The House of Lost Wives by Rebecca Hardy

Author:Rebecca Hardy [Hardy, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472293527
Amazon: 1472293525
Published: 2023-02-14T00:00:00+00:00

I slid from the chair to the floor and sat there for a long time, the letters spread around me like fallen flowers, or broken promises. The one in my hand that spoke of Esme and Charles’s wedding was already stained with my tears, the ink running in dark rivulets down the page. So much planning and preparation, scheming and devising in a few hundred words. Perhaps Esme had wanted all along to marry into this home, only to replace her old husband with a more handsome younger man. Or maybe she had happened upon Charles’s existence and had concocted her strategy only then. Price’s mention of poisons took on an entirely new meaning and I wondered if my sister, unlike me, had been brave enough to take her fate into her own hands and attempt to control her future.

I had felt the cracks in my heart, fissures that had been closing slowly with time but never fully healed, soothed over by Charles’s words of love yesterday morning. But now they split ferociously apart, the pieces scattered until all that was left was a yawning hole, a great chasm of emptiness.

I think I wailed, or at least released a muffled cry, as I picked up the letters and one by one fed them to the fire, as my sister should have done in the first place. All except the last one, which I held on to to serve as a reminder of my naïvety. My stupidity.

I watched the edges of each one brown and curl, the words turning to ash as I allowed my grief to harden into anger.

I had been too trusting, yes, but what had I really known about him? The captain sent on a fool’s errand by his late father to claim the family estate. Perhaps it was he who had instigated the affair between himself and Esme, in an attempt to inherit Ambletye and his uncle’s business.

I searched my memories for the conversations we had had, recalling his expressions, his guarded solemnity around his uncle. But then the recollection of him offering me his arm when we walked, of gifting me the knife, of the intensity in his green eyes when he looked at me hurt too much to bear and I cast those thoughts away. I had been foolish indeed. So desperately in need of someone’s love and attention that I had mistakenly believed every word he said. As I returned the remaining letter to Esme’s box and tucked the rest of her memories away – her journal, the key – I also closed up a part of me, willing myself to face my fate. A new reality that was in fact old and completely unchanged, as if Charles had never been here.

I was to marry Lord Blountford in three days. I would be lady of the manor and would have to face bearing the old man’s children.

Oh, how a few words on a piece of parchment could change one’s feelings, as though it were as simple as the flip of a coin.

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.