Herself?
Uncle?
Or was the one who penned the letters wrong about everything?
Her back cramped, and she drew her legs up to her chest, resting her face on her knees. For the thousandth time, she looked at him.
He sat stoic beside her. Dazed. The subtle scent of his cinnamon swept to her awareness—a smell that stirred back memories of the elm tree and his eloquent murmurs to keep her safe.
“My lord.” The first time she’d spoken. The windows turned dark. “You realize I have no expectation of you to sacrifice yourself for me.”
He did not so much as blink.
“This is not your fight.”
Nothing.
“My lord—”
“Well, well.” Orkey strode back into the room, his top shirt buttons undone, revealing a protruding collarbone. He belched. “Half figured you two would be try’n make a run for it. Vern was sweatin’ and bouncin’ out there, thinkin’ he’d have to club someone again.” He moved to each wall sconce, lit them with a silver candlestick.
Light sputtered across the room. Sweat chilled the back of her neck.
“Well, m’lord?”
Careful not to brush the broken shards of porcelain, Lord Cunningham scooted to his feet. He looked away from Meg when he whispered, “Take me to my daughter.”
Tears blurred her vision.
Orkey laughed. “Vern!” When the older man appeared in the drawing room doorway, Orkey barked an order for Lord Cunningham to be escorted to his daughter’s chamber.
They left the room with footsteps that thumped in time with her heart.
Her body braced.
The door shut.
Tears coursed free—not in anger that Lord Cunningham had abandoned her, but in the strangest and coldest disappointment she’d ever felt in her life. All his words had been so empty. All his poetry in vain.
Lord Cunningham’s love was as weak as the man himself.
The edges of everything were faint and flickering. His head split.One, two, three.He counted the fabric-covered buttons above his head, gold and faded and lamplit, and had a foggy memory of snagging one loose with his hat once.
“Did you fix the hinge, dear?”
He’d hopped out of the rusty old carriage kept in the mews outside the millinery shop, seldom used except the Sunday afternoons Mr. Musgrave had taken his wife on a drive. Tom whacked the door shut.“Good as new for ye.”
“I suppose it is sentimental to keep this old thing still intact.”She’d blushed a little, fluttering her hands.“But it reminds this old woman of courting, and I’m just foolish enough to climb up in there every now and again, just to sit and remember.”
A swell of nausea overturned his stomach as Tom forced back the last shadows of darkness. Confused, he lifted his head—
Just as the cold barrel of a gun met his forehead.
“That is enough, Abraham.”
The voice steadied Tom. At first. Then memories jarred back into place with lightning speed, and his headache throbbed with new aggression. He pushed the gun away and sat up.
Lord, no.
