Lord of Regrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

service, Marcus stared straight ahead.
    “Why are you here?” she whispered, forestalling his own words.
    In the periphery of his vision, he saw that her palms were flat on the wood bench, fingers curled over the edge. He slid his hand over, rested it on hers, closed his fingers around her fingers. A five-year-long tension began to unknot inside him. His words came out as a sigh of longing.
    “Natasha, I’ve been looking for you every day since you left.”
    She didn’t move her hand away. She didn’t move at all. And Leona watched them, out of the corner of her eye, even as her head was bowed over her prayer book. His daughter .
    “It makes no sense,” Natasha whispered. “You will lose your estate.” Then, her voice grew more urgent, her hand restless beneath his. “But I won’t tell anyone. I never intended to.”
    His heart ached at her words, at her attempt to convince him she was no danger to him. This was not the same Natasha who had yielded to his every thought. She’d had a life here without him, a life of which he knew nothing. If only––His hand felt almost empty, or was that his soul?
    “There was no Mr. Prothe, was there?”
    She didn’t answer. Her lips mouthed the words of the psalm.
    He stroked the inside of her gloved palm with his thumb. Her silence was his answer and contented, he sat through the rest of the service. He didn’t let go of her hand, not even when she fidgeted and pushed. She wouldn’t be free of him unless she made a scene, and with the rector glancing toward them every so often, he knew she wouldn’t. Content to have her hand in his, Marcus didn’t speak again.
    But when the service ended, she pulled away with force.
    “I’ll walk you home.”
    “No.” Natasha stood. He stood as well. “We aren’t leaving just yet. Mr. Duncan is expecting us.”
    “Then I shall call on you this afternoon.” He didn’t need to press the issue, to make her more wary than she already was. He needed to woo her. To prove to her that he was not the same cowardly boy who had feared his grandfather’s wrath––to prove he had made himself worthy of her trust and her love. Though it had been years since he’d courted a lady, the last having been Natasha, he knew that his efforts thus far had been poor.
    After a long moment, by which time the Reverend Mr. Duncan had reached their side, she said, “Tomorrow would be better.”
    Marcus bowed, thanked the rector for the service, and took his leave. He would need to pick his battles. After five long years, tomorrow would be soon enough.
    He trudged back the half mile, hunched against the wind. It was early February, the coldest winter in memory, but he welcomed the numbing pain.
    At the inn, he headed straight for the stables where he found his coachman playing cards with Phineas and the inn’s stable hand.
    “Saddle Juniper for me,” Marcus ordered.
    “I know the light’s deceiving with the storm and all,” the stable hand said, “but it’ll be dark soon. Look out for the cliff.”
    Marcus watched Phineas pull two of the saddles.
    “No,” he barked. “Only mine.” He didn’t want or need company. Unless it was her company. In almost thirty years of life, he never had.
    Dispassionately, he eyed the men who still stood, their game left untended, as they waited for Marcus to leave or to give orders. Their presence, this room with its warm fire and casual comfort, angered him. He didn’t know why and that angered him even more.
    He left them, entered the main part of the stables with its rows of stalls, mostly empty but for his four horses.
    Phineas had readied Juniper, and the bay now stood quivering by the open door. The horse was ready for a ride, regardless of the dark, regardless of the cold, and Marcus understood exactly how he felt. Sometimes a man simply needed to move, to feel he was faster than the world around him.
    He mounted Juniper and led him out. The overcast sky was tinged with the last pink of day. He took