The Love Note

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  We exchanged awkward pleasantries with Lady Aberdeen while his cautious face silently asked the purpose of our visit. Finally I sat forward on the horsehair sofa, breathing in dust with each shift upon its surface. “I have something that belonged to a Grayson Aberdeen, and I’d like to return it.”

  “I am Grayson Aberdeen,” the man said with a wobbling voice. I looked over the once-tall frame now folded into a chair, drained of all the passion Maisie’s stories had painted him with. “What do you have that belongs to me?”

  My heart swelled with sorrow. “Just a small memento from the past. It may not be important anymore. Perhaps there are . . . that is, are there other Grayson Aberdeens in your family?”

  “My father, my grandfather, my uncle . . .”

  “Do any of them live near here?” I tried not to let hope blossom.

  He wilted and shook his head. “None are living . . . anywhere. I’m the last one left.”

  Heavy with disappointment, I rose and thanked them for allowing us to call.

  “You could send it to us,” Lady Aberdeen said softly as we stepped toward the door. “Whatever you have, that is. We do treasure all those family remembrances.”

  I watched this pair that wore the air of spent life, of simply waiting for death to sweep over them. “I don’t have it with me, but I’ll see what can be done, now that I know where to send it. Thank you for seeing us. It was so good of you to let us call unannounced.”

  She gave a weak nod to my curtsey and asked the housekeeper, who seemed to be the only remaining servant, to show us out.

  As we followed the frazzle-haired woman, Celeste leaned close. “Why did you not mention Rose? They might want to know.”

  I merely pursed my lips and gave a slight shake of my head. It would do no good now. No good at all.

  We turned a corner into the great hall, and the maid pulled open the front doors, eyeing us as we passed through. I flashed her a smile, but it didn’t loosen her frown. She watched our descent, as if to make sure we fully left.

  “Another sad ending.” Celeste murmured this as we made our way back to our horses. “Makes one rather relieved, at times, to be a spinster after all.”

  We were halfway down the steps, staring at dead ends ahead, when the maid called out to us in her gravelly voice. “Just a moment, there.” She worked her way down to us, her elbows bowed as she held up the hem of her uniform. “I can’t do it, can’t let you leave without knowing. I overheard you mention Rose.” How anxious was that haggard face. “I cannot go to my grave without word of her. I’ve always wondered if her claims were true, if she truly was . . .” She gulped as a nervous tick twitched her hand.

  “A thief?” I hurried back to the steps, my heart pounding double-time. “No, I don’t believe she was.” Yet what did I believe anymore?

  “Oh no, not that. I knew she weren’t no thief. I was to be the one what helped them frame her, before I knew better. Just a girl I was, a scullery maid. Rotten foolish keeping them apart, but the Aberdeens were that afraid.”

  “Of her poverty?”

  “No, miss. Her disease. They couldn’t abide her passing it onto their son’s children, the Aberdeen heirs. Terrible superstitious they were in those days, a-feared of everything they didn’t understand. Look where it left ’em—no heirs a’tall and no one to care about them.”

  I could hardly breathe. “What sickness did she have?”

  She shoved the cloth back over her hair. “Rheumatic fever, miss. Childhood ailment, but doctors say it settled in her heart. They simply couldn’t abide their son bringing such a blight as her into their family.”

  twenty-one

  It is said you cannot change your spouse, but that’s a lie. Few others have daily access to a person’s heart, where every word and reaction is another stroke painted on the canvas of one’s reality.

  ~A scientist’s observations on love

  A little round face appeared at the door, and Clara Gresham smiled, beckoning the maid in. “Come, Essie. Has there been word on Mrs. Gresham?”

  “Nothing yet.”

  “You don’t think there’s truly anything the matter with her, do you?”

  The maid shrugged, her brow pinched. “I’m no doctor, miss. She’s complained something fierce as long as I’ve worked here, though.”

  “That’s simply her way. Come, see what I’ve made.” Clara pushed back from the little desk and admired her handiwork. She’d painted a tiny forget-me-not on each invitation, her brushstrokes so minute that they blended into one iridescent blue flower.

