Free An Unnatural Daughter: A Dark Regency Mystery by Katherine Holt

looked a lot less as though he was on his deathbed. He was still pale though, the fine skin on his eyelids and forehead seeming almost translucent, showing the blue veins stretched beneath.
    I sat in silence and thought over my predicament, and every possible scenario in which the truth was revealed to Edwina and Tristan, and what I could say. There was no point, though. Nothing I could say would make it right, nothing could make up for the lies, which were, really, the very least of the sins I had committed. Most of all I just wanted Father to wake up, so I could ask him if Gabriel lived. I was becoming impatient, and the constant waiting was grating on my nerves.
    I stood and shook Father by the shoulder, gently at first, but then more insistently when he failed to even twitch in his sleep. Then I realised I was shaking him violently, and collapsed back down onto the chair by his bed, sobbing into my hands.
    I stayed there for a while. Even after my sobs had quieted and I felt calm again, I kept my head down, soothed by the cocoon of cool linen and the quiet. With nobody else in the house, I could have a moment of being entirely myself, without having to worry about keeping up the pretence of being Alice, the amnesiac.
    Something creaked. Then creaked again. In a house full of creaks this shouldn’t have surprised me, but there was something deliberate about this. It wasn’t the gentle creak of the house settling after a period of quiet. It was shortened. As though someone had stepped on a board, realised their mistake and quickly stepped off.
    I had become used to putting the strange noises down to the lingering effects of the laudanum I had been taking, but that was several days ago now. And this, this was definite. I stayed frozen, staring at the ceiling from where the sound had seemed to come. Nothing happened for several minutes, then to the side of me, at the wall I heard a scratching sound, then, although I doubted myself even then, a whispered sigh. I looked quickly at Father, and when he was still in exactly the same position I had left him in after my shaking, I knew I wasn’t alone any more.
    Holding my breath, I crept to the bedroom door. It would be impossible for me to get downstairs without making a noise since I was still relying on the cane, so I decided not to even try.
    ‘Who’s there?’ I called, feeling silly. ‘I can hear you,’ I added bravely. ‘So, show yourself. Please?’
    I heard a thud, then more sounds – staccato creaks and squeaks like someone climbing down stairs. I hurried down the stairs and followed the sound into the sitting room. There was a click, and then the hanging rippled. I stared and stared at the wall, unwilling to blink. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. It had been a dream. It had been the drug. But I knew. Perhaps I had always known. I wasn’t surprised when my stranger stepped out from behind the tapestry and stood before me. He was dusty, and I had never really seen his face, but I knew him immediately.
    We looked at one another for a moment. I wasn’t scared. I would have expected to be, but there was something about him that meant I just didn’t feel threatened. It was the first time I’d had a proper look at him, and I openly stared at his cropped, dark hair, square jaw, and low, heavy brows that sheltered piercing green eyes. I thought he must have been a little younger than Tristan, perhaps in his mid-twenties.
    ‘Well,’ he said gruffly, and cleared his throat. He looked like I would have expected to feel – cornered and nervous. Yet he was large and broad, and looked stronger than any man I had ever met. I was just a girl who couldn’t even walk unaided, yet I seemed to be in control.
    ‘Who are you?’
    He looked sheepish, and couldn’t quite meet my eye.
    ‘Well?’ I persisted, and he sighed deeply.
    ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to know.’
    ‘I think I do,’ I said.
    ‘Well in that case, I could ask you the same