Honoria, as expected, proved difficult to maneuver out. Digging in her heels, she threw a mulish glance Seraphina’s way. “Now just a moment. I’m certain you can spare another few minutes with your dear friends before we depart. There is so much to discuss still.”
But Adelaide, saint that she was where Honoria was concerned, quickly took her in hand. “I’m sure I would love that as well, dear,” she said sweetly, grabbing Honoria’s arm in a gentle yet firm hold. “But we really must be getting back to the Beakhead. I don’t like to leave Gertrude and Juliette alone too long, as you well know. Why, the last time they had the place to themselves, they left the Parmesan ice out and melted the whole lot.”
As Adelaide no doubt expected, Honoria was quick to grasp onto that bit of maddening news. “Those girls,” she grumbled. “Why you keep them on is beyond me.”
“I assume you have someone else in mind to take their places?”
“Of course I do,” Honoria declared. With a quick wave goodbye to Seraphina and Bronwyn, she launched into what would no doubt be a long monologue on the importance of good employees—funny that, as she had only been with Adelaide, living above the Beakhead and working with her in the popular tea shop, for three months now. Adelaide, as ever patient, gave Seraphina a conspiratorial wink before ushering Honoria out.
Now that her biggest threat was gone—though she adored Honoria, there truly was no one like her when it came to ferreting out information—Seraphina let loose a heavy sigh. Forgetting, for a moment, that there was someone still with her. Someone who was not as tenacious or outspoken as Honoria, but who was the most brilliant, observant person Seraphina knew. Which could be equally dangerous.
Giving Bronwyn a careful look, Seraphina was about to launch into all the reasons why her friend must have important business to attend to back at Caulnedy Manor, the home she shared with her husband Ash, Duke of Buckley, and Ash’s three energetic, precocious sisters. Bronwyn, however, spoke before Seraphina was able to utter a single syllable.
“You’ve no need to worry that I’ll quiz you on your trip. Or your Scotsman,” she added with a small smile that lit up her narrow face.
All too soon, however, the smile was gone, replaced with a deep divot between her brows that told of her disquiet with the whole situation. She shifted her bag on her shoulder and reached for Seraphina’s hand, gripping it gently. “But just know that we only pester you because we love you.”
A lump suddenly formed in Seraphina’s throat. Not tears—no, she never cried—but a deep emotion nonetheless that she quickly swallowed down. “As I love you,” she replied.
“We know you do,” Bronwyn said, squeezing her fingers. “And so I know you will listen when I beg you to be careful.”
With one last meaningful look Seraphina’s way and a quick pat for Phineas, Bronwyn ducked from the office. Leaving Seraphina and Phineas quite alone. In more ways than one.
But there was no time to be morose. She had much to do over the next three days—no, two days now, as she had already wasted half a day worrying over how she would tell everyone of her upcoming trip—and could not spend a minute more putting off the thing she dreaded the most. Namely, what to tell her sisters about her departure.
But there really was no time like the present. Especially as she had already informed the Oddments that she would tell her sisters immediately upon their departure. And so, straightening her spine, she marched from the office.
Chapter 8
Butimmediatelyturned tosoon, turned toeventually. And before she quite knew it, evening had fallen and they were closing up the Quayside. And still she delayed. They were all quite busy, after all, reshelving books and tidying up the reading room and sweeping the floors. Surely she should wait until they were up in their apartment above the circulating library. Though mayhap she should postpone until they had eaten their dinner, she mused, biting her lip as she went over the receipts of the day. Or tried to go over the receipts, as her mind was much too full to pay them the attention they required.
But in a moment she knew that what she was doing—indeed, what she had been doing all day—was only delaying the inevitable. In her mind she saw how it would go if she did not stop herself now: waiting until after dinner would become postponing until after they cleaned up, then waiting until morning, and so on and so forth. At this rate,they would only learn about her departure when she actually departed. And so, depositing Phineas on his perch behind the desk, she expelled a sharp breath and said, her voice warbling in the great gaping silence of the place, “I have something to tell the both of you—”
But her words were cut off as Millicent, in the process of wiping down the front window, gave a little scream. And then she was scrambling toward Seraphina, a look of fear in her eyes that had not been seen there in a blessedly long while.
At once everything else was forgotten in the face of her sister’s distress. Seraphina, rushing to meet Millicent halfway, grasped her hands tight, only to find them ice cold. “What is it? What has happened?” she demanded.
“We have been found,” she gasped. “We have to leave Synne, immediately.”
Seraphina’s senses sharpened. This type of thing had been commonplace those first few years after she had rescued her sisters, then fourteen and fifteen and about to be forcibly married off, from their father’s home. How hopeless she had been then, how broken, after the year of hell she had been subjected to. That she had not been traveling, as their father had told them, was made obvious when Seraphina had returned home a ghost of the person she had been. But even though Seraphina had adamantly refused to tell them the truth of her absence—she could never tell them of the true horrors of her time away from them—they had trusted her implicitly, begging her to help them escape a fate that to them was worse than death. Seraphina had not hesitated; she may have been broken in spirit, but knowing she could protect her sisters—and that they trusted her to do that for them—had given her life again. She had snuckthem out in the dead of night, had them on the run, dodging the men their father had sent off after them. How many times had they found themselves being watched, and how often had they barely escaped capture?
Such a scene had not happened in nearly a decade, not since her father had announced to the world that they were dead and she and her sisters had found sanctuary on the Isle of Synne. Yet the way her body reacted to her sister’s panic was all too familiar, falling easily back into the defensiveness that had been so crucial in the beginning: her breathing sped up, her body going cold, her limbs tingling with the urge to act. Releasing her sister’s hands, she rushed across the floor to the window. “Found by whom?” she demanded, peering out into the darkening street.
Only to see Iain casually walking down the other side.
She went from cold to hot in an instant. Though whether it was fury at his blatant strolling near her establishment, or her body traitorously reacting to how well he looked with his broad shoulders and strong legs and deliciously arrogant expression, she would never know. And she would not allow herself to figure it out. There was no doubt in her mind she would not like the answer.
But now she had a bigger problem to contend with as Elspeth joined her at the window to see what all the fuss was about and spotted Iain. As she gasped and scurried away to huddle with Millicent, Seraphina let loose a quiet curse. Though it was aimed at herself and no one else. How had she forgotten that her sisters had known Iain? Yes, they had been young when they had gone on their yearly summer holidays to Scotland. More than half their lives had passed since those days.
But Iain was not someone you forgot, even if you hadn’tbeen head over heels in love with him as Seraphina had been. He was too large, too magnetic, too commanding to be forgotten easily. As was proof in the pale countenances of her sisters as she turned to face them.
“That man,” Millicent said, voice shaking. “We know him. Or, rather, knew him. He was a groom at Father’s Scottish house.”
“Yes,” Elspeth replied, her arms tight about her sister. “I remember him as well. Do you think Father sent him after us? And if not, do you think he will go to Father for a reward once he sees us?”
“Oh, I thought we were past all this,” Millicent wailed. “And now to have to leave Synne? I don’t wish to leave.”
“Neither do I.”