  “Why, Miss Clara, they look like real pressed flowers.”

  She giggled. “Quite a lark, don’t you think? Like sending out a small piece of Crestwicke.” She’d been doing her best to convince her family to visit, but so far they’d given nothing but excuses. They were terrified of Crestwicke, she knew, and all its finery. Perhaps these invitations, complete with a specific time and date, would encourage them to come. Loneliness had begun to slice deeper into her soul, demanding a fill for the ever-widening crevice. Nothing repaired that quite as well as one’s own family.

  Burke strode into the room, throwing Essie into a sudden fit of polishing as if she were scrubbing the life out of the poor silver spoon. Clara straightened in her chair and dropped a blank paper over the invitations. He would not be happy that her relations were coming, for they were a blemish worse than paint on a new sleeve. He wouldn’t dare forbid it, but she had no desire to suffer through his reaction either. She’d picked a date that coincided with the horse show in Bristol, the one event guaranteed to take her husband away from Crestwicke, and he never had to know they’d been.

  “Good day, my dear.” He dropped the nicety in her direction and bent over a pile of letters on the far desk, leafing through each one. At least he wasn’t hovering, but even across the room he made her uncomfortable.

  With a glance his direction, Essie leaned near. “Miss Clara, I was wondering if there had been any news. You know. Anything about a certain . . . letter. Because . . . well, there’s been another one.”

  Burke stopped paging.

  Clara stole sidelong glances at the man, well aware that her husband’s hearing was impeccable. “It’s proven more difficult than I thought to learn anything about it.” She lowered her voice, hoping he was absorbed in whatever he was doing. “Are you certain it’s from the same man?”

  Essie nodded with a glittering smile. “He said so many nice things in this one, and the handwriting is the same. It was left on the washbasin. Oh Miss Clara, it’s so very romantic!”

  Clara grabbed the girl’s hand and squeezed a warning, stealing covert glances at Burke. They definitely had the man’s attention now, and she could hear the lecture forming: You’re too familiar with the staff, Clara. Why do you chatter away with a maid as if you’re both kitchen wenches?

  He watched her with a heavy-lidded gaze. Perhaps he only looked absently their way as some business matter consumed his mind. He might not have heard a thing at all.

  Clara lifted her stiff shoulders and forced them back. “It would seem to be an ill-advised affection, after all. Let us remember that. This isn’t a romance novel.”

  “No, it’s not.” She grinned with irrepressible joy. “It’s quite real, and that makes it even lovelier. I’ve been able to think of little else for days. Do you suppose they truly are from Mr. Gabe, miss? Or was he merely delivering that first one?”

  Clara dug her fingertips into the maid’s arm until she cried out. Clara shushed her with a sharp look.

  Essie lifted a glance of apology and lowered her voice to the softest whisper. “I suppose I’m simply anxious. I’ve never had a secret admirer before. Heavens, I’ve never had an admirer before, and it feels quite nice. I suppose I’ve let my romantic notions run away with me.”

  “Quite all right, Essie. But let’s keep this between ourselves.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She glanced back up to check Burke’s face and see
if he heard, but he’d vanished. Her stomach clenched. Having him in the room had rattled her nerves but having him suddenly disappear left her uneasy. Shaken.

  “We’ll continue to work on it, Essie. Your admirer will be found before a fortnight has passed, I’m certain of it. Just leave it to me.”

  A silly, lopsided grin stretched her freckled face. “I thank my lucky stars for the day you came to Crestwicke, Miss Clara.”

  She rose, shifting uncomfortably. “You must call me Mrs. Gresham. See if you can remember. At least when Burke is about.”

  “Oh yes, of course, Mrs. Gresham.” She bobbed a curtsey. “Oh, and Miss Clara.”

  She steeled herself against correcting the maid. “Yes?”

  “Might I have it back sometime? I do miss reading it.”

  Clara squeezed the maid’s hand. “Of course. Let me simply find something with Gabe’s handwriting on it to compare. The man doesn’t write much, apparently, for I’ve found no trace of his hand yet.”

