“Well, I thought you would want to know,” Sarah continued. “The duke has returned to Hertfordshire for his sister’s funeral.”
Silence hung between them. Sarah well knew that Bridget had once harbored a deep, childish love for the young Lord Graham Barnet. When he’d left, she’d wept for days, requiring laudanum to sleep then, too.
“And why should I want to know about the duke?” Bridget asked, stiffening.
“You don’t have to pretend he didn’t break your heart, darling,” Sarah said. “I know you’re older now, but some heartbreaks never quite heal.”
“My best friend is dead,” Bridget murmured. “That’s all the heartbreak I have capacity for at present.”
And with that, Sarah left Bridget alone in the room.
Bridget lay on her side to stare back out of the picture window, watching as rain streamed down the glass panes. The laudanum came over her like a shroud, fogging her mind as she pictured Mary riding like a lightning strike over the hills on her white mare.
Laudanum could numb the pain, yes, but it could also bring back horribly painful memories and make them real.
As soon as she drifted off to sleep, she flashed back to the moment when Graham Barnet—for that was how she’d always thought of the Duke of Hertfordshire—had left Hertfordshire six years ago. His father had just passed, and Bridget had been a mere sixteen years old, but with the dazed eyes of a lovestruck girl, she had idolized the strapping young lord. She could picture him climbing into his carriage, sweeping back his dark-blond hair and staring at her with dark eyes. She’d thought he’d felt something for her, too—but it had all been a dream. Bridget had realized that when he’d embraced her and bid her the same fond farewell as Mary, as if she was his sister too.
Since then, she’d thought of him often, though they had never spoken. Even at Christmas he’d avoided her, staying on his family’s property and returning to London with haste. When she’d written to him, he hadn’t responded.
Loving Graham Barnet was painful indeed, especially when her lineage was not such that she could hope to marry a duke.
But it wasn’t as painful as the loss of his sister.
Bridget dissolved into tears once again as the rain poured down the windows, holding herself in a cloud of laudanum. She clutched at her own shoulders, wondering if she should call for Tilda and if her mother would allow her maid to sleep in her room, though she was no longer a child.
Then a voice whispered to her through the darkness, the voice of a man she hadn’t seen or heard from in half a decade.
“It will be all right.”
Bridget knew Graham wasn’t truly there—that it was all a dream, a result of the laudanum clouding her mind. But she let the comfort of his imagined presence lull her to sleep regardless, wishing he would join her in bed.
CHAPTERTHREE
The carriage ride from London was swift and bumpy, and Graham didn’t manage to get a single wink of sleep. Even when the ride was smooth enough to attempt resting, he couldn’t stop picturing his sister dead on the rolling hills of Hertfordshire, a once vital young woman drained of all her potential.
It was pouring with rain when they arrived, the summer’s humidity clinging to his fine clothes. Graham had brought nothing but the clothes on his back and the gold pocket watch in his waistcoat, an inheritance from his father. He checked the clock to find it was close to five in the morning, and he looked up at the sky to see a blush of pink on the gray horizon.
Blocking out the clouds was the looming house, a construction of white stone and high turrets. Graham’s ancestral home had been called Foxglove Hall for years, due to the pink wildflowers that grew all over the property in spring and summer. The gardens were in full bloom, red and pink roses dulled by the rainy weather but beautiful all the same. The manor boasted nineteen rooms, nearly all left empty, as Graham’s mother had only two children—and no grandchildren yet. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was letting his family down with his persistent refusal to marry, albeit his mother’s acceptance that he longed for a love match.
Only two servants were there to greet him as the carriage rolled up to the front doors of the manor, stopping before the large stone steps. The butler, Warren, waited closest to the stone path, while Mary’s lady’s maid, Jane, stood with her head bowed behind him. Graham opened the door and stepped out into the morning rain, the old manholding a black umbrella for him, smilingsadly.
“Your Grace,” Warren said, bowing his head in greeting. “I wish we were meeting again under better circumstances.”
Graham let out a hoarse laugh, his chest tight from holding back his emotions over his sister’s death. “As do I,” Graham said. “You look old.”
“So do you,” Warren chuckled. “Please—let me show you inside.”
Jane said nothing as Warren led Graham up the stairs and through the double doors, into a foyer with white marble floors and richly paneled lower walls. Graham’s mother had evidently put in new wallpaper—the top halves were now coated in a decadent blue brocade—and a display of wilted white flowers sat on the bureau just ahead. Graham swallowed down the lump in his throat when he realized they were Mary’s favorite flowers: daisies.
“Where is she?” Graham rasped.
“Your mother has taken to her bed since Mary’s accident, Your Grace,” Warren murmured. “She’s been somewhat lucid, but she insists on drinking laudanum to sleep, and with her ill health…”
Graham felt his whole world crumbling underneath him. London was where he lived, but this was where hislifetruly was, in Hertfordshire, with his mother and sister. He’d always known he would come back one day, but it was suddenly too late for it to be a joyful reunion, and he hated himself for having dragged his feet for so long.
“And Mary?” Graham asked.
“Lying in state in the great room,” Warren said. “Are you sure you wish to—”