All told, almost two dozen patients were liberated from Larkspur Retreat, and Sloane’s records and the island’s tiny graveyard revealed dozens more who had not survived his brutal treatments. Patients like Lady Margaret, whose brother, the current Duke of Montlake, now knew what had become of her, and Miss Wallace, whose father could at least feel some relief that his daughter’s killer could never harm anyone ever again. I hoped that would enable all of them to rest in peace.
I derived some satisfaction in knowing that it was William who, in the end, had triumphed over Sloane and effected the release of so many of his patients. That he had, in effect, conquered his demons. But it was a cold comfort.
I tried to settle in Edinburgh, to find my place again in Alana and Philip’s household, but I no longer belonged there. It was like trying to fit into a garment I’d already outgrown.
Philip suggested I keep busy, that I take on a few portrait commissions. But after I honored a request made by Michael, and immersed myself in the task of painting Will’s baronial portrait, spending night and day in my studio for an entire week, I couldn’t bring myself to pick up a brush. It was as if whatever artistic ambition I’d possessed died with the final touches I made to Will’s posthumous portrayal.
Instead I wandered the house listlessly, avoiding everyone, particularly my sister. Some days I spent hours strolling the streets of Edinburgh, from the wide avenues of the New Town to the dank, twisting lanes of the Old Town, until the cold or rain or dragging steps of the footman accompanying me drove me indoors. Once or twice I tried to pick up a book, but the words could not hold my attention, nor could the pianoforte or my viola. The children made me cross, and the sampler I tried to stitch, never my favorite activity in the first place, almost drove me to violence.
The only emotion capable of pulling me from my cotton-wrapped world was anger, but I hated the rages that seemed suddenly to come over me. They were so unlike me, and I knew they concerned Philip and Alana without their having to say a word. I could see it in their eyes, in the way they whispered together, in the way they cautiously broached a topic. Such as that of Sebastian Gage, who had effectively abandoned us since our arrival in the Scottish capital.
After the wall collapsed at Banbogle, and the castle had settled, Gage had carried me from the ruins and through the woods to Dalmay House. I remembered little of that evening except the crushing grief. He had left me in the care of Lucy and Mrs. MacDougall to be bathed and have my cuts and bruises seen to. However, I could not be comforted. So when Gage returned to check on me later, he gathered me in his arms and held me close until I wore myself out from weeping and fell asleep sometime in the early hours of the morning.
But when I awoke, he was gone. And he had been careful to keep his distance ever since. He didn’t ignore me or go out of his way to avoid me, but he never sought me out, and there was a hesitation, a reserve that had not been there since the first day of our meeting at Gairloch. I wasn’t sure what I had done to make him pull away from me, but with each passing day the aloofness between us had grown, until now our brief encounters on the street or at social events were so stiff and formal we might have been strangers.
I was angry and frustrated by it, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to remedy it. After all, Gage had distanced himself from me once before. It wasn’t my place to chase him. I hadn’t the energy for it anyway. But I felt the sting all the same. Particularly since I could have used a friend. Someone other than my sister, who was smothering me to death.
So when my brother Trevor wrote to me and asked me to come stay with him at Blakelaw House, our childhood home in the Borders region, I accepted.
Alana fussed and fretted over my decision to leave, but Philip seemed to understand my need to get away for a time. My sister had recovered her appetite and some of her energy since arriving in Edinburgh, so she was no longer in danger, and I needn’t feel guilty for leaving her. But, in any case, I promised I would be back before it was time for the baby to be born.
Philip talked to me of familiar comforts and country air, but I thought of nothing but escape—the confinement of the city, of my sister’s household, of the pain and fury that seemed to be consuming me from the inside out. I knew I couldn’t remain this way, wallowing in grief and anger. Despising the things I had always loved. Something inside me was broken, and I had to find a way to fix it, to move forward, or else all my struggles to overcome the shadows of my past had been for naught. Gage’s diving into the water at Gairloch to save me had been for naught. Will’s sacrifice had been for naught. And I couldn’t allow that to be true.
The day I was to travel to Blakelaw House was brisk and windy, so by necessity our final good-byes were done in the vestibule before I hurried down the steps of the town house and into the awaiting carriage. The door was slammed shut by the footman as I turned in my seat, and I only had a moment to be surprised before the man seated across from me thumped the roof with his cane and the horses set off.