Sneak Peek ~ A Midwinter’s Tale
Edmund Marlcaster does not feel like a Catch at this moment. And he has no patience for twittering maidens with more fluff in their heads than sense. A prettily turned ankle is nothing to build a life on, and he should know. His engagement to Theresa Sutton gave him a taste of what a marriage to her would be like – the flame that burned too bright turned to cinders between them long before wedding bells ever rang through London Town.
He should have never married her, but by the time the ink had dried on the foolscap it was too late. And the only one he’d ever wanted? Why, the moment she disappeared from England with the horse master, he knew he’d missed his chance, and he’d married the Sutton girl and gotten Edgewater in the bargain.
But it wasn’t what he’d wanted. No –
A pair of dark eyes set in a piquant little face drifts into his mind’s eye, and Edmund blows out the candles one by one, alone with his memories in the dark. The wild hunt rides tonight, over hill and dale, all the way to the ruins of the old hill fort on the chalk tor.
It was there that he waited on a wild and windy night like this one, for a sign, for an omen, for a girl with stars in her eyes and long dark hair.
And in the morning, with the household in an uproar, Edmund had found a holed stone on his pillow, and a letter: saying nothing, yet signifying everything.
I cannot Marry the Duke, not for Edgewater, not for anything. I leave Edgewater to you, Edmé, and all I ask is that you take this and leave it at the old hill fort, for I shall not see these shores again, if ever… Forget me. For we sail for the Indies tonight, on the evening tide…
He had taken the stone to the hill fort, and meant to fling it into the ether, but instead he had found himself on his knees, shouting into the sky, until a merl of blackbirds rose into the air, a silent dark cloud that blotted out the pale sun. In the end, he’d hung the stone around his neck, for even if Fleur Perrault fades from collective memory, Edmund Marlcaster can never forget.
