But the moment she passed one very familiar door she slowed and stopped quite against her will. Before she could think better of it, she put her hand on the latch and pushed it open.
Her room was the same as it had been, with the massive four-poster bed that dominated the space, the white desk in the corner, the blue-and-silver wallpaper. It had been a haven from her father when he had forced her from thenursery, then later a prison when he had brought her back from the asylum. She saw now it had been kept exactly as she had left it, down to the small book on her bedside table and the gray shawl draped over the chair before the hearth. It shocked her, that this place had not changed even a bit. On a whim she went to the corner of the room, dropping to her hands and knees, yanking back the rug with shaking hands—and let out a breath when she saw the loose floorboard beneath. Clawing at the board with suddenly desperate fingers, she pulled it up to reveal a small box hidden in the space underneath.
The breath left her body as she gazed down at it before lifting it out and opening it almost reverently. Every one of the keepsakes she had saved from her friendship with Iain, every flower he had given and that she had pressed and preserved, every bit of ribbon she had kept, was all still there. Her eyes did that strange prickling that they had taken to doing occasionally since Scotland. But she did not have time to understand it; she was here for a reason, and she would get it over with. When she was done here—God willing she was able to leave this place—and back in Durham at the inn, she could take the time to look these items over to her heart’s content. Or maybe she should wait until she was back on Synne. Or maybe someday down the road when everything was not quite so raw and painful.
Closing the box back up, she held it tight to her chest as she left the room and made her way to her father’s suite. She swung the door wide without bothering to knock, only to find…
… Nothing. Not that the room was empty, of course. Her father’s taste in interior design, after all, was to gather as many expensive pieces as he could fit into a single space.
But beside the massive, intricately carved furniture and the costly fabrics, the room was empty.
Letting out a frustrated breath, Seraphina felt as if every bit of her confidence went with it. Mayhap he was out. Which was incredibly inconvenient, as she did not think she would ever have another chance like this again. As she turned to leave the room, however, and find someone, anyone, who could tell her where her father was, she heard the rhythmic clomp of horses’ hooves, the rumble of a carriage in the drive, and a driver calling out. She wasted no time, hurrying across the room to the window to peer down at the scene below.
Her father’s carriage, Farrow crest emblazoned on the side, pulled to a stop before the front door alongside the carriage she had come in. As she watched, frozen, a gray head popped out of the window, an all-too-familiar stern face peering out: her father.
Bile rose in her throat, filling her mouth, and it was only with utmost will that Seraphina kept herself from casting up her accounts then and there. Fear snaked through her body, urging her to run, to hide. She ignored it as best she could, forcing herself to exit the room and descend to the ground floor. No, she would not run and hide. She was through being frightened, through with her sisters living in fear, and would have things out with this man once and for all.
Just as she made it to the front hall on shaky legs, her father threw open the door. “Barnes,” he barked in that harsh voice that Seraphina recalled all too well, “where the hell—”
The rest of his question was cut off as he spied her at the bottom of the stairs. His eyes widened in shock, his nostrilsflaring as he took her in, and Seraphina felt as if she had stepped into a dark tunnel, with only a pinprick of light and her father’s cruel face on the far side. She gripped tight to the banister, forcing air into her starved lungs, praying she could keep herself from keeling over on the spot.
He looked the same as he had all those years ago, though perhaps a bit grayer, a bit more wrinkled. But still, he stood straight and tall, with the same vitality he’d always had. As she watched, he shook his head, as if trying to clear cobwebs from it before narrowing his eyes on her.
“Seraphina?” he demanded, incredulous.
She swallowed and then spoke, praying her voice was even and without inflection. “Hello, Father.”
He took her in from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, his expression going from disbelief to outrage in the space of a minute. When he looked again at her face, his eyes blazed with fury.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
She flinched at the venom in his voice. And yet it had the welcome effect of jarring her back into herself. Was she still frightened? More than she could ever say. She rubbed at her wrist, as if to comfort herself with the fact that she was free.
But she also knew who she was, and who she had become. She was strong, so much stronger than that frightened girl who had fled in the dead of night more than a decade ago. She had walked through the fires of hell and come out the other side. She would not let this man cow her.
Pushing away from the banister, needing to stand on her own two feet, she stepped across the gleaming tiles of the front hall, right toward her father. “I am here to make certain the ties are cut between us for good.”
A sharp, cruel laugh escaped his thin lips. “Cut ties with me? Girl, the ties shall be cut when I say they are.” Suddenly he narrowed his eyes, looking behind her. “But where are your sisters?”
Ice seeped into her bones. There was entirely too much interest in those cold eyes of his. She had the sudden, panicked urge to run from this house and to not stop until she was on Synne and had her sisters safe in her arms.
Instead she drew herself up to her full height and looked down her nose at him. “Where they are is no concern of yours. But perhaps we had better take this conversation to a more private place.” She motioned to the shadows, where more than one pair of eyes was peering out at them.
The change in her father was instantaneous, the fury in his face replaced with wary frustration as he looked about. He had no doubt built up the story of his daughters’ deaths for all it was worth, and would not appreciate the mirage being dispelled, even among his staff. It was all the verification that she needed that the gamble she was taking in coming here could very well pay off.
“To my study,” he snapped, low and fierce. “Now.”
Which might have rankled Seraphina. But she was ready for this final confrontation to be over and done with, and was not about to squabble about his tone.
What she had not counted on in her determination to face him and put this part of her life behind her, however, was how much his fury and hatred could grow in thirteen years’ time.
The moment she stepped into his study, he slammed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock, dropping it in his waistcoat pocket as he did so, effectively trapping her in.
“I could send you off to that asylum again, girl,” he hissed as he approached her. “No one would blame me for it. I could have you committed, and this time you would never see the light of day again. You would rot in there.”
Once more she struggled to draw breath. As he came closer, she felt the walls close around her, shrinking down to the size of that dank cell. The cold seeped into her bones, and against her will, she began to shiver.
But as her arms unconsciously curled around herself as if to stave off a cold that wasn’t there, she felt the bulk of the box in her arm.Iain.Ah, God, Iain, whom she should have had a happy life with, a life that had been stolen from her by the man before her. At once the cold dissipated, strength returning to her limbs, the heat of cleansing anger burning away her fear.
