The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by Isabella Duke

Author:Isabella Duke [Duke, Isabella]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

The engagement announcement came with the tapping of a spoon on a glass at breakfast the following morning.

“Ah, well done, my boy!” Sir Frederick crowed, launching himself up from his chair and moving to clap Nate soundly on the back.

Rose and Lady Fulton had rushed immediately to Catriona and bid her remove her glove so they might admire the ring, a marquise diamond on a dainty gold band. Had he brought it down with him from London on the off chance he might be able to convince her, there in the place they had spent so much of their childhoods together? She supposed he had.

“He has taste, I give him that,” Rose said, turning Catriona’s hand this way and that so the stone might catch the morning light and disperse it in little rainbows.

“In diamonds or in women?” Catriona said.

Rose levelled her with a glance. “Both,” she said. “You have my congratulations, Kitty. I never quite believed Ashford would get around to it.”

“Oh, Rose,” Lady Fulton said somewhat exasperatedly.

“No offense to you, of course,” Rose amended.

“None taken,” Catriona said as Lady Fulton, who had assumed the position of admiring the ring, released her hand. She slipped her glove back on quickly.

She wished Bethany were there. But then, she could not help but suspect that her dearest friend might somehow be disappointed. Catriona recalled their uncomfortable conversation of the previous year. Bethany had never spoken harshly to her before, and even then, the words had come out more as a warning than an admonishment, that what her brother needed was something Catriona could not give him, because she had only ever believed in herself.

The train departed at a quarter past eight, so the remainder of breakfast was brief. As the coaches rolled away from Ashford House, Catriona looked back fleetingly. There was that strange feeling again, still lingering from the night before, as if she were in two places at once, and she might catch herself looking out from one of the high windows. The house had always felt like a second home to her, and soon it would be. But the promise of that was hollow and cold.

She had fantasised about this eventuality. She and Nate had grown around one another since she could remember, their roots entangled even when they drifted apart. It had been a dream for her that he might one day look upon her as a husband would, and she would have children and a family of her own, and in that life would be no more sorrow or darkness, as if she might evolve somehow beyond the capacity to feel it. But she understood now that the woman in her fantasies had been someone else, and perhaps so had he.

It was too late either way. She had made their bed and must lie in it.

Having arrived back in London in time to attend the second service at Holy Trinity, Catriona spent the mass blinded by a ray of sunlight which had speared the stained glass window behind the altar, directly through the red halo of the resurrected Christ.

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