I Will Light Your Way Home (Before Honeysuckle Street #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

The inky edges of night whipped away the distinctness of shapes outside the carriage.

Trees bled into hedges, gates into fences, fields into road.

Fingers of dusk stretched and poked their way inside, morphing seamlessly into dress creases and marks on the leather.

The sun withdrew its last threads of the day, leaving Lorelei with nothing but twilight and her worries.

With a heave, she stretched up to thump on the roof, balancing precariously.

The knock of her little fist merged with the rumble of the wheels.

Searching one window, then the opposite, she waited for a response, flanked by the two rectangles of night.

When none came, Lorelei pushed up from the seat and knocked again, harder.

A face appeared on her left, suspended upside down, dark hair loose and swaying. ‘Your Grace?’

‘How long?’ she called, forcing her voice to rise above the rumble.

The face disappeared for a moment, then swung back into view. ‘I figure on less than a mile. Almost there.’

Even upside down, Tillman’s smile beamed through his close-cut beard with steady, no-nonsense confidence.

Nothing rattled the estate manager. Not broken fences or cows that strayed into neighbours’ paddocks, not hay sales or barley markets.

Not even sheep who needed assistance to birth a stuck lamb. He was always so calm and composed.

Lorelei met his reassurance with her best duchess facade. Hopefully, his optimism would obscure that she possessed no confidence of her own, only the mask of it. He nodded, possibly convinced, and then he was gone. Night whipped the window again.

Lorelei stroked the fabric of her pocket, not seeking solace but the edges of the envelope.

It was too dark to read the letter now, so she fidgeted with its pointy corners and creased lengths instead.

She’d read the short missive a dozen times over the course of the last few hours, and the words had long since blurred into overly formal prattle, but their meaning was fixed in her mind.

Arley had gone missing.

The academy’s headmaster had explained that they had searched the grounds, the library, the dorms, and the kitchens—a dozen times over.

Had the young duke made his way home, perhaps?

Sometimes the boys felt a little homesick and, if they lived close enough, they absconded from boarding school for a brief visit.

Perhaps she could investigate? Conduct a search of the manor and its grounds?

She’d roused a search party, of course, even as the tumult in her stomach and the ache in her heart told her it would be pointless.

Arley would never be homesick. He would not be coming home.

Her fourteen-year-old son, whose grunts passed for conversation on the best of days, would most likely have headed in the opposite direction to wherever she was.

Lorelei lifted herself from the seat again, clenched her fist to knock the roof, then fell back to sitting with an oof.

As the carriage slowed into a turn, a swaying band of light from the lantern slapped across the painted sign for Bulger’s Academy.

Over the lawns, grey moonlight picked out thin blades of grass.

They gleamed a dull, damp green, not quite yet frosted with late autumn.

The clink and jingle of bits and bridles echoed, their merry chimes out of sync with her staccato heart and tight shoulders. Lorelei slid to the far side of the carriage, teetering on the edge of the seat with one gloved hand already on the door handle.

Tap, tap, tap. Her fidgeting fingers pinched at the metal scrollwork until the conveyance finally eased to a stop.

She bent down and pushed the door open. Paused.

A duchess doesn’t rush. Is never flustered. Control, Lorelei, control.

Lorelei drew a slow breath and sat back in her seat. The carriage shifted as the men above dismounted. As she waited, she peered through the doorway for a first proper look at the boarding school where her son spent his days.

The main building appeared to be about the same age as the centuries-old manor on the estate, or maybe a little older.

It had been finished in a rougher style, with raw stone corners, brick walls, and dressed gables that disappeared three stories high into the night.

Every second window had been bricked over, likely in protest of the glass tax, and candlelight sneaked through the edges of those that had been spared.

A curtain flicked, throwing an abstract beam across the walls.

Then the light retreated as it fell closed again.

Tillman landed firmly on the gravel. He brushed himself off and straightened his coat.

With a grunt, he pulled out the little steps from beneath the carriage, pushed against them to test their sturdiness, then nodded, satisfied.

When he held out his hand, the moonlight made valleys and mountains out of the creases and calluses on his palms. Lorelei tugged at her gloves to cover the small gap of skin over her wrist. In her rush, she hadn’t changed from riding gloves to day gloves, and the evening cold nipped at the exposed flesh.

‘It is beneath a manager to undertake such an errand. You shouldn’t have come.’ Lorelei rested her hand in Tillman’s as she descended, and his sure, steady fingers closed over her own to help her balance.

‘Someone had to. Besides, I know the way. The driver is new, so he did not. And while the staff are mostly good sorts, they do like to talk. The only way I can be certain no one gossips is if it’s me not doing the gossiping.’

‘There is no arguing with your logic.’ Lorelei dismissed the familiar warm squirm that came from being so close to the estate manager.

On other days, she slowed moments like this and tucked them into her pockets like they were white and gold pebbles—meaningless, perfect treasures she could take out and admire when alone.

Today, though, was not a day for relishing his warm hazel gaze or the stability of his hand, for appreciating the firm tower of his body, lean from days of hauling grain and tying hay as effortlessly as he tallied columns and completed invoices.

‘Do you need a moment?’ he asked, as he released his grip. ‘I can ask if they have a washroom for visitors, although I don’t remember one. Guests were not exactly encouraged when I was here. Especially mothers.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Her hands performed the familiar ritual of checking the sash at her waist, then her collar lace, confirming the buttons remained tight and no speck of dirt spoiled her cuffs. ‘Is anything amiss?’

‘As perfect as a princess, Your Grace. As always. I’ll have someone announce you.’

Tillman jogged up the stairs, but before he could raise his hand to knock, the door opened, and he stepped aside.