  With a small smile of approval, Clara excused herself and slipped out of the room with the invitation clutched tightly to her. There was only one place in this house she might go to evade her husband, and to hide the invitation until it could be posted. She climbed the grand staircase, strode down the long hall, then ascended the steep attic stairs where the light seemed softer and the air easier. She took a breath and nudged open the door to her haven but jolted back. There before the window, blocking the light with his large frame, was Burke.

  Her breath caught. He didn’t seem to be aware she was there, or aware of anything at all, really. What was he doing? She edged the door open a little more.

  Horror of horrors! There on the easel was her very private work in progress, the cathartic painting dredged from the depths of her pained heart. The one no one was meant to see. Especially the man now staring at it with rapt fascination. Every nuance and brushstroke was exposed to the intensity of his glare.

  Dread pulsed over her. How terrible it looked from this distance, like the work of a mad mind. Dark and bleak with sweeping, angry lines and angular features, the portrait exposed every minute detail of her husband’s profile, from the hard set of his jaw to the narrowed eyes glowing with irritation. Lately she had superimposed the matching face of his mother over half of his, both glowing with ire toward the tiny image of herself she’d penciled in the corner. That part hadn’t been painted yet, but she wished with painful intensity that none of it had.

  She spun away and closed the door, leaning her back against the wall. She might die. Yes, that must be what happened next, because she simply couldn’t imagine anything less occurring once she left this attic. Fear tingled. What on earth would become of her marriage after this?

  Breathless, she hurried down the stairs and tucked herself into the little window seat in her bedchamber, trembling hands over her face. What haven was left to her now that her dear little attic space had been invaded too? And what would he do to her out here?

  twenty-two

  I’ve always been a proponent of real, authentic, heart-aching love. But not when it interferes with a marriage.

  ~A scientist’s observations on love

  I saw myself in them. Like a prism of possibilities, each fractured relationship in Crestwicke was an image of what I might become. I stood at the shadows and felt the dark emotions vibrate through the house the next afternoon as Burke Gresham stormed down the hall and slammed a door at the end. I shuddered.

  Golda is Rose. Those three words resounded through my thoughts in ghostly whispers, even while I talked with Celeste and wandered about the house. All the bitterness that had twisted up Golda’s brittle soul now had a name—regret. Lost love. Abandonment, and then a marriage of necessity. One thought lingered above the rest—she hadn’t always been this way.

  “What will you do about Grayson Aberdeen?” Celeste stood at the desk behind me and sliced through her mail with a silver letter opener. “Will you tell his lost love what we found?”

  “I’ve no idea.” Sooner or later I’d find that letter, and then I’d have to make a decision. “What good could possibly come of it?”

  She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. It didn’t end happily, did it? Perhaps we should keep the end of the story to ourselves.”

  According to the maid, the elderly couple’s only son and heir, Grayson Aberdeen, had annulled his marriage to Rose Ellis, then died overseas in honorable duty to the queen—and had remained unmarried. How desperately I wished to hand Rose—no, Golda—that letter from her long-dead love, to let those words impact her deeply as she realized he’d died loving her. Yet he was gone and she was married to someone else.

  I closed my eyes and saw the passionate strokes of pen on that vellum page, felt the warmth of the lost letter’s tender words. They’d never had a chance to touch Golda’s heart, to soften her with the truth, but they’d carved their way neatly through Crestwicke, disrupting lives and hearts, stirring desires and awakening hope. The letter’s original story may be over, dropped like a rock in the water, but its ripples were just beginning to cascade over the house.

  “It almost makes one glad to be a spinster after all. Almost.” Celeste gave a weak smile. “I’d rather that than to be in Rose’s position, at least.”

  I studied my friend. “Yet suddenly you’ve released your determined grip on spinsterhood. Was it the letter?”

  She shrugged, giving a half smile. “It’d be silly of me, wouldn’t it, to admit such a thing? I can’t even be certain who he is.”

  I pressed my lips together, pondering everything Maisie had said about this magical letter and its impact on the house. Awakening a desire for love—was it truly a good thing?

