Susannah shook her head. “I’ve lain awake at night, wondering why anyone could do such a thing. I was her sister— half sister—but she never said a word to me about her feelings—about despair, desperation. You’d have thought ... but she didn’t! And Nicholas—it’s like a betrayal—to go off like that and leave me alone just before Stephen died! Mother betrayed me too—I’ve always suspected, feared, down deep inside that she killed herself too!”

Pain welled in her eyes, deep and terrifying. “What’s wrong with my family? I’m the only one left now—not counting Cormac. One day will something awful happen to me, will I leave this child without a mother, and without anyone of its own to love? Cormac was that way—alone. He never had any one else. However beautiful he is, Cormac is terribly alone, and I don’t want my child to grow up in that kind of world!”

Chapter 7

7

Rutledge calmed her down as best he could, asking her if she’d like him to summon Dr. Hawkins.

But Susannah shook her head. “No. I don’t need a doctor, I need a little peace, and if you’d only go back to London and leave us as we were, I’d be able to forget.”

“You said that Rosamund might have killed herself. Did you mean that metaphorically, in the sense that she killed herself with worry or ignored her own health, didn’t take proper care, that sort of thing? Or that she took her own life, deliberately and knowingly?”

“She died of an overdose of laudanum. Dr. Penrith said it was a mistake, that in the night she’d accidently miscounted the drops she was supposed to take. But I was afraid her strength had run out. Her laughter. I was afraid that she was tired of facing the next morning, and the next night. She was afraid to marry again, even though there were any number of men who would have been glad to have her. She said she’d buried the last man she loved, she would never do it again, that there wasn’t enough left of her heart to put into another grave. Her solicitor, Mr. Chambers, was rather like James Cheney, strong, steady, a good man. I thought she was fond of him, and most certainly he cared for her. But it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t ...”