Your Darkest Dream (Blackwood & Friends #2)

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

My Dearest Brother

Though I harbour nothing but endless fondest for you all, I have felt compelled to make the decision to stay on at Rothford House with my beloved husband. Under the delicate circumstances we as a family find ourselves in, I believe that this serves the best interests of myself and Charlie. Should circumstance make an unprecedented change, rest assured I will inform you timeously.

Love,

Diana

The letter from her sister had arrived the following day and Jason's countenance had turned to ice when he received it. Kathleen had been subjected to the contents next, her motherly face conflicted and pained, but then she had bundled into her travelling coat and announced that she would pay Diana a visit. When Blanche read it, she had torn it into pieces and tossed it in the nearest hearth.

She had not spoken to any of them after that, the betrayal and sense of loss at Diana's missive mingling with the heartbreak over Nate so acutely she was driven restlessness and a foul temper.

It was not in Blanche's nature to merely sit back and await an outcome. She was confrontational and bold, prone to reaction before thoroughly considering the implications of her words and decisions. The stagnating inertia of the situation was driving her fury and hopelessness to staggering heights. Her despair ensured that any food that passed her lips tasted like cold ash and churned her stomach, sleep came in short spurts that was either light and restless or brimming with terrible nightmares of blood, shadows, and the sound of flesh tearing and the blooming metallic smell of blood filling her subconscious, and those would drive her awake so suddenly her heart would be pounding erratically against her chest.

Time and again her family and Lord Hollingsworth had insisted that the process would need patience- something Blanche had in short supply. It was unbearable, as the seconds turned into minutes and the minutes into hours, how often her contemplations would linger on Nate and what he may be experiencing, the torment of once more facing the possibility of a sentence that was surely wholly unfair and unjust.

Sitting it out in the Blackwood London residence was simply something Blanche was not capable of yet when pressed to return to Northwick, she had refused pointedly under the premise of remaining as close to Nate as she could and that meant staying in London. The same afternoon that the missive from Diana arrived, she found herself in the grand library, pulling every tome on English law, civil law, criminal law, justice and jurisdiction she could find from the shelves. She also ordered as many reports from the Newgate Calendar that she could attain from the National Archives, utilizing Jason's influence effectually so as to gain them quicker. The reports detailed crimes and offences of criminals entering Newgate on a monthly basis. It also elaborated on their sentences, most notably executions, and although Blanche was loathe to scour the sensationalised reports, she knew it would grant her greater insight into what could possibly transpire.

And she would rather be prepared than clueless.

By the next day, her eyes were burning and rapidly deteriorating in their ability to concentrate on the printed words on a page, the prose swimming and blurring before her.

She blinked furiously and sighed, temporarily admitting defeat and sitting back on her heels. Around her, the evidence of her exertions lay strewn in mindless, rapid-fire abandon. Her room in the London townhouse was not nearly as large or favoured as her one at Northwick, but it was suitably spacious to ensure the books and reports were scattered across all surfaces including, but not limited to, the bed, her writing table, and the vanity.

Presently, she had been hunched over on the floor, her knees tucked under her, while she perused an account of the Newgate Calendar, mildly horrified and confounded by her findings. However, it was evident that the strain caused to her vision from perusing the written word consistently for almost an entire day, with little to no nourishment and respite in the form of sleep, that she needed a reprieve.