No, he didn’t want to be alone anymore either. But he didn’t have time to consider that. He needed to make arrangements.
James tossed the telegram into the fire. He didn’t want to keep it, though the sparse two lines it bore would be forever burned into his mind.
Ilona has died. STOP.
Please come home. STOP.
* * *
Shane jogged up the front steps to his sister’s house with a smug grin. He’d known Prim wouldn’t hold a grudge against him for long. It wasn’t in her nature to be spiteful and it was Christmas, after all. She’d want her family with her, all of them.
He was just about to ring the bell when a liveried servant ran up her walkway.
“Can I help you?”
“No, sir,” he panted, bent over. “I’ve a message for Mrs. Eames.”
What could be so urgent on Christmas Day, Shane pondered. His curiosity got the best of him. “I’ll take it.”
The fellow hesitated.
“I’m her brother,” he said. “I’m just about to go in. I’ll be sure she gets it.”
“Please see she reads it as soon as possible.”
“Of course.”
Shane took the envelope and watched the servant trot back down 5thAvenue. One block. Another. And another.
He was still running when Shane turned away, but he had a very good idea where the messenger was off to. There were only so many residences within walking distance of Prim’s home.
Slipping the missive into his pocket, Shane opened the door and climbed the stairs. Bypassing the family parlor and the laughter spilling from it, he went to the room he kept there instead. He closed the door and ripped open the letter, catching the scrawling signature at the bottom of the reverse page.
Your devoted servant, James MacKintosh.
With a sneer, Shane flipped it over and read from the beginning. A short explanation that he was leaving the city, sappy protestations of affection. Asking her to think about his proposal. The decent or indecent sort, Shane wondered.
Then he read on. MacKintosh had been reviewing her finances and discovered…
Shane’s eyes widened in astonishment.
CHAPTER 31
Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own; in pain and sickness, it would still be dear.
~ Charlotte Brontëfrom Jane Eyre
Glen Cairn Manor
Glenrothes, Scotland
January 1896
They’d been lucky to catch a ship just a day after the dreadful news, leaving out of port in Connecticut. Aboard the American Line ship SSCity of New York, recorded as the fastest steamship to cross the Atlantic, they’d made the crossing in six days. Another had been spent on the way to Portsmouth. From there, they’d traveled two days on the rails, making their way to Glen Cairn. His family’s ancestral home, where generations of the MacKintosh clan had been laid to rest. The house James had grown up in.
Neither echoing with the ruckus only a huge family could make or the laughter he usually associated with it, the grand old manor brimmed with sorrow. As did James.
The life had gone out of it, just as it had Ilona.
