“Miss Louisa, I fear I have come with disheartening news.” The man’s Adam’s apple bounced. “It’s about your family.”
“What’s wrong with my family?”
He shook his head and rubbed his sad eyes. “I’m sorry to inform you that there was a fire in your home. Your family perished in the burning house, I’m afraid.”
Ice-cold shock vibrated through her as emptiness filled her chest. No! This couldn’t be right. “There… there was a fire?”
“Yes, Miss Louisa,” Mr. Featherspoon answered. “Early this morning. Not one person in the house survived.”
“D—dead? My family is d—dead?”
The older man nodded. Eliza clutched Louisa’s cold hands. She tried to focus on her friend, but her vision blurred with tears.
“Oh, Louisa.” Eliza wrapped her arms around Louisa in a tight hug. “I’m so sorry. But you need not worry. My uncle will take care of you.”
“No… no.” Louisa pushed her friend away. “I cannot believe this. They are not dead. They are alive, I can feel it.”
Confused, she turned and ran—nowhere in particular—just needed to get away to absorb the news Mr. Featherspoon had delivered.
Her family couldn’t be dead. They couldn’t have burned in a fire. Their servants were not that careless. Nothing made sense, and she couldn’t possibly take this man’s word even if he was the uncle of her friend. Images of her family perishing in scorching flames, screaming in agony, and crying out for help, brought more tears to Louisa’s eyes and made her limbs weak, and frigid cold. In fact, her whole body felt cold, and weary like wet rags.
Off in the distance she heard her friend’s frantic voice. “Louisa, get out of the water. Don’t go another step. It’s too deep.”
Slowly, Louisa sank to her knees in the water she didn’t remember entering. Her cloak tugged her in further until the water covered her face. Closing her eyes, she didn’t care.
A man’s arm wrapped around her and yanked her out of the water. Dazed, Louisa didn’t speak as Eliza pulled off the wet cloak and wrapped Louisa in her uncle’s overcoat.
“Louisa, my dear. Do not fear. I shall be here. Always. My uncle will take good care of you.”
Louisa wiped her tears, her heart still aching because of the memory. Her family had died. But the question still remained, who were they?
Looking down the road, she forged ahead, determined to catch up with that coach. Eliza, her childhood friend was in that vehicle, and Louisa would find her.
*
Trevor jumped offhis horse, and gazed upon the meager cottage before him. Shutters were broken, and the place needed a good painting. Weeds took over the yard, and made Trevor wonder if anyone really lived here.
After spending a few hours this morning asking around, he was given the information he sought, which led him to this run-down cottage. Now, he just prayed he’d receive some answers while he was here.
He climbed the four broken-down steps to the front door and rapped hard. Perhaps the occupant would still be asleep, but Trevor didn’t care. He hadn’t come all this way to be put off.
No noise came from inside, so Trevor pounded on the door again. Finally, feet shuffled on the floor mere moments before the door creaked open. A man, perhaps in his late fifties, squinted against the sunlight falling upon Trevor.
“Pardon me for coming at this early hour,” he explained, “but I am in desperate need of finding Mr. Percy Featherspoon. I was told he lived here.”
“What do you want with him?” the man barked with a slight slur.
Trevor peered closer into the man’s glassy eyes, and took a whiff of the strong alcohol scent enveloping him. This must be him. After all, Trevor had been told the man was constantly foxed. “I have some questions to ask. Are you Mr. Featherspoon?My informants gave me a description of the man, and from what I can see, you resemble him quite a bit.”
Shaking his head, the man pushed his fingers through his thinning crop of graying brown hair. “It’s very early—”
“Indeed it is, but I have traveled a long way.” Trevor reached in his pocket and withdrew a moneybag filled with coins and shook it. Upon hearing the clicking of the coins, the other man’s eyes widened—just as Trevor had been told they would when offering money. “I beg you. Please answer some questions, and I shall make the time worthwhile.”
“What is your name?” Featherspoon inquired.
“Trevor Worthington, the Duke of Kenbridge.”
The man’s eyes widened even more and he stumbled backward to open the door. “Please come in, Your Grace.”
