Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon (2 page)

The water sloshed about, reaching his
ears. Too much distance still. Icy shards pricked the walls of his
lungs, but Aidan forced himself to ignore them and ran
faster.

Morgan’s head went under as he reached
the edge of the water. A golden halo floated atop the estuary where
she’d just been, nearly halfway to the opposite bank, and then
abruptly fell below.

“
No!”

Miss Hathaway filled her lungs and
dove after Morgan, her dark hair quickly disappearing beneath the
water, the yellow of her gown blocking the gold of Morgan’s hair
from his view. Aidan ran into the riverbed, oblivious to anything
but reaching his sister. The force of the water slowed his progress
to a near crawl, and he cursed the impediment aloud, uncaring as to
who might hear his coarse tongue. Each second that ticked by meant
he was a second closer to losing his sister. Forever.

That couldn’t happen. He couldn’t
allow it.

By the time he was waist-deep, Miss
Hathaway’s head reappeared above the undulating surface. Another
breath, and down she went again, leaving only a torrent of ripples
behind.

After a few more steps he was deep
enough to swim. Aidan took a great breath and pushed off against
the mud bank. The weight of his coat and boots threatened to pull
him under. Good God, how could either of the ladies manage with
their skirts if he was having such difficulty? He fought against
the heaviness with all his might while frantically scanning for a
sign of Morgan.

Finally, about twenty feet away, he
saw them: Miss Hathaway thrashing with the wildness of a trapped
hellcat, holding tight to the unresponsive hand of his sister.
Despite the ferocity of her kicks, she made no progress. If
anything, the two women were heading the opposite direction from
what she intended. With all her flailing, they were sinking in an
almost whirlpool-like manner instead of rising. What the devil was
she thinking?

Aidan swam toward the chaos, the water
closing over his head as he dove beneath the surface. When he
reached them, he fought through Miss Hathaway’s flapping limbs and
ripped the fingers of her death-grip from Morgan’s arm. She kicked
again, sending a foot into his gullet. She reached for him, her
fingers desperately seeking purchase in her panic and scratching
his arm and face in the process.

She’d be the death of them all if he
couldn’t contain her hysteria.

He pushed her away with a solid shove
toward the surface. Then he wrapped his arm around Morgan’s waist
and followed after her.

When he broke through, a painful gasp
refilled his lungs. Aidan swam for the shore, holding Morgan above
the water with one arm and willing her to breathe. A series of
shouts and splashes sounded behind him as David reached Miss
Hathaway and dragged her to the embankment. Seconds later, David’s
wife reached the two of them, and then Niall took hold of Morgan’s
arm to pull her free of the water.

Aidan coughed back tears and river
water as he sat on the bank. He draped his sister’s unresponsive
form over his lap. Her empty eyes stared back at him.

No breath. No sound. No
movement.

No life.

Gone
. How could she be gone? How could he have allowed it to
happen?

Niall sank to his knees before them
and cupped Morgan’s face in his hands.

A crowd had gathered, as the entire
house party had apparently followed after him. Servants rushed
through the crowd, carrying blankets. A few feet away, Miss
Hathaway spluttered, relieving her lungs of the muddy water. She
gasped for breath, but all he could see was her teeth—big, white
teeth surrounded by mud and muck.

If
she
had acted more quickly…if
she
had alerted him to
Morgan’s departure instead of running off alone and attempting a
rescue of which she was both incompetent and incapable, none of
this would have happened. Morgan would still be alive. Breathing.
Warm and safe inside.

That damned girl killed my
sister.

Aidan glared across at her, filling
his gaze with every ounce of rage and fear and grief and pain that
had filled his life these four months, blaming the girl though in
truth the blame rested elsewhere.

He needed someone to fault other than
himself. Someone. Something.

Anything.

Lady Burington draped a blanket over
the shivering Miss Hathaway’s shoulders. In his mind, Aidan set it
aflame, permanently affixing the image in his mind like a piece of
artwork. Even that would not serve as justice for his loss. It
wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

Then, inexplicably, Morgan’s body
jerked in his arms. Aidan’s focus lurched back to his sister.
Another movement. A flood of water left her mouth, followed by a
series of violent, wracking coughs. Her vacant eyes looked first to
Niall, then to Aidan as they filled with desperate
tears.

She was alive. Morgan
was
alive
. Thank
God in heaven.

She slowly shook her head, an almost
imperceptible motion. Her mouth formed a word, but no sound came
out as her eyes bored holes through his. Tears streamed a jagged
path down her river-stained cheeks.

“
Why?”

July, 1819

With a somber mien befitting the memories held
within, the butler showed Emma Hathaway into the drawing room at
Heathcote Park. “If you’ll excuse me, miss, I’ll inform the lord
and lady of the manor of your arrival.”

Emma gave him a brief nod, and he backed out
of the room. A timid young maid replaced him in the doorway a
moment later. She set a tea service on the table, dipped into a
curtsey, and then scurried away.

After an agonizing glance out the bay window,
Emma scanned the room—the one which had haunted her dreams for many
years now, and which showed no sign of ceasing that very
activity.

A gradual but thorough change had overtaken
the space, and likewise much of the great house, since Emma’s
sister, Vanessa, had become the mistress of the manor. Now, almost
everything inside it was different than it had been upon her
arrival—and certainly different than it had been three years
ago.

