A Heart’s Secret (In Want of a Wife #3)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

London, 1809

F itzwilliam Darcy stared at the two figures on the brow of Primrose Hill, their silhouettes dark against the sunrise. I am too late. This horrid truth took hold of his body, an intense panic binding his feet to the ground. They were a distance from him, about twenty feet or so, their faces obscured by shadow, but Darcy did not need to see his cousin’s face to know it was Dominic. In an act of desperation, he called out, but some unseen assistant shouted a command, and the men raised their arms in unison. Then came the sound that would be forever etched onto his memory: pistol fire . With a sickening cry, Dominic crumpled, his hand clutching at his chest. Darcy ran towards him, sinking to the ground beside where his cousin lay, writhing in pain. Desperately, he pressed his hands down to stem the bleeding, but dark, heavy liquid was oozing from the wound, soaking the grass underneath. It was too late.

Wordlessly, Darcy held his cousin’s bloody hand and watched as Dominic’s life ebbed slowly away into the stillness of that cursed November morning.

I have failed you.

He wept silent tears over his young cousin’s lifeless body, his heart grieving the tragedy of a life unlived.