Page 4 of Lord of the Lost

He gave her a smile which reminded her of the old days, before her father had died, before the war had reached the point of seeming to last forever.

“Yes, perhaps a little,” he admitted. “But the point stands – as the only heir to the title, to have put himself in harm’s way like that was madness. What if he never returns?”

Mona flinched at hearing her fears put in words.

“I do hope that he is well.”

Roland gave her a look which said that he thought her a fool to hope – but at least he didn’t say that aloud.

Determined to end the conversation, and to distract herself from thoughts of Devlin, Mona lifted the gothic romance novel she had begun yesterday from the side table and began to read. The room filled with silence – the uncomfortable kind.

“Desdemona, perhaps you could read it aloud, so that we can all benefit from the entertainment of it?”

Her mother’s voice was tentative, and Mona looked up, a little surprised, then glanced at Roland, to see if he also wished her to read aloud.

“A capital idea, Mother. Even if it is a gothic novel, and likely to be more than a little ridiculous, it will at least be a distraction from this grey weather.”

Mona nodded.

“Shall I start at the beginning, then – I only read one chapter last night, so I am happy to start again.”

“Please do.”

At that request, she turned back to the start and began to read. For some time, there was no sound other than her voice, and she found the story she read quite interesting, but as her lips formed the words, as the characters moved towards the hope of love, and the despair of perhaps not ever receiving it, as her eyes scanned the lines, her mind turned to Devlin—

She remembered running across the sunlit fields together, hand in hand, when they were children – she must have been seven, and he fourteen, yet he had never pushed her away, even though, at seven years younger than he, she might have expected him to find her annoying. She recalled standing at the edge of a pond and seeing a shining pebble at the bottom, glinting through the murk of the water; and she remembered how much she had laughed when Roland had leapt into the pond and collected the pebble for her. And now she was five-and-twenty, and he was two-and-thirty, and everything had changed.

The boy who had plunged into a pond for her had plunged into war.

She remembered, most of all, the relief she had felt when Devlin had emerged from the water that day. It was massive, jarring, but it would be naught compared to the relief she would feel if he returned from war.

If…

“Sister?”

“Yes?”

“You have stopped reading.”

“Excuse me…”

She read on.

~~~~~

“Mother, do you… do you think that Devlin will ever come home?”

Lady Gabrielle Vickery said the words quietly, as if by doing so she might reduce their impact. Her mother looked up from the embroidery she was working on, and the pain in her eyes stole Gabrielle’s breath.

“I… I must hope – for if I lose hope, what else is left to me? At least, until we know for certain whether Devlin still lives, we cannot be turned out of our home. But should it be confirmed that he has died… then your father’s unpleasant cousin will inherit, and I do not know what will happen to us. I have lost my husband, I cannot bear to even consider that I may also lose my son, and my home.”

And then, despite the Duchess being determined to be strong, she dropped her head into her hands, the embroidery tossed aside, and sobbed. Within moments, her daughter joined her in crying.

A short while later, there was a tap at the parlour door, and the two women looked up, dabbing at their eyes with linen handkerchiefs and struggling to restore some calm.

“Enter.”

Wilkins, the butler, opened the door, and ushered in a maid with a tea tray.