Although his heart was heavy, he would be grateful. Harold was safe, Sophia was free, and time would soothe matters over. And he had easily found a bed in which to sleep, which wasn’t always the case in such poor travelling conditions.
A hot bath, a good night’s sleep, and Dev would cover a greater distance tomorrow. Perhaps, if the rain stopped and the roads dried up… Dev scraped the mud from his boots outside and then stepped inside to pay the innkeeper.
Coming out of the rain reminded him of the day he’d met Sophia in the park, of ducking into the gazebo with her. Would she ever be far from his thoughts?
Was he doing the right thing? He could not swoop in so soon. He hadn’t much choice, really.
After a tepid bath, Dev climbed into the bed and determined to put such thoughts aside.
Surprisingly, he slept.
“Captain Brookes! Captain Brookes!” A pounding at the door roused him in an instant. It was not the voice of a friend or reveler who shouted. It was panic-stricken and anxious. He knew that sound all too well.
Jumping up, he pulled on his breeches and opened the door before the entire inn was awakened.
Henry stood before him, covered in mud, quite literally. The only clean part of him was the whites of his eyes — which held a foreboding message of bad news.
“You are needed, sir, at Priory Point,” he rasped in a loud whisper.
Some of the other guests had stuck their heads out of their doors to shush the late-night messenger.
Dev beckoned for Henry to enter his room. Mud trailed after him. Dev’s night of rest was not to be. If he was needed at Priory, he would leave as soon as the horses could be readied. Glancing at the window, he was at least relieved to see that the rain had ceased. They would only have darkness and mud to contend with on the journey back.
Was it Sophia? Had something happened to her? Or had Harold returned? He could not imagine what disaster had befallen so much so that his immediate presence would be called for. It must be Sophia.
“Tell me what’s happened.” He lit a few candles in the room and then pulled the door closed behind him. Not much light came in from the windows as the moon was still enshrouded in clouds.
Henry looked at the floor and then shook his head. “There has been another accident, sir,” he said. But the words did not flow easily.
“What kind of accident?” Dev’s chest tightened. God, not Sophia.
“The duke’s coach, with St. John and also your father, sir.” And then Henry looked up at him with an abundance of compassion on his face. “They’ve all perished. The road washed away, and their carriage fell into the sea.”
Dev replayed the words in his mind to be certain he had not misunderstood what the stable master was trying to impart to him.
This hardly seemed possible.
And yet, Dev considered the conditions when he, himself, had set off earlier that day. Soggy, wet… even on a bright and sunny day that road had always seemed more than a little precarious.
Nothing like this had ever happened before, however, and the castle had sat perched on the point for hundreds of years.
His father?
He swallowed hard. Henry would not have come all of this way to give him such news if it were inaccurate.
“Is the road passable now?” It must be, if Henry had made it through. “Did her grace send you?”
Henry was shaking his head. “Not passable by carriage, barely by horses. We have workers shoring it up with rocks now.” The obviously exhausted man paused and then remembered Dev’s second question. “It was Lady Harold who sent for you.”
Sophia… was alone at the castle. She was alone with his aunt — a woman who was under the impression that her youngest son had died not two weeks ago.
“All of them?” He could not help but to ask.
Henry’s face expressed regret and sadness. “The only ones to escape were the driver and one of the outriders. Even the horses went in.”
At these last words, Dev thought the man might lose control of his emotions.
Henry had cared for the duke’s cattle his entire life. Those horses would have been like children to him.
