I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping that doing so would drive away the tremor that was spreading through me. He was unearthing my pain too easily. Pouring salt on the oldest wounds of my heart, making them sting anew. I wanted to run away. I wanted to run as far away as possible from this man who was too skilled at finding my weaknesses—the weaknesses that I liked to deny I even had. I wasn’t going to speak. I couldn’t speak.
Owen’s hand fell gently to my shoulder and he leaned from behind to speak softly near my ear. “Please know that you can depend on me. And that you can always trust me.”
I was grateful that he didn’t try to make me look at him, for if he had, I don’t know what I would have done. All my strength deserted me and my hand slid down the tree and fell to my side. That other force was at work again, tempting me to lean into him, to bury my face in his shoulder and cry like I hadn’t for years. To let him wrap his arms around me and hold me. To allow myself to depend on him, to trust him.
This was Owen Kellaway I was thinking about. I must have been going mad.
“I will be waiting inside, if you wish to continue your tour.” His hand fell from my shoulder and I heard him walk away in silence, shutting the iron gate behind him.
My shoulder tingled from where his hand had rested and my heart reeled at his departure. He must have known that I needed to be left to myself, that he had severely disheveled my emotions. I needed to be alone to realign them.
I had begun to doubt the wisdom of spending any portion of time with Owen. If in the short hours of the day he managed to already discover this piece of my heart, it terrified me to think of how much yet he could learn of it. Or steal of it.
There hadn’t been a man to exist in the world that could flutter my heart the way Owen did with a mere smile, and it was not something that I could allow any longer. I had made promises, and in my experience with life, promises were not made to be broken.
I steeled myself and closeted my emotions, rubbing my hand against the trunk of the tree, tracing my finger in an indiscriminate shape. Memories filled my mind and, in an effort to stop them from coming, I closed my eyes.
But life would be far too simple if memories could be as easily dismissed as visions could.
A
Chapter 7
Five Years Before
The dry autumn leaves crunched beneath my boots, making tiny flecks of dead, broken leaves billow up and cling to the hem of my gown. The sun had barely risen and was casting deep peach and orange rays over the dew-covered grass. I clutched Charles in my arms, trying to keep him warm, keeping his small round cheek pressed against the warmth of my chest. Peter tottered along beside me, one hand grasped in mine. His fingers were nearly as cold as mine were, and his cheeks and the tip of his nose were rosy from the bite of the crisp morning air.
We were approaching the edge of the lawn where our phaeton was prepared to convey Mama and Papa to Kellaway Manor, the home of their closest friends. It had been quite a long time since they had made the trip, and I was now old enough to look after my brothers on my own. My parents had only five servants, all of which they trusted to help care for us in their absence.
I smiled as Papa scooped Peter up and placed a kiss on his rosy cheek. Peter giggled and squirmed from his arms, eager to return to the entertainment of the dry, crunching leaves. Papa’s warm, green eyes shifted to me with a smile dancing around them. I moved into his outstretched arms, leaning my head against his chest, Charles encased between us. “I will miss you,” I said softly. And I meant it, even though I knew he would only be away for two days.
“I will certainly miss you too, Anne,” he said with a hearty chuckle, reaching down to tweak my nose.
I batted his hand away, laughing, and moved to Mama. She wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug. I buried my face in her shoulder, inhaling the floral smell of her rose perfume. Her blond curls fell on Charles’s face, making him giggle. He grabbed a strand with his tiny hands, trying to stuff it in his mouth.
Mama pulled away and laughed, a quiet bubbling sound, and smoothed a hand over his peach fuzz hair. Then she waved Peter away from his leaf crunching and pulled him into a hug. “We will see you tomorrow night,” she said, looking at me now. “Look after the boys while we are gone. Do not become distracted with unimportant matters. While we are away, the boys are to be your only concern. Your papa and I are trusting you with a great task.”
I lifted my chin. “I will take perfect care them. I promise.”
