Page 83 of A Bride for the Icy Duke
If history was repeating itself—if she had gone there again, seeking the same dark comfort…
Please. Let him not be too late. Not this time…
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Lydia was so very cold.
The pond looked just as she remembered it, albeit in the dark now, speckled with raindrops. She recalled just how she had felt the first time she had come here, brokenhearted and abandoned.
Then, she had been prepared to do anything to make the pain stop. Her thoughts had been so chaotic, so wild, that she had not felt as though there could be any option other than walking deeper into the bitter cold.
Now, of course, she knew better. No matter how upset she felt, she would never submit to those urges again. Still, she understood how her younger self could have come to that conclusion.
The mulch squelched under her feet as she took another step forward, feeling as though if she were to see her reflection in thesurface of the water, it would be her former self looking out at her.
She shivered, wrapping her cloak more firmly around herself. Coming here had been like taking a path into the past, but she couldn’t stay here for long. Just long enough to remind herself of what had been—Alexander and his kindness; Alexander and his young love for Helena—before she made her way back to the house and back home…
Just as she had all those years ago…
Time stood still as she watched the surface of the water freckle with the rain, and she remembered what had been. And she let herself cry.
Branches clawed at Alexander’s clothes as he charged through the undergrowth. The gardener had given him very approximate directions to the pond, and if it weren’t for the lantern in his hand—in imminent danger of being put out by the rain—he would have lost the path long ago.
Perhaps, a decade ago, the path would have been clearer for a little girl to follow as she fled her pain.
Or perhaps it had been as cruel to her as it was being to him now.
He tasted rainwater. His heart pounded in his chest, his legs, his extremities. The ache that suffused him spoke of danger.
He didn’t want to think of what would happen if he got there too late. If she had decided there was nothing left to save.
Thatwouldbe the end of him. He knew that there and now as he ran toward her. If she ended her life, so would it end his. He had survived the loss of Helena and the future he had craved with her, but that loss would be nothing compared to losing Lydia.
She was his wife. He needed her. Helovedher.
Against all odds, he put on a burst of speed, emerging from the treeline into a small clearing, where there was a pond.
And beside it, still dressed in her ballroom finery, was Lydia.
Relief flooded his bones immensely. His darling, sweetest, most wonderful Lydia. Alive and whole. Staring into the surface of the water as though it were a crystal ball revealing her future.
Or as though the water called to her the way it must have done the first time he ever saw her.
“Lydia!” Her name ripped from his lips, and he felt as though his heart went with it. “Lydia, stop. Wait! What are you doing?”
Miss?his former self whispered in his ear.What are you doing, miss?
So much time had passed since then, but the question was the same.
“Alexander?” She looked up in shock, her hair dark and bedraggled by the rain, her face too pale in his lanternlight. “What are you doing here—”
“Are you mad?!” He strode to her, knee deep into the dark, freezing water, catching her shoulders and pulling her against him, rough in his relief, his hands shaking. “I-I thought something awful must have happened. I thought for certain, when I realized you were here, that—”
Her hands, pressed against his chest, shifted. She shuddered against his warmth, and he realized anew how cold she must be. “You… thought what?”
“You.” The word tore from him, raw and desperate. He pulled back just enough to see her face, one hand coming up to cup her cheek. “All this time—Lydia, it was you… The girl by the pond. The girl I pulled from the water.” His voice broke. “The girl I promised everything would be well.”
Her eyes went wide, lips parting in a chill.
