“P’rhaps I should take a ride through the park.”
“Not tonight. It’s raining. You won’t find anything at this hour. Hell, it might have just been some miscreant up to mischief.” But Harlowe was blatantly aware he was kidding himself with that thought.
Rory nodded.
Somehow Harlowe couldn’t make himself sleep in the bed he and Corinne had shared and briefly wondered why. He went past her door to another and found what had to have been his own chamber at the time. “Take the other room,” he told Rory. He stripped off his clothes and crawled beneath the blankets.
There was a draft in the room so he didn’t open the window, but he lay awake, listening to the rain pattering against the glass panes. Maeve Pendleton, Lady Alymer, was going to be furious with him. It was a challenge he looked forward to.
He fell asleep with an unexpected sense of joy curling through him.
Seventeen
T
he water was freezing. Her wet skirts preferred the bottom of the bog and were determined to drag her down. She had another critical problem—she didn’t know how to swim. Blasted Harlowe, couldn’t even be trusted to watch his own child. A sense of inevitability swept her. Was this it? Was this how her life was to end?
A series of events flooded her in a mind-numbing sequence.
Years of her mother pushing her at Dorset, Oxford, Welton, Shufflebottom, and Beaumont with all the subtlety of a fireworks display at Vauxhall. Alymer’s kind treatment and respect of her intelligence. She truly cared for him.
Her lungs burned with the need for oxygen.
She spotted the monster—there, in the corner. Anxiety gripped her insides.Show no fear. It was Maudsley.
Wait, Maudsley was dead.
Mama pushed her at Brock. “You won’t be young forever, darling. He’s perfect for you.”
“Why, Mama? He’s clearly in love with Ginny Ennis, Lady Maudsley.
If she let go, she would never have to hear her mother nag her again regarding the largesse of obtaining another husband.Just let go.
Harlowe… Brandon. Hold on.
The baby. He’d fallen in the water. Where was the baby? She searched through the murky water but couldn’t see a thing. Nathan. He needed air. He needed a mother. She had to save Nathan.
“Nathan,” she gasped. “Nathan! Nathan, answer me, right this minute.” Hysteria choked her even as the vortex of darkness tugged at her with its devastating power, pressing her chest hard enough to make it explode. The fight for air grew too great. Nathan grinned at her with his toothless smile.
Her skirts were too heavy, her limbs too weak.Just let go… Her arms floated above her head. She felt herself sinking, the Atlantic swallowing her whole. Buried at sea.Just let go…
Sky versed ocean.
Sunrise versus sunset
Day versus night.
White versus black.
Life versus death—
“Milady.”
Maeve bolted upright, panting. “Parson?” She was groggy, and her head was pounding. Her night rail stuck to her back and chest, twisted about her legs. Gray light came through the window but no air. “Why is the window closed? I-I can’t breathe.”
“The rain is coming down in sheets, milady. “I have a draught of laudanum for you.” Parson went about the chamber, placing a tray of tea on the bedside table, then went to the window and pulled back the lining, showing the winds were also gusting in rare form. She came back to the bed and held out the small brown bottle.
Maeve shoved her hand back, knocking the measure away as she struggled to grasp her breath. “Don’t ever offer me that again. You know how I feel about laudanum.” A nightmare of this magnitude hadn’t hit her this hard in years. “What time is it?”
