by Kelly, Julia
The letters. Her gaze flicked over to them where they lay forgotten on the side table next to an empty glass. Why brood over letters on their wedding night? What was he trying to remember?
Chewing the inside of her lip, she stared at the stack of slightly crinkled paper. She knew she shouldn’t look at them, but she wanted to know. Gavin, the man she knew better than anyone else, had suddenly become a mystery to her. If this marriage was going to survive, she needed whatever insight she could glean to clean up the mess of that evening.
Slipping off the bed, she padded over to the table, stopping to don her dressing gown along the way. Carefully, she picked up the first letter in the stack and tilted it to read by the light of the dying fire.
My love,
I wait every hour with bated breath, hoping for one of your letters to arrive. You can hardly understand how it tears at my heart that we’re apart. The longing unmans me, but when I see your script on an envelope I’m full again and there’s hope knowing you think of me while I’m away.
Her shaking hand dropped to her lap. They were love letters. Gavin’s love letters, undated and signed only with a single “G” at the bottom, no doubt returned to him at the end of the affair by the object of his affection in exchange for her own letters.
She picked up another one.
My dearest heart,
I depart from Cambridge tomorrow, and each hour that brings me closer to you is precious.
Another began:
My love,
I was a fool to think being away at university and separated from you was the cruelest kind of torture. My exquisite torment is now knowing you are so near, yet I’m unable to see you as the whim strikes me. In truth, I would have you with me always, for my love is hardly satiated in those quick, fleeting moments when we are together.
I know we must hide our love . . .
Hide their love? She scanned the rest of the letter, searching for a reason, but there was none.
She drew in a shaky breath. The night of their engagement he’d told her he’d loved once, and now she held the evidence of that lost love.
She picked up the last letter, ashamed to be looking at Gavin’s private correspondence but unable to stop herself.
My darling,
I must see you. Although I would never be so presumptuous as to hope your affections could ever reach the depths of mine, neither can I bear the thought of losing you.
I will selfishly tell you that you hold my happiness in your hands, and I implore you to reconsider my question.
—G
The raw pain and longing in these words tugged at her. He’d loved once. Deeply. His heart had already been won and lost. What did she have to offer him other than a marriage of convenience necessitated by a foolish mistake?
She’d hardly paused to stop and think about what she’d done, dragging him down into this mess as she tried to save herself. And now she’d been rejected, the woman he didn’t want.
He was right. Things needed to go back to the way they had been. They might be sharing a home, but that was all. He was her friend, and she’d do well to remember that fact.
Still, even as she reshuffled the letters into their original order and replaced them exactly where she’d found them, she couldn’t help feeling raw and more than a little ridiculous. Back in her room, she went to her vanity drawer, removed a brass key, and locked the door that should’ve led to him.
Gavin let his head hit the padded back of the carriage with a dull, unsatisfying thump. Then he did it again and again. And again.
He needed to get out of that house and away from her. The irony that he was escaping in a carriage Mrs. Sullivan had helped Ina hire until they were established enough to purchase one wasn’t lost on him. No matter where he looked, Ina was all around him.
He’d had plans for their wedding night—or rather, plans for what wasn’t to happen on their wedding night. He’d wished her good night at her bedroom door, forcing his feet down the hall even though every part of him wanted to stay.
It was the kiss on the steps of St. Giles’ that was to blame. He might have stood a chance if Moray hadn’t goaded him into it. When he’d kissed her, all of the futile hopes he’d kept locked away for years had come rushing out. And when one kiss hadn’t been enough, he’d done it again, unable to resist the softness of her lips and the spark of fire he’d always suspected she’d possessed.
When at last they’d parted, he’d known what a mistake it was because immediately he wanted to kiss her again and again. He’d wanted more than just innocent kisses on the cathedral steps, but he couldn’t have that. Not without breaking the very promise he’d made her and leaving himself open and exposed to every bit of hurt she might unwittingly rain down upon him. He’d gone down that road once before as a younger man. He knew that pain.
That was the reason he’d left her looking expectant at her door on their wedding night, but he hadn’t taken into account the unpredictability of Ina.
He’d loved her from the safety of their friendship for so long that he’d lost his mind at the sight of her when she’d presented herself to him in her room, her dressing gown gaping open and revealing expanses of beautiful skin that glowed in the firelight. She was every dream that had tormented him since that day five years ago when he’d realized he was in love with his best friend. When he’d seen the flicker of doubt in her eyes when she’d turned to retreat, he’d known that this was his one chance. He hadn’t been a strong enough man to deny her. After years of wondering what it would be like if ever he got the chance to taste her, he’d wanted to drink her in.
“Jesus,” he muttered to himself. “I’m a dolt.”
It had been foolish to think that just because he’d locked his heart away in a vault he could survive one night with her in his bed, and now he was running.
The hurt in her eyes had been impossible to miss, but he couldn’t stay. Couldn’t indulge his desires any longer. Not sleeping with only a couple of doors between them, in a bed paid for with her family’s money. He had to put not just a dressing room door between them but an entire city.
The carriage pulled up to the Lothian’s familiar building at 108 High Street. He braced himself, knowing the questions he’d get about why he wasn’t enjoying his wedding night, but at least there he could find sanctuary.
Inside, he nodded to the printers and began to climb, every step weighing heavily on him. Through the door of Moray’s office, he spotted his friend with his omnipresent pencil in hand, papers spread all around him. This was normal. This was expected. He could piece himself back together here, where there were no reminders that he’d married the one woman who was too valuable to risk losing.
Moray looked up at his knock, his brow furrowed, but the man waved him in nonetheless.
