Winner Takes All - Anna Harrington Page 0,34

slid out from beneath the covers. Sleep was proving impossible tonight.

The cottage was dark as pitch as she made her way slowly across the main room to the hearth, where a bed of coals hissed and snapped angrily against the few drops of rain that found their way down the chimney from the force of the wind. She stirred the ash bed with the iron poker to raise a flame, tossing in a few more chunks of coal to feed the fire enough to last until morning. Normally, she never would have burned a fire through the night, but tonight, she sought its comfort.

Taking a brass candleholder from the mantel, she bent over to light the wick in the flames and let out a soft sigh when it caught hold. After nearly ten years of fearing things that bumped in the night, would she ever grow comfortable in the darkness? But the most frightening things weren’t the unseen. She’d learned the hard way that the worst were the ones a person knew well.

She lifted the candle to read the storm glass fixed to the wall. The water in the spout had been rising during the past two days, and now it stood higher than she’d ever seen it. She bit her bottom lip. It could be hours before the water level dropped and the temperature fell, before the clouds rained themselves dry.

Before she could bring Ethan home.

Her chest tightened with aching worry. Sending her son into the village to spend the night with Alice Walters at the apothecary shop had been the right decision. She knew that. But oh, how much it hurt to be separated from him! For the first time in his life, too. But the sailors who had come ashore all day predicted that tonight’s storm would be the worst in memory. Ethan was safer within the shop’s thick stone walls, while she had to be here to rescue their belongings in case the roof caved in. Holding everything she owned in the world, this cottage had been her own safe port over the past stormy decade, where she and Ethan had been safe since he was born.

But he wasn’t a babe anymore. He was nine years-old now, and growing so fast that it pained her to think of it.

He’d soon reach an age when he should be going off to school. Instead, he’d have to stay here. Guilt gnawed at her. He deserved better, was born for better—fine schools, hundreds of books, private tutors, trips across England and the continent to see in person all the wonderful things that the world had to offer. Instead, they had to make do with the few books she could scrape together enough money to purchase and the tutoring sessions with the local vicar she’d negotiated in trade for cooking and cleaning the vicarage.

But he could never have that other life. As far as Ethan knew, his father was a sailor who died at sea, and she fully intended to keep it that way. Because if Ethan ever discovered the truth, if he ever got the foolish notion into his head when he was older to pursue what was due him…She shuddered.

At least now, he would have a life. She would never regret what she had to do to keep her son safe.

A loud banging shot through the noise of the storm. She jumped with a small scream, her hand going to her throat.

The pounding came again. This time she recognized it—a shutter had broken loose and was banging wildly against the side of the cottage in the howling wind. Her chest sagged. She had to fix it. If she didn’t, not only would it continue to bang all night, but it might also smash through the window it was supposed to be protecting.

Setting the candle onto the table, she moved toward the door, where she pulled on a pair of fisherman’s boots and an oilskin coat. The last thing she wanted to do tonight—oh, the very last thing!—was go out into the weather and be soaked, chilled to the bone, and battered about. But she had no choice, because she couldn’t afford to replace the window if it broke. At least she could brew up some hot tea when she returned. Taking comfort in that, she threw back the bolt and opened the door, only to have her breath ripped away by a burst of icy cold wind and rain that slammed into her.

Pulling the old coat tighter around