Jasper fought back a yawn of tedium, and continued to survey the tableau with disinterest. Ladies clinging to their suitors’ arms as they skated upon the thick surface of the frozen river, peddlers barking their wares at the passing nobles. The strangers’ echoing words, empty and meaningless.
His gaze caught sight of the young lady who’d stumbled into him mere moments ago. She hurried outside of a grey tent removed from the bustling activity throughout the fair. A gust of wind tugged free her bonnet, and released several of her brown ringlets into the cool, winter wind. They whipped about her face, and with her high-cheeks and an almost cat-like slant to her eyes, she had the look of a kind of ice princess. He frowned, thinking of her frigid stare. Yes, ice princess was an apt moniker for the young lady.
With the serious set to her face, she was vastly different than the young ladies he remembered from three years ago. Something slipped from her fingers and slid along the ice. Tired of studying the nameless creature, Jasper glanced over to the tent Guilford had disappeared into.
A blood curdling scream rent the still winter air. The ungodly cry sent the kestrels noisily into flight; and gooseflesh dotted Jasper’s skin. With an intuitiveness born of a man who’d witnessed and experienced horrific things in life, Jasper immediately sought the nameless ice princess.
Time stood still for an infinitesimal moment that seemed to stretch to eternity, and then with a curse, Jasper sprinted down the river toward the gaping hole in the ice. He cursed the slippery surface that slowed his pace, and then tossing aside his cloak, skidded toward the desperate arms flailing through the surface.
Jasper slid forward upon his stomach, arms extended. “Take my hand,” he barked, as the woman’s head broke through the water.
She sucked in deep, panicky, gasped breaths. Unholy terror lit her eyes; the kind of eyes that had stared into the face of death and knew death would inevitably prevail.
Jasper cursed. “Listen to me,” he snapped.
Her brown eyes locked on his. Her bonnet hung sopping down the side of her tangled mat of brown curls. “Help,” she rasped, and then her skirts tugged her downward.
Jasper’s stomach lurched, and with another curse he inched ever closer. The thin ice cracked under his weight. He made one desperate grab and connected with her hand, tugging her up to the surface.
“Listen to me,” he ordered, his tone harsh and hard. “Do not fight me. Allow me to pull you up.”
Something in either his words or tone penetrated her fear, calming her, for the panic dimmed in her eyes, and she nodded.
Jasper pulled her soaking wet form, tugging her up, up, up, and then her slim frame broke the surface of the shattered ice.
Short of breath from his exertions, Jasper registered the ice’s protest to their efforts, and he found a last surge of energy to edge back, back, ever farther with the young lady and her heavy skirts held close to his chest.
Jasper edged them over to the hard, solid land, and collapsed with the young woman’s lifeless body draped over his. He dimly registered the steady crack, and then splash as the wide ice surface fell beneath the Thames River. He sucked in great big, heaving gasps for air and registered the lady’s absolute stillness.
His chest tightened as he turned her over; his eyes quickly scanned the pale white of her cheeks, and he searched for breath.
With a curse he thumped her on the back.
By God he’d not been dragged to this infernal affair to pull a woman from the water.
Another thump.
Only to watch her die amidst the mindless amusements.
A harder thump.
Not another woman.
Even harder.
Not again.
Water surged from her lips, gurgling and bubbling and he turned her onto her side as she choked and gasped for the sweet taste of breath.
Jasper collapsed hard against the earth, and lay back, staring up at the fat, white snowflakes as they fell from the sky. He closed his eyes a moment, and then rolled to his side to study the quiet stranger.
She lay with her knees pulled close to her trim waist, her arms folded across her chest. Tremors wracked her lithe body. Jasper cursed.
Christ, at this rate the young lady would have survived her plunge under the water’s surface only to die of a chill.
He searched around for his cloak, and found it on the opposite side of the gaping hole left from the missing slab of ice. Then in a great show of irony, at that very moment, his black cloak slid into the surface of the water. With a sigh, he shrugged out of his somewhat damp coat and tossed it atop the lady. “Here,” he said.
His jacket, too large for her diminutive frame, hung upon her, making her appear even smaller. She burrowed deep into the folds.
“Th-thank y-you,” she said, between teeth that chattered.