Sometimes this small, modest little home seemed like the only safe place in the whole world.
James latched hungrily to her breast, her milk flowing fast and dampening the folds of her gown.
Hanna gestured to the basket. “There are two bottles of milk there. That should help until I can come again tomorrow.”
Maria sniffed and poured the tea carefully through the strainer. “It’s a pity the Peterson woman fell with child again. Wet nurses are not easy to find, if you can’t pay them.”
Hanna frowned, cradling the boy tighter. “James is bigger now. He can eat more and drink less. I will work harder, bring more money…”
Maria leaned over, placing her hand over Hanna’s and squeezing gently. “Hush, child. It will work itself out. You will see.”
Hanna rolled her eyes, but gave the woman a small smile. “What would we do without you?”
Maria chuckled, looking to the boy as Hanna switched sides, letting him drink his fill. “What a greedy thing he is. For milk, for life. He keeps me young.”
ALARIC
Six weeks after his return
The forest pathsfelt different now. Not because they were. Every root, hollow and deer trail was exactly as he'd left it nearly two years ago. It felt different becauseshewalked there, and he knew that now.
When he first returned from searching the rookies of London, he had almost sensed her in the air, as if the memory of her was woven through the filtered green light that bathed the secret places in the woods.
And so, he had decided to seek her out. To find where her footsteps crossed the paths and trace them back to her.
Now, he stood motionless in the shadow of an ancient beech, watching the road below where it curved past the edge of the woods and skirted the undergrowth.
Any moment now, she would appear. She always took this path at this time, at late afternoon when the shadows grew long.
Hanna Weatley.
He had learned her name within a week of his return. But the rest he didnt care to ask. She would tell him everything heneeded to know, he just had to be patient. Follow her, watch her… let the mystery of her hold on him reveal itself.
Protect her.
That’s what he told himself, as he kept pace with her hidden within the treeline.
The woods were dangerous for a woman alone, especially as the days shortened as the seasons moved towards winter.
There were wolves in the world, and he was one of them.
Nearly two years he'd wasted chasing Sarah's ghost through London's rookeries and gin houses. Two years of searching filthy alleys and asking questions in places that made even hardened men nervous. Two years of failure that ate at him like acid.
And all the while, the girl from the woods had haunted him.
He had not been able to protect his sister, but maybe he could still save something good. Someone who called to him each time her eyes scanned the brush as her instincts whispered she was not alone.
And, although he loathed to admit it, hewantedher.
Not just in the base way a man wanted a woman. No, this was deeper. More primitive. An obsession that had only grown sharper during his absence.
She belonged to his forest.She belonged to him now.
It was that simple. That undeniable.
The sound of footsteps on the road below pulled him from his thoughts. His entire body went still, every sense focused on the figure that rounded the bend.
There.