She smiled then, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek, and stepped toward the phaeton. “I have no doubts that you will keep that promise in one perfect piece.”
Papa winked at me. “Not a crack?”
“Not a crack.”
He grinned and gave Mama a hand up into the phaeton, then followed into the seat beside her. He looked down at me from his high seat above the two tall, fast wheels. “We love you very much. Be good.” Another wink followed his words.
He and Mama waved and I waved back, wishing they would stay. Then Papa led the pair of young horses loose into a quick trot, and I watched the rickety wheels of the phaeton fly past me in a streak of bright yellow. My eyes followed after them down the road until the phaeton was nothing but a dot in the distance.
Charles was shivering now, and I was too, so I took Peter’s hand and together we walked through the dead, dry leaves again, until we entered the house.
The rest of the day passed slowly. I hadn’t realized how difficult it would be to keep Peter and his constant movement under control, and to keep careful watch of Charles at the same time. I wondered how Mama managed to do it every day with only a little assistance from me. The servants kept out of our way, as instructed, so I was left to all these duties alone. It was exhausting.
My arms and back were sore from holding Charles, and I was reaching my end with chasing Peter around the house. So when sundown came the following day, I was entirely ready to pass my brothers off to more capable hands.
It had rained that afternoon, so we had stayed inside for most of the day. But with Mama and Papa arriving soon, I wanted to be waiting outside for them when they arrived. I put on my favorite pink muslin dress, Mama’s favorite too, then we stepped outside and walked to the edge of the lawn where the leaves were now wet and soft from the recent rain. Peter scowled down at the wet leaves, stomping his feet on them, disappointed that they no longer made a sound.
As we waited in the chilly autumn air, the sun went down and the moon came out. The longer we waited, the more quiet everything became, as if the wet, soundless leaves had sent a message to the rest of the world to keep silent too. It wasn’t until Peter’s teeth started chattering that we turned back toward the house.
Once inside, I put my brothers to bed and sat in Papa’s chair by the drawing room window, watching the dark, unoccupied road, hoping, waiting. It took only a few hours for worry to really set in. I thought I could never sleep, peering out the window every second as I was.
But eventually, I did fall asleep, with the skirts of my pink dress clutched into tight balls in my hands.
It wasn’t until two days later that we received word of their death. It was unexpected, a result of carelessness. Returning home from Dover, they had traveled dangerously close to the white cliffs. Somehow that old phaeton had fallen over the edge. It could have been the horses’ fault, it could have been the phaeton’s fault. But I refused to believe that it was Mama and Papa’s fault. They would never choose to leave us like that.
Papa’s will was found and specifically stated that our guardian was to be Papa’s sister, Ruth Filbee, and her husband. But she was a recent widow, and although it was rare for a woman alone to be our guardian, we were unarguably being sent to her tomorrow.
When one of our servants delivered the news to me, my heart lurched in my chest, threatening to break open with the sudden pain. I shook my head hard, hoping that doing so would make me forget what I had just heard. But it only made it worse, making the words thro
b in my skull, echo in my ears. They are dead.
Tightness rose to my throat, grasping at it, making my breath come in hard, heavy gasps. Hot tears sprang into my eyes, distorting my vision. I swallowed, then swallowed again. I breathed in shallow gasps. And I stood with my fists clenched at my sides. “No. No. No.” I shook my head again, and my voice broke into sobs. I was shaking.
Without listening to another word, I ran to my brothers’ room, pressing my hand against my chest, struggling to somehow hold the broken bits of my heart together inside of me.
Charles lay awake in his bassinet and Peter was asleep in his tiny bed. Wiping tears from my eyes so I could see, I lifted Charles into my arms and pulled Peter up onto my lap as I sat on the edge of his bed. His eyes blinked open and he looked at my tear-streaked face, dazed and troubled at seeing me that way. I hugged him tightly, never wanting to let go. His mussed dark hair stuck to my cheek where my tears flowed freely.
