Now it was too late.
He leaned forward, tightness pulling at his stitches. The pain fired him. He should have showed her the note. She should have been aware. Tom and Meade and the constable and anyone else should have guarded her carriage home.
Not again.A holy name was too close to the words. Words that felt, against his will, like a prayer.Please.
Yanking the horse to a stop, he tucked the reins under his knee and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Meg!” His bellow echoed. He shouted louder, trotted forward a mile, then yelled again.
No answer on the wind.
No waving shadow on the road.
Heaven help him, he could not find her body. He knew cold skin too well. He’d touched Caleb’s face after it happened, straightening his crooked limbs, wiping the drizzle of blood from the corner of his lip.
“Moses, get Papa!”He’d been crying. He never cried.“Hurry!”
All the feet had pattered on the old, leaf-strewn floor—Isaac, Moses, his sisters. Seconds later, they had all squeezed through the crumbled doorway and disappeared.
Tom had glanced up. The ruins of Satchwell Priory stared down at him, with their broken cloisters and lichen-covered stones and narrow six-foot walls. What had possessed him to climb the wall? To leap across the eroded window frame?
He should have known Caleb would follow him.
Calebalwaysfollowed him.
Everything had been quiet while he waited, the smell of blood nauseating. Dry leaves had skittered with the wind. Forest trees had creaked. The sun had blinded him through a glassless window, harsh and wretched, making the sweat slide down his face.
“Please, God.”He’d been afraid to move Caleb from where he’d fallen, so Tom bent over his chest and grabbed his shirt.
The same one Tom had worn last year. Caleb had grown into it with pride. He always wanted what Tom had. Always wanted to do what Tom did.“Please, God, dinnae let him die. Please, please. I beg of Ye, dinnae let him die.”
Now, Tom sucked in air and yanked the reins to his chest once again. He would find Meg tonight. She would be safe.Hewould save her.
And he would do it with nary a prayer.
They were unheard anyway.
That much he knew.
“Why do you read these?” Meg reached across his legs to grab the medical book. The spine was cracked, and a few loose pages fell into her lap. “You believe Violet might be cured?”
“I believe anything is possible.”
“And Dr. Bagot?”
“He, among other physicians, imagines it to be some form of cancer. There is much we do not know.” Lord Cunningham gathered the wayward pages. He tucked them inside the red hardback. “But my obsession with medicine, I fear, cannot all be laid to Violet’s charge.”
“You studied before?”
“Yes.” He hesitated, and she was certain he would say no more when he sighed. “You see, this is not my first experience with a terminal illness. By the time I was eleven years old, my father was confined to his bed or, on occasion, a wheelchair. Thus began his feverish obsession with these.” Lord Cunningham raised the book. “He suffered insurmountable pain. Doctors knew nothing. It”—another sigh—“it changed him.”
“I am sorry.”
“At thirteen, I was sent off to Westminster for schooling. When I returned later for Michaelmas, my father’s steward awaited me on the steps. He explained that Father had declined in my absence. He died shortly after my departure. No one told me, I imagine, so as not to affect my studies.”
“Then you were never given the chance to say goodbye.”
“You must cease being so tender, my dear.” Lord Cunningham pulled her head back onto his shoulder. “It was many years ago. Perhaps we do not ever fully recover from our tragedies, but we certainly learn to bury them. I have no wish to unearth mine at present.” His yawn whispered into the night. “Close your eyes, darling, and rest. I shall keep watch for anything astir.”
He spoke as if she were a child, frightened of shadows beyond her bed curtains. “I shall watch too,” she whispered.
