He sensed the man’s gaze long after they pulled away.
Benedict had madeit as far as Exeter before stumbling into sobriety. He’d missed the coach at a stop twice and had been forced to wait for the next. At Gerrard’s Hall, a lack of funds left him low on drink. The week had not been Benedict’s finest.
Every mile the carriage took him from Eliza left him colder. The sensation began at the tips of his fingers and toes. Now, a mere day’s journey from home, the chill had spread and settled into his very marrow. The warmth of her touch was a vanishing dream.
As he froze, the rolling, churning knot in his gut grew larger.
Neither problem had been dimmed even slightly by drink.
The prospect of sobriety was dismal but necessary. He hadn’t been lying to Wayland—his father wouldn’t leave the grudge where it lay. Andhewas the first line of defense between his father and Eliza. Benedict had little worry that Wayland could defend his own family. The man certainly had the resources.
But his absence—this meager protection was the only thing of value Benedict could ever provide Eliza.
His was a pitiful sacrifice—far less than she deserved, and nothing at all compared to what he wished. He could never offer her his name, his body, or his heart. But he could do this. He could keep her from Ambrose Sinclair’s wrath.
Before setting off on the final morning of his journey, Benedict had excised the last of the drink from his skin in the shared basin at the inn. Head tragically cleared, he knew would have to remain close to his father—no matter how unpleasant.
The last day of his journey was even less enjoyable than its predecessors. His head pulsated with the aftereffects of too much scotch. His stomach rolled with the anticipatory pangsthat always accompanied the sight of his father. And his heart longed for Eliza’s soothing touch.
Far too soon, he breathed in the familiar scent of petrichor as the grumbling croaks of frogs and the rhythmic strums of crickets filled the air.
After departing the coach at the Bodmin inn—the one no one had ever bothered to name—he abandoned his trunk to the keeper’s son until he could return with a wagon. It cost Benedict his last few pence. He was not the first Sinclair to lose his coin in the establishment, nor would he be the last. His father was a regular fixture, usually huddled around a table near the back with a few regulars. Those men were at that moment clustered around a game of hazard at their usual table—Enys, Stark, Tonkin, and a man Benedict didn’t recognize. His father wasn’t among them.
The pretty barmaid with ginger hair—whom Benedict had once bedded—offered him a ride. Whether she meant on a horse or herself, Benedict wasn’t certain. He wasn’t interested in either. Instead, he began a lumbering plod down the road and through the moor toward Blackwood Grange.
In a certain light, the moor could be beautiful. The gently sloping hills carved into mossy valleys by rock-speckled creeks kissed by the golden sun. But today, the heavens must have felt it appropriate to reflect his mood—dusky and damp with inconvenient, craggy footpaths dotted with muggy puddles and downed oak branches to stumble over. One tree in particular would need to come down as soon as Benedict had the misfortune to sober up.
Each stumbled step took Benedict closer to a conversation he’d never thought he would have. Failure had never been an option.
Not that he considered his weeks in London a failure—his heart refused to allow him to label Eliza as such. But his fatherwould. His father would consider his empty handed return to be the ultimate betrayal.
Too soon, the sharp grey angles of Blackwood Grange pierced the horizon. Like the moor it inhabited, the house could have been attractive. The central stone tower rose above the side wings, flanked by elegant spires on the steeply pitched roof. But it rested before a perpetually tranquil pond, and the house’s reflection on the stagnate waters lent it an eerie countenance.
Despite his best efforts, Benedict had never successfully encouraged any natural growth on Blackwood. Every tree, every shrub he planted, met a quick demise. Even weeds refused to grow. On dreary days such as this, the bare earth turned into thick muck that stuck to his boots. Flat slate built upon dingy mud, set against an ashen sky—Benedict’s home was a lifeless wasteland.
It was good that he hadn’t brought Eliza here. She didn’t belong in a barren place such as this. Even Eliza’s lively heart did not posses the magic necessary to turn Blackwood Grange into something habitable.
As he grew nearer to the house, Benedict sighed. His father’s study was aglow—there would be no delaying the inevitable.
Finally, Benedict stood before the peeling, inky midnight paint of the French doors. He stared at them, cowardly and pathetic, with the inane wish that God would strike him down before he reached the study.
The door creaked angrily when he pushed it open.
And it was as though he’d never been absent. The thin layer of dust that always clung to the ornate, swirling rosewood carvings along the archway and matching banister had neither grown nor shrunk. Formerly fine, the oriental rugs were still so worn and faded they were unrecognizable. The same cobwebs dangled from the chandelier, catching against the dim, dreary light from the film-coated window.
“Benedict.” His father’s silvery, distant voice—not raised in the slightest—slid along his spine. A metallic bite filled Benedict’s mouth as his feet made for the study down the hall without his input. A sinister, portentous note was evident in that single word.
Bella.
Benedict had been preempted—without question. The disgruntled creak of the floorboard under his boot masked his weary sigh. He couldn’t bring forth a sense of betrayal as he rounded the corner and stepped into his father’s study. Not when he would have done precisely the same thing.
Framed by the large window, his father was no less intimidating in silhouette.
Though Benedict was a man grown, fully capable of defending himself physically for more than a decade, he had never shaken the instinctive nausea that accompanied his father’s presence.
Ambrose Sinclair was a tall man, taller even than Benedict, but age had claimed much of his musculature and stature. His father’s form was thinner, and his spine had begun to display that familiar curve that overtook most men who reached their seventh decade. The years had yet to claim his silver hair though—a fact that satisfied Ambrose’s vanity.
The study had not changed during Benedict’s absence any more than the rest of the house. Faded velvet curtains trapped dust as they brushed the window. Air seeped in through the cracked panes, casting candle flames about. Ancient ledgers remained piled half to the ceiling along one entire wall—lending an older paper scent to accompany the grease and soot of the tallow. Scars lined his father’s desk.Allof the furnishings were ragged save one—his father’s prized rosewood tilt-top gaming table. That alone was polished to a shine and unmarred, despite age and too frequent use. It stood proud and gleaming before thetower of ledgers—a preemptive answer to any question about the negative balances within.
