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In the midst of his most painful hour, Bridget Sedgwick had cast a protective spell around his wounded soul.
Graham stopped when he realized he had missed his turn, taking him into a valley of bright pink wildflowers. He was utterly surrounded by pink foxgloves. He shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose as his head swam with images of Bridget.
Why now? Graham had only ever felt casual admiration for a woman his entire life, but this new sensation swept him along like the current of a raging river. Bridget's emerald gaze absorbed him, leaving him breathless and bewildered.
Even now, he was lost amidst a sea of flowers—flowers the same color as her cheeks.
No—it had to be something else. Perhaps he was merely feeling emotional due to his sister’s death, and these new feelings were caused by Bridget’s sympathy for his plight. Indeed, she had been the only one who seemed to truly understand his grief, and it was serving as a lifeline for him in his time of need. Graham reasoned with himself that it was simply a result of the roiling emotions currently engulfing him; she offered nothing more than a distraction from the pain of loss.
Besides, he had a job to do. In the hubbub of the funeral, he had nearly forgotten about his quest to learn more about Mary’s death, and Jane’s strange behavior on his arrival at Foxglove Hall needed investigation. Bridget was his first lead—and all his focus would be required to unravel the mystery.
He had no time for love, for poetry, for folly.
And no time at all for Bridget Sedgwick.
CHAPTERSIX
Last Season had been Bridget’s first on the marriage market, and she was still learning the ins and outs of courtship.
She and Mary had attended nearly every ball and party together, and they had been rather unruly. Mary had always been the wilder of the two, urging Bridget into all kinds of trouble as they toured the various events around Hertfordshire and occasionally made their way to London. Bridget had hoped against hope that she'd run into Graham at one of those parties, that he'd capture her hand, brush his lips against her gloved knuckles, and twirl her across the floor...
Now, she waited for Graham under very different circumstances. Yet she still had the sensation of apprehension and exhilaration she would have expected to feel from a conventional courtship. She had only ever been called on by gentlemen a handful of times, always under the watchful eye of her mother, of course. With Graham, though, Lady Sedgwick would allow her more leeway. He was one of Bridget’s oldest friends, after all.
The whole situation left her brimming with anticipation. She paced the length of the Sedgwick Manor’s ground floor, moving from the entry hall to the parlor to the dining room and back again. She scanned the windows for his arrival, twisting her hands before her until her wrists ached.
Perhaps part of her anxiety concerned the last time she had seen him—when he had left Hertfordshire six years ago, shattering her heart. Despite the young of her age, Bridget had felt a note of promise between them, the whisper of something yet to be. When Graham had left her behind, she had felt adrift for many months, convinced she had no prospect of ever loving another man. For Graham Barnet was special. He was kind, gentle, discerning, intelligent…
She could not let herself be broken like that again.
She sighed and sat to sip her tea, forcing herself to stop staringout the window. Staying fixatedon Graham's arrival was doing nothing to calm her nerves. Her hand shook, and she gasped as tea spilled on her skirt, thankfully fading into the dark, cotton mourning gown.
Besides, even if he did have more than friendly intentions towards her, it was too late.
For Bridget was already betrothed.
Lord Sedgewick was often absent from home, and he had readily agreed to her engagement to Lord Bragg after having examined her suitor’s account books. Lord Bragg had a large estate a few hours north of Hertfordshire, where the rolling hills gave way to dark and misty moors, and where Bridget was certain she would languish for the rest of her days.
She knew it… because Lord Bragg was cruel.
But she wouldn’t think about that—not when Graham could arrive at any moment.
Setting down her tea on the parlor table, she rose and smoothed her skirts. Her hands still shook quite violently, more so as she remembered Oliver Bragg’s looming presence. He was not there in the room, but the mere thought of him was enough to darken her mood.
She asked the butler to notify her when Lord Graham arrived, then proceeded to her painting room, a solarium attached to the back of the house. The back door led into the window-lit room. The late afternoon sun had peeked out from behind the clouds, making it warm. Bridget's numerous landscape paintings adorned the walls, and several easels and completed canvasses leaned against them.
Bridget ran her fingers over a painting of green hills. Two women on horseback were the focal point of the piece. In her painting, pink foxgloves filled the valleys on either side of the hill. The piece had still been wet when Mary had died, and a touch of green and pink paint remained under Bridget’s fingernails.
Now, the paint was dry, yet the ache remained fresh.
She tossed a sheet over the painting and tried to distract herself with other canvasses, examining them closely. A close-up study of a vase of wildflowers, blackberries falling from the vine, the moon shining over a pond on the Sedgwick property—these seemed to be the paintings of a different woman than she now felt herself to be.
Bridget exhaled heavily and turned to face the back of the room, where a large trunk sat in a corner. It was the only place where the light did not reach, remainingveiled in shadow, justas she had been at the funeral. Sheapproached it with caution, then knelt before it. Taking a key from her pocket, sheinserted it into the lock, and turned it to look inside.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she rummaged through the trunk's contents. It was mostly filled with old keepsakes: a baby blanket her mother had knitted for her, which she would one day pass on to her child, a lock of Mary's hair carefully bound with a blue ribbon, and her first set of now-ruined paintbrushes. Shehandled each of the objects with reverence, her lips trembling as she realized they were all relics of a life long gone. As she neared the bottom of the trunk, the darkness seemed to consume her, her eyes widening.
For the trunk held a secret.
A horrible secret that she dared not share with a single soul.
