“Surely you’re not blind to the way she looks at you—adores you.”
“It’s you who is blind, dear stepmother.” He spat out the last words. “She’s left. Gone home to her decrepit shanty by the river with her no-account relations. It seems if she can’t control me, she doesn’t want any part of me.” With that, he swiveled away on the stool, offering Golda a view of his hunched back. “I’ve tried, and it’s all come to nothing.”
Golda straightened and stared down the beast that so resembled the one inside her. Anger was always coupled with fear—insecurity. She could hear it, smell it on his voice like drink. “Don’t you dare curl into that shell of yours and harden yourself against the truth simply because you’re hurt. I know better than anyone what a person can become in such a shell, and I won’t let any son of mine spend his life that way.” She trembled as the raw words sank into the air between them. “I want you to go downstairs, climb on that horse, and go after her. And for pity’s sake, sheathe your temper while you’re at it.”
He gave a harsh laugh. “You are going to advise me in matters of the heart?”
“Who better than one who’s had a lifetime of failing at it?” She forced her stiff fingers to unclamp, letting her hands fall at her sides. “I chose her because I hoped she’d draw out the protective side of you—the fierce and loyal warrior who was ready, at the age of eight, to defend his father from my advances, to protect anyone who happened to find themselves under his care.”
His shoulders tensed.
“And I chose her because she adored you. That sort of open admiration will balm even the most ravaged heart, such as the one who lost his mother at too tender an age. I thought you’d draw out the best in each other, but instead it seems you’ve managed to drown it.”
He was silent for long breaths of time, his back to her, and she studied that golden hair, the fine set of his shoulders. How striking he was—much like his mother must have been.
Life was wretchedly unfair at times. The waters that had parted to provide her the husband she needed had also swept his mother away and left him with an uptight stepmother, too laden with her own burdens to properly mother him. Guilt stabbed her.
“I’m afraid you’re too late.”
“You both have a lifetime ahead of you. Children, adventures, horses bought and sold, new homes and acquaintances . . . and you’ve a powerful talent in persuasion that could come in handy this very minute.”
“Did you hear me? She’s gone.”
“There’s still time to fix it.”
“How?” The word rang with a mix of bitter cynicism and shards of hope.
She filled her lungs. “The same way you broke it—with your words.” She left him and eased her trembling limbs back down those narrow attic stairs, one hand to her chest. And once again, she was alone.
Willa’s question to Maisie, heard through the hearth, settled over her mind and rang true with her heart: Oh, Aunt Maisie, how can you possibly want me to fan those desires into flames when they only consume a person and leave her so broken and alone?
It’s what this quest for love eventually did to people. Her, at least. Even solid and dependable Peter had abandoned her, and although she was partly to blame, she couldn’t stop the resentment from climbing. A true hero should always be there, no matter what a woman did. She’d forgiven plenty of his mistakes. Yet here she was, broken . . . and quite alone.
But then Aunt Maisie’s response came on the next wave. If that’s how it leaves her, then she hasn’t finished the search.
Yet she was legally wed, and nearing the end of her story. What else was there for her to find?
thirty
Do away with petty criticisms and subtle corrections, and leave the fixing of your spouse to God. It frees you up to simply love and enjoy them, which will prove a greater influence in the end.
~A scientist’s observations on love
There would be no more bowing and scraping, no more biding time with polite words. The time had come to deliver the letter that had brought me to Crestwicke, and God was behind me like the wind at my back. Boldness rippled through me as I moved along the corridor and down the stairs and heard the click-click of boots on tile.
Peter Gresham looked up from the shadowed entry, blinking in the dimness. Hat and coat were already in hand. “Miss Duvall. I trust everything is well.”
“Mr. Gresham, if you please, it’s time we speak plainly.” I approached, breathless, stood before him. “If you’ll only give me a moment, I’ll speak in haste.”
His eyes dropped to the pocket watch in his hand. “I haven’t the time. I’m sorry, Miss Duvall.” He turned, shoulders hunching as he donned his coat.
I expelled a breath and invited God into the conversation. Strength descended like armor. “Mr. Gresham, your wife is in love with you.”
He froze at the door, hand on the knob, and I knew my arrow had hit the mark. “I beg your pardon?” His voice was sharp.
“I thought you should know.” My legs trembled a little as the enormity of my impudence struck me, yet a greater strength inside seemed to hold me up.
He turned, grimacing with shock. “How dare you shove your nose into this family’s affairs in such an indecent—”
“Someone needs to do it.” With a deep breath, I approached and held out the single folded page, my gaze daring him to skitter away. “This is for you.” And in that simple moment, I delivered the letter at long last, the time capsule of true feelings, preserved like a relic at the museum for this moment when people had forgotten what used to be.
He glowered and did not take it. “Aberdeen’s letter?”
“Yours.” He turned to go, and I stepped before him. “Unless Aberdeen has a long-standing connection to forget-me-nots . . . and Crestwicke.”
He scowled. “This is no business of yours.”
“Isn’t it?” I stepped around again so he had to look at me. “Have you any idea why she hired me, sir? It’s because she was terrified of walking alone through something terrible, and I’m merely trying to ensure she doesn’t.”