  “Well, I don’t suppose I can be truly in love, but I’m open to it.” She looked toward the window, a faint smile about her lips. “For the first time in years, my heart is fertile soil ready for someone’s love to be cast onto it.”

  My stomach knotted at the faraway look on her face, and I began to doubt Maisie. Celeste would be crushed—crushed—to learn the truth. “Perhaps you shouldn’t take that letter to heart, though. You’ve no idea—”

  “Would you have me end up like Gabe, then? With love right before me, ever afraid to leap?”

  This stopped me cold. “You mean Caroline?” I forced the name past my lips, and she nodded.

  “She’s smitten with him, in spite of everything, and refusing all other suitors in hopes that Gabe will eventually have the courage to propose.”

  “She’s in love with him.”

  “Yet here we all sit, gathering dust and wrinkles, waiting for courage to find us.”

  I stared at the woman who’d just weeks ago tried to talk me out of ever marrying. Oh, how that letter sliced through this house like a knife, changing and shaping as it went. “Truly, you think Gabe, who prefers solitude, should be married?”

  Her smile softened. “Nothing softens a person’s hard defensive shell more than someone who loves him immensely.”

  When dusk cloaked the world around the manor, I was looking in vain for an apple in the larder to give Luna. Essie the lonely parlor maid now danced around the otherwise-empty servant’s hall with a laundry tub paddle, and Burke Gresham banged out the side door and stalked away. Somewhere Celeste was dreaming and longing again for what did not exist.

  What a mess I’d made of everything with that letter. A wretched mess. I grabbed a lantern and trekked out toward the stables. How would it ever be set to rights when the scaffolding of secrets came tumbling down? I knew it would, eventually. My thoughts intensified on my solitary trek across the yard, and I reached the stables in quite a state. Poor Luna would get an earful.

  Yet it was Gabe who looked up when I entered, bent over a horse’s upturned hoof with a knife to pry something loose. One casual look from him and the tip of a smile, and my soul calmed, the way those horses did around him. Yes, the man needed a wife—he was the sort of blessing who should not be wasted on a life of seclusion. />
  “She’s missed you.” He jerked his head toward the back.

  Of all the people I’d invested in within this house, it was the horse who missed me. “You’ve asked her this, I assume?”

  “Didn’t have to. She’s been standing at the gate, watching for you. She’s in there dancing back and forth in her stall because she knows you’re here.”

  The distant shuffle of hooves made me grin. “It’s nice to be missed.”

  He straightened with a pat to his horse’s neck, then led me back toward the creature to whom I had grown far too attached. At the sight of me, she bucked her head and danced, hesitantly approaching for her usual treat. “Sorry, girl. All I have to offer tonight is me. Little old me.” I reached my hand over the gate. She jerked away, tossing her head, but kept near the entry. “What a change in you, old girl. We’re nearly chums now, aren’t we?”

  I felt Gabe’s eyes on me as I hummed softly and let myself into her enclosure. One lap about the fence, then she slowed, dancing in the corner. I moved toward her injured leg and inspected it with my fingertips. The flesh felt strong and healthy around the stitches, and they’d soon be ready to come out. She bobbed her head and trotted away.

  “She certainly knows who helped her.”

  I rose. “She’s still afraid, but she’s more grateful than most human patients I’ve had.”

  Gabe opened the gate to let me back out, planting one boot on the lower rung. “What do you say to another ride?” His grin held a sparkle of challenge as he leaned near, once again my old chum. “The beach is wide open and the horses are itching for a good run.”

  I felt the weight of all the trouble I’d caused slipping from my shoulders for a moment, and I smiled. “I think it’s you who is.” I raised an eyebrow, arms folded, and strode back into the main barn. A light glowed from an upper room in Crestwicke and a figure slid across it. “Perhaps away from the house, though, yes?”

  Within minutes we were tearing along the beach, our mounts neck and neck, their hooves skimming the shallows. “You’ve met your match, Gabe Gresham.” I threw him a smile and laughed, the wind whipping my voice up into the dusky sky.