‘You needn’t have come,’ a hefty, cutting voice bellowed.

It reverberated across the stone yard, bouncing off the pavers and dispersing into the night.

Brimming with self-importance, her father’s familiar tone still came as a comfort, even as her shoulders tightened and her teeth clenched in a recitation of her childhood response to his presence.

Lorelei gathered her skirts and took the stairs in a rush. ‘Have they found him?’ she asked, her voice a slight puff with the effort. Her skirts compressed against the door frame, then fanned again as she entered the foyer. ‘Has he returned?’

‘Control yourself, child.’ Father’s lips thinned, his head bowing as he surveyed her. ‘No need for hysterics.’

‘Apologies, Your Grace.’ She dropped into a short curtsy. ‘I received a letter from the headmaster, and I am finding it hard not to worry.’

Father redirected his frown to the man who stood off to one side, closer to the door. He fumbled with his necktie, bowed to Father and then to her, then again to her father for good measure. ‘The young duke has not returned. It’s most unusual for him to be gone so long.’

‘Needs to be taught proper behaviour,’ Father grumbled at the headmaster. ‘The son of the minister for foreign affairs is a senior boy here. If word gets back, it will harm his reputation. Politics has a long, long memor—’

‘He’s done this before?’ She should not have cut across her father, and judging by how he bristled, he’d not let her forget it. But her heart was still hammering, her mouth dry, and even her palms itched with heat and fear. She could not possibly have held the question back.

‘A—a couple of times,’ the headmaster stammered.

‘He likes to go into the woods. Sometimes reads for too long in the library, under a desk. I asked the boys he sometimes sits with at meals, and they said it was just a small altercation in the hallway, nothing unusual. But he did not return to class, and then remained absent the following morning.’

‘An altercation? What does that mean?’ Lorelei pinned her gaze on the headmaster.

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, muttering something like should not have written to the mother beneath his breath.

Then he glanced at her father, which seemed to steel his resolve.

‘The boys roughhouse. The bigger boys discipline the younger ones. It teaches them to be strong. It happens at every school.’

‘They hit him?’ she asked.

‘Of course,’ her father snapped. ‘And when he’s older, it will become his duty to teach the younger children. That’s what school is for.’

Lorelei raised a trembling hand to her lips.

Her mouth formed words, but none found the courage to voice themselves.

Her sweet boy, who had crawled onto her lap and laid his head against her chest, who had watched the leaves as she stroked his hair, so blonde it was white…

Who had such plump, healthy cheeks and bright eyes…

What world had her father encouraged her to send him to? A world where they would not only hit him but teach him how to hurt?

Father’s glowering intensified. ‘All of this is under control. Unlike you,’ he muttered.

Lorelei wove her gloved fingers together and tightened them to ease her nerves.

This was how it had been ever since William had died.

With three daughters but no son of his own—and his heir, her cousin, already perfectly raised for the task—Lorelei’s father had stepped in to direct Arley’s education.

After all, who was better qualified to raise a duke than a duke?

It should have been an improvement. Beyond criticising him for being too shy and quiet, William had shown so little interest in his son and heir. Shown so little interest in them both.

Father and the headmaster’s gruff words floated around her, drifting out of reach. She tried to grab them, but every time they came close, the men adjusted their tone, and she lost the thread of their conversation.

If he’s not at the estate… Where?… Still in the woods?… Perhaps he’s gone to Town… Not impossible, especially with the trains… If you can’t control him, I’ll send him… I have a friend who specialises in difficult cases…

‘You think he’s gone to Town?’

Another scowl from her father, but the lecture would come regardless of what she said.

Resigned to its inevitability, Lorelei sought the attention of the headmaster.

After all, she was a duchess, and she signed the notes that paid Arley’s tuition.

Not her father. The man could at the very least answer her questions.

‘Sometimes the boys…’ The headmaster stuck his hands into his pockets. ‘Especially the ones who have already inherited their titles and feel themselves already grown… They occasionally head to London. To investigate the taverns, the theatre, and to have other… experiences.’

And the two of them stepped further away, still muttering back and forth between themselves.

‘How could he have reached London already? It’s been less than a day since I received your letter.’ That wild worry tangled tighter in her stomach. ‘How long has he been missing?’

The headmaster spoke over his shoulder. ‘Three days, Your Grace.’

And he pivoted back to her father.

‘Three days?’ The foyer clouded, then blurred.

Lorelei extended one hand to steady herself against the wall but misjudged the distance and staggered back until she landed hard against it.

‘He’s been missing for three days, and you only wrote me today?

What if he’s hurt? What if he’s fallen in with ruffians?

He could have been kidnapped. He could—’

‘Go home, Duchess,’ her father hissed. ‘I’ll write you when he’s returned to school.’

They dismissed her for good, then. Turned two broad backs on her, the headmaster so focused on her father that he’d forgotten the proper etiquette of a farewell to a woman of her rank.

Lorelei opened the door and took a breath of night, then descended the stairs.

Tillman had unhitched one of the horses and taken it to the water trough, so she paced back and forth alongside the lowest step, waiting.

Three days. Three days. Grotesque thoughts, worries, visions of her son in trouble rose and fell in a macabre, brutal montage in her mind.

He could be alone or hurt or both. Somewhere in the gutter.

In taverns. In bawdy houses, where he might contract some disease that would ruin his life.

The city was not safe. It was full of miasma that brought on cholera and typhoid and so many other horrors.

The second horse, a steady mare named Melody, whickered. Lorelei paused mid-turn, then ran her hand along the horse’s neck. She stroked the mare’s nose and scratched her chin.

‘Where would he go, Melody? Where could he be?’