“There’s only one thing that woman has ever feared, and that’s—” He paled, his hand leaving the doorknob. It shook a little. Then he lifted his agonized gaze to mine, a question in his eyes.
“She needs you, sir.” My voice was quiet. “As I’ve been saying all along.”
Anger melted from his face, leaving his features haggard and bright with worry.
I held out the letter one more time. “At least read it, sir. Despite everyone who has stumbled upon it, this letter was actually meant for you.”
“And if you’re mistaken, like the rest?”
“I’ve had the truth from her own mouth, sir. Please, just read it and you’ll see.”
He stared down at the thing. “You are a most unusual nurse.”
“An advocate of healing, as any nurse should be.” I shoved it forward. “And quite stubborn.”
The glare hardened, but he snatched it from my hand and turned, flipping it open to skim in haste. His grimace released as he neared the end of the page, though, and as he read it again from the top, I realized something had happened to those words with time—they’d strengthened. They had a greater impact now than they would have if they’d been read fresh, all those years ago when everyone languished in a state of contentment.
“She wrote all this . . . when?”
“While she was your governess. Just before your engagement.”
His gaze shot to mine. “What of Aberdeen? Did she not tell you of her affection for him? She may have been fond of me, but it was him who truly owned her love. She never got over him. Even when he was a brute to her, she married him because she was—”
“Expecting.” I eyed him directly. “His child, that is.”
Shock struck his angular features, drawing out his age even more. Understanding dawned. Yes, there had been a baby, and it had happened before the marriage—had compelled the union to happen.
&nbs
p; “She’s been hurting alone all these years. I believe she was embarrassed to tell you much of this, how she fell out of love with Grayson, how awful he was. Since you’d rescued her from so much, she wanted you to see her as strong, capable. You know how she is.” I took a breath, watched the words sink in. “I realize she’s hurt you, but—”
“So, my wife.” He cleared his throat, frowned at the floor. “How long . . . ?”
I shook my head. “Maybe months, if there are no complications—apoplexy, infection, things of that nature. She must not be allowed to worry.”
He nodded, staring down at that page from the past, blinking, trying to take it all in. His voice sobered. “It’s so strange, seeing this. It’s in her hand, with pieces of our story, but she never spoke this way.”
“Every man in her life has broken her heart. Including . . .” I pinched my lips shut.
“Including me. Isn’t that what you mean, Miss Duvall?”
“It was a terrible time for both of you.”
He raked his long fingers through his hair. “She was . . . miserable. Every one of them came early, and we never knew why. I thought she’d die and soak right into the ground with them. I couldn’t bear her suffering that way.” The hand holding the letter trembled. “I had . . . to end it. Somehow.” His face wore every inch of his strained heart, every fiber of love still stitched into his soul for the woman he’d married.
“She believes all is lost between you, but I don’t. Do you?”
He blinked tired eyes. “You . . . you—why is that?”
I smiled. “Because matched souls seek refuge in the same place.” I nodded at the interior of the house, the grand estate he’d spent years and fortunes rebuilding—for her. Their childhood refuge, her adult sanctuary when everyone had abandoned her.
His full lips parted, emitting a gasping groan as he sank onto a bench, head in his hands.
A rustle, a gasp, then there she was at the top of the stairs, horrified. Stiff. “Miss Duvall, what have you done?” Golda Gresham clung to the bannister on the landing, watching us with wide eyes set in a pale face.
Peter’s gaze shot up, his expression raw and vulnerable.
I hurried up to her, helping her lean on me as I whispered. “This has gone on long enough, and I won’t allow it to continue, promise or not.”
She straightened. “I can see what you’re doing and I do not approve.”
“Very well.” I pulled her forward anyway. “You were wrong before, you know. About expecting too much of your marriage. The problem is that you didn’t expect nearly enough. It’s far more than a business arrangement, and he is your ally, Mrs. Gresham. It’s time you started treating him that way.”
Peter Gresham climbed the steps, and I pulled back, prepared to slip away. “I’ll just leave you to—”
“No.” Her voice was direct, her grip firm as she leaned on me. She leaned near to hiss in my ear. “You caused this.”
I placed her hand on the smooth railing. “I’ll sit just below, in case you need me.” With an affirming smile, I backed down the steps and curled onto a bench in the shadows.
He took his time climbing the remaining stairs and stood before her on the landing, tall and gallant and full of hope.
“Mr. Gresham.” She met his gaze with weary eyes. “You’ll miss your train.”
He reached out and touched her cheek. “So I will.” His solemn voice echoed softly through the entryway.
“I suppose Miss Duvall’s been telling you all sorts of fanciful stories.”
He continued tracing the line of her jaw, her ear, tucking loose silver strands behind it. Her posture began to soften.
“She has a fanciful imagination, you know.”