Emma hadn’t seen any of the changes take
place, herself. She hadn’t returned to the Park since that summer.
She had only learned of the changes in her sister’s
letters.

This coming fortnight would mark the first
occasion anyone besides the Burington family and their servants,
and now Emma, would step foot inside the room in three
years.

Even just walking inside it brought back the
rush of memories, the great ache in her chest from all that had
happened—an ache that always had her gasping for breath, as though
she was being pulled below water again. Perhaps enough change had
taken place to erode the abhorrent memories from the minds of most.
Surely, that had been Vanessa’s intent in making the
changes.

Emma doubted anything could ever wash the
memory from her own mind. The images were too stark. Too
all-encompassing and bitter. The events from that summer were
etched in a sea of gray upon the backs of her eyelids, it seemed,
haunting her any time she tried to close her eyes and rest. Yet
Vanessa had tried to effect enough changes to make this summer’s
house party at least bearable.

The dainty, too-easily-broken Louis XIV chairs
and matching spindly-legged tables were gone, replaced by sturdier
mahogany bergère chairs with plush blue and cream cushions—sturdy
enough that careless men could likely not shatter them so easily.
Scattered near each grouping of chairs, one could find gaming
tables, tea tables, quartetto tables, and writing tables, all made
of the same solid wood. All designed not only for aesthetics but
for durability.

Gone, too, were the elaborate plaster chimney
piece and rococo designs which Lady Morgan had so often stared upon
that summer as she whiled away the time trapped inside her mind. In
their stead, a mural of an autumnal country landscape covered one
wall while family portraits dotted the rest of the room,
accompanied by framed swatches of embroidery—no doubt stitched by
Vanessa. Simple yet elegant mahogany woodwork now adorned the
hearth. Though the memories were far from eradicated from Emma’s
mind, the changes somehow soothed her frayed nerves as she
inspected them. It was an odd sensation—not quite at peace, but not
as anxiety-inducing as it would have been, had Vanessa made the
endeavor.

A bird flew past the bay window, casting its
shadow upon the walls and lifting up to the ceiling. Emma’s eyes
followed the shadow’s path. Even the ceiling had undergone a
transformation; the ornate plasterwork had been removed and, in its
place, it had been painted to look like a cloudy sky, as was all
the crack in Town these days. Vanessa had written, upon making this
final alteration, that she wanted no reminders of that fateful day
three years before. Not for herself. Not for her husband. Not for
Emma or any other guest who had been present.

The only thing, as far as Emma could tell,
that hadn’t changed at all was the Parquet flooring. Since it was
already both elegant and serviceable, she supposed there had been
no reason for alteration. The Aubusson rugs covering it, however,
had been replaced with others to suit the blues and creams which
now adorned the walls and the upholstery.

There had been no single moment of
transformation according to Vanessa’s letters. In the three years
since the first and only house party she and David had hosted,
Vanessa had simply placed more touches of herself—of the quiet,
reserved manner in which the two sisters had been reared—into that
room, in particular, and into Heathcote Park as a whole.

Standing here now, so far removed from
the dark moment in time she’d prefer to forget, Emma was baffled
that almost nothing remained of the frilly, overly opulent
décor.

And yet the view outside the great bay
window remained untouched. The estuary, which had been the scene of
the strongest, most violent parts of the memories, remained
thoroughly unchanged—a permanent reminder of all she’d tried so
desperately to banish from her memory. Emma supposed only God
himself could rearrange that scene. She couldn’t very well expect
Vanessa and David to rip out the River Exe and build an orangery in
its place, after all. If such a feat were humanly possible, she had
every reason to expect they would have undertaken the task with
similar vigor to that required for the transformation of the manor
house.

As though to ward off the
biting chill of the river, Emma hugged her arms over her chest and
gave her back to both the bay window and the memory. She filled a
cup with steaming tea from the service, adding two sugars and just
a drop of cream. On such a pleasantly warm day, no fire burned
behind the fire screen, but positioning herself there she could
avoid looking out the window—something she would prefer to do at
all costs—as she waited for her sister’s arrival. She sat on the
settee by the hearth. With a sigh, she sifted through her reticule
for the book she’d brought along for the journey.
Waverley
, again. She’d
already read it a dozen times or more, but beggars couldn’t be
choosers.

A dog’s bark momentarily drew her
attention outside. The hound raced along the open yard and then out
of sight. How odd—she didn’t think David had any dogs as pets here
at Heathcote Park. Perhaps she’d been mistaken.

Emma pulled her legs up beneath her in
a thoroughly unladylike fashion, leaned back, and opened the book
to where she’d left off. Edward Waverley had just been accused of
both desertion and treason. Highly troublesome, that, particularly
since it meant he was to be arrested. Within moments, she was lost
in the Highlands again.

“
Good Lord in heaven, Emma,
you should be thankful David didn’t walk in here before I did,”
Vanessa said.

The intrusion stopped Emma’s reading
just as Waverley arrived at Holyrood Palace to meet with Bonnie
Prince Charlie. She replaced the ribbon between the pages to mark
her spot and grinned up at her sister.

Vanessa frowned in return. “I can see
half your legs, at least.”

“
David wouldn’t care one
whit if he saw my legs. They aren’t nearly as shapely or nice to
look upon as yours.”