Peter pulled back to look at my face again. Then, with a look beyond his years with concern, he lifted a small hand and rubbed the tears from my cheeks. He scowled at them, as if he thought they didn’t belong. He raised his hand again and wiped, and wiped, and wiped my face again. His gentle swipes turned into soft slaps as he scowled at the steady flow of tears that refused to stop. But then he paused, and looking down at his wet fingers, and up at the new tears on my face, and he started to cry too.
He didn’t know, of course, what had happened. And he surely wouldn’t understand. He was only crying out of confusion and frustration over the fact that he couldn’t stop my tears from coming. And he was all the more precious for it.
Then Charles, apparently sensing the discord around him, burst into tears of his own. His soft whimpers sounded deafening. His tears left tiny droplets clinging to his lashes. So together we sat, all of us crying, and I was the only one who actually knew why. How long we stayed like that, I didn’t know, but eventually the flow of tears lessened a bit, and I could breathe and think a bit clearer.
So in that grief-filled moment, looking at Peter’s wobbling chin and round, watering eyes, and Charles’s little mouth opening in a quiet yawn, I realized something very important: My brothers needed me. I couldn’t allow myself to cry, to be weak. They were so young, so innocent, so precious, and dependent. On me. They depended on me now, and me alone. I needed to be strong and unbreakable, so they could be too. My moment of weakness was over.
I grasped Peter’s wrist as he reached up to my face again, stopping his hand. I wiped my own tears from my face and drew a shaky breath. Then I wiped away his. And then I spoke to my heart for the very first time. A tiny voice inside my head told it: You are invulnerable. You are unbreakable. You shall give all your love to Peter and Charles. You shall always listen to what I tell you to do. You shall love the boys and care for them all your life. And you shall never make me cry again.
The words granted me some form of unearthly strength, and I knew my heart would obey me. In the deepest coves of my mind I heard it whisper back. It promised.
So I sat there on the edge of Peter’s bed, two little boys in my arms, shaking limbs and unsteady breathing, and no idea of what would become of us. But my eyes were bone dry, and that was what made me strong.
A
Chapter 8
Present Day
Not a crack.
Mama and Papa hadn’t known just how long they would be away, just how long I would keep my promise from breaking. Forever does not know minutes, hours, or days.
Feeling a sharp poke on my finger, I realized that I still clutched the pink rose in my hand. I would certainly have to dispose of it. With one last composing breath, I turned my back to the tree and started toward the gate, anxious to get to the library, to return to my brothers and their lighthearted spirits.
When I opened the door to the house, I found Owen waiting by the drawing room. He greeted me with a cheery smile. “What would you like to see next?”
I was relieved that he was back to his old and strangely new self; that he wasn’t going to try to make me feel things I didn’t want to feel. “My brothers are in the library, so perhaps we can start there.”
“Perfect,” he said.
When we stepped into the library, I was instantly greeted by the smell of wood and old leather. I saw my brothers each sitting on one of Grandfather’s knees. He was reading them a book, altering his voice for each character that spoke. Peter and Charles were so engulfed in the story that they didn’t notice my entrance.
Grandmother did, though. She looked up from her embroidery and her eyes flew open wide with delight. “Miss Downing! There you are! Oh, these boys have been perfect little angels.” She eyed Owen with a scolding frown. “Owen, dear. You cannot be spending so much time with Miss Annette. You may anger her fiancé.”
My eyes widened. Fiancé ?
Grandmother let out a very loud, hooting laugh. I looked up at Owen just in time to see his jaw tense.
“Oh, I joke, I joke.” Grandmother appeared much more amused that Owen.
I felt my face warm. Peter and Charles looked up from Grandfather’s book and gave me two very wide smiles, as if just noticing my presence in the room. Charles slid off of Grandfather’s lap and ran over to me. He grabbed my arm and started dragging me to a seat beside him. “Grandfather is reading us a very funny story. Come listen!”
I laughed, grateful for his rescue, and allowed him to pull me to the chair. Owen brought his own chair up beside me and sat down. “I have an idea,” he said, leaning forward to speak to my brothers. “Why don’t I take you two outside to ride horses?”
