Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 112133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Rhys clawed wildly for a new grip. Nothing. His fingers only slid closer and closer to the edge.
Stomp.
Rhys roared with pain as Bellamy stepped on his right hand, pinning it to the ground with his boot. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes. “Holy Christ.”
“Come on, then,” Bellamy grated through his teeth, tugging on Rhys’s left arm. “Up with you.”
The hand currently grinding beneath Bellamy’s boot hurt like hell. But at least it wasn’t sliding anymore. By flexing the muscles in his arms and abdomen, Rhys was able to hoist himself up enough to swing a leg over the cliff’s edge.
A few grunting, heaving seconds later, he lay on solid ground, rasping for breath and staring up at the bright blue sky. Alive.
“Bloody hell.” Bellamy joined him, collapsing on the rock-strewn grass. “I’ll say this, Ashworth. Things are never dull when you’re around.”
The little finger on his right hand stood out from the rest at an awkward angle. Rhys blinked at it, dazed by the familiar pain. “I think you broke my finger.”
“I think I saved your life. And that’s after you kicked me in the arse, thank you very much.”
“Where’s Cora?”
Bellamy tilted his head toward the upslope. “Her ankle’s turned, I think. Driver looks like hell, but he’ll live.”
Rhys pinched his mangled little finger between thumb and forefinger of the opposite hand. Gritting his teeth, he yanked the broken digit straight out, then drew a breath and forced it back in its proper alignment, wincing at the bright slice of pain.
It was just as he’d told Faraday. The mending always hurt worse than the breaking.
He looked up to see Cora and the coachman limping down the slope.
Cora approached the cliff warily, took a peek over the edge, then reeled backward, pale and panting. “La.”
Rhys took in the driver’s torn clothing and scraped arms. In the accident, he must have flown straight off the driver’s box. “Are you well?” he asked the coachman, pushing to his feet. “The horses?”
The driver nodded. “All safe, my lord.”
“What the hell happened?”
“The traces just snapped. First the right side, then the left. Once they were gone, the splinter bar couldn’t hold. A clean break between coach and team.”
“Sabotage,” Bellamy breathed. “Faraday was right. Someone’s out to kill me.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe Faraday himself. Maybe he had someone working on this while you were enjoying your tea and shortbread.”
“Or maybe,” Rhys said, “the traces just snapped and not everything is about you.” He scoffed at the idea of Faraday’s decrepit servant crawling under the carriage with a file or rasp. “Bad luck, plain and simple.”
His curiosity finally overcoming his dizziness, Rhys peered down over the cliff. The ground fell away steeply. Far below, the sea chewed on the twisted wreckage with jaws of rock and wave. The entire coach had splintered to pieces. No man could have survived that fall.
Feeling suddenly breathless, he gave his cravat a vicious tug. The magnitude of the past few minutes’ events began to sink in. “Good God,” he said wonderingly. “I almost died.”
“We all did,” Bellamy said.
“Yes, but … that never happens to me.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, I’ve come close dozens of times, but never like that. I really, truly almost died. I could not have saved myself.”
“I’ll take that as my outpouring of gratitude,” said Bellamy. “Are you always this churlish when someone saves your life?”
Rhys winced, thinking of Meredith. “Apparently.”
Cora indicated her own temple. “You’re bleeding, my lord.”
He touched a hand to his brow. His fingers came away wet with blood. Still huffing for breath as he straightened, Rhys reached for the handkerchief in his breast pocket.
Instead, his fingers closed over two odd-shaped coins.
He pulled one of them out and squinted at it. A thin disc of brass, stamped with a horse’s head on one side and its tail on the other. Leo Chatwick’s Stud Club token.
“Bellamy,” he said. “Heads or tails?”
“What are you on about?”
“It’s an experiment. Just call heads or tails.”
The man shrugged. “Tails.”
Rhys tossed the coin and caught it, slapping it flat against his wrist. When he removed his hand, the horse’s arse shining up at him seemed like the funniest goddamned thing he’d ever seen. Laughter rumbled from his chest. Leo always did love a good joke.
“Here. This one was Leo’s.” He tossed the token at a befuddled Bellamy, who caught it handily. “Now it’s yours. I lost.”
Who would have guessed it? By all things holy and profane, he’d lost. It would seem his cursed good luck had finally run out. He’d have to learn some new tricks—like the practice of caution. No longer would he stumble through the world, flipping that coin with “Life” on one side and “Death” on the other. He’d make his own fate now.
And Rhys knew just where—and with whom—he wanted to make it.