Tidesfar (Unraveled Destiny #3)

Prologue

ROWEN

Brimstone and moss mingled in the cool, damp air. Their wet leather boots trounced through the field of bluebells, that distinct sweet scent rising between them.

Rooks cawed overhead, their raucous clamour tearing through the quiet. The young lords stopped in their tracks and scanned the sky.

“There. Go on…” whispered Rowen.

The click of flint on steel sent a pulse of excitement through Rowen’s veins. Tristan raised his fowling piece and took aim. The shot rang out, piercing the air, birds scattering.

Tristan had missed. “Damme.”

Rowen laughed, the powder smoke and the heavy scent of his wet wool coat filling his senses.

“May I remind you, my lord, you missed a pigeon before.” Tristan grinned as he reloaded with powder and shot.

“I did indeed. You bested me there, my friend. However, I shot at every bottle, whilst you missed quite a few. But to miss a bloody rook…”

“Shut up.” Tristan laughed as more rooks cawed in the distance.

Rowen lifted his double-barrelled flintlock, an ornamented piece of walnut, silver, and brass given to him by his father at an early age. He waited, aimed, shot, the crack filling the air. Rowen winked at Tristan.

“To hell with you, man. You’re good at everything.”

“I’ve been trained at bloody everything from an early age. Part of the fun of being the heir to Oakley.” Rowen took out his flask of brandy and offered it to Tristan. “This will cure all that ails you.”

“Your fine French brandy always does.” Grinning, he grabbed Rowen’s flask. As he drank, the silver glinted in the soft light dappling through the trees.

A rustling erupted behind them. A crisp snap and crunch. Both men spun around. “Who goes there—”

A little girl in a pale blue dress and cloak stood in the purple patch of bluebells.

Her long wavy hair was pulled back slightly, and slung over her shoulder was a quiver filled with wooden arrows and a small ash longbow.

Her cheeks were pink, eyes wide, and the grin on her lips broadened. “I found you!”

Rowen’s head drew back. She couldn’t have been more than ten years, and yet her bearing seemed more like that of a confident fine young lady of two and twenty. Was she lost? She seemed right at home. What the devil was such a young girl doing out here alone?

“Cass! What are you doing here?” Tristan’s body stiffened, and he shoved the flask at Rowen’s chest. “Did you follow me?”

“I listened for your shots. If you can hunt in the woods, why can’t I? I brought my bow and arrow.”

“We’re not hunting. T’isn’t the season for it. More like a shooting exercise. Bit of practice.”

Her shoulders dropped. “Oh. Hardly an adventure then. More like idle sport for idle young gentlemen?”

“Cassandra!”

Rowen let out a chuckle. He’d been right about her.

Her piercing gaze shot at Rowen as if she’d heard his thoughts.

“Are you the faerie of these woods?” Rowen stepped closer to her, and her back straightened. “Or…perhaps…you are the goddess Diana herself?”

The child only bit her lip, her cheeks reddening. “I? Diana? Oh, I do love to read stories about her.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Lord Rowen, may I introduce my sister, Lady Cassandra. Cass, this is Lord Rowen, our neighbour. Lord Rowen’s father is the Duke of Oakley.”

She stood quite still and stared at him, her gaze even. A grin swept his lips as he removed his hat in an elegant, theatrical gesture.

“Cassandra?” Tristan’s voice insisted as he dipped his head in Rowen’s direction.

“My lord.” She curtsied at Rowen, her coppery brown hair gleaming in the soft light.

Rowen bowed his head. “Lady Cassandra. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Her smile brightened, and suddenly, she leapt in the air as if she were weightless, dashing around her brother, around Rowen.

The sweet fragrance of the bluebells seemed to be lofting through the air with her.

It was then that he saw the wings attached to her back, flapping as her cloak billowed about her.

“It’s heavenly here! Magical!” she exclaimed as she spun and skipped.

“A wood faerie indeed,” Rowen murmured, laughing.

“More like a Welsh pwca,” said her brother.

“Ooooh! What if I am a pwca?” Cassandra cried out, her arms fluttering as she zoomed past Rowen.

“You must be. Father once said so, hadn’t he? Always up to mischief…” Tristan laughed softly.

Cassandra hoisted herself up a tree and landed on a thick, low branch, her legs dangling.

“Careful!”

Swinging her legs, the girl only grinned at her brother.

“She’s lovely,” remarked Rowen.

“She’s a nuisance!” Tristan chuckled, and the child made a face at him. He turned to Rowen and lowered his voice. “It’s been difficult for her. She misses our parents very much.”

