Watch sharp.
At the meadow’s lowest point—just before the rocky bluffs began to rise on the other side—Thorne slowed his horse to a walk. He scouted carefully for the appropriate crossing place. Centuries ago there’d been a deep moat carved here. An extra layer of protection for the castle above.
Over hundreds of years the moat had mostly filled in—but there were still pockets here and there where the meadow dropped out from beneath a man’s feet, and boulders waited to catch him a few yards below.
A strange sound came to him, piercing through the thick felt blanket of rain noise. He recognized it at once.
“Badger?”
Thorne left his horse. The gelding was on familiar ground now; he’d spent a year grazing these meadows every day.
Whistling in this downpour would be futile. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted for the dog. “Badger! Here, boy.”
The pup’s barking came from one of the deep hollows in the meadow. What was he doing down there?
“This had better not be another snake,” Thorne muttered, advancing to investigate.
It wasn’t a snake. It was a woman.
His Katie, tucked beneath a bit of overhanging turf, soaked to her skin and shivering in a muddy hole in the ground.
“Jesus Christ.”
He stepped down into the pit, bracing his boot on a ledge of stone and stretching his free hand toward her. “Katie, it’s me. Take my hand.”
“You’re here.” Her face was so pale, and her voice was frayed. “I knew you’d find me. You always find me.”
Her arm looked positively ghostly as she reached up to him. He worried he’d make a grab for her hand and discover she’d dissolved to mist. Lost to him forever.
But no. When he tightened his fingers, they seized on real flesh and blood. Treacherously chilled flesh and blood, but he would take her any way he could have her, so long as she was alive.
With a few tugs and a bit of cooperation on her end, he had her out of the hole. She fell against him, and he caught her in his arms.
“Katie.” He stared down at her, horrified. Her thin muslin frock was soaked through, clinging to her skin in mud-streaked tatters. “Are you injured? Are you broken anywhere?”
“No. Just c-cold.”
He released her—steadying her on her feet so he could strip out of his coat. The damn sleeves were fitted too well, and the fabric was damp. He had to struggle, and every moment he wasted was a moment she shivered with cold. By the time he finally had the thing off, he’d rattled through every blasphemy in his vocabulary.
“What the devil are you doing out in this?”
“I . . . I didn’t mean to be. I took Badger out for a run, and we were caught in the rain. I didn’t realize how much he’d hate it. I thought dogs loved the rain.”
“Not sight hounds.”
“S-So I’ve learned. At the first sprinkle of rain, he darted down into the hole. I couldn’t make him leave, and I wouldn’t leave him. I decided we’d just take shelter and wait the downpour out. But then it went on and on. By the time it eased a little, I was so very c-cold.”
He threw his coat around her shoulders and drew it closed. For a summer rain, this one was cold, and God only knew how long she’d been out in it. Her lips were a distressing shade of blue, and now she wasn’t making a damn bit of sense.
“I had to go walking, you see. I had to keep walking until I found the answer. Even if it t-t-took all day and all night. I had to know. But now I do.” Her teeth chattered and she stared blankly into the distance.
“I need to get you inside. We have to get you warm.”
Her eyes met his, suddenly lucid and piercing. “I remembered, Samuel.”
God. When she said his name, his heart made a mad, frantic attempt to escape his chest.
She collapsed against his body, curling her fingers into the fabric of his shirt. Her breath was a puff of warmth against his skin.
“I remembered you,” she whispered. “You, the music, the song. That night. I remembered everything.”
Chapter Eighteen
I remembered everything.
Thorne refused to think about the implications of her words. He needed to get her to dry shelter as soon as possible. Everything else could wait.
The castle was barely a quarter mile off. He could have put her up on his horse, but the beast was exhausted from slogging through mud all afternoon. Thorne would have needed to walk alongside, which meant there’d be no speed advantage over simply carrying her himself.
So that was what he decided to do. At least she’d be able to borrow his heat.