The Heart of Thornewell by Anita Stansfield

Author:Anita Stansfield
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: love;romance;clean;death;widow;ship;sea;pregnant;refugee;widower;lds;mormon
Publisher: Covenant Communications, Inc.
Published: 2018-04-25T18:10:10+00:00

Chapter Nine

THE WIDOWED MRS. HAWTHORNE

Through the following weeks, Enid was glad to feel her body gradually returning to normal. She’d never faced any serious illness before, and recovering from childbirth had given her an entirely new appreciation of the gift of good health. With her renewed strength, she did not take for granted the ability to go for long walks through the gardens or around the house. Just being able to get up and down the stairs to share meals or simple conversations with others in the household seemed an enormous blessing.

Autumn was swallowed abruptly by winter with one brutal storm where harsh gusts of wind blew the remaining dead leaves from the trees, and snow settled over Thornewell Hall and its surrounding land. Enid commended herself for managing her conflicted feelings toward Sebastian as well as anyone could. During the days, she was glad to be able to never see him, even though she knew he was spending an hour or two each afternoon with Sarah, and Enid always had her time with the boys. The only time she’d seen Sebastian in more than a month was when they both attended church, but they kept their distance from each other without exchanging so much as a word or even a glance. And Enid did well at pretending that this distance between them wasn’t breaking her heart. Sometimes at night she would allow herself to think of him, and the love she’d come to feel for this enigma of a man, and she couldn’t help contemplating how things might be if he weren’t so angry and stubborn. But wishing for another person to be any different than they were certainly accomplished nothing. She knew that well enough. Still, sometimes she just missed him so much that it felt as if her chest would burst open from the swelling pain in her heart—a pain worsened by memories of Alistair’s death and all the uneasiness she still felt over how it had happened. She wished she could talk to Sebastian about it; no one else loved Alistair as much as his brother did. But he’d made it clear he would not talk about it, and so she kept her difficult memories to herself, allowing herself to cry for her deceased husband only when she was all alone at night.

On rare occasions—when Enid was feeling especially sorry for herself—she indulged in missing her family and wondering what her parents and siblings were doing. Were they well? What changes had taken place in their lives? Inevitably such thoughts brought on an anguish that she had become well practiced at avoiding. If she thought about her family and the reasons why they had banished her, the pain was just too much to endure. So she thought of them rarely, and when she did, it was only possible to think of them briefly or she would become consumed with grief over all she had given up to marry Alistair—a man now dead. At times the loneliness weighing down upon her felt nigh to unbearable.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.