Heart of the Ocean (26 page)

I
started this book several years ago, and as I took chapters to my critique
group, the story unfolded with their plot and character suggestions. Often I
didn’t know what was about to happen next, and when a critique member asked me,
I honestly couldn’t say. We had fun brainstorming possibilities, and some of
their ideas would show up the next week in a new chapter.

I
did know one thing though: Helena Talbot was driving the story, and she
wouldn’t rest until the mystery of her death was revealed. It was truly her
story from the beginning through the end.

With
so many years having passed since the first draft, and having published a dozen
other books in the meantime, I had sharpened my writing skills. So it was with
a bit of humility that I dove back into this manuscript for revisions, which
made me realize how patient my critique group had been with my newbie writing
skills.

Many thanks to
those in my critique group at the time: Lu Ann Staheli, Jeff Savage, Annette
Lyon, Michele Holmes, Lynda Keith, and Stephanni Hicken Myers. Like the ghostly
voice of Helena, their voices haunted me as I worked on revisions.

“Heather,
where are we?”—Lu Ann

“Why
is everyone smiling all the time?”—Jeff

“There
needs to be more romantic tension.”—Michele

“I
don’t buy this scene.”—Stephanni

“Way
too many comma splices.”—Annette

“Smiley
faces!”—Lynda

And
of course my most favorite quote:

“What
do you know about ghosts?”—Mother

As I dusted off
the manuscript and plowed back through it over several stages of revisions, I
possibly tortured my next round of readers. A thousand thanks goes to Lu Ann
Staheli, Jillian Torassa, Mindy Holt, Julianne Clegg, Annette Lyon, and G.G.
Vandagriff, who were willing to read through the newer version and offer
valuable advice and much-needed editing. Thank you!

Also, a special
thank you goes out to my wonderful proofreaders: Kari Pike, Sheri Wallace, Andrea
Frisby and Rachel DeVaughn, who answered the call to proof under a tight
deadline.

A Timeless
Romance Anthology: Winter Collection

An Unfortunate Exile

By Heather B. Moore

New York
City, 1901

“Are you pregnant?”

Lila stared at her father, her eyes focusing on
his stiff collar, stark white against his carefully shaved, red face. Her mouth
opened, but nothing came out.

“By all that is holy, if you are with child. I
will—” His hand came up too swift to stop and struck her across the face.

She stumbled back, knocking against her mother who
sat prim-faced on the settee.

“James,” her mother yelped, half-hearted as it
was.

Lila scrambled away from the settee as her father
turned his wild eyes on his wife. “I will not have our daughter behave like this,
Annabelle! Not in my house.”

Her mother’s face paled even more, if that were
possible, as she clenched her already clenched hands tighter. Her mouth closed
into a pinch.

Making her way behind the settee, Lila spoke in a
raspy voice that had already spent hours crying. “I am
not
pregnant. We
did not . . . I am
not
compromised.”

Mr. James Townsend looked from daughter to mother,
his face darkening, disbelieving.

The knot in Lila’s stomach twisted until she
thought she’d be sick, right there, on her parents’ talk-of-the-town Persian
rug.
Now I will be the talk of New York. Either by a sudden marriage, or
worse, a suspicious departure.
But how could she explain to her father that
she was not defiled, that the things she and Roland had done may have been touching
the fire’s flames, but not
that
.

Her eyes brimmed with tears—tears she thought were
already spent. They weren’t from her father’s slap, but because she’d sent a
letter to Roland early that morning, and there was still no reply. It was now
well past the ninth hour, and had been dark for three. The blizzard that had
hit the upper coast the day before had just reached New York City. The snow
fell swiftly outside the floor-to-ceiling windows. No one in their right mind
would venture out in the face of the storm.

“Can you swear this over your sister’s grave?” her
father asked in a steely tone.

Her mother gasped at the mention of their younger
daughter, and Lila straightened, lowering her hand from her stinging cheek.
That her father had brought little Charity into this ugly argument was
momentous indeed. “I swear,” she whispered.

The room was quiet for a moment. It seemed as if
the tick of the grandfather clock in the corner had faded with the silent
falling snow. Her father turned away as if he could no longer bear to look at
his only surviving daughter. He stood with his back to the women and stared out
the massive windows.

Finally, his pronouncement came. “She will leave
in the morning for my sister’s estate. There she will stay until this whole
business is completely forgotten.” He scrubbed his balding head. “What will the
society papers say tomorrow? There has already been enough speculation, since any
woman who associates with Roland Graves is ruined, and our . . . daughter . . .
has more than associated with him.”

Her mother whimpered and brought a handkerchief to
her mouth.

Lila’s head throbbed. Her father’s sister, Mrs.
Eugenia T. Payne, was as austere as her name. She’d worn nothing but widow’s
black since her husband’s passing, and her eldest daughter had converted to
Catholicism and gone into the nunnery.

Who goes into the nunnery in 1901 America?
That was the thing of gothic novels.

Aunt Eugenia’s younger daughter, only one year
older than Lila, had made a boring and dull marriage to the local parishioner. Lila
had attended the wedding in Connecticut the year before, which was the first
and last time Lila ever planned visiting their “estate”—which was in reality
nothing more than a farm.

I can’t leave the city. What if Roland comes to
propose?
She stared past her father into the driving snow.
Surely he
wouldn’t send me out in such a storm.

