“She despises us. Me, in particular, I’m sure.”
This was something Ariana could dig her teeth into. She did love a cause. “Yes, for the moment. I mean… who wouldn’t be upset after—”
“We’re not talking stepping on her gown at a ball. I lied to her then accidentally killed her trying to erase her memory of it. She was possessed by a ghost at my bidding. She’s not going to forgive or forget.”
Ariana stopped short. “You what now?”
He laughed and kept walking. “Oh, didn’t I mention that part?”
She grabbed his arm and made him stop and look at her. “How do you know?”
“She told me. Or, Lucy told me.”
Ariana squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to start crying again. She was equally to blame as Owen, but of course he didn’t know that. He was beating himself up, she could see it in his tortured face.
Confess, she begged herself. Take some of the burden off his shoulders. But she was too much of a coward just then.
“That’s three people I’ve killed,” he said. His voice was laced with self loathing and it stabbed at her heart. It should have been aimed at her. “Who knows how many in that other future. And I knocked a man out in my cousin’s village. Thankfully, he lived though. But I don’t know why. I didn’t mean to knock him out anymore than I meant to kill those two bastards who took you away. I certainly didn’t mean to hurt Maria.”
“Of course you didn’t. And stop talking about that other future. It doesn’t exist and will never exist. You’re untrained, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” He looked at her incredulously and kept walking toward the house. She had to trot to keep up. “You’ll never understand what this feels like,” he snapped, stopping again.
“I’m really sorry,” she whispered. He moved ahead of her, not wanting to hear it, thinking it was pity instead of an apology.
Her stomach churned as they got closer to the house. Uncle Kostya and Maria were already inside. He was probably yelling for her parents and Aunt Serena. She barely noticed the cheerful kitchen garden, bursting with herbs and cabbages that she loved to help out with when she visited. Aunt Serena had taken to keeping bees in the last few years and the nearby buzzing of one of their hives refused to calm her like it always did. She didn’t spare a thought to the hint of roses that wafted to her nose. What normally felt like the happiest of moments, arriving at the Scottish estate, now felt as if she was about to start a prison sentence that had no end in sight.
Inside, they could hear Uncle Kostya still bellowing about how the children were home and she cringed against the word. She wanted to be an adult, which meant facing responsibility. They’d stop treating her like a child eventually if they saw she had stopped acting like one, and until then, she decided to take it all in stride.
The first person they saw wasn’t a warden of any kind, but the Povest’s wonderful cook. She was the first to hear Kostya’s announcements and raced from the kitchen with her apron flapping. She threw herself at Owen, hugging him until he gently wormed away. She turned to Ariana next, grabbing her up and squeezing so she could hardly breathe.
“Are ye hungry? What shall I make ye? There was to be duck tonight for supper but whatever ye like. Whatever ye want, ye poor lost lambs. Ah, ye’re parents have been fretting so they’ve nary taken two bites of anything since they’ve been here.”
“Duck sounds perfect,” Owen said with a tired smile.
She whispered to Ariana before returning to the kitchen. “I’ll make the fruit tarts ye like.”
Her eyes filled with tears at the warm welcome and she barely saw her mother come out of the breakfast room surrounded by her brothers. The boys swarmed her, all of them shouting questions so that she couldn’t make out any of it except high-pitched hubbub. Before she could hug them all, her mother pushed them aside and stood in front of her, eyes searching. Panting, she reared back and gave Ariana a resounding slap before bursting into wailing sobs.
“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling Ariana into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”
Ariana hardly felt it. “I deserved it,” she said, tears of her own leaking out of her eyes. “I’m the one who’s sorry to make you worry so.”
The boys stood in silent horror. None of them had ever been the recipient of more than a firm pat on the backside when they were little, and that was only from Farrah. Their mother had never raised a hand to them. Ariana tried to smile at them and shoo them away, so they wouldn’t see anything else that might frighten them. She’d always been a bit of a bully to them even though she adored them, and on top of everything else it hurt her pride a little for them to see her brought so low.
Her mum held her tighter and she could feel her shaking her head above her shoulder. “No, not for the slap. You did deserve that, a little. I’m sorry for lying to you.” The boys gasped at that confession and she turned toward them, still keeping her arms around Ariana. “Go upstairs or outside. You can speak with your sister later.”
After only a slight hesitation, they took off for the grounds, not even sparing her a backward glance, the wee heathens. Ariana was as gobsmacked as they were to hear her mother’s apology. And just like that, her years of pent up anger melted away. She returned her mum’s hug.
“I won’t go away like that again,” she promised.
“And I’ll tell you everything you want to know, right from the beginning.”
It was only then that Ariana noticed Owen had slipped away, probably to find out where Maria was