The surge of emotion in his friend’s voice had Rowen averting his gaze to his muddy boots that had crushed so many bluebells. “Of course she does…” He took a step back, and another, until he was out of the patch of flowers.

Tristan and his sister had lost their parents two months prior, and he had indeed noticed a change in his friend.

A strange sort of sombre that often showed, or a sudden, faraway preoccupation that would linger.

Before, Tristan had been all eagerness and laughter, whilst Rowen was always the more contained.

Cassandra clambered down the tree and landed in a patch of wood anemones, a legion of white stars covering a small mound beneath the tree. Her hands stroked the thick carpet of white flowers, and she picked a few.

Rowen had been around the girl’s age when his mother had died, but he couldn’t say he’d ever missed the Duchess. He had rarely spent time with her at all.

Rowen cleared his throat as he tugged off his leather gloves.

“Lady Cassandra is certainly blessed to have you and your uncles together at Redthorne. Surely, being in the country with her family is wonderful for her. She obviously loves the outdoors. I imagine she never had the opportunity to climb trees, pick flowers, and fly about with her bow and arrow in hand in London?”

“No. Never.” Tristan let out a short laugh. “For that, I am indeed grateful. It’s only that…” His lips pressed together.

“What is it?”

“My uncles…they are an uncommon sort.”

“I’ve not yet had the pleasure of their acquaintance, though I understand they are frequent guests at my father’s card table as are most of the neighbouring gentlemen.”

“They are, yes. From what they’ve said, His Grace gives remarkable parties.”

Rowen smirked, his jaw tight. “A source of great pride to His Grace, I assure you.”

Cassandra threw the small white flowers in the air and she watched them float and fall.

“You gave your governess the slip again, did you?” Tristan asked his sister.

“I had my lesson and was told to take a rest, but I wanted to see what you were doing. You get to come here to the woods or go into the village and have adventures. I don’t.” She let out a sigh. “You’re leaving soon and…” Her lips suddenly pursed together.

“Leaving?” Rowen turned to Tristan. “Going back to Cambridge early?”

“I’ve decided not to stay on at Cambridge.”

“Why ever not? You’ve done so well, this is your final year—”

“The loss of my parents has changed everything. Staying on at university is not only difficult, but I feel it is a waste of my time and effort. I need to do something for my future. For Cass. Although Redthorne is mine now, there’s not much left to it.”

“I can help you with investments, with—”

Tristan averted his gaze to his sister in the distance, who hopped on one leg, a posy of dog roses in her hand. “There’s not much of anything left to invest, Rowen.” His voice was low and terse.

“Ah. I see…”

Tristan’s back straightened. “No, you don’t. You can’t. You won’t ever know what this is like. To have a title, and yet, to not have…” A noise erupted from his throat, and he quickly suppressed it with a swift intake of breath, his chest expanding. “I’ve joined the Navy.”

Rowen scowled. “Whatever for?”

“As the troubles with France deepen—”

“The troubles with France are already quite thick.”

“My Uncle Alastair has a good friend from his days in the Navy. A commander. He arranged my commission.” He let out a breath. “There’s opportunity to be had and—”

“And lots of plunder? My friend, the privateer.”

A slight grin flashed over Tristan’s face. The adventure seeker.

Rowen shifted his weight. Tristan was so very unlike the other young men of the peerage with whom he was friends here in the country, in town, and at Cambridge, where he’d finished the year before.

He’d always enjoyed Tristan’s company. He had no conceit, nor guile, nor the usual arrogance and vanity of the men of his set.

It was here in the country, their estates bordering each other, where they would spend the most time together, just the two of them, as the other young nobles in the neighbourhood were younger than they.

Tristan’s heavy gaze remained on his sister, and something tightened in Rowen’s chest, twisting there. Tristan was going into the Navy, leaving his sister behind, and soon, Rowen would be leaving on his Grand Tour. For each of them, everything would change.

“Ach!” Cassandra’s sharp cry of pain sliced through the air, and Rowen, who was closest to her, grabbed her hand in his. He pushed open her fingers, and blood appeared on her skin along with the rose petals.

“The dog rose has thorns, Lady Cassandra. They’re hidden, curved, you see?”

“Oh. I did not notice the thorns. They’re so pretty. How can they be so cruel?”

“Deception is a terrible lesson to learn.” He pressed his fingers on top of the punctured skin, and she let out a tiny gasp. “Better?” he whispered.

“Better,” she whispered back and gave him the rose petals.

Rowen took them and released her hand. She immediately put the injured fingers in her mouth.

“All right, darling?” asked her brother.

“Mmm.” She ambled off towards the bluebells once more, the fairy wings bobbing on her back.