Isabella drew back the soft red curtain and peered out the carriage window. Ah, there it was. To the right of the road, the long cliff dropped off into a glistening blue sea. Seagulls soared through the air, waves rippled, and puffy white clouds moved and danced in the sunniest sky. “Father, let us stop the carriage, please.”
He must have dozed off, for it took several seconds before he snorted, straightened in his seat, and yawned. “Dear girl, do not be impetuous. You are yet too weak for such adventures.”
“But we are only a mile from home, and I should love to walk back along the seashore.” She smiled as a dolphin broke the surface of the water then dived away again in the distance. “Besides, I am not so very ill.”
She had spent the four days traveling by ship in her cabin, unable to arise from bed, and making frequent use of the bucket Bridget kept by her side. Perhaps Father was right. Her stomach certainly did not feel calm, and the jostling carriage, however uncomfortable, was probably less sickening than a challenging one-mile walk.
Besides, Bridget was exhausted.
Isabella smiled over at her maid, who leaned against the carriage wall in slumber, Hannah More’sStrictures on the Modern System of Female Educationin her lap. The dear, dull girl. Isabella could not derive pleasure from novels, let alone such tedious literature as that.
As the carriage rumbled through the large entrance gates, excitement rippled through her. She scooted to the edge of her seat and was the first to climb out when the carriage halted.
She swallowed in the sight of Sharottewood Manor. With Corinthian columns topped by acanthus-leaf capitals and seraph statues crowning the roof, the stone manor stretched out before them with sunlight glinting on the endless windows. Two impressive stairways led from both sides to the front door, and an equally intricate fountain sprayed water from the center of the large courtyard.
How wonderful it was to be home. She always enjoyed London and anticipated her time there—but if the only joy she derived from such a trip was the elation of returning home, she would ever be satisfied.
Yet this time, something tainted her return. As the servants unloaded her valise and trunk from the carriage, as Father hopped down and stretched, as Bridget clutched her book and yawned …
An unsettling twinge pulsed through Isabella. As if they had left unfinished business behind them. As if they had run like cowards.
As if they had done something wrong.
Which wasn’t true, of course. If anyone was wrong, it was Mr. Kensley. The sooner she put him out of remembrance, the better off both she and Father would be.
Riding soothed William. He lost all tension to the fresh air and open countryside andploppety-plopof each hoof on the muddy road. He rode through foggy dawns, sunny afternoons, bluing dusks, and halfway into star-filled nights.
Once he stopped at a coaching inn along the side of the road in Lincolnshire. He ate a cold meal of beef, bread, and fruit, then shared a bed with a squirming gentleman before the sound of departing coaches awoke him at four in the morning.
Three more days before he arrived at Sharottewood.
Before he faced his father again.
Overwhelming bitterness flooded through him, and he tightened his fists around Duke’s reins. What kind of man hated his own son? What made one of his children dear and priceless, while the other was nothing more than dirt he wished hidden away?
William had not asked to be born into illegitimacy.
The painting of his mother replaced his view of rutted road and rolling meadows. Edward Gresham should have married William’s mother. He should have made right the wrong instead of forcing her to feign a marriage with a man who did not exist.
Perhaps if Edward had done his duty, Constance would not have perished in childbirth. Perhaps she would’ve had a reason to live.
A day away from Sharottewood, William bedded down in a forest along the side of the road. He awoke before daylight, urged Duke to a gallop, and covered the rest of the distance with a bulge of trepidation growing inside his chest.
The road veered along the edge of a forty-foot cliff, where a crashing sea spread out to his right. The air was salty and moist, the sky grey, the wind increasing.
“Almost there, boy.” William leaned forward and rubbed the horse’s sweaty neck, pride surging at the soft and bulging muscles beneath the thick hide—
A noise cracked like thunder.
Something pricked at his side, a small flare of irritation, as if a pebble had lodged beneath his rib cage. He glanced at himself.
Shocking red formed a circle at his side.
Then thunder again. Or a gunshot. Duke reared and William flew from his saddle, a searing sensation grazing his neck as he tumbled over the cliffside. Craggy rocks jabbed him, ripped him, cut him as he plummeted through the air.
Then his body smacked solid rock. Air escaped, but he couldn’t pull it back in, and darkness jarred through him in staggering waves.I’m dying.
Oh dear.
