Page 140 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
And she was kneeling in the mud at her parents’ grave, sobbing to the wrong person. That finally, after keeping so much locked up for so long, she was screaming at the unhelpful dead, crying in front of the well-meaning Thomas, and not the one person she should have gone to.
“Come,” said Thomas, “I’ll take you home.”
“I can’t go back to the Manor.”
“I meant… your family home.”
Her family home. Of course. Why wasn’t that the first place she thought of?
You have sheared my home from me, Dimitri Von Mortimer. You have taken whatever feeling of safety I knew and twisted it around yourself.
But I cannot go back to you. I cannot.
She remembered nothing of the walk back home. Thomas put his arm around her and guided her down the dark, winding path. She tucked herself against his side and felt nothing, as if all sensation had been surrendered entirely. Gradually, she grew aware of a dim light, a feeble warmth, a fire in the grate and voices around her.
“Let’s get her into my mother’s room. I don’t want to upset the children if they wake—”
More hands and arms around her, someone tugging the cloak free, moving her into the bedroom, brushing mud from her hair.
“Adeline.” Elliott’s face above her. “Adeline, please say something.”
“I’m all right,” she said, repeating the old lie. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” he returned. “But you’re home now. You’re safe.”
No, no I’m not. I don’t remember the last time I felt that way.
Except she did. It was in Dimitri’s arms. And she could not go back again.
The tears chasmed down her face.
“I’m going to go find the Young Lord,” Thomas said, not speaking to Adeline. “Let him know she’s been found.”
She grabbed Thomas’ hand before he could leave, looking up at him imploringly.
“I won’t bring him here,” Thomas assured her. “I promise.”
He was gone without another word.
Elliott left the room, returning a short while later with a bowl of hot water and a cloth. He sponged away the dirt on Adeline’s face, the mud on her fingers.
“You don’t have to tell me what happened,” he said. “But… if you want to…whenyou’re ready… I’m here.”
Adeline could not respond to that, could not find the words to tell her brother that he shouldn’t have to be that person for her, that she didn’t want to burden him with all of that, that she wasn’t sure she would ever find the words to explain what had happened, to unpackyearsof keeping it all locked in, locked away—
She cried herself to sleep in her mother’s bed, and wished more than ever that she was with them.
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Duchess and the Midwife
The morning dawned black and endless, the sunlight shrivelled behind a thick veil of mist. Adeline heard the house stirring around her, the children waking up, squabbling over breakfast. Edie was shrieking to be fed. Leonie asked if anyone had seen her copy ofRomanski’s Compendium.
Adeline did not go to them, did not move. She remained penned in under the blankets, staring at the crow on the windowsill, focusing on the cawing of the birds on the grass behind the house.
Eventually, the other sounds dribbled away. The children went to school, Edie was taken to the neighbour’s. Elliott stuck his head round the door once, just to check on her.
She pretended to be asleep.
He left for work.
