“This… it cannot be! Surely, this cannot be!” she cried, tears pricking her eyes.
“The shipment is lost,” her father said, his voice little more than a croak. “Captain Morgensten barely made it back to shore alive.”
She had read the letter. She knew all it contained, yet she did not stop him from repeating the contents. It seemed all he could do to help the information to sink in and in truth, Emmaline needed to hear it aloud also.
She hoped he would continue but instead, he said, “Emmaline, read it to me aloud. Be sure I have the measure of it correct. My old eyes are not what they used to be.”
Emmaline cringed. She did not wish to say the words aloud. The guilt was already eating her up inside. This was all her fault.
Still, she cleared her throat and tried her best, “Lord Richard Moreau, Earl of Monrith, I write you with the gravest of news,” Emmaline read, her throat tightening, “Earlier this week our ship was besieged by a terrible storm that tore the ship asunder and the shipment with it. Everything from mast to cargo is lost to the seven seas.
I mercifully washed ashore somewhere in the driving waves but many of my crew have been lost to me.
I am truly sorry, my lord, that there was little I could do to prevent such a terrible incident.
I intend to make my way back to London as soon as I am recovered. Until then, I pray for you, for your family and for all the souls lost in our endeavors,” Emmaline paused and gulped before finishing, “Yours Sincerely, Captain Merrick Morgensten.”
By the time she had finished, Emmaline's hands were trembling so badly that the paper had begun to rustle.
“Then it is as I feared,” her father sighed, hanging his head. “Our greatest triumph is to be our most significant failure.”
Emmaline's stomach twisted so painfully that she had to bite back a moan. Covering her mouth with her fingertips, she took a deep breath to compose herself before she said, “Perhaps some of the cargo will wash up and we shall be able to recover it?”
Hope and denial of failure were all Emmaline had left to combat the terrible feeling inside her. It did little for her when her father snatched the letter from her hands in a most uncharacteristic manner and grunted, “Leave me.”
“Papa, I—”
“I said, leave me!”
Emmaline could not bring herself to face Jane again. She couldn't bring herself to face anyone and so, she crept up to her room, frantically unlaced and kicked off her shoes and threw herself down onto her bed. Screaming into the decorative pillows, she lost herself for a while in her guilt, grief and distress, her heart aching with the reminder of how quickly her father had dismissed her from his study.
The wordsshipment lostrang over and over in her mind, twisting her insides into knots and making her head hurt with the tears she cried. And when they had all dried out and her throat felt as if it had been filled with sand, she finally rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
That is when she heard the scream.
At first, she thought she had imagined it. When it came again, she was immediately off her bed, rushing for the bedroom door.
“Help! Somebody help us!” the shrill and terrified voice of her stepmother was unmistakable. It was coming from down the stairs.
Grabbing her skirts, Emmaline ran. Taking the steps two at a time, she reached the bottom to find servants rushing from all corners of the house.
“Jane! What is going on?” Emmaline asked, finding her sister in the doorway of the drawing room.
Her sister was staring in horror down the hall, her handkerchief gripped over her mouth to hide her gaping.
Slipping between the rushing servants to reach her sister, Emmaline turned to look down the hall in the direction of her father's study.
And the second she saw the scene unfolding before her, her blood turned to ice in her veins.
Spread on the floor, pale as death and eyes rolled back in his head, was her father. Ruperts was crouched over him, fanning his face while her stepmother held her father's head in her lap.
“Please, someone fetch for Doctor Fields!” the countess cried.
“My Lady, we must get him to his bed,” Ruperts instructed.
“No! You cannot move him.”
“I understand, My Lady, but he cannot remain on the floor if a doctor is to examine him,” Ruperts said softly. Emmaline's stepmother appeared frantic, and she knew that if such behavior continued, it would not end well for her father.
