and neither did she, both half-collapsed on the shore, staring one another down. “I thought I had lost you, Ruth.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted, to be rid of me, to be free of the wife you never wanted?”

Those words were achingly familiar for they were his own.

“I heard you talking with Griswell at the assembly rooms,” she explained. “About how much it
cost
you to be with me. Trust me, I want nothing more from you.”

“How much did you hear?”

“Enough,” she spat.

There was a siren’s fury in her eyes, a hardness to her clenched jaw.

“And all the rest I confessed to?”

“I didn’t want to hear it then and I don’t now.”

“Yes, you do, for those first flippant remarks are not the truth. There’s far more,” he said, shifting towards her, reaching for her though she backed off.

“No more lies, Isaac.”

“No more lies,” he promised. “I am not a man who comes easily to love, but I know I love you, Ruth.” Could she not see that? Did she not believe it? “You saved me when I was beyond saving.”

“Then we are even now,” she said quietly, though her features had softened. Like him, she had lived without light, without another to guide them through. “You need not pretend any longer.”

“There is no pretence.”

Ruth looked small, sad, solemn, her mind made up. “I have had enough of putting my faith in the wrong people and being hurt because of it.”

“I will never hurt you again. I will never risk losing you.”

“You already have,” she said softly.

“I cannot believe that. I am tied to you – body and soul – and no sharp words, no hard actions, no barbs could ever cut that cord. I did not mean those vows when I first spoke them.” In that cold church on that hopeless day, when he had been unable to see what was before him. “I mean them now, I truly do. In sickness and in health, for as long as we both shall live, if you’ll have me?”

Ruth hung her head, knees drawn up to her chest, dress in sodden heaps around her. When she looked up, after an age, there was new moisture on her cheeks. Isaac did not dare to move, waiting, willing her to accept him and hoping that one day he would be worthy of her.

“I need you, Ruth.”

“I need you too,” she said.

Isaac could taste the sea on her lips when he kissed her relentlessly, as desperate as she was. They were alive, more so than they’d ever been, with sand sticking to their skin and a new day dawning.

“Remind me to teach you how to swim,” he said, as the pair stayed slumped with their limbs across one another’s. “Just in case.”

“Teach me how to throw a punch first,” she responded, no more than a whisper, head on his shoulder.

Waves rose and fell upon the sand, a comforting, gentle lull that promised a safety it could not deliver. Clothes stuck to goose-pimpled skin as the warming sun found them. The little creatures that lived upon the shore scuttled and scurried nearby, undisturbed by the pair who were too spent to move.

Their peace did not last.

Captain Gibson called out to them, the words shapeless due to the distance. There were men with him and they were all armed, making their way closer. There were no escape routes and Isaac did not have the strength to run. They would surely capture him and they would take him back to whatever ‘justice’ awaited him.

Let them.

Bones heavy, with salt water dripping from his hair and down his face, Isaac pushed himself onto his feet with a weary sound. Every muscle ached and screamed at him to remain still. There was a pounding in his skull and he could not remember when last he’d slept.

Ruth was there at his side and she held him back, her hand in the crook of his elbow – as wrecked as he was. “What about Griswell? If he’s gotten away, they won’t believe you.”

“He didn’t get away,” Isaac assured her with a grim look. “Trust me, he didn’t get away.”

Isaac stood in silence, waiting for the armed figures to approach and showing no hostility, not wishing to push Ruth into further danger.

A light touch, a hand on his cheek, had him turn towards her. Eyes pressed tight, she held her mouth against his, but he wouldn’t close his own eyes. He didn’t want to miss a moment. Isaac tried to memorise the way she felt, her heat against him, the tangle of her hair in his fingers. Their foreheads rested together, as though they breathed one breath, were one person, and nothing else existed.

“Stop thinking,” he told her, feeling her shiver from the cold. “Whatever will come, will come.”

“There’s Griswell’s jacket. I saw it on the hillside. It’s covered in blood. That’s surely evidence enough to release you?”

“The man they’d convict is now gone.” At least until his body washed up along with the driftwood. That could take weeks and would prove nothing.

As the band grew closer, Isaac saw Lottie was with them. The woman broke into a run when she spied Ruth, arms wide and ungainly, as she pulled her friend into a hard embrace. Never had she looked so unlike herself.

“I thought you were dead. I thought you were both dead and it was all my fault,” she babbled, holding on to Ruth and bursting into a new set of tears. “I told them everything, well, almost, and they have my father’s jacket. There will be questions, I know, but it will be all right now, won’t it?”

The disbelief was thick in Ruth’s voice. “You did that?”

“Of course,” said Lottie. “You are my dearest friend, you are my true family – and oh, God, I thought you were dead.”

Isaac kept his attention on their approaching company. They still had a minute or two before the captain was on them. “There was a man with me; he was injured.”

“Yes.” Lottie nodded slowly. “I saw him. He was quite unwell, but they took him away.”

“He was alive?”

“I think so.”

When Captain Gibson found them, Isaac did not struggle when his hands were bound behind him. Lottie did her best to protest, using all her womanly wiles, but there were rules and further proof had to be sought. It was a precaution, they were told, and neither Ruth nor Isaac had the energy left to fight it.