The Heiress of Winterwood (31 page)

Amelia was a strong woman. Indeed, he’d underestimated her again and again. At every turn they’d taken in these few short weeks, she’d proven loyal, resolute, and resourceful as well as beautiful. And she loved Lucy like the child was her own. Could a man hope for a better companion?

Tomorrow would have been their wedding day. In the days and nights since he’d agreed to marry Amelia, he’d come to believe it was a good idea. But something more had developed during the course of their interactions. His concern for her had deepened. His regard for her had broadened, his affection intensified. He no longer regarded her as a woman using him as a means to an end. She was a person he cared about, and she was slowly but surely becoming the woman he loved.

Amelia had awakened something in him. Denying that reality did not make it any less true. But was it right to love again so soon after Katherine’s death—or to marry another woman and promptly leave her as he had left Katherine? Guilt, swift and sure, swept its familiar pall over him. How long would he fight this battle between the past and his future?

He stood abruptly, realizing he could no longer afford the luxury of regret. Time was short. He had work to do. And a good captain always kept his priorities straight.

Priority one: Retrieve Lucy at any cost. Priority two: Make Amelia want to marry him, for more than just Lucy’s sake. Because the longer this intricate dance continued, the more certain he became: Amelia Barrett needed to become Amelia Sterling.

He removed his waistcoat and slung it over the back of the chair. In a bag next to the fireplace were the clean linens that Amelia insisted they bring. Looking down at the rumpled bed, he was grateful for her insistence. He folded the fresh-smelling pillow under his head, stretched out on the smooth sheet, and covered himself with the wool blanket. He stared into the fire. It had been awhile since a prayer passed his lips, but he couldn’t help the one that came upon him instinctively.

Dear Father, I don’t deserve Lucy, and I don’t deserve Amelia. But if it be your will, deliver them both to me.

A
melia had no idea if twenty minutes or two hours had passed. She lay on the lumpy bed, trying to ignore the straw poking through the rough canvas, and curled close against Jane in an attempt to keep warm. The tattered curtains hanging at the window blocked light from the lanterns in the courtyard below, but they did little to suppress the raucous sounds coming from the pub next door. Somehow she’d managed to sleep in the carriage despite the rough roads and wild winds. Now, when sleep should arrive, it refused to come.

She looked over at Jane, whose slender form sank into the mattress. The fire illuminated the rhythmic rise and fall of her shoulders under their brought-from-home blankets. As softly as she could, Amelia pushed herself from the bed and stood.

The pitiful fire did little to fight the chill in the room. Shivering, she reached for her cape, pulled it from the hook, and drew it tightly around her shoulders. With soft steps she inched close to the fire grate and poked futilely at the coals. Giving up,
she sat on the rough wood floor, tucked her knees to her chest, and leaned her head on them, her mind, as ever, on Lucy.

Where was she tonight? What had happened to her? Possibility after possibility commandeered Amelia’s mind, each scenario more terrifying than the last. She reviewed everything she knew, trying to figure out who could be responsible.

William Sterling had been angry with the captain, and he was known as a drinker and a gambler. According to what she overheard at the Hammonds’, he was in debt and short of funds. But surely the man would not kidnap his own niece.

Would he?

Then there was Edward. Could he be guilty of such a cruel, devious act? Until recently, she would not have thought it possible. Now she was not so sure. But Edward had been present for the entire episode, even assisting with the search efforts.

And then, she had to acknowledge, there was an entire world she knew little about. Graham’s world. A mysterious world of ships and warfare. Could he have enemies? Could there be others wishing to do the Sterlings harm?

Footsteps from the room above them drew Amelia’s attention. Graham’s room. Heavy boots paced from one end of the room to the other and back again. She’d been so engrossed in her own pain, concerned with her own plans, that she had not stopped to consider how he must feel. Her own pain at losing Katherine was great, and her fear of losing Lucy was intense. But he was Katherine’s husband, Lucy’s father. Back and forth he paced. He was so close, only a few wooden planks above her.

A rustling from the bed drew Amelia from her reverie. “What are you doing?”

Amelia sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to wake you. I was cold.”

Jane sat up and swung her legs over the side of the low bed.
“This has to be the draftiest room I ever set foot in. Thank heavens we shall only be here one night.” She reached down to pull on her slippers.

“I hope Lucy and Mrs. Dunne are in a better place than this. I cannot bear the thought of—”

As the footsteps passed directly overhead, Amelia stopped talking, and Jane looked up at the ceiling. “Sounds as if sleep is eluding someone else of our acquaintance.” She fetched her own cloak from the peg and joined Amelia at the fire. “I must say, I believe I have misjudged Captain Sterling.”

Amelia started at the abrupt change of conversation. “Why would you say that?”

“His behavior has been selfless. The manner in which he has handled this entire situation has impressed me.” Jane settled down next to Amelia, a mischievous smile on her lips. “He appears to be quite taken with you, my dear.”

Amelia tried the poker again. “We both care for Lucy, but you must not think there is anything else to the relationship between myself and Captain Sterling. We simply have an arrangement.”

“Oh, I am not so sure about that.”

“It is true that I have a very large fortune—or I will once I marry. No doubt the captain finds that attractive as well.”

