If I Fall by Kate Noble Read Free Book Online Page A

allowing us to keep a promise made to your father (wherein he made us swear to look after you), but you would be doing us a great service.
    Yours, etc.

Lady Forrester
    Jack stared at the neatly written pages for a full minute before he snapped back to the present. He had been lost in a sea of memory, of school holidays spent in the company of the Forresters at Primrose.
    But then his mind began racing with questions: It had been years since he had seen the Forresters. Would it be awkward? What was the nature of Sarah’s disappointment? And lastly…
    What would they think of what he had become?
    Jack was, admittedly, a proud man. But that pride had never been unfounded. He had been a top student at the Naval College, a person upon whom expectations were placed, and met. The bright future of the British navy. He remembered the pride and joy in Lord and Lady Forrester’s eyes when he first boarded the
Amorata
more than he remembered his own parents’. They had, for a brief period of time, become a second family to him, and now…
    Now he was a first lieutenant of a sixth-rate post ship that was about to be decommissioned. Much like he himself was.
    Too many officers. Not enough ships.
    No. He would not let them look on him with pity. He would not allow himself to do so, either.
    But while he worried about the long weeks ahead, awaiting his ship’s fate, all of that took a secondary position to one central tenant:
    Here, was a place for him to go.
    And something for him to focus on.
    Something for him to do while awaiting word of the
Amorata
’s fate.
    At the very least, he had the answer to his initial question. He knew what he was going to do next.

Three
    “B LOODY hell,” Whigby breathed, as their hired hack pulled up to the address that had been written on Lady Forrester’s note. “Are you sure this is it?”
    The town house on Upper Grosvenor Street was much the same as the others that surrounded it—pristine white, four stories above level with columns that lined the doorway and supported the upper-level balconies. Wrought iron fencing lined the property along the more public sidewalk, protecting the pansies and tulips that sprung up in wide Grecian urns that sat as centurions guarding the steps up to the heavy front door.
    The main difference between this town house and the others that surrounded it was the half-dozen gentlemen in their best black coats that bickered with the butler for entrance.
    “It
is
number sixteen,” Jack said, his eyes flicking automatically to the letter in his hand, checking once again.
    “Maybe it was written ill?” Whigby asked, but Jack shook his head. No, there was no mistake, this was the house.
    “Maybe someone died and they’re paying respects!” Whigby cried.
    Jack shot his friend a look.
    “Of course, that would be terrible,” Whigby was quick to amend.
    “I suppose we best find out what’s going on,” Jack said, opening the door to the hack and letting himself down, while the coachman disembarked from his seat and helped unload Jack’s trunk. Whigby alighted as well.
    “Do you want me come with you?” Whigby asked. “You know … to pay my respects?”
    “No one has died, Mr. Whigby.” Jack assured his friend (at least, he hoped no one had died). “Go on to your uncle’s, I’ll be fine.”
    “You have my direction if you need it,” Whigby extended his hand, and Jack shook it.
    Then Whigby, in a show of emotion not uncommon to that larger fellow, pulled Jack into a fairly rib-cracking hug. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
    “Mr. Whigby…” Jack wheezed, “It’s not a funeral … And you’re crushing me.”
    “That’s right!” Whigby replied, releasing Jack so quickly that the air rushed back into his lungs. “Keep hope!”
    And then, Whigby turned to reenter the hack to convey him to his uncle’s, a few spare blocks away. But perhaps he should not have been so free with his condolences, because the hack had already started to rumble down