“What had you asked me?”
“Only where you’ll be goin’ with yourself when I leave come mornin’.”
“I have not yet decided.” Perhaps back to Lord Manigan, though he grimaced at the thought of resuming his position as a footman. Did he have a choice?
“ ’Tis a big land, that America.” Mr. Abram stood from his stool, stoked the hearth, and stirred the ladle in the iron cauldron. “People wot go there be free, I hear tell. Won’t be many a fancy house, nor many a fancy folk, though. Just a lot o’ men wot wants to work with their hands.”
William set the bowl to the ground. What was he saying?
“Anyway, I’ll be goin’ outside to say good night to my missus. Last one I’ll be gettin’ to tell her.” He went to the door but glanced back with an uncertain, kindhearted look. “If you was of a mind, I reckon I’d be rightly glad to take you with me.”
The invitation swarmed William’s brain as the door thudded shut. He had wanted a new start, had he not?
Perhaps this was the chance he needed. Perhaps he should take it.
He was just not certain he wanted to.
Father said little on the journey home. Sometimes he watched her from the other side of the carriage provided them, his gaze sad and searching. Other times he just stared out the window, oblivious to the gold tassel swaying against his face.
He knew something was wrong.
Something was.
Isabella burrowed herself deeper into the quilts wrapped about her. The air was warm, and sunshine slanted through the coach windows, but something about the soft fabric snuggled around her offered comfort.
Heaven knew she needed comfort more than anything else in the world. She hurt everywhere. Her mind, with all its torturous memories. Her wrists, raw with rope burns. Her heart.
Father spoke to her. Some inconsequential thing about how well the roads had held up, despite the past rain.
She closed her eyes and ignored him. The sooner they reached Sharottewood, the better. She needed Bridget. She needed her bedchamber.
As soon as she could lock herself inside, she would.
She did not imagine she would ever come back out.
He never dreamed he would leave.
William jostled next to Mr. Abram on the wooden driver’s seat of the cart, Duke plodding along behind them. He tried not to acknowledge the fact that he would be leaving his horse behind.
Yet another loss.
Cannot do it.He tensed his body, ready to reach out and grab the reins, stop the cart, jump down, and ride back.
But he had nothing to ride back to. What was here for him except things he could not have? Did he really want to return to service just so he could be closer to Rosenleigh, a place he had no rights to? Or Isabella, a woman he could never see again?
No. He must do this, whether it was easy or not. He was determined. In America, it would not matter that he was a workhouse beggar. Years from now, he would look back and see that he had left a land that held nothing for him in pursuit of a life full of opportunity.
But as the cart wheeled into the small village of Ogden Wells, as the lights blinked out at him in the evening dusk, his chest suffered blows from his heart.
He was about to lose everything.
God must be laughing again.
As soon as Isabella stepped into the foyer, the sights and smells of familiarity overwhelmed her. She bit her lip to keep back a sob of relief.
Mrs. Morrey, who always beheld Isabella with a cool and disapproving stare, now approached with an almost teary expression. “Miss Gresham, you cannot know how reassured we all are to have you returned to us.”
Father took Isabella’s elbow. “Take her upstairs, have a bath drawn, and send up tea and soup.” As if those things would remedy her. “Then you shall feel much more like speaking again, my dear.”
