The Winter Solstice: A Hands of Time Novella (The Hands of Time Series Book 8) by Irina Shapiro

Author:Irina Shapiro [Shapiro, Irina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Merlin Press LLC
Published: 2017-06-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Alec sank to his knees by the side of the bed and stared at Charles’s lifeless face. He’d managed to retain some semblance of control in front of Arthur Worthing and the children, but now that he was alone, he was free to allow his grief to show. Alec was blinded by tears as he took Charles’s hand in his own. It was cold and stiff, rigor mortis having been accelerated by being left in the bitter cold for at least a half hour before Alec and Arthur Worthing brought Charles into the house and laid him out on his bed. Alec closed Charles’s eyes and cleaned up the blood before allowing the children to see their father. They had been mute with shock, their eyes wide with disbelief. They’d lost their mother only two years before, and now they’d lost their one remaining parent.

Alec knew he should let go of Charlie’s hand, but he couldn’t. This would be the last time he would touch him, and see him as he had been. He was Alec’s last sibling, and the youngest of the Whitfield children. Alec never imagined that they would all die at such a young age. He was the only one left, the only one to have made it to fifty. Charles had just turned thirty-two, a middle-aged man by sixteenth-century standards, but still a young man in the eyes of those who knew him.

Alec reached out and brushed the hair out of his brother’s face. Charles’s expression had been one of surprise, of shock even. He never believed that anything bad could happen to him, not even after Annabel drowned herself in the James after miscarrying their son. Charles was an optimist in a way; he always reached for more, always grabbed at life. And now that life had been stolen from him. Alec caressed Charles’s cold cheek. He looked so young and handsome. Charles had always been so confident, believing himself to be invincible.

This is all my fault, Alec suddenly thought. Had I not come here, Charles would still be alive. He would have managed the plantation, imported and exported goods as their family had done for decades, and raised his children. He might have remarried in time, and possibly had more babies. Instead, he was dead; murdered by an unseen hand over money. The leather satchel lay in the corner, full of gold sovereigns. Alec would have gladly given it to whoever killed Charles just to keep his brother alive, but it was too late. And it was too risky to try to find out who’d murdered Charles. Someone knew about the money, which put Alec and the children in danger. He’d asked Mr. Worthing to have two workers dig a grave first thing in the morning and have someone knock together a coffin. Alec would bury Charles as soon as he could, performing the service himself, since Charles was Catholic. Then Alec would leave with the children and never set foot in seventeenth-century Jamestown again.

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