Joseph huffed a laugh. “There is no need for that. I promise that I will do everything in my power to bring her home.”
Dorothea seemed slightly unconvinced by that, but she didn’t press the issue any further. And Joseph, not wanting to discuss his emotional state of mind with his seven-year-old daughter, quickly changed the topic to her studies, asking her what she was studying today. Dorothea happily went along with it, but he sensed that this conversation was going to come up again if he did not make good on his word.
He had to get Catriona back.
It’s time to go back.
You cannot keep running forever.
You’ve started nagging me again. Surely that means you are feeling better.
Catriona stared up the ceiling of her old bedchamber as her sisters’ words—and the latter being from her uncle—swirled about in her head. She knew she had to return, but she’d been savoring her time away, afraid to face her future. She’d been content to pretend that nothing had changed. That Joseph had never walked into her life.
But her sisters and her uncle would not allow it. It was not like her to run from her problems, they’d said, and they could tell that it was eating her up being away. She brought up Dorothea constantly after all. And when the conversation inevitably drifted to Joseph, it was obvious that she was longing to go back to him.
What she wanted and what she should do were on opposing sides, however. She wanted Joseph to come after her, to beg for her to come back, to tell her that the three days apart had been utter torture and that he’d realized just how much he loved her. What she had to do was face the music, however. He would never love her, and it was time for her to learn how to live under the same roof with him, even with that fact.
But how could she do that without first being honest with him? With herself?
Catriona sat up suddenly. She gave herself a moment, just one second, to think twice about what she was about to do. Then she launched herself out of bed and quickly began packing the trunk she’d taken with her when she’d left Irvin Manor. Thankfully, she hadn’t fully unpacked so she was able to do it quickly.
She couldn’t wait until the morning. She would return home tonight. And in the morning, when she’d found the right words, she would confront Joseph with them. For now, she simply had to get home. She was sure her sisters and her uncle would understand.
Catriona slipped out quietly, making her way down to the back of the house, Nina silently trotting behind her. The night was quiet, the sky cloudless, as if the universe had known she would be sneaking back home tonight. Moonlight washed her path ahead, and she quickly took the trail she’d taken many times over the past three years, the one that headed through the back gate to the river.
She was halfway there when she heard a blood-curdling screaming.
“Help! Help me!”
Fear seized Catriona at once. She acted without thinking, dropping her trunk and racing ahead to the sound of the screams, ignoring that voice of panic in the back of her mind that told her that the voice was familiar. It wouldn’t make any sense. It simply wouldn’t.
And yet, as she drew nearer, that panic devolved into an unspeakable horror that nearly froze her to the spot.
Dorothea was caught in the river, clinging desperately to a large rock as the current tried to sweep her away. She had her eyes closed, her tiny arms just barely making it around the slippery rock. When the water abated enough for her mouth to rise above it, she screamed again. “Someone help me!”
“Dorothea!” Catriona didn’t think twice about what she did next. All she knew was that she was in the water, the cold shocking her senses.
Dorothea opened her eyes. “Stepmother, help! Please!”
“I’m coming, Dorothea,” she told her, unable to keep the panic from her voice. “Just don’t let go. Keep holding on, all right?”
The water was strong, and the closer she got to Dorothea, the more it threatened to sweep away her footing. Catriona, halfway there, made a desperate dive forward, managing to grab the rock before the river took her away.
“Hold on to me,” she ordered breathlessly, hoping Dorothea could hear her over the roar of the river. With only one arm clinging to the rock, she took Dorothea’s other, helping her to let go of the rock and wrap her arms around Catriona’s neck instead.
The added weight nearly threw her off her balance, but Catriona held strong. “Don’t let go, all right?”
Dorothea nodded against her shoulder, her tiny body shaking.
Catriona braced herself for the onslaught of the current once more. It would be harder trying to cross back to where Nina stood on the bank, barking as if her life depended on it, but she focused on her cocker spaniel, using every bit of her strength to keep her legs from being swept away. Soon enough, the bank was within reach, but the moment she touched it, fingernails digging into the wet soil, her legs gave way.
“Climb off me!” Catriona barked, and Dorothea scrambled into action. She swung her leg over, quickly getting to the safety of land. Catriona let out a breath of relief, both because Dorothea was safely out of the water and because she no longer had that added weight hindering her progress.
But that shoddy grip on the soil broke away. Her legs, spent from their fight against the raging current, could no longer hold her upright no matter how hard she tried. One moment, she was guiding Dorothea onto land, and the next she was being taken away.
Dorothea’s scream and Nina’s barking were the last thing she heard before she went under. The river was unforgiving, not giving her the chance to catch her footing. She just barely managed to raise her head above water to catch her breath before she was swept under again.
She fought with all her might, but a traitorous thought crossed her mind anyway.
