He sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “I hardly know.”
“But thereissomething on your mind?”
“In a manner of speaking, I suppose. I feel… uneasy.”
“Uneasy,” she repeated slowly. “Uneasy, as…?”
“As though there is something else I ought to be doing.”
Unexpected hurt spiraled through her. Somewhere else he ought to be—something else he ought to be doing that wasn’t to do withher.
As though he sensed her shift in mood, he gently placed his hand over hers and stroked her knuckles, “I have enjoyed our day today so far. But I… I feel as though I have forgotten something.”
“The lighthouse…” she said bitterly.
“Not in the way you think, Aurelia.”
Thunder interrupted them, rumbling low over the manor. Aurelia bit back a shiver. Spring storms were always the worst—the east wind brought them from the Continent, and they threatened to unseat them all. When they arrived, it was a taste of winter. But late spring storms, when everyone thought the worst was over, rendered the most damage across the land.
“The lighthouse isn’t where I need to be,” he exhaled heavily. “But it made me wonder if there is somewhereelseI should be.”
“Likewhere?” She was not ungenerous enough to think it might be another lady’s house, or arms, but she did feel a pang of possessiveness. He washers, not someone else’s. If there was a place he belonged, it was by his wife’s side.
Just as he was about to respond, the door burst open, and a porter boy hurried in to speak with Fellows. The butler’s eyes widened a touch—unusual, and he straightened, an imposing expression returning to his face. “Peter informs me there has been flooding in the village. The river has—”
Before Fellows could even finish his sentence, Sebastian was out of his chair.
“Devil and damn, I had a feeling!Stay here,” he commanded of Aurelia, hastening for the door.
“Sebastian?” She threw down her napkin and tried to follow him, but he had already moved through the house to the hallway, barking instructions as he went. It was, she thought dimly, as if he had been waiting for somethingjustlike this to happen. “Wait for me!”
Fellows intercepted her path just as she made it to the main foyer. “His Grace has asked me to ensure that you remain here,” he intoned with his usual never-faltering formality. “The storm is dangerous.”
She glared the man down. “Andyethe is going out in it?!”
“Forgive me, Your Grace, but his instructions were explicit. He said he didn’t want you getting hurt—”
“And so I must sit back and watch as he ventures into danger without me?” The unfairness of it bit into her. Did he think he was the only one who cared about the village and its occupants? If he had asked, she would have attended with him—and they could have tackled this together.
But he had not asked. And now she was left in this big house alone.
Lightning cracked down from the sky, spearing the ground, followed by a roll of thunder so great, it felt as though the world itself growled. Like Hell had opened, and whatever demons lay there now roamed the earth.
The rain sheeted down so thickly, she could not see Sebastian as he left the house. She could see nothing but her own faded, watery reflection.
Rushing to the nearest window overlooking the gardens, she slammed her palm repeatedly into the glass. “Sebastian? Sebastian!”
Sebastian had never experienced a downpour like this. It battered his head and shoulders, pressing underneath his hood and soaking his waistcoat. Never mind: by the time this was over, no part of him would be dry.
Flooding.
He hadknownsomething was wrong, held a prescience in some part of himself that this storm was worse than most others, and that the rain would cause serious damage.
The river had overflowed its banks.
Aflash flood.
He’d heard of such things, tales from his youth, but he had never expected to experience it in his lifetime from where he lived by a cliff head.