“Many people come through that door, but you were the last man I thought I’d see tonight,” Moray said.
“Do you mind?” Gavin asked.
His friend waved to an empty chair. “Be my guest. Whisky?”
Gavin dropped into the chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’d better not. I’ve had enough.”
Moray’s brows shot up. “Well, I’m certainly going to have one, because there must be a story behind this. Why are you not with your beautiful bride?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Gavin said. “Where’s Eva?”
Moray returned to his desk with the liquor. “Taking a day off for once, at Catriona’s insistence. I think the wedding put her in a festive mood. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s going on, because no one who says they don’t want to talk about it actually means it.”
“I do,” Gavin said.
“Was the lady unwilling?”
He shot Moray a look. “No.”
“Were you unable?”
He snorted and swigged at his whisky. “Please.”
“A journalist has to examine all of the possibilities,” said Moray with a grin.
“Well, it wasn’t that.”
His friend grunted.
“I just had to get out of the house,” he said with a sigh.
“What’s wrong with the house? I thought you liked it,” Moray asked.
“I do. It’s beautiful. Perfect even. There’s a study for me and a studio for Ina. The drawing room is large enough without being too grand. There’s a table for twelve in the dining room, and I’m sleeping on the best sheets I’ve slept on in years.”
“If you were sleeping,” said Moray.
“It also all would’ve been completely out of my grasp to provide for her,” he said.
“Ah.” Moray leaned back in his chair. “She paid for all of it.”
Gavin shrugged one shoulder. “Her. Her father. It feels like I’m . . .”
“A kept man?” Moray suggested.
He scowled. “Did you know Avery actually congratulated me on landing an heiress?”
“For a poet, the man is remarkably mercenary,” said Moray.
“I shouldn’t care what Avery or anyone else thinks. Ina and I both know I didn’t marry her for her money,” he said.
“And yet it’s bothering you.”
“Yes,” he said.
“So do something about it,” said Moray.
“Like what? I can’t seem to find a home for my second book. I’ve started and stopped so many times with writing a third that I can hardly claim to be working on it, and without selling something new I have no hope of bringing in more income.”
Moray snorted. “It’s almost as though you refuse to recall that you have a friend who owns not one but two newspapers.”
“You want to hire me?”
“Why not? If it turns out you can’t write or edit articles—which would surprise me greatly—I’ll just sack you and you can get back to drinking my whiskey at odd hours,” said Moray. “Have you seen the new exhibition of Dutch masters at the National Gallery?”
“Just last week.” It had been his one chance to escape from the endless conversations with Mrs. Coleman about picking the curtains for his bedroom and why he didn’t currently employ a valet.
“Good.” His friend dropped some blank paper in front of him and pushed a spare pen and inkwell toward him. ”Then you can give me four hundred words on it.”
“What happened to Cardwell?” he asked of the paper’s culture critic.
“The Edinburgh Record poached him,” said Moray. “Bloody hacks over there. Now I’ve got nothing on this exhibit and column inches to fill. Are you up to it?”
For the first time that evening, Gavin didn’t feel helplessly out of control. He could do this. What was an article when he’d written an entire book?
“How long do I have?” he asked.
Moray glanced at the huge clock hanging on his office wall. “Forty-five minutes. I need it for the morning edition.”
“Then I’d better start writing,” said Gavin, picking up the pen.
Chapter Eight
FOR THE FIRST time in her life, Ina took breakfast in bed, as was the privilege of most married women. Even when her father had refused to leave his study, her governess—and later Mrs. Coleman—had required her to appear dressed and at the breakfast table each morning without fail, a punishment for clinging to her plan to remain unmarried.
The morning after her wedding, however, the luxury wasn’t quite as sweet as she’d hoped. She’d gone to bed irritated, uncertain, and regretful, and when she’d awoken she’d discovered that her anger had floated to the top like cream. She might not be the woman Gavin had once loved, but she deserved more than his turned back and curt answers about where he was retreating to long after the rest of the city had gone to bed. She was his wife and, more important, she was his friend.
She could see now that he hadn’t been himself the entire wedding day, but that evening in his bedroom had been the culmination. If he hadn’t wanted her, he could’ve said no. It would’ve been a blow to her pride to be sent away, but it would’ve been better than watching him walk out the door after he’d consummated the marriage. He’d done his part of their deal—quite effectively, considering how much attention he’d showered on her body—but then he’d wanted nothing more to do with it.
She shook her head. It was one night. She wasn’t going to let it rule her life, no matter that she’d awoken that morning aching to feel his mouth on her again. That would all pass, and things would go back to normal with time.
Work. That was what she needed to distract her mind.
Ina sent Ruth away and dressed herself in the simple blue skirt and white shirtwaist she wore whenever she sculpted. She stepped into a pair of comfortable, worn slippers that had seen one too many nights of dancing, and piled her hair on her head, haphazardly jabbing pins in it to keep it out of her way.
On the way down to her studio, Ina was greeted by Norris.
“Norris, is Mr. Barrett at home?” she asked.
If the butler thought anything of her having to inquire about her new husband’s whereabouts, he kept it to himself. “Mr. Barrett left just after breakfast, madam. He didn’t say when he’d be back.”
So Gavin had returned, but from the sound of it, he’d barely taken the time to change his clothes before heading out again.
“Then I suppose we shan’t have to worry about giving him luncheon,” she said.
Norris inclined his head as she turned on her heel and walked deliberately to her new studio. She pushed open the door and all of her annoyance melted away. This room, this beautiful, light-filled room, was all