He held up the letter with his free hand. “You never wrote a thing that wasn’t true, even in your novels.” He stepped closer, looking down at her as her long white fingers gripped the bannister. “To read what you wrote, things you never said about . . . about loving me . . .” He studied her as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Well, I couldn’t very well stop it, now could I? It’s almost as though you tried to make it so. What was I supposed to do? Grown-up Peter Gresham, with his wild long hair and dashing suits, romping about with his children, all masculinity and kindness and—”
He swept her up in a desperate kiss, shushing her stumbling words with long-bridled affection and pulling her close. Her arms floundered, then relaxed, hesitatingly slipping around him as he continued to kiss the girl he’d loved since childhood. That blessed page with the scarlet border fluttered down toward me from his hand and I smiled at it, lying there on the floor of their home, their sanctuary, its mission finally complete.
I slipped out, basking in the warmth that still existed between them, the years of deep friendship and heartache. I stopped in the servant’s hall to tell Parker that Mr. Gresham wouldn’t need his carriage just yet, then I snuck up to my room. For once, I was not needed. She had someone else to care for her.
Hours later, my heart ached with bittersweet longing as I watched from my window. Peter Gresham’s tall frame bore his wife across the front yard, her dress hem billowing out like flower petals, and up the path to the hill where their past was buried. After grieving separately for years, the pair was finally going together to visit that little grave containing the lives that had broken both of their hearts—and their bond to each other.
When they’d gone, my heart was full of love stories, and aching for my own. How similar it was to Gabe and me, and how beautiful. I opened Maisie’s book to tear out my letter to Father, to see if there was anything there I dared voice to Gabe.
Yet only Aunt Maisie’s feminine writing filled the pages. I blinked, mind tilting and shifting as I realized I had never written it—except in my head. Had Father even visited? Plagued with uncertainty, with fear of what was reality and what I’d imagined after my head injury, I hurried to the window. Gabe was not even about the grounds today.
With a frown, I spread my research out before me, those black-and-white studies that were dependable and true, and lost myself in Kryschinsky’s theory of sanitation and ventilation, but Gabe remained ever in the back of my mind.
Tomorrow. I’d find him tomorrow, when I made certain my mind was righted again.
thirty-one
When one sets out to tame a wild stallion, the most important part is letting it go—it’s only yours if it has a choice.
~A scientist’s observations on love
The horses were quiet the next morning as the moist haze lay over the corral, and a young stable hand was the one to open the doors and release the animals. As I neared, my skirt sweeping up sparkling dew, I held my breath. “Where’s Gabe Gresham this morning, Luke?”
He turned with a cascade of hay falling from his pitchfork. “Mr. Gabe? He’s already gone, I expect. His boat leaves today.”
“Boat?” I nearly choked on the word.
“Mr. Burke is sending him off on some horse chase in Asia. Asked me to look after things while he was gone.”
I clutched a beam. “Luke, how do I get to his cottage?”
“Out along the coastline, over the field, and through the little gate at the end of the path.”
A lot of ground to cover.
The young groom gave a half smile. “Best take one of the horses, miss. Here, this one’s saddled and—”
“Thank you, Luke.” I leaped astride the creature, bracing myself in sidesaddle position, and shot out of the stables like an arrow. Please don’t be too late. By the time a letter reached him, Father would have me married off and settled in a little cottage in Brighton, forever preventing any hope of a future with the one man I wanted. Wet sea air washed my hot skin, the golden field laid out before me. This place had always felt like home, and perhaps Gabe was the reason—he was the dear, overlooked home for my soul.
I reined in before the frame house on the rise and sprang down while my mount danced in place. I flung myself up onto the porch and knocked.
Banged, really, for all the nervous energy I poured into it. My heart thudded in the terrible, wretched silence, and waves crested in a glittering display below. I knocked again and the door squeaked open. In the shadows stood Gabe, tall in his boots and brown serge suit, with suitcases on the floor beside him.
He frowned, looking me up and down. “Willa?”
I gasped for breath. “You were going to leave. Without a goodbye. Without telling me . . . without . . . whatever you wanted to say.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets, scuffing the floor with the heel of his boot. “I’d have left you a note.”
“A note!” But then I remembered the treasured letter. Perhaps that would have made a fitting end to this visit. Yet I cringed at the word end. With a breath, I looked up into his rugged face. “I’m here now, Gabe.”
“I have to leave.”
I grabbed his arm. “Say it. Please. Just tell me what you wanted to say. Aren’t you the one who said the important things should be spoken in person?”
He glanced at my hand resting on his arm, his gaze caressing and tender as always. Then he looked to my face and it gentled even more. I imagined what it would feel like for him to touch me in a few short seconds, how our first kiss would taste.
“I was afraid you’d say no.”
“I won’t.” I swallowed, my throat suddenly tight.
“All right, then.” His gaze burrowed into mine again and I let it. “Willa, I’ve watched you change so much since I first met you.”
“Yes?”
“Even during this trip.”
“Oh?”
His face softened with affection intense enough to carry me away on its crest. “I’m proud of you.”
I closed my eyes. “And?”
“Willa . . . it’s time for you to go.”
My eyes fluttered open. “Go where?”
In answer, he pulled back and disappeared into the dim recesses of his home. He returned with a trifolded letter bearing some embossed seal in the corner and held it out. “To America.”
The Love Note Page 28