Pamela and Camelia laughed together, and the sorrow from the day before began to ebb.
When Pamela darted down the corridor. Camelia remained by the door a moment longer, staring at the half-packed bag on her bed. When she eventually returned to the desk, she wrote with a hand that no longer shook.
My beloved sisters,
By the time you read this, Raph will have ridden out to meet Lord Montague on a field of honor that is no honor at all. He believes a bullet will end sixteen years of torment. I believe it will end us.
I have failed to stop him. Every plea, every tear, every truth I hurled at him last night, he listened to none of it. He has chosen vengeance over the child who calls him Father and his wife.
Pamela does not yet know he has gone. She woke up this morning eager to show me her canter, smiling as though the world were still kind. I smiled back because I could not bear to watch that light die in her eyes before it must.
I cannot do this alone.
Come to Brentmere. Come as quickly as horses and wheels will carry you. Bring Papa along if he does not mind. Bring the ancient sword if it comforts him, but come. I need you both beside me when the news arrives, whether it is a rider with a black band on his arm or Raph himself, bleeding but alive.
If he lives, I will fight for this family with everything I have left. If he does not, I will fight still… for Pamela, for whatever broken pieces remain.
I am sending this with the fastest rider at first light. Do not wait for proper clothes or proper mourning. Just come.
Your loving and terrified sister,
Camelia Hartton, the Duchess of Brentmere.
Camelia blotted the letter with shaking fingers, the ink still wet enough to smudge beneath the linen cloth. She folded it once and placed it into an envelope, creasing the sharp edges, then pressed plain red wax onto the seam.
She rose, crossed to the bell-pull, and yanked it hard enough to make the wire sing.
While she waited, she stood at the window, staring down the empty, frosted drive. Somewhere beyond the gates, on a cold field she could not name, Raph might already be bleeding. Or aiming.
Or dead.
“Please,” she whispered to the pale dawn sky. “Let him be too stubborn to die.”
“Your Grace?”
“Mrs. Weber, wake our fastest rider,” she ordered steadily. “And tell him to ride for Lempster Estate as though the devil were behind him. He is not to stop until my sisters have this letter in their hands.”
“Yes, at once, Your Grace.” Mrs. Weber took it, her eyes flicking to Camelia’s pale face, then to the half-packed bag on the bed. She said nothing more, only curtsied and left.
Camelia stood at the window and watched the first pale streak of dawn bruise the horizon. Somewhere out there, pistols were being loaded. And a little girl was preparing to pull on her riding habit, humming, believing the day held nothing but a blue sky and praise.
She pressed her palm to the cold glass and whispered, “Let him come back. Please, God, let him come back to us.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Jo,” Raph said aloud, his voice rough from a sleepless night. “Tell me if I’m wrong.”
He removed his hat and went down on one knee in the frozen earth.
The wind answered, rattling the yew branches as he stared at the carved name on the tombstone:
JOSEPHINE MARY HARTTON, BELOVED SISTER, 1794–1812.
“I swore I’d protect your daughter,” he croaked. “I swore it to you while you were dying. I swore it over your coffin. I swore it with Montague’s bullet still lodged in my shoulder.” His gloved hand pressed against the old scar through layers of wool and linen. “And now, he’s come back to take her and Camelia from me. Not with his hands, but with his words.”
He laughed once, and it echoed like a hollow crack.
“You always said I was too proud to ask for help, and you were right. I still am.” He bowed his head. “If I ride to Montague today and put a bullet through him, Pamela will be safe. Camelia and her family will be safe. And all the secrets die with him.”
He paused to think.
