Ensconced on a chaise in the study at Aveline Castle, it seemed as if she had been reading for hours. She’d been summoned just after dawn to find Derick waiting for her in her downstairs parlor, anxious to drop her at the castle and take up the search for Harding. She’d taken perverse pleasure in his haggard appearance, as it seemed he had spent the last awful hours of the night as she had—alone, sleepless and suffering. But then, of course, she’d felt guilty. She didn’t truly wish upon Derick the soul-deep ache that gnawed at her, even if it was his fault that they both hurt so. Emma sighed, tucking her legs more tightly beneath her, one of Lady Scarsdale’s leather-bound journals forgotten upon her lap. Was it his fault any more than it was hers? Was his stubborn insistence to leave England any more to blame than her own to stay? Yes, blast it all. It was. He had no ties to America, whereas her entire life was here in Derbyshire. He had lived all over the Continent these past fourteen years, whereas she’d never lived anywhere else.
