She had read them that morning.
What she had seen — or rather, what she hadnotseen — had left her uneasy. The patterns were wrong, the shapes indistinct. There had been movement, confusion, and something darker winding through it all, something that spoke of danger, though not its source. Since that moment she had felt a bone deep certainty that Eliza was in peril.
She had tried to occupy herself, but her hands had refused their usual steadiness, and her thoughts kept circling back to the same question:Where is she?It wasn’t uncommon for Eliza to head into the forrest and be gone for hours. And, in truth, it had never worried her especially before. Those woods were their home, after all, and had been for generations. Most peopleavoided the area altogether unless they were desperate enough to seek out their—her— services. Never before had she known this kind of fear for Eliza’s safety.
The clock upon the mantle struck the half hour. The sound jarred her, but before she could make another circuit of the room, the latch on the door lifted. Helena turned sharply.
“Eliza?”
Her granddaughter stepped inside, pale and mud-streaked, her cloak askew, and behind her, filling the doorway with his broad frame and dark presence, came the new Earl. There was no question as to his identity, for surely no man without the benefit of a title could carry such an air of command.
For one breathless moment Helena could do nothing but stand there, her heart fluttering between relief and alarm. Then she crossed the room at once.
“Thank heavens,” she said, her voice trembling as she reached for Eliza’s hands. “I was beginning to think—” She stopped herself, swallowing hard. “Are you hurt?”
Eliza shook her head quickly. “No, Grandmama. I am quite well. There was—” She glanced toward the Earl, her expression guarded. “—an incident. But we are both unharmed.”
The Earl inclined his head in silent confirmation.
“That’s a very pretty way of saying nothing at all,” Helena persevered. “What happened?”
It was the Earl who answered as Eliza turned her gaze to the floor, clearly not wishing to share the information.
“Someone fired upon us,” he said, his tone grave. “I cannot yet say who, or from where, but I intend to find out.”
Helena’s fingers tightened around Eliza’s for the briefest instant before she released them. “I knew something was amiss,” she murmured, almost to herself. “The signs have been restless all morning.”
“The signs?” The Earl asked.
“Never mind that,” Eliza interjected quickly. “It is nothing.”
But Helena’s gaze lingered on the Earl as she straightened to her full height. Whatever fear had clouded her expression moments before was replaced by something far older and steadier — a calm, assessing awareness.
So this was him, she thought, taking his measure.
Gabriel Hawthorne. The new Earl of Blackburn. The man who had, through a cruel twist of inheritance, come to hold the lands of Ravenwood.
And, though he could not possibly know it, the man she had waited half her life to see.
Her unease did not vanish entirely — she was still a grandmother, after all, and Eliza was still her heart — but beneath the fear was another emotion rising to the surface: recognition.
The air itself seemed to shift when the two of them stood together, as though the space between them had a will of its own. Helena could almost feel it — the faint, humming pull that her mother had once described, the one that had been foretold in every Ashcombe generation since the old curse had fallen upon them.
It had been said that only when Hawthorne and Ashcombe blood were joined would the curse at last be broken.
Helena had never allowed herself to believe it fully. Prophecies had a way of turning cruel, and curses were rarely undone without cost. Yet as she watched her granddaughter standing beside the new Earl — their faces drawn, their clothing spattered with the dirt of the forest, and something unspoken flickering between them — hope flared within her. Hope that things might work out as she hoped, after all.
Of course, Helena said nothing of it aloud. Not yet. Not before either of them was ready to hear it, especially her prickly Eliza. But as she busied herself at the hearth, offering tea andmurmuring questions about the attack, her mind was already racing ahead.
Whatever darkness had haunted both the Ashcombes and the Hawthornes for generations was stirring once more. And whether Gabriel Hawthorne’s arrival would bring deliverance or destruction, Helena could no longer tell.
The scentof powder still lingered in his nose. It clung to his hands, his coat, the leather of the satchel at his side — the smell of failure.
He had missed.
He drew in a slow breath, forcing the tension from his shoulders. Anger clouded judgment, and he could not afford another mistake. The opportunity had been perfect: the Earl and the witch’s granddaughter alone in the forest, no witnesses, the fog thick enough to cover his retreat. He had waited, had steadied his aim, had the sight of the pistol aligned with the Earl’s chest. And then she had turned — just slightly — so that the two of them stood together.
That was the moment his resolve faltered.
