Page 112 of Stealing Sophie
“Sophie, I love you,” he murmured. “It is too late for any miracle your fairy stone may hold. But know this is true love. It is.”
“Connor—”
“Now go!” he told her, as he lifted his arm to signal Thomas. A shot cracked out, zinging past Campbell. The magistrate shrieked, spun—and ran off the bridge.
“Go!” Connor repeated, rushing forward, grabbing Sophie, grabbing Neill, shoving Rob. He pushed them all toward the opposite parapet. Sophie cried out, tumbled over the low edge into the water. The men hurtled after her in a tumult, and Connor lunged after them toward the parapet.
In the next instant, the bridge, the very air, shattered. Stones split, flew upward, collapsed. The water swirled, fountains poured upward as heavy stones fell, and Connor felt propelled outward as if from the barrel of a gun.
As the earthand river seemed to crash apart, as water spewed skyward, the arched bridge exploded, with smoke and flying stone and a dreadful groaning. Sophie surged down through the water and turned, struggling up again, coming through the water gasping for air, her head thick, her ears ringing. She looked around, paddling in the water. “Connor!” she cried. “Connor!”
“Sophie!” And then Rob was there, one arm free, ropes dangling, as he swam. He pulled her to him, both of them choking, gasping. She was treading water, her toes just finding the riverbed.
“Neill!” Rob dived down, sinking, coming up moments later with the old man under his arm. Sputtering, Neill raised a free hand to clear the water out of his eyes. Rob put an arm around Sophie again as all three made their way toward the bank. The guards were in the water too, she saw, soon crawling for the bank as they were. As they came to the muddy bank in the moonlight, one of the soldiers came to his knees, stretched out an arm, beckoned to help Sophie and the others.
“Where—is Conn—” Her feet found the solidity of mud and roots and stones by the bank, and she went to her knees, found purchase in the earthy muck. In the darkness, pale stones still dropped into the water from what was left of the bridge. The water was a churning tumult of white foam and debris, and the sound of the blast, like dull remnants, seemed to hang in the air. Sophie helped Rob, reached for Neill, as they came out of the shallows to kneel in the mud, gasping for breath.
Feet appeared, and someone reached for her. “Come up, Mistress, just here, come up.” Strong hands grabbed her, and she looked up.
“Padraig!” Relieved to see him, she took his hands as he pulled her to her feet. Then he turned to assist Rob and Neill, bending to help his father remove the ropes that bound his ankles. The older man’s hands, like Rob’s, were free of the earlier bonds.
“Are you hurt? You? Or you?” Sophie asked each in turn, guards included, as they waved to confirm they were fine. As she turned, a young lad, dark-haired and wearing a plaid, a large pistol stuck in the leather belt, came toward her.
“Thomas MacPherson, Mistress,” he said. “I am a kinsman.”
“Oh, I am glad you are safe!” She took his hand. “Have you seen Connor?”
Thomas shook his head. Looking toward the water, the bridge, the shore, she could not see him, and her heart fell in fear. She spun again, calling.
“Where is he?” Rob asked, coming to her side. “I thought I saw him go into the water when the blast hit.”
Sophie thought she had seen him too, for an instant, tossed into the air like a straw doll. But in the heaving water, the flying debris, the noise and commotion and shock of it all, she had not seen him again. “Did he not come up out of the water? Oh, dear Lord,” she said, feeling her brother take her arms, hold her. “Connor!”
She remembered his words on the bridge.It is too late for whatever miracle you carry around in that fairy stone...This is true love. It is.
“It is not too late,” she said half to herself. “It cannot be.” Whatever sacrifice she might need to make to claim true love, she would make it gladly, a thousandfold, if Connor was safe. She touched the stone, wished, waited. Watched the surface of the water as it began to settle, debris still floating, circling.
“What is that,” Rob said, pointing. “Is that a coat? A man floating?”
She made herself look. A gray coat, and bulk beneath it. “Sir Henry,” she whispered.
“By God, it is,” her brother murmured. “He must have been caught in the explosion.” His hand came up to her shoulder, squeezed.
“And Connor?” She could hardly breathe now, her heart, her sides, constricted. Between her fingers, she rubbed the little stone, prayed, wished, closed her eyes.
Nothing. No sound, no movement. Rob waited with her. Sophie opened her eyes again, forcing herself to look away from the floating form. Watching the water, which was growing calmer, flowing smoothly again, despite the wreckage riding its surface, the wreckage of her life.
“Connor,” she whispered. “He is gone. I cannot—” She could not say it, swamped with the enormity of it.
“He is fine,” Rob said, rubbing her arm. “Conn is always fine.”
She blinked, remembering that Roderick had said that, too, another time. They had constant faith in him. She would, too.
“He is always fine,” she repeated, a little desperately. The moments crawled on. The others gathered around her silently. Together, they waited.
“Look,” Thomas said then. He pointed upstream, toward Kinnoull.
She turned. In the darkness beyond the ruined bridge, a man was crawling up the bank, drenched in mud and sopping. He got to his knees, wiped an arm over his face, took a few breaths and looked toward them. Lifted a hand.
