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“No one shall know you were my accomplice. Thank you, Mrs. Cook,” I said to her before taking the door out into the servants’ yard. During this time of day, there were very few people outside amidst the preparation for dinner.
I promised Theodore I would not go out alone at night, so I chose to sneak from the house before the sun would set. I knew he would try to send me right back or that my brother would immediately come for me. But as I had said to Evander in the carriage yesterday, I would not yield either. He had made sure his new guards were watching most of the paths. However, the route to my creeping speedwells was still not that well known.
“Don’t you dare rain!” I said up to the clouds, as the day was rather overcast. I picked up my skirts, climbed over a puddle, and then bent to go through the gap in the fence.
You would have thought I was on the run from the law the way I had to hide behind trees as the guards surveilled. It was ten minutes before I was sure that no one was near. And through all this ridiculousness I had to ask myself again…why?
“To have him,” I whispered to myself.
“I see you are still muttering to yourself.”
I paused. Up ahead, alone, with nothing but a basket of wildflowers in hand, was…Datura? I glanced around, but no one else was with her. And we were still very much on the Everely estate grounds.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her sternly.
“I have come to see your brother.”
“I am sure he does not wish to see you.” I glared at her. Even out in the woods, she still wore her pearls and face powder. “You should return—”
“Why did you not come to Fitzwilliam’s funeral?” she asked suddenly.
Once more, I remembered he was gone and nearly pitied her—just nearly. “I did not know him.”
“He was your brother!”
“And I did not know him. Just the pain and suffering he left in his wake, which followed him till his death.”
“His murder! He was murdered, and no one has sought justice for him. Your brother created the most awful of lies—”
“They were not lies. Fitzwilliam was a bad man, but I do not think he was always so. I think you were the one who made him rotten; both you and Father ruined him. You sought to ruin us all. But neither my brother nor I will allow you such power in our lives any longer,” I declared, and with my head held high, I continued to walk past her. “Go home, Datura, and leave us all be. You are not wanted here.”
But before I could make it any farther, she grabbed my arm…just as she had when I was a child.
“Release me!” I yelled, yanking my arm away from her. “How dare you touch me. I am not the little girl you once tormented, nor are you the Duchess of Everely anymore. Not that anyone ever truly believed you worthy of such a title. You are—”
“I am what?” she sneered, glaring at me.
I stopped as I realized I, too, was about to do what Evander had always done. Shame her for being of low birth. Her sins were many, but her birth was not her fault. However, I could not bring myself to apologize, nor did she give me a chance as she grabbed me again.
“Let go!”
“Say it. I am what?”
“Let go of me!” I screamed again as her nails dug into my skin.
“You all are to blame! The ones who ruined everything. Your brother—”
Kicking her leg as hard as I could with all the force in my body, I pushed her and stumbled back. However, as she fell, so did the basket of flowers, and falling out of it…a Queen Anne pistol. She had hidden her pistol, and she was going to my brother. I knew she was capable of anything, and that was why my first thought was to reach for it. But she was closer than I, and grabbed hold of it before I could.
“Datura! What are you going to do?”
“You all are the cruel ones! And yet no one punishes you,” she yelled as she lifted the pistol. “This was for your brother, but it is much better he lives to feel as I do!”
I ran.
But I was not fast enough.
Bang!
I felt the bullet whizz past my arm before blasting into a tree, shattering the bark from the trunk, and its force caused me to nearly lose my footing and trip. I stared up at the shattered, missing bits of the tree trunk above me and grabbed my arm. It was bleeding, but I had not been hit by anything but splintered wood. I was so stunned by the blood on my own hands that I did not even feel the pain.
