Chapter 23
It had been three days since Catriona left for Heaton Manor.
Joseph didn’t know what to do with himself any longer.
He couldn’t work, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat.
He worried about her constantly, fighting the urge to go seek her out with every second that ticked past. At points, he sat on the steps of the grand staircase in the foyer and stared at the door, willing it to open and for Catriona to walk inside.
He left to see her, intending to march right up to Heaton Manor and beg her to come back to him before he thought better of it.
That was when he realized that he might be losing it a little.
It felt as if he was losing pieces of himself with every passing day. He was lost, adrift, a shell of his former self.
But he held up a good front. He didn’t crack until, on the evening of the third day, Dorothea came knocking on the door of his office and walked in to ask, “When is Stepmother coming back home?”
He stood there, whiskey in hand, staring at his daughter who looked so sad that it broke his heart.
She had only asked about Catriona one time, the day she’d first left, and Joseph told her that Catriona had returned to Heaton Manor to be with her sisters.
He hadn’t explained the reason, hadn’t told her that he was to be blamed, but somehow, he sensed that Dorothea knew there was more to it.
She didn’t ask about her again, however. Not until now, when it seemed she could not hold it in any longer.
Joseph sighed heavily, making his way to the sofa. He gestured for her to come closer, and she did, sitting on his right. “I don’t know when she’s coming home,” Joseph admitted at last.
Dorothea pouted. “I miss her.”
He said nothing. He only drained his glass.
“Don’t you miss her too?”
“I do.” There was no use denying it. He couldn’t possibly lie when he had spent every day since she’d left pining after her, wishing that she would return. “But she will return when she is ready.”
“But why did she leave? Did something happen to Aunt Ava or Aunt Maisie?”
“She left because she wanted… to be alone with her family.”
“But aren’t we her family too?”
“Yes.” He gathered Dorothea to his side, partly to comfort her and partly because he didn’t want her looking at his face as he tried to compose himself. “But she is quite close with her sisters. I think she simply wanted to be with them.”
Dorothea was silent for a long moment. Joseph had hoped that she no longer had any questions, but then she complained, “I don’t understand why she left without saying goodbye to us.”
Joseph sighed. “I think I may be the one to blame for that.”
Dorothea pulled away, giving him a stern frown that was so much like his own, it made his chest constrict. “Did you do something to upset her?”
“A little bit.”
“Didn’t you apologize to her like I told you to? You need to tell her so that she can come home.”
“It isn’t that simple, I’m afraid.”
“What did you do?”
“I…” How could he explain it to her? Should he explain it to her at all? “I believe Catriona is beginning to think twice about her marriage to me. She accepted under certain conditions, but… I might have been a bit unfair for demanding such things in the first place.”
“Daddy, I don’t understand.”
He sighed, searching for the right words. “I made the mistake. I thought I knew what I wanted.”
“But that’s silly, Daddy.”
“Yes, it is silly…” he trailed off, unable to explain.
Dorothea stood and faced him, crossing her arms, and looking at him as if she was disappointed in him. “I think you should just go and apologize to her and everything will be all right.”
“It is not that simple, Dorothea.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” He couldn’t finish. No explanation came to his mind in time. Why wasn’t it that simple? When he took away his fears, took away the pain of the past, there was only one thing that truly mattered.
How he felt.
He hadn’t allowed himself to explore that side of his heart because the pain of the past had overshadowed everything.
It was difficult forgetting about what had happened to Hannah, difficult trying to shed the guilt he carried when he thought of how little he had done to help her, how little he could do.
He recalled his parents, who had only spoken to each other when it was absolutely necessary, and could not imagine being able to create anything else in a marriage.
Yet he had. Without realizing it, Catriona had brought out a side in him he thought never existed.
She’d made him explore memories he’d been content to bury, simply because he did not want to deal with the emotions that came with them.
She’d made him forget the world around him, to simply live in the moment.
She’d brought him closer to his daughter. She’d filled him with life.
