“How could you possibly know what our mothers might have done in this situation? We killed them both!” he snapped the words at her without thinking and before he knew it, she had struck him clean across the face.
“Enough, Alex! You have wallowed in self-pity for most of your life. You hid it behind your determination to do father proud, to gain yourself a reputation but I have always seen it!” Lorraine hissed back at him, her hands tightened into fists, one rested on the surface of the desk to hold herself up whilst she leaned over him.
“No longer! I allowed it for far too long after the accident. I will not watch you destroy yourself! Not for the club, or uncle, or anyone else for that matter! It is time to fight for the life you always deserved, not the life you believe everybody wanted you to have.”
A small part of Alex desperately wanted to grab hold of his sister's words and use them as fuel to do just that but meekly, he said, “I have lost everything, Lorrie. She is gone.”
Her confusion was clear in the way her dark eyes narrowed. “Whatever do you mean? Who is gone?”
Alex could not bear to say another word aloud. His throat was raw with emotion and the amount of liquor he had consumed. And so, he picked up Emmaline's letter from his desk and handed it to her.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her face grow pale. She placed a horrified hand over her mouth, reading with eyes that flashed across the page. Then, she seemed to look it over again before dropping it in front of him with a triumphant, “Alex, this is a forgery.”
In that moment, someone might have knocked him over with a feather had he not been seated. “I beg your pardon?”
“This is Em's hand,” Lorraine stated, throwing an accusing index finger at the letter on the desk.
Alex leaned back in his seat, starting at the letter, disbelieving.
“Do not tell me you do not know your wife's hand!” Lorraine snapped at him. “She has such beautiful cursive andthatmost definitely is not her hand.”
Alex's throat constricted.
“How can you know that?” he demanded, even as he thought, how can I not?
“We women tend to enjoy company when writing our correspondence. I saw Emmaline write to her eldest sister just yesterday and remarked on how beautifully she wrote.”
A thousand questions rushed through Alex's mind but the chief among them was, “If this is not from her then where is she?”
Lorraine did not answer. Instead, she asked another question entirely, “How did you come by the letter?”
Alex gritted his teeth. “Frederick.”
A niggling feeling of suspicion crept into his stomach. Frederick was a foul and violent man, but he had always been fair when it came to family.Where did he say he got it?
With the fog of liquor and unchecked emotions still plaguing his mind, he couldn't quite remember what he had said.
Lorraine looked as if she were about to say something when they both were startled by Sean's racing into the room, almost tripping over the rug in his eagerness.
“Forgive me, Your Grace, my lady,” Sean puffed, sucking in air between words, “But I have just had word from our informants at the docks. You won't believe it, Your Grace!”
“Believe what?” Alex demanded, jumping to his feet, slamming his hands on his desk. Was this something to do with Emmaline?
“The India Rose, Your Grace!” Sean gasped, doubled over with hands on his knees. “She has docked!”
Alex's eyes almost bulged out of his head. Lorraine looked quite confused.
“We must go immediately!” Alex declared, rushing to grab his hat and coat from the nearby coat rack.
“Alex? What is the meaning of this?” Lorraine demanded.
“I'll explain on the way!” Alex threw over his shoulder. Ordinarily, he never would have had Lorraine with him on such a journey but today, with so much uncertain and Emmaline's whereabouts unknown, he needed everyone else close.
Chapter 25
Early that morning, bathed and dressed from her old closet, Emmaline anxiously awaited her father's return. With no knowledge of what might have happened and no real way of finding out besides going down to the docks herself, Emmaline had no way to calm herself.
And so, she paced up and down her old chambers, glancing out of the windows at every opportunity, until Jane—sitting on the bed with no real understanding of what was going on—said, “I am sure he will return soon.”