Lila’s father turned from the window, and she
lowered her gaze. “She’ll leave first thing in the morning with a letter of
explanation to Eugenia. Send Fay up to pack her things. As far as society will
know, our daughter is spending the holidays with her widowed aunt.”

Her mother murmured assent; Lila wanted to crumple
up on the floor. Instead, she turned and slowly walked out of the room then up
the stairs to the second floor. Her heart hammered as she thought desperately
for some sort of plan.
Should I send another letter? Could I bribe our
driver to deliver it in the storm?

Tears started immediately after shutting her
bedroom door. Not tears of shame like another girl would shed at being
discovered with the most notorious bachelor in the city, but tears of anger.
How dare her father send her away? She was certainly not the only woman in the
world to make a mistake. Her father had made plenty of his own.

His own sister refused to come visit their home
because of the corruption in the city—at least that’s what she called it.
I
know otherwise. Aunt Eugenia doesn’t approve of my father, or his associates,
or his business practices. I’ll admit that I’d been pretty innocent before
meeting Roland—innocent of all things. But no longer. He taught me a thing or
two about the ways of men, and I’ll never look at my father, or any other man,
the same way again. What will my aunt think when she learns about Roland?

Lila sat at her ivory painted dressing table and
absently moved the trinkets and perfumes around. Everything in her room was
ivory and gold, patterned after a distant cousin’s bedroom in Paris. When Lila
had visited France in the summer, she’d fallen in love with the opulent décor. Her
father had ordered furniture from as far as India to achieve the right
ambience, and now she’d be trading this divine room for one of splintered
furniture and moldy linens.

A light knock sounded at the door. Lila didn’t
have the voice to answer, so she wasn’t surprised when Fay opened the door
anyway.

Fay shut it with a firm click before turning to
Lila. The sorrow in the maid’s eyes about did Lila in. Fay was her oldest
friend and confidante. Only she had known about Lila’s secret escapades. Fay
might have been twenty years Lila’s senior and would never live life beyond a
personal maid, but she never judged Lila.

The tip of Fay’s nose was red, and her pale blue
eyes watered. “This came for you, Miss Lila, when you were in with your parents.”

Lila stared at the folded envelope in Fay’s hand.
“Someone delivered it to the door?” She’d heard nothing. Even over her father’s
yelling, she would have heard if someone had arrived in the front hall.

“It was delivered to the stable boy. He brought it
to me.”

Lila held out her hand. She’d have to thank Tim
later, since he’d done the proper thing with this sort of letter. But when she
took it from Fay, her heart stuttered. It was the same envelope she’d sent
Roland. Had he returned it unopened?

Lila turned it over and saw the broken seal. Her
pulse thundered in her ears as she slid the letter out. She knew without
opening it that it was the one she’d sent. Her throat pinched as she skimmed
her note, then read his answer below.

Dearest Roland,

Do I dare believe the words you spoke to me
this fortnight past? I know there have been other women for you in previous
years, but I hope that I was different. My feelings are true, and I can only
hope that yours are too. My father wants to send me away. Probably someplace
like Africa to live among natives and to grow crops in the dry dirt.

I didn’t mean for us to be discovered, and I’m
sorry that it happened this way. To be forced upon you when you’ve lived in
bachelorhood for so many years. But I hope you do not feel forced and will
consider my father’s request. I would be most honored to accept your offer.

Affectionately Yours,

Lillian Beth Townsend

Below her carefully constructed letter were the
scrawled words:

L—.

I depart on the next steamship to England and
will be gone for an undetermined time. My deepest regrets to you and your
family. You knew who I was when you involved yourself with me, and I never gave
you any promise. Your expectations are your own.

Best wishes in Africa,

R—.

Lila read Roland’s note a second time, then a
third. Disbelief pulsed through her, then sorrow, anger, more disbelief. He was
leaving for England. He was leaving
her.

Her face burned, the heat spreading down her neck,
to her chest. The things he had whispered to her,
promised
her, and the
way he had kissed her . . .

“Fay,” she croaked. “Tell Collings to have the
carriage ready at midnight. I’ll be paying a visit to Roland.”

“Your father—”

“Shh! He’ll know nothing!” Lila hissed. “I deserve
a better answer than this.” She held out the scribbled letter. “Roland didn’t
even use his own stationery.”

Fay’s face paled, and she peered at the letter,
although she couldn’t read it.

“We will pack just as father ordered,” Lila said
in a hurried whisper. “But my things will not be going to Connecticut to reside
with my suffocating aunt. We’ll be taking the same ship as Roland to England.”

“There will be many expenses,” Fay cut in, her
eyes wide with horror.

“Roland will be sponsoring our fare.” Lila’s voice
sounded confident, final, but inside, her heart was breaking.

“But, miss, everything I know is here.”

“Then you’ll stay here. I’ll go alone,” Lila said
in a sharp voice. “I’ll be a married woman soon enough, and I won’t have to
answer to you or anyone.” She closed her eyes against Fay’s stunned expression.
I hurt my only friend, but it has to be done.
She went behind her
dressing screen if only to get away from Fay’s gloomy face.

Once Roland saw her again, he’d remember how much he
loved her. How perfect they were for each other. How she made him laugh, and
how when they kissed, everything transformed into the most beautiful dream.

***

***To read the
remainder of
An Unfortunate Exile
, purchase your copy of
A Timeless
Romance Anthology: Winter Collection,
by clicking on the cover below: