Chapter 3
Dear sister,
I hope this letter finds you in good health.
We are sailing across the Mediterranean and it is a beautiful sight to behold. I wish you were able to glimpse this sea. It is the clearest blue…
Belle tossed the cursed letter aside for the thousandth time.
Good health? She hadn’t seen her brothers in years. They could damn well come see her health with their own eyes if they wanted to know it. Though she possessed half a mind to scratch those very eyes out if they did. Unfortunately, she still loved those wretched men too dearly.
This letter, which she’d read countless of times in the past, represented the only time she’d been truly envious of her brothers, the only time she’d felt cheated. Fine, perhaps not theonlytime, but if her brother had truly wanted her to see the clearest blue water in existence, he should have taken her along and not abandoned her to her aunt.
Five years, three months and twenty-eight days: the precise amount of time since she’d last glimpsed her brothers’ faces.
Three months, thirteen and a half days: the amount of time since she’d last received a letter from either of them.
To the devil with the rotters.
It was their desertion had allowed her grief-stricken heart to engage with an evil man. And the cost of her ill-fated journey was too painful to contemplate. She oftentimes wondered whether it would have unraveled the same way if her brothers had remained in England. It certainly would have been avoided had they taken her along. She recalled her anger at their refusal, but they’d held firm, arguing that Aunt Bertha needed her.
So she’d been all alone with her grief, a prelude to the darkest days of her life. And they weren’t even aware of any of it.
True, fate had dealt her a painful hand, but then, as if in apology for its cruelty, fate had also sent two precious sister-souls across her path. So she chose not to dwell on the dark days, but on the spark of light that had entered her life when she met Evelyn and Josephine.
They’d given her the strength to claw her way from the deep abyss, sewing together the tattered remains of her conscience and burying the guilt under the guise of a new self. Which had worked just fine until now.
“Oh, Charlemagne, what am I to do?” she murmured as her large white greyhound trotted over to her side at the breakfast table. He nuzzled her hand as if sensing her distress, though his eyes remained locked on her buttered toast. “Oh, very well, you can have the toast, Char, I’ve lost my appetite anyhow.”
In one smooth motion, he snatched the toast from her fingers and settled down by her feet.
At least at four and twenty she’d learned to trust her own instincts and when to ignore them in favor of some fun adventure. Now, though, she knew she must prepare herself for the worst.
The certainty ofhisreturn churned in her stomach.
“He is back, Char. I just know it. The only question that remains I suppose is whether he’s aware I’m still alive.”
The hound’s head perked up at her voice before it settled back on top of her foot.
“It is also too much of a coincidence that in the realization of his arrival, a meeting is called,” she muttered into her tea.
Belle shivered at the mere notion of subjecting her friends to the mistakes of her past.
Her finger tapped to her chin in thought, before jotting down a few points on a piece of paper. The time for self-pity had passed—years ago, in fact. She had no business sulking while there was so much to consider. Valuable time had already been wasted. Now, she needed to take preemptive action.
“If I’m lucky Char, Evelyn and Jo will never discover my foolishness.”
To what lengths would she go to prevent them from discovering the truth? She sighed, glancing down at the dog’s big round eyes, which were staring back at her. One could accomplish many things if one only put some thought into a plan.
She knew Edgar. Even now she was able to recall, with vivid clarity, the smell his rancid breath on her face as he laughed at her stupidity.
She would beat him this time. More importantly, she would put an end to him and his evil ways.
But how to capture him?
Belle patted Charlemagne’s head before she sat back and regarded her scribblings.
How to put an end to Edgar:
