Free The Headmistress of Rosemere by Sarah E Ladd

gatherings within Eastmore’s walls had been legendary. But as his funds dwindled, so did his comrades. And as the friends’ departures left empty spaces in his routines, condemning silence moved in. One by one his friends had left him, and now he was alone in a massive estate, with most of the rooms under dusty white sheets, a skeleton crew, and barely enough funds to keep fires going in a few rooms.
    He could handle the loneliness during the day. When the weather was fine and he could escape out of doors, where isolation was by choice, he could imagine that everything was as it had been. Time flew past when he was working with his horses. With his steward dismissed, he found that he actually enjoyed calling on his tenants—especially when the tenant was Miss Creighton.
    At night, all was different.
    How desperately he wanted to be able to place blame on someone other than himself. To pretend that his poor decisions had been the result of an external force. But how could he deny his folly? He’d been a slave to the gaming tables and the pursuit of adventure.
    If only she would have stayed.
    He tossed the dark purplish wine against the back of his throat, ignoring the burning as it slid down.
    Normally he would force his mind to think of anything else. Horses. Racing. Cards. But with the dull physical pain and his overwhelming loneliness, he would allow his mind to go there.
    Just this once .
    He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the tufted chair. So much of the last eight years had been lived in a foggy haze of drink. She was the one aspect he could recall with pinpoint precision, as if he had seen her the previous night instead of the eight years it had actually been. How vividly he recalled the brilliant luster of her mahogany hair. The sway of her hips when she walked. The tinkling of her carefree laugh. The brush of her breath as she would lean in dangerously close to whisper in his ear.
    Isabelle .
    He had loved her to the point of obsession. And she had led him to believe that her affection matched his. She had been as foolish as he, her interests as worldly, her vanity as broad. Her impulsive lust for life was intoxicating. She’d swept him along in her whirlwind, captivating him and entrancing him. He would have given her the world had she but asked. But Isabelle was of a wild, untamed nature, carefree and restless. He should have heeded the warning.
    His memory lingered on the day he proposed. Isabelle accepted, and his future seemed bright and boundless. But a few days later he received a letter from her, communicating her regret and stating that her heart belonged to another. She departed Darbury before he could confront her. He had not seen nor heard from her since.
    William had demanded answers from her former guardian, her uncle and the local vicar, Thomas Hammond, but the old man would give no information, only repeat her request for privacy.
    William had searched for her for months. She had wanted to disappear, and she succeeded. William never knew what becameof her, and that fact drove him to the point of madness. Time had dulled the searing ache, but the dawdling presence of her betrayal still stung. He had given her his heart, and she had taken it. And to this day, a hole marked the empty space where it should be. She was out there, living her life. Somewhere. And his inability to accept that fact, coupled with his tendency toward impulsive behavior, had spiraled him downward.
    He rubbed his hand down his face, wincing not at the pain from his still-swollen lip and jaw, but from the twinge of emotion knotted in his chest. He deserved what he was getting. How could he deny it? He had a choice to make when she left, and instead of choosing to put his life back together and fight, he chose to bury himself in mindless, destructive pursuits. He had become a virtual prisoner in the halls that gave him the wealth to live the destructive life he had chosen.
    Why his thoughts should turn