A Noble Scheme by Roseanna M. White

Author:Roseanna M. White
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction;Private investigators—England—London—Fiction;Christian fiction;Historical Fiction, Private investigators—England—London—Fiction, Christian fiction, Historical Fiction, Detective and mystery fiction, Novels, FIC042110, FIC042030, FIC027200 and mystery fiction, FIC027200 and mystery fiction;Novels;FIC042110;FIC042030;FIC027200
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2024-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

He’d slept some—after he’d snooped through every unlocked door in the house that he and Yates could find, after Astley had retired. He’d been exhausted when he finally climbed into bed at four in the morning, but the kind that often prohibited sleep. For what seemed like an eternity, he’d lain there, worrying for Sidney. Wondering where he was, if they’d walked right past him, if they ought to have forced every lock.

There simply hadn’t been time enough, and eventually exhaustion had won out. That one nap in the last forty-eight hours simply wasn’t enough to go on. But perhaps two of them would suffice, since that’s all this sleep had amounted to.

Graham turned off the alarm clock pulling him from slumber, rubbed at his eyes, stretched his sore muscles, and levered himself up in his borrowed bed in the bachelor wing. He’d left the curtains open, and a glance toward the window showed him that the sun had cleared the horizon, and that the clouds had broken up and were currently set ablaze in a glory of color that never ceased to call to the artist in him. For a long moment, he stared at it.

Christmas morning. The second Christmas in a row that he’d woken up neither in his own bed in London nor his usual one at the Tower. But waking up here certainly beat the cot in the hospital ward last year.

A glance at the clock verified that it was five after eight. Only three hours of sleep, after he finally convinced his mind to still, but it was something. Enough to fuel him in the next hours of searching for Sidney. After he checked on Gemma.

Graham might never recover from the sight of her collapsed in the snow like she’d been, sobbing. It had whisked him back to that Northumberland road. To the panic of opening his eyes and realizing she and Jamie weren’t in the cabin of their crushed car anymore. To clambering out, searching, seeing her crumpled and still against the stark white.

He’d thought he’d lost them both, in that moment. And while nothing—nothing—could ever eclipse the pain of losing his firstborn son, there had been joy when he pressed a finger to her neck and discovered she was still alive. He hadn’t lost his Gemma.

Except that he had. He just hadn’t known it yet.

Last night had, in some ways, been the reverse. He’d finally realized she was lost to him, down in the monastery corridor, only to find her again in the snow.

She’d let him hold her. She’d let his tears mix with her own. For the first time in the last eternal year, he hadn’t been alone in his grief. Even if he was always, in a way, alone in it. They both lost the same son, and yet a mother’s loss was different from a father’s. Graham had his guilt coloring it; Gemma had her anger.

Different, but still they grieved the loss of the same little boy. Crying together was still crying—but it was together.

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