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Dead.
And buried.
She sucked in a ragged breath which did little to calm her as she could not have used a more ironic and helpful metaphor to help her rebottle her past if she had tried.
Only when she was convinced her voice wouldn’t falter did she continue. ‘As unpalatable as it all is...’ She brushed it away. Ruthlessly stuffed it all back into the bottle and jammed the cork back inside. ‘I cannot erase history.’ Aside from the fact she never revisited that history, she would not dishonour it with a denial. He deserved more than that.
She was also not prepared to discuss the topic in more detail than she just had.
Ever.
Not even to her beloved aunt. Some wounds never healed over, even after a decade. ‘I am not without skills. There will be other jobs I can do to keep us afloat, so please do not lower yourself to asking for my father’s help. Not that he will help you any more than he helped me. He cast you adrift too when you helped me, so we are in this together and that is the end of it. You are stuck with me.’ Sophie smiled and patted her aunt’s hand with affection, then stood to blow out the bedside candle and snap the old-fashioned four-poster’s heavy velvet curtains shut, determined to end this awful conversation but worried sick by it at the same time. ‘A good night’s sleep is what is needed here.’
A good night’s sleep and a miracle.
She bustled to the door, trying to act with a breeziness she did not feel, wishing her heart wasn’t racing and the contents of her stomach weren’t on the cusp of making a reappearance or that the stoppered bottle inside where she kept it all was in grave danger of shattering at any second. ‘Good night, Aunt Jemima. Sleep tight.’
Her aunt sighed behind the velvet, clearly not the least bit convinced by the forced optimism and determined to have the last word. ‘All we have achieved today is delay the inevitable, dearest.’
‘It isn’t inevitable yet.’ But even as she uttered those words she knew her aunt was right. At best, all she had achieved today was a stay of execution. At worst, she had hastened their fate by completely alienating Lord Hockley. ‘Something will turn up. You have to hold faith in that.’
‘Not for me it won’t. But I have faith something better will turn up for you if you are brave enough to allow it.’ Her aunt’s face appeared from between the bed curtains, smiling wistfully at Sophie as if that too were for the last time. ‘And I will rest easier knowing that I was finally brave enough to give you that chance.’
It sounded too much like a final goodbye and it split what was left of Sophie’s broken heart in two. ‘You are overwrought, Aunt. Tired and exhausted. That is no state to be making life-changing decisions in. I will fix this.’
She had to.
Even if that meant throwing herself at the mercy of Lord Hockley and begging him to somehow spare Willow Cottage from the sale if he spared nothing else. That was if he would even see her, of course, which after today would also need a miracle.
