The Heartbeat Thief by AJ Krafton, Ash Krafton Read Free Book Online

me.”
    And I wish I knew how to see him again. Those words, she kept unspoken.
    “It’ll work out, Bess. There’s more to you than your pretty face. You’ve got a strong heart. A strong heart doesn’t succumb to anything. It triumphs. You’ll see.”
    Distantly from behind them, a bell rang and they turned at once. Mother had the bell rung to call her wayward children home. Lately, the bell had been getting regular use.
    “We better go back.” Henry stood and helped her to her feet. “Maybe you’ll get some good news today, and this anxiety will all be over.”
    Senza smiled thinly and swallowed hard against the knot in her stomach. A frequent discomfort, it preceded every such soiree her mother held. The accompanying lack of appetite was the reason she hadn’t grown overly plump, what with the delicate cakes and rich treats her mother put out at every tea.
    That, and the vigorous physical exercise of constant dancing, both in the ballrooms and out, especially these woodland escapes from her mother’s agenda. Hand in hand, they began the long trek home, listening to the tolling grow louder and more impatient every time it sounded.
    The stable yard was filled with carriages. Senza chewed her lip. The largest gathering yet. She gulped to clear her tight throat and hurried up the road toward the back of the house.
    As they entered the kitchen garden, Della was on her tiptoes at the back door, reaching for the bell rope, ready to launch another sounding of the bell. The older woman spied the pair and ran out to meet them on the brick path.
    “Oh, miss, where have you been?” Della was in vapors. Her face was blotched red, her eyes swollen. “Miss Keating, she’s—”
    “Oh, did she come today?” Senza brightened. If Felicity had come, she wouldn’t feel like a prized poodle on a pillow. They could stare down the suitor’s mother as one, perhaps discourage her from pushing forth yet another ill-suited prospect. Felicity was like armor to her resolve. Were she to come today, Senza wouldn’t feel so alone.
    “Inside, Miss Senza. We have to get you inside.” Della fluttered a handkerchief at her throat, mopping agitatedly. Her voice fell to a conspirator’s tones. “She’s deceased, miss. Deceased.”
    “Deceased, Della?” Senza wrinkled her nose, positive she’d heard wrong. “Who is deceased?”
    “Her carriage, miss. There was an accident and it overturned. She was thrown, miss. She perished, right there in the lane.” The maid snatched up a dark shawl from the counter and draped it over Senza’s shoulders. “So tragic, miss, and so soon after the news of her engagement, too.”
    Senza’s stomach fell away, as if a gaping pit had opened up inside, tumbling everything away. She grasped the girl’s forearms, steadying herself. “Della, say it isn’t so.”
    Tears washed down Della’s scalded-pink cheeks. “Your mother wants you in the parlor, miss. You better hurry.”
    Downstairs, her mother sat in the formal side parlor, surrounded by her closest friends. Only Mrs. Keating was absent.
    “A dear girl, she was.” The quiet voice came from one of the women. Mrs. Thomas, plump cheeks and severe bun, had become a frequent visitor to the Fyne house. Doubtlessly, she was vying for a chance to get her son into play on mother’s list of eligible young men.
    “Oh, this is simply inconceivable.” Mother’s voice cracked, her grief evident in the lines of her brow, the down-turn of her mouth. She reached for Mrs. Thomas’s hand. “So happy one moment, only to have it snatched away in the next.”
    “Mother?” Senza pressed against the doorway, hesitant to encroach their undesirable circle of gloom, lest it might infect her.
    “Child, come to your mother.” Mrs. Fyne lifted her black-gloved hands, entreating Senza to her side. “I’m afraid your dear friend, Felicity, is—”
    Her voice broke, composure crumbling beneath her like an unsteady foundation.
    “Dead.” Senza supplied the