Not her too.
In one night, he had lost Mamma, Papa, his name. Everything he loved. Everything he believed in. Everything he had fought for these last fourteen years of his life.
Mamma.The hurt carved deep. Mamma, with her pretty chestnut hair. Always fussing over him. Always worried for him like a good mother ought—only she wasn’t a good mother.
She was a killer. She had taken a life and destroyed another, and Papa had helped her do it. He was a coward. A pitiful, disgusting coward. He’d chosen his love for Mamma over everything else in the world and swallowed the lies to keep her smiles.
Tears raced loose. Felton smeared them away and tried not to remember all the times he had fought and bled for a name that now meant nothing. Nothing but lies, blood, and filth. All the things he’d never wanted people to think of him.
He hated the name of Northwood.
For what it had done to Lady Gillingham, and for what it had taken from Lord Gillingham. For how it was hurting Eliza.
God, not her too.The prayer again. The one he kept pulsing through the madness of his brain, over and over, as if repeating the words would keep her safe and alive.
Please.He pushed away the images. Her lying beside him in the sand. Him stroking her cheek. Their lips meeting, sweet and undoing, tasting of everything good and right and true.
I’ll die, God.He doubled over the saddle and squeezed his eyes shut against the harsh tears trying to push through.I’ll die if I cannot get her back.
Morning was here. Sunbeams shone through the wooden lattice, forming crisscross shadows over Eliza’s body and the rough floor. Every time the wind stirred something above deck, or the ship creaked in a wave, or a seagull squawked in the distance, she flinched. As if they were footsteps. As if he were coming for her.
She ran a tongue over her torn lip and scooted toward an old wooden cask in the corner. She lifted to her knees, cupped some of the water from the bottom, and brought it to her mouth. The warm liquid soothed away the thirst but not the fear.Felton, I’m sorry.She didn’t know why, but the words came over and over again.
Maybe because she’d told him the truth of his father. Maybe because she knew now the truth of his mother. Or maybe because it had happened in this way. Because it ended like this.
In another world, it might have been different. If she had never been stolen from her nursery window, mayhap they would have played alongside each other, year after year, and taken hundreds of visits to the shore. Perhaps, if she had been raised like all other girls, he could have been proud of her. And wanted her. And married her.
Even now, she might have been waking up in a four-poster bed beside him. He might have stretched and yawned, she might have sighed and smiled, and somewhere in their quaint little abode a child’s morning cry might have greeted them.
Her heart shuddered. She couldn’t imagine now. She didn’t want to. Once, in the quiet and lackluster days of the forest, such stories and dreams had sustained her. They had been her companion through many a lonely night.
But she couldn’t bear them now. She couldn’t bear anything. She’d couldn’t bear the reality that Captain was buried in those woods she loved. Or that Felton was lost to her. Or that Merrylad was dead. Or that her father was innocent and she had run from him and there would never be a chance to beg his forgiveness and make amends.
Let him come.She stared up through the lattice door and caught glimpses of wispy clouds, white against a pale pink sky.Let him come and let it be finished.
She was ready to stop fighting. She was ready for the nightmare to be over.
She was ready to face her beast.
He was four hours into the morning and still nothing.
Felton rubbed both eyes with his palms and took in an unsteady breath. He’d combed the length of Quainford, asking everyone from the cobbler to the rector to the black-haired abbess outside the village brothel.
No one knew anything about Ozias Bay.
Or had even heard of such a place.
Desperation battled against the last of his forbearance, as he muttered a prayer and pushed his way into the crowd of a meat market. He grabbed shoulders, asked his question, and tried to keep from slamming his fist into each unfavorable face when they all shook their heads no. What had the maid done? Lied to them? Was she so afraid of Bowles?
He fought back nausea from the stifling, bloody aroma of raw meat and unwashed bodies.Please, Christ.He squeezed through the madness to the other side of the street and picked up pace.Help me.
A white-haired woman, half-naked in rags and without hat or shoes, hobbled toward him. “Alms, sir? Alms?”
He pressed several pennies into her blistered hands. “Can you tell me where I might find Ozias Bay?”
“Alms.” She brought the coins to her sore-splotched face and smiled with blackened teeth. “Thank ye, thank ye. Alms, alms. Thank ye—”
“Ozias Bay. Please. Have you heard of it?”
