Concentrate, Alicia. Details, not sentiments.
The income from her marriage settlement would keep them for a time, but not in their current mode of living. And not with Octavius’s debts.
She looked around the sitting room. This house could be let. They could retire to smaller lodgings in some place less fashionable than London. Bath, perhaps? Salt air would be good for her soul. Aunt Hester would appreciate taking the waters.
Alicia’s gaze slid to Aunt Hester’s pinched mouth.
Or not.
What mattered was they would get by, no matter what these men decided was best.
They would economize. Something that would—ironically—be easier without Octavius’s expensive tastes. Life would be less luxurious, of course. But they would have enough to eat. And they would have each other.
“If you’ll excuse us, Captain.” She stood. As expected, every person in the room followed her lead.
“Of course,” the captain replied. “We have taken too much of your time already.”
“Not at all.” She allowed him to take her hand. “We appreciate the courtesy.”
“We will be in touch.” He gave her another deep look of understanding.
Too deep.
Her feelings were not for consumption. Especially not by the Admiralty, who were determined to package up Octavius’s loved ones in shackles topped with a pretty, iron bow.
She smiled sweetly as the captain and the little man departed.
The Admiralty may be determined. But she was equally determined she would never don shackles again.
Chapter Two
Ash sat alone within his study, the only inhabited room in his London home save the kitchens. He ate, drank, worked, read, and slept within these walls—his cocoon in a cavernous house stuffed full of macabre memories. Earlier, he’d declined to have his manservant, Kent, light the lamps. Tonight, he preferred shadow.
He always preferred shadow, truth be told.
May you rot in the darkness you have chosen...
He scowled. What the devil was wrong with darkness, anyway? Why this universal mania for light? He’d always been intrigued by the description of what camebeforethe sun’s creation.
Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep...
Ah, he loved the sound of the deep.The deepwas a place one could rest.
Formless, like broken crystal.
Empty, like the chambers of his heart. He rubbed his fingers against his chest.
Although plenty of evidence had mounted to the contrary, he did possess a functional version of the organ. Somewhere beneath his ribs, his heart swished like a sponge in seawater on a moonless night. The organ’s stubborn persistence was the only reason he remained afloat on the surface of the dark deep.
Alive, yes. But for what purpose?
He’d long suspected Purpose, with a capital P, did not exist.
And yet there was something, wasn’t there? A sense there was more. A sense kindled by having born witness to another’s love. A love that had been transformative, mysterious and grand.
Such an experience was not for him. Never for him. His home—his life—had always been engulfed by gloom. He had survived, but the gloom had taken his father’s reason, his mother’s maternal responsibility, and his wife’s life.
Yet, sometimes...sometimes...he could almost believe his life was being held in abeyance, as if he were a shade of the dead, and could be reanimated with the proper sacrifice. In those times, hope, in wraith form, flitted at the edge of his senses, a blessing and a curse.