It was no coincidence that, now that she was gone, it felt as if he was missing a vital piece of himself. As if he had cut off his arm and was walking around unbalanced. Dorothea was right. If he liked her and she liked him, why couldn’t it be that simple?
Love.
Love was what complicated everything. Love was what brought his fear, brought his longing, brought his desperation.
Did he love her?
“If you aren’t going to go for her, I will,” Dorothea declared, pulling him out of his reverie.
Joseph huffed a laugh. “There is no need for that. I promise that I will do everything in my power to bring her home.”
Dorothea seemed slightly unconvinced by that, but she didn’t press the issue any further.
And Joseph, not wanting to discuss his emotional state of mind with his seven-year-old daughter, quickly changed the topic to her studies, asking her what she was studying today.
Dorothea happily went along with it, but he sensed that this conversation was going to come up again if he did not make good on his word.
He had to get Catriona back.
It’s time to go back.
You cannot keep running forever.
You’ve started nagging me again. Surely that means you are feeling better.
Catriona stared up the ceiling of her old bedchamber as her sisters’ words—and the latter being from her uncle—swirled about in her head.
She knew she had to return, but she’d been savoring her time away, afraid to face her future.
She’d been content to pretend that nothing had changed.
That Joseph had never walked into her life.
But her sisters and her uncle would not allow it.
It was not like her to run from her problems, they’d said, and they could tell that it was eating her up being away.
She brought up Dorothea constantly after all.
And when the conversation inevitably drifted to Joseph, it was obvious that she was longing to go back to him.
What she wanted and what she should do were on opposing sides, however.
She wanted Joseph to come after her, to beg for her to come back, to tell her that the three days apart had been utter torture and that he’d realized just how much he loved her.
What she had to do was face the music, however.
He would never love her, and it was time for her to learn how to live under the same roof with him, even with that fact.
But how could she do that without first being honest with him? With herself?
Catriona sat up suddenly. She gave herself a moment, just one second, to think twice about what she was about to do.
Then she launched herself out of bed and quickly began packing the trunk she’d taken with her when she’d left Irvin Manor.
Thankfully, she hadn’t fully unpacked so she was able to do it quickly.
She couldn’t wait until the morning. She would return home tonight. And in the morning, when she’d found the right words, she would confront Joseph with them. For now, she simply had to get home. She was sure her sisters and her uncle would understand.
Catriona slipped out quietly, making her way down to the back of the house, Nina silently trotting behind her.
The night was quiet, the sky cloudless, as if the universe had known she would be sneaking back home tonight.
Moonlight washed her path ahead, and she quickly took the trail she’d taken many times over the past three years, the one that headed through the back gate to the river.
She was halfway there when she heard a blood-curdling screaming.
“Help! Help me!”
Fear seized Catriona at once. She acted without thinking, dropping her trunk and racing ahead to the sound of the screams, ignoring that voice of panic in the back of her mind that told her that the voice was familiar. It wouldn’t make any sense. It simply wouldn’t.
And yet, as she drew nearer, that panic devolved into an unspeakable horror that nearly froze her to the spot.
Dorothea was caught in the river, clinging desperately to a large rock as the current tried to sweep her away. She had her eyes closed, her tiny arms just barely making it around the slippery rock. When the water abated enough for her mouth to rise above it, she screamed again. “Someone help me!”
“Dorothea!” Catriona didn’t think twice about what she did next. All she knew was that she was in the water, the cold shocking her senses.
Dorothea opened her eyes. “Stepmother, help! Please!”
“I’m coming, Dorothea,” she told her, unable to keep the panic from her voice. “Just don’t let go. Keep holding on, all right?”
The water was strong, and the closer she got to Dorothea, the more it threatened to sweep away her footing. Catriona, halfway there, made a desperate dive forward, managing to grab the rock before the river took her away.
“Hold on to me,” she ordered breathlessly, hoping Dorothea could hear her over the roar of the river. With only one arm clinging to the rock, she took Dorothea’s other, helping her to let go of the rock and wrap her arms around Catriona’s neck instead.
The added weight nearly threw her off her balance, but Catriona held strong. “Don’t let go, all right?”