The Black Sheep's Return. Elizabeth Beacon

his wife die and leave him behind, a useless hulk who couldn’t even quiet his crying children, let alone make up the loss of their mother in some way he still couldn’t fathom.

      During those endless nights it had sometimes seemed stupid to carry on, looking over his shoulder and battling to be father and mother to two tiny mites who shouldn’t have to grow up in a hovel in the forest. Night after night he’d sat here and agonised over his decision to walk away from his loving family and privileged youth. If he went home, he told himself, his mother would raise his two motherless children so they hardly felt the loss he could barely live with.

      Lady Henry Seaborne could fill the gaps left by a mother they lost so young with all the love they would ever need. His younger brother and sisters would enjoy their niece and nephew and help bring them up as a Seaborne should be raised—with full knowledge of a long and proud tradition at their backs, and a sense of responsibility their father had lacked until he met Anna. He wanted his son and daughter to possess the steadiness of character he would probably have mocked as tedious in another until the memorable day he met his fate in the Strand and his whole world changed between one breath and the next.

      He sighed now for the hugeness of losing her, but three slow, hard years had gone by and somehow he’d learnt to go on from day to day for the sake of his children and not fume quite so hard or so often at her, the world and the devil about her untimely death. Now he could even recall meeting his love with a smile, not feel that terrible wall of grief tumbling on to him every time he triggered the slightest memory of falling in love with his wife. It had all begun as a gallant impulse to help a lovely but painfully young girl in dire straits; after five minutes in her company he had continued in heady exaltation at finding the love of his life and the memory woke an echoing thrill in his heart even now.

      Even romantic love couldn’t sustain itself on fairytales, but somehow they had truly grown up together and it had only made them stronger. Once he and Anna had realised they would have to make their own way in the world, neither had had much of a clue how, he recalled with a wry grin. Yet they were stubborn, passionate people and managed to make new lives by hard work. Somehow it had built even firmer foundations as their feelings grew beyond that first heady passion for each other into a true, enduring love he doubted could ever fade, even with Anna’s death yawning between them like some unbridgeable void.

      Their love had stood every test when she was alive, he reflected, and thanked God for it, although their time together was painfully short. He missed his wife so much it physically hurt at times and the only way to take the edge off his longing for her wisdom, loveliness and sheer, bright optimism in the face of hardship was to work so zealously he didn’t have chance to linger on how little his life felt without her.

      She’d been slender as a whip when she wasn’t with child and so small a fool might take her for a child at a distance, but she’d proved as strong as steel when life tried them as they had never been tried before. Anna was a lioness in defence of her own and her own lay upstairs fast asleep—his own now, both of them. Her child, and her child and his child, two children he loved as dearly as he could ever imagine any father loving his brood, king or pauper, and Rich Seaborne lived as a poor man, despite the rich estate and comfortable fortune awaiting him if he ever dared reclaim them.

      He reminded himself exactly why he was still living the life of a woodsman and bodger of everyday furniture and necessities in a remote cottage. He could go back, of course. Then he could be a gentleman again, return to his birthright as eldest son of the late Lord Henry Seaborne and his loving and gracious wife. Set in the Seaborne heartland, poised between the last of England and the first of Wales, he could take up his rich inheritance. The land there echoed with the challenges of the warrior princes and insurgent robber barons who had fought over it for centuries and he loved and sometimes longed for it as if it had a soul that cried out to his. He felt a familiar yearning to stand once more on that rich soil that was almost beyond reasoning away.

      It wasn’t simple homesickness—nothing as straightforward as that for a Seaborne in exile. No, it felt like a deeper sense of connection to the beautiful land of his birth, so nearly into a Celtic land and not quite fully within rich England either; which was pretty much how the Seaborne clan regarded themselves, now he thought about it. They were very nearly subject to their king, so long as he didn’t interfere with them and theirs, loyal to their country, passionate about family and as determined to go their own way as any of the old Marcher lords, who had ruled their fiefdoms as if they were their own states and had often proved as stubbornly independent in thought and deed as the Welsh so-called rebels they were sent to awe in the first place.

      He could go back and be welcomed like the Prodigal Son and, once he explained this isolation was not chosen but forced on him, his family would forgive all the years of not knowing he was alive or dead and he could take up his old life. No, he wouldn’t go back to that hedonistic existence, but he could take responsibility for Seaborne House, accept the joys and burdens of a large landowner and lift some of the responsibility off the shoulders of the head of the family.

      They were broad enough in all conscience, but Jack, Duke of Dettingham, currently carried out Rich’s duties as well as his own. Jack was married and two of his own sisters and his little brother had wed since Rich had left home. The urge to see them and meet their husbands and wives was sometimes so strong he wanted to pack up his family in the cart he used for taking his goods to distant markets and drive back home, so he could watch Hal and Sally run wild with their young cousins.

      Yes, he could do all of that. He could live in his comfortable home, amidst his prosperous acres, within the protective circle of his family—where he could sit like an animal in a trap and wait for the devil to find them and tear it all apart. So he was still here, work boots resting on a battered fender used to rest the fire-irons against and dry the kindling for the following day. He would still be here tomorrow and next year and however many years it took for his family to grow up and face the world alone. None of which stopped him being afraid some harm might come to him and leave his children alone, or that he wouldn’t give them the sort of childhood Anna would want for them.

      Sighing as he damped down the fire for the night, Rich set his battered old watch by the clock he’d painstakingly resurrected from a box of bits thrown out by the local doctor, who had discovered he was no better at healing broken clocks than patients. Rich hoped he’d hidden the wonderful Tompion timepiece his father had given him for his twenty-first birthday well enough for it to stay there until his son reached maturity and must be told the truth, but suddenly he longed for the luxury and comfort of it in his hand—a reminder of the good man who’d given it to him and he wished he even half-deserved to call father.

      He recalled riding away from Seaborne after Lord Henry’s death, thinking he could never fill his sire’s shoes so there was no point staying, little realising he would never have a second chance to prove himself wrong. No point dwelling on old inadequacies—irresponsible young Rich Seaborne became a stranger when he met his future wife. Mature Rich regretted not a step that led him to Anna later that day, even though love had brought with it such untold depths of sadness and loss after she died.

      Lady Freya Buckle had endured a day of wild exertion, misery and trouble and she was now very lost. It was about time she enjoyed her right to be warm, comfortable and well fed as befitted the daughter of an Earl, but there seemed little chance of any comfort at all in this endless forest. Her father’s last and least acceptable daughter had been forced to accept that money and position couldn’t buy happiness over the last few years, but losing even the small comforts of her everyday life was somewhere beyond ridiculous.

      Now she was alone and penniless and it was dark and cold under these infernal, unending trees. Somehow she must find some shelter for the night to rest her weary limbs and take the weight off her aching, blistered feet until daylight returned and it was as safe as it ever got in this benighted forest. Freya wrapped the remnants of her once-fine cloak about her shivering person and only just managed to resist an urge to plump down on a carpet of dead leaves under the nearest tree and cry some of her misery out.

      She was a Buckle of Bowland and that meant something, even if it currently meant she was exhausted, shivering and hungry in an ever-darkening world of trees that all looked the same. Nevertheless,