Erina twisted her fingers together. “Not exactly.”
He turned in the seat to better study her. “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”
Her gaze fled to his. “I didn’t receive a reply to my last letter. The mail being what it is.” She waited for his reproachful reply.
“We’ll know soon enough,” Harry said in a mild tone.
“Yes.” She smiled at him gratefully. “I shall have to find a pawnbroker or jeweler in Dublin who will agree to buy my jewelry.”
“What jewels would those be?”
She touched the brooch on her bodice. “This cameo and my pearls. They were my mother’s. I hate selling them, but it’s for a worthy cause. Mama would have approved.”
Harry refrained from answering.
An hour passed in relative silence as the rain pattered on the roof of the carriage, slowing the travelers to a painful crawl and blanketing their view. The landscape wasn’t particularly exciting, just endless green fields where livestock huddled together in the misty rain.
“They look cold,” she murmured.
“Who?”
“The sheep.”
“Why would they be cold?” Harry chuckled. “We make clothes from their wool to keep us warm.”
“I suppose so.” Erina was in danger of revealing her frustration and declaring that at this rate, they would not arrive until dinner, when the hackney approached a river where swans gathered. Gazing out the window, she could see a stone castle, half of it in ruins, on the hill in the distance. Ahead must lie the town of Nass. Erina leaped up and opened the window, letting the cool, moist air flood in. “Oh, we’re here! Driver! We are to go straight along the main street and take the right fork in the road. The lane is about a mile farther on.”
They turned where a sign in danger of toppling bore the nameWigham House. The lane to the manor house was rutted with potholes. They could hear the jarvie cursing as he guided the horses along it. After a bend in the road, they cleared a dense copse of trees, and a charming, three-story stone house came into view, the whitewashed walls covered in creeper, the arched front door flanked by two slender, stone columns. Smoke rose from one of the twin chimneys set on either side of the roof.
Erina turned from the window and seized Harry’s lapel. “We’re here; I can’t believe it!” Without thought, she kissed his cheek, breathing in his cologne water, citrus with a hint of lavender. “Thank you so much for bringing me here, Harry.”
“Steady on.” Harry smoothed his coat. “Who knows what we’ll find.”
They approached the house, where chickens scratched the earth in gardens choked with weeds. Up close, the house lost a good deal of its charm. Slats were missing from the roof, the front door and the windowsills were bare of paint, while the creeper vines threatened to cover the upstairs window panes.
While Harry saw to the driver, Erina picked up her skirts and hurried down the path. She knocked on the door.
Silence. She rapped again, louder. Finally, footfalls echoed, and the door flung open. The aroma of freshly baked bread wafted out. A plump woman stood in the stone-flagged passage wiping her hands on her apron. She looked at Erina and then at Harry, who now stood behind her. “Who’d you be wanting then?”
“Miss Cathleen Sullivan.”
“Miss Cathleen didn’t say there’d be guests. Why come here? Are ye lost? I’m busy with breakfast.”
Erina stared at her.
Harry stepped forward. “Where is Miss Sullivan, madam?”
“They’re at the church. Getting themselves wed. She and Mister Gormley.”
Erina spun around and stared at Harry.
“Where is the church?” he asked.
“In the village, o’course.”
“Good thing I asked the jarvie to wait.” Harry took Erina’s elbow and led her back to the carriage.
Her energy sapped, she felt as if she were wading through water. “What if we’re too late?”
