The Inheritance of Lion Hall by Corina Bomann

Author:Corina Bomann [Bomann, Corina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amazon Crossing
Published: 2021-07-12T16:00:00+00:00

33

My friend was afraid of horses and didn’t know how to ride, so we took the old landau carriage the next morning. I was at the reins. Traveling this way, we couldn’t cut across fields or meadows and had to walk the last stretch to Susanna’s hut.

Marit huffed and puffed as we made our way through the high grass. “I absolutely cannot understand how you can live out here in this wilderness.”

“If you’d been willing to mount a horse, we’d be there already,” I replied, feeling yet again what a pleasure it was to lark about in nature.

“No country girl I, nor ever will be,” she said. “But I’m eager to meet the young woman.”

“And I’ll be forever thankful for that. I hope everything will work out. After all, I’m the baby’s aunt.”

Marit stopped and stared at me.

“Susanna is carrying Hendrik’s child.”

Marit almost gagged. “The usual affair between master and maid?”

“Marit!” I knew all too well her attitude toward employers who lured their servants into bed with false promises.

“You’re saying this was different? You know I love you, but now I have to admit my opinion of the rest of your family has changed very little.”

“Except now I have the position of authority Hendrik would’ve had.”

“I know that, and believe me, I’m glad. Otherwise this poor woman would wind up in the gutter.”

“You cannot know that, and I cannot judge their relationship. But I do know one thing: Hendrik would never have been so callous as to abandon Susanna and their child. She thinks he was going to marry her. He just didn’t have the opportunity.”

Marit’s lips tightened. I saw she was holding back her opinion out of consideration for me. “Are we almost there?”

“Yes. Look there, ahead. It’s not far.” I pointed to the little hut mostly hidden by high grass from our vantage point.

“What a hovel!”

“I would have gladly taken her in, but after the attempted theft, I couldn’t allow her back into the house.”

“Does your mother know it’s your brother’s child?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I told her, but she hasn’t said a word about it since.”

“Why didn’t the girl say something earlier?”

I outlined what I’d learned about Langeholm. “She wanted to protect Hendrik’s reputation—to the point of sacrificing herself! I can scarcely imagine going so far myself. She must have loved him immensely.”

When we reached the hut, we found the door wide open. Susanna was nowhere to be seen. Was she out scrounging for something to eat? Had Ida moved her elsewhere?

All my senses were on alert. “Let’s look around.” I turned toward the lake. “Maybe we can find her.”

We struggled through the tall grass and came across a narrow path. We followed it to the lakeshore.

“I learned to swim in this lake,” I told Marit. “My brother and I often came here when we were small. We built a raft from old logs and rowed it out there once. It sank beneath us. Fortunately, we already knew how to swim, but we had quite a fright.”

“I wish I’d had a lake nearby when I was a child.

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