Honoria nodded. “I’ll see you then,” she murmured before, shocking Seraphina even further, she leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. In the next moment she was gone, slipping back inside the Beakhead.
More affected than she would ever willingly admit, Seraphina reluctantly made her way back to Admiralty Row and toward the Quayside. Though she had fought hard to keep her friends and Lady Tesh from probing too much into her distress at having Iain here on Synne, she now knew she had much worse things to contend with: namely, time to think, and to remember. And to figure out what the blazes she was going to do about her erstwhile husband.
Chapter 5
By the time evening came around, Seraphina was faced with the unpleasant realization that there was only one thing she could do regarding Iain: she had to meet with him again.
While she had not seen him in more than a decade, she recalled all too well his drive and stubbornness. She had been drawn to those qualities in the beginning, his focused intensity that, when directed toward her, had made her feel like the most important person in the world. When Iain wanted something, he went after it with his entire soul.
And so she knew he would not just go away, no matter how much she might wish it. No, she had to face him and see to it herself that he left Synne and never returned.
Panic bloomed once more, a poisonous flower in her chest, and the question that had been preying on her mind all that long day dug its teeth into the base of her skull: How had he found her? She had been so careful to erasetheir tracks. And it had not been easy, not with three redheaded sisters and a parrot. It had taken years to find this place, years of running and dodging their father’s men. Only when learning that he had proclaimed to all and sundry that she and her sisters were dead some ten years past had she begun to breathe a bit easier. Having her youngest sister reach her majority had further cemented the idea that they were safe, that they no longer had to worry about what that man might do to them.
Yet there had always been some fear in the back of her mind that this was all too good to be true, that they would be pulled back into that world again if the truth ever got out—and that she would be sent back to hell on earth. And so she had tried to be vigilant, to keep her sisters protected, to make certain they did not experience the same hell she had.
She deposited Phineas on his perch in the corner of their small yet cozy sitting room above the Quayside. Mayhap she had begun to feel too comfortable here. She worried her lip with her teeth as she stroked the smooth feathers along the bird’s head. She had to have inadvertently left a trail, like bread crumbs in the forest, for Iain to have located her. She cursed low; why couldn’t he have just taken her father at his word, like everyone else seemed to have done, and written her off as dead?
“Seraphina? Are you all right?”
Forcing a smile, though it was the last thing she felt like doing, Seraphina turned to face Millicent. Her middle sister stood close by, her brows drawn together in concern. Millicent had always been the more sensitive of the three of them, ever reacting to others’ moods. Seraphina would have to be extra guarded around her, lest Millicent grow suspicious.
“I’m fine,” she murmured, linking arms and walking with her toward the small circle of seats. “But you were kept quite busy with Mr. Ronald Tunley this afternoon. Did we not have what he was looking for?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Elspeth quipped with a sly smile for Millicent as they settled beside her, “I rather think we had exactly what he was looking for.”
“Elspeth!” Millicent exclaimed, batting at her younger sister’s arm, her fair skin blooming with bright color as Elspeth laughed.
But Seraphina did not join in on the sisterly banter. Frowning, she adjusted her spectacles and watched her two siblings closely. Had Millicent formed a tendre for Mr. Tunley? As she studied Millicent, at the bright look in her eyes and the small smile that played about her lips, she knew with a sinking heart she had. That was just the expression she used to see peering back at her from her looking glass when she had been foolish enough to fall in love with Iain all those years ago.
Not that it should have been at all unexpected that Millicent had fallen in love. She had to have known that, eventually, her sisters would find someone to care for.
Yet she had not expected it so soon. A foolish thought, she quickly realized. Her sisters were not young girls any longer. They had been fourteen and fifteen when Seraphina had spirited them away from the horrible futures their father had planned for them, and were now in their late twenties. In another life, they would have been several years married, most likely with one or more children at their knees, homes of their own.
And the pawns and chattel of powerful men who would have used them until they were mere husks of themselves.
Now they had a chance to make their own paths, to find their own happiness. And all that would be taken away if Iain made the truth of their past relationship known.
They had been welcomed into Synne society when they had arrived despite having no acquaintances, no family or friends to vouch for them. But Seraphina knew all too well what could happen to a person here if they were the subject of gossip. With a vividness that still managed to enrage her, she recalled what had happened to her friend Katrina not even a year ago before she had married her duke, when she had been the subject of scandal. The “good” people of Synne had turned on her in a moment, making her life hell. Not only that, but they had turned on anyone who remained faithful to Katrina, Seraphina and the Quayside included. What would happen were the truth found out about Seraphina’s own past, that she had stolen her sisters from home, that she’d had them all taking on a false last name—that she was in fact married?
Her stomach lurched. Dear God, they would be ruined, chased out of town, on the run again. No matter that they were now all of age, her father was a very powerful man, and no one would be able to stop him if he got it into his mind to make them pay for escaping his rule.
She lurched to her feet. She could not let that happen.
Both of her sisters had fallen silent and were staring at her with worry on their faces.
“Seraphina?” This time from Elspeth.
“I’m fine,” she lied. “Truly. I just… need some air is all. Will you watch Phineas while I take a walk down to the beach?”
“Of course,” Elspeth replied.
Before the words were out of her mouth, however,Seraphina was hurrying for the door, pulling her shawl from the hook, making her way down the narrow stairs to the side entrance and out into the warm late-summer night. She had to find Iain and make certain her sisters would remain safe. No matter what it took.
Iain had expected Seraphina to search him out soon. She had never been one to back down from a confrontation. Mayhap in the next day or two; she had been caught off guard, after all, and would need time to shore up her defenses.
Yet there she was, storming toward him in fiery fury—blessedly without her parrot—while he took the air along the path that ran parallel to the wide band of beach that faced the Master-at-Arms Inn.
“I’m glad I did not have to go to any of the Junipers to locate you,” she bit out as she sidestepped an older couple listening to a young singer on the edge of the path. “There will be enough talk from our encounter earlier; I do not want to add kindling to the fire.”