Peter and Charles turned their heads briskly to look at one another. “Horses?” Peter said with awe.
“Yes, horses. Ponies too. Would you like to join me?”
They nodded with perfectly round eyes and gaping mouths, then jumped from Grandfather’s lap and ran toward the door. “Are you coming, Annette?” Charles asked with a nervous look.
Owen grinned at me in his teasing way. “I suppose you are invited.”
Charles’s uneasy expression was enough. “Of course,” I said, stepping forward to take Charles’s hand. I was a little nervous too—it had been a very long time since I had ridden a horse. But the thought of riding again made my stomach flutter.
Owen held the door open as I walked by and said, “We’ll have to explore the library another day.”
I stopped by my bedchamber before we set off to the stables. Grandmother had sent Lizzie to fetch me a riding habit that belonged to Owen’s sister, and I needed to change into it quickly. While I was there, I handed the pink rose to Lizzie. “While I am gone, will you dispose of this, please?”
She gave me a puzzled look. “Why dispose of it?”
She was right to be confused, it was a silly thing to ask, and I really didn’t feel up to offering an explanation. “Nevermind,” I dropped the rose down on my bed and wiped my hands on the skirts of the deep green riding habit I now wore. I would have to get rid of it myself later.
I raced down the stairs and met Owen, Peter, and Charles outside. By the time we arrived outside the stables, my brothers were absolutely mad with excitement. They had never ridden a horse and it seemed that the idea was even more riveting than any mischief that they had ever caused, all put together. They tugged on my arm and pulled on my skirts for me to walk faster, and they even sneaked behind Owen to push him through the door.
Once inside, Owen introduced them to each horse, and let them choose which they would like to ride. Peter chose a dark brown filly, and Charles chose a biscuit-colored pony.
Owen turned to me. “And for you?”
I looked over all the horses. Eve stood in the last stall and when I walked up beside her, she looked at me expectantly. I thought I could see a bright smile shining in her eyes. I had to choose her. “I’ll ride Eve.”
He grinned as if he had known I would pick her. “Of course.”
With a groom saddling up our horses, I stood back,
nervously rubbing my palms down the skirt of the riding habit. It fit me well enough, but was a bit loose in some areas, which I had expected, considering my petite figure.
I felt my nerves go taut because of the last time I had ridden a horse. The experience had left me with a small patch of fear. It was when I was eleven years old, and I had made the mistake of going for a ride by myself—on a new, poorly trained filly. The ride started out fine, but as we went on, she became restless, and before I could return to the stables, I had been thrown off. All I could remember was seeing the ground as it rushed up at me, and waking in my bed a few hours later with a broken arm.
I tried to distract myself by turning my attention to my brothers, who stood beside me bouncing up and down on their legs, eager to mount their horses. I hadn’t noticed that Owen had walked beside us until he spoke. “It seems that you boys are ready to go.” He chuckled. “Now we need only to convince your sister.”
I shot him a subtle glare. He must have noticed how nervous I was. I certainly couldn’t have anyone assuming that I was nervous to ride a horse. “Convince me of what?” I asked a little too innocently.
He raised an eyebrow and gestured to the mounting block resting beside Eve, then began helping my brothers onto theirs. I swallowed and walked tentatively toward Eve. I stroked between her eyes and spoke softly in her ear. “My name is Annette, and we are going for a ride.”
Her ears twitched and she turned her head slightly toward me as I spoke.
“Is that fine with you? If not, please acknowledge so.” I waited for a few seconds, but Eve sat still and straight, like a well-trained horse was supposed to do. I felt like I could trust her. After stepping onto the mounting block, I carefully eased my way onto the saddle. I grasped the reins in my gloved hands. They felt old and familiar and somehow they settled my nerves. I smiled back at Peter and Charles. They were grasping their pommels tightly and giggling uncontrollably. Two grooms were standing beside them, reins in hand, prepared to help them along on their ride.
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