Please forgive this late response. I only just came into possession of the letter you wrote me dated 24 June 1809. I would very much like to meet you and discuss the family matters you referenced. My present circumstances have changed abruptly, so it is my intention to depart for Briarton Park and arrive in a few days. I sincerely hope this is still agreeable to you.
Until then, I thank you for your kind invitation.
Cassandra Hale
James doubted her arrival was part of a larger conspiracy against the mill owners, as Shepard had implied, but even so, questions lingered. Why was she here unaccompanied and without a carriage? What had she expected the outcome of this visit to be? Would she have need to return to Briarton Park?
He had more pressing matters to think on. His half sister. His mill. The locals determined to destroy it.
He studied the delicate penmanship on the missive’s exterior. In all likelihood, he would never see Miss Hale again, even though he suspected the memory of her bewitching hazel eyes and the soft dimple at her mouth’s corner would linger in his mind’s eye for quitesome time. Instead of returning the letter to the stack, he opened the drawer, tucked the letter inside, and closed it. He would just have to leave it at that.
***
The noon hour was approaching by the time Cassandra returned to Anston’s high street. Sulky clouds now blotted out morning’s earlier brightness, the effect of which conjured a dimness that matched her spirit.
The Green Ox Inn would be her temporary home for as long as she remained in this village. It stood just across the high street from the stone bridge. Presently, a muddy carriage with four bay horses stood in the broad, sodden courtyard, unloading a group of passengers. Two adolescent girls pealed with laughter and were quickly reprimanded by their mothers. At the sight, a pang of homesickness stabbed.
At this time of the day, her students would have been preparing for their midday meal. They would have just finished their arithmetic and reading studies. It had all been so predictable—a patterned comfort to which she’d grown accustomed.
But there was no school anymore.
No Mrs. Denton.
Nohome.
She missed her cozy chamber at the school—the one space that had truly ever been her own. She missed having others around her who cared for her, and for whom she cared in return. Mostly, she missed Mrs. Denton.
She sniffed and tossed her hair from her face. She would waste no time reminiscing. She’d remain steadfast. What other choice did she have? She had to focus on her remaining options, not the disappointments and the emotions threatening to dissuade her. BriartonPark was only the first inquiry in her search. There had to be other people in this village who knew Mr. Robert Clark. And there was still his son.
She turned her attention to the cobbled high street with renewed interest. Modest shops with slate roofs and quaint thatched cottages lined the road, and at the far end loomed the church, ascending in stone blackened with age.
Perhaps Mr. Warrington was right. Perhaps the vicar could assist her. And there was no time like the present to find out.
The leaves swirled around her ankles and clung to the rough fabric of her pelisse as she made her way to the church, pausing to allow a group of plainly clad women to pass. At the iron gate to the churchyard, she slowed to assess the ancient structure. The graveyard was tucked into the building’s far side, sleeping eerily amid the ashes and oaks.
She hesitated. Cassandra had always avoided graveyards. Even as a child she’d shied away from them and squeezed her eyes shut as they crossed through the one at Lamby to reach the church’s entrance. The idea of death, and the finality of it, unsettled her. Mrs. Denton had always said she did know Cassandra’s parents’ identity, but she’d also said she did not know if they were living. In Cassandra’s young mind, that meant they could be in any graveyard—and that had unnerved her.
She pushed open the gate and stepped through. The graveyard was larger than she had initially imagined. As she traversed the path, she realized it curved around the back of the church and stretched beyond. Gravestones of every shape and size, darkened by age and now rain, dotted the grounds and family plots. An ancient stone wall, tinted with moss and covered with ivy, encircled all, as though not to allow anything to disturb what was sleeping within.
She swiped a drop of rain away from her face as she plodded forward, pausing to read each carved inscription. Then, after nearlya quarter of an hour of searching, she found what she sought in a small plot beneath a copse of ash trees.
Robert Clark 1745–1809
Cassandra froze in a desperate attempt to decipher the feelings brewing within her. Loneliness? Sadness? Grief?
She shifted her gaze to the name of the stone next to his, and she sobered.Katherine Clark.His wife.
But it was the three little stones next to them that jolted her. Small graves, all markedInfant.
She stood transfixed. The memory of the man in the portrait plagued her as she stared at his final resting place. She could not shake the sensation that they were connected. But how? Was she related to him? Was she related to these infants?
She gathered her skirts and knelt to brush fallen leaves and twigs from one of the infant’s headstones.
“Were you acquainted with the Clark family?”
Startled, Cassandra jumped to her feet and whirled to face a man clad in a black coat standing a few feet from her, his hands clasped casually behind his back, the brisk wind lifting his molasses-colored hair from his forehead.
“O-oh,” she stammered. “I—I didn’t realize anyone else was here.”
