“Misses Brontë? Liston Bradshaw?” Lord Hartley peered at them each in turn. “Please forgive my wife. She is quite unwell. I will take her into my custody, and as soon as I understand it all, I will make all good.”

“You cannot make good murdered boys,” Liston said, his eyes burning, “or the lives she ruined.” He pointed at Catherine, who simply smiled at him in return.

“It must be hard to know your pa never really loved you or your mother,” Catherine told him. “His soul was always mine, and it always will be. I’ll keep it beside me, even in hell.”

“You’re a liar. My father loves me, and he loved my ma.” Liston lunged at the woman, held back only by Anne and the difficulties of the confined space.

“You are.” Clifton Bradshaw appeared from the tunnel, looking like a wraith, already half gone from this world to the next. “I loved you once, Catherine. I loved you when you were a sweet girl and a terrible woman. But it was no more than a fever, an infection. And tonight I am cured. I don’t love you now. I hate you.”

Tears stood in Catherine’s eyes as she looked into Clifton’s.

“Then our eternity together will be very long indeed,” she said. “Leonard, please take me away from these people. I’m terribly tired.”

Quite suddenly they were alone.

Anne dropped the sword and gathered her sister into her arms, as Liston sank to his knees, burying his head in his hands, and Clifton rocked him in his arms.

“Dear God!” Anne heard Emily exclaim as she and Branwell raced down the stairs, then collapsed to their knees to embrace both her and Charlotte.

“Is Joseph safe?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes, he is above with his father, who followed us,” Branwell said. “Nicholls led a party of men from the village—they are all above waiting to rescue you.”

“Well, waiting never did prove very beneficial,” Charlotte said.

“I do believe I missed the whole adventure,” Emily said, looking at her two sisters in turn. “This is intolerable, for I shall never hear the end of it.”

“That is likely true,” Anne said, lifting her chin. “But for now, please may we go home and have a glass of sherry?”

52

December 25

Emily

Emily rose before dawn and, swathing herself in her favourite silk shawl, crept quietly downstairs with Keeper at her heels. For she had only one true present to give her family this Christmas morning, and that was the gift of music.

Settling herself at the piano, she opened her sheet music and began to play Haydn’s introduction to “Winter” from The Seasons.