“Most men would, yes. But I believe that the captain may need you as much as you need him. For reasons other than money.”

Amelia looked away from Jane to hide her quivering lip. “I do not need Captain Sterling. I need his name.”

Jane hesitated and reached for Amelia’s hand. “What is it, my dear, that frightens you so?”

Amelia pulled back her hand. She had no answer. Or rather, she had too many answers. Too many fears. She feared never having a family of her own. Needing someone and not being needed in return. Being taken advantage of because of her wealth. Loving
intensely, only to have that person snatched away . . . again. Having to live her whole life as she had lived so many early years—with a broken, empty heart.

She couldn’t tell Jane all that. She could barely admit it to herself. So she said, “The only thing that frightens me is losing Lucy. I cannot lose another person I love, Jane.”

Jane’s nod was thoughtful. “Fear takes so many forms. I remember back when I was still a new wife—new in Darbury too. I was so lonely in those days. I’d only known Mr. Hammond a few weeks prior to our marriage, and our new parish was far from my family in Bristol. I was eager to become a mother, thinking a baby would help me be less lonely. I prayed daily for a child. Fervently, like Hannah in the Bible.”

Amelia pulled her cape closer around her. “But you never had children, did you?”

“No. And eventually I would come to terms with that. But in those early years, the fear that I would never have a child consumed me. I pulled away from Mr. Hammond and others who loved me. I could think of nothing but my own sorrow and my fear that my life would not turn out as I had imagined. It was a dark time, Amelia. I wasted so much of my youth wishing for things to be different, unable to accept the role God had given me to fulfill.”

“So how did you find peace with it?” Amelia’s voice did not sound like her own.

“When I finally was able to accept that God had a plan for my life, that his way is best, I began to see the world in a different light.” A smile transformed Jane’s face. “And then he gave me you. You became the daughter I never had. The Lord has blessed me in so many other ways as well. But I lost so many blessings while confined in the prison of my fear.”

Amelia stared into the fire as the full meaning of Jane’s words pressed upon her. Something within her recognized the truth in them. But a stubborn streak deep in her heart wouldn’t accept it.

Jane laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “There are seasons to every life, Amelia. God gives each of us a great capacity to love, if we will only open our minds to it. I am not a woman given to romantic flights of fancy, but even I can tell the captain has developed feelings for you. The way he fusses over you. The great lengths he is going to protect you—”

“He’s protecting Lucy.”

“No, Amelia, he is protecting you as well. You will have a very lonely life if you refuse to let others in because you are afraid.”

Those final words stung. Amelia pushed to her feet. She didn’t want Jane to see the tears gathering. Jane stood too and returned to the bed.

Above them the pacing continued.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Amelia waited until she was certain Jane had fallen asleep before she climbed back into bed. Her eyes drooped with exhaustion, and she squeezed them shut.
Oh, God, if you really care for me, where are you?

And in the quiet of the room, a response, subtle and low, balanced in the quiet places between sleep and a dream.

“My child, I am with you wherever you go.”

Amelia tossed. She turned. Someone was chasing her.

She bolted down a darkened corridor in her nightdress, her bare feet slapping against cold stone. The footsteps were gaining on her.

Faster and faster she ran. Hot tears streamed down her cheeks, and her lungs burned with lack of oxygen. How much longer could she keep this pace?

A menacing, angry voice kept calling her name.

“Amelia. Amelia!”

From the narrow window in the stone wall, a flash of blinding lightning pierced the darkness. A simultaneous clap of thunder
boomed with such intensity the ground beneath her trembled. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. Again and again she tried, but no sound, not even a whimper, passed her dry, cracked lips.

Lightning flashed again, and this time her lungs filled with air. She released a bloodcurdling scream before falling to the ground.

The footsteps drew closer. They came faster. Pulse racing, she glanced over her shoulder. By the light of a subsequent lightning bolt she could see it. A dark shadow, a mass, crept closer. Closer.

She tried to get up, but her nightdress caught on something. Desperate, she felt around in the darkness to free it but felt nothing besides limp fabric. She scrambled to her feet and attempted to rip the nightdress free, but whatever gripped it was pulling back, just as hard, just as determined. The shadow drew closer, closer . . .

“Amelia.”

The mass was upon her. Its unbearable heat engulfed her.

Unable to free her dress, she succumbed to the instinct to fight. She swung at the mass. She kicked her legs. She writhed and twisted. It would not overcome her.

“Amelia, wake up.”

The mass grabbed her by the shoulder and shook her. Again she screamed. Pain pressed her head, and fear squeezed her heart.

The voice grew louder. Her kicks grew stronger.

“Amelia, wake up! You are dreaming!”

A solid shake snapped her eyes open, and she bolted upright. Perspiration trickled down her neck and back. She gulped for air and dug her nails into the wool blanket.

When something touched her back, she jumped and cried out, then blinked as she looked around.

She was not in a dark corridor, but a room at the Eagledale Inn.

A black mass had not grabbed her. It was Jane touching her arm.

Nobody had chased her. The footsteps were not footsteps at all, but a knock at her door.

And Lucy was still missing.

“For mercy’s sake, child, are you awake?” Jane’s voice rose, and Amelia, still lost in the haze between reason and dream, jerked away from her friend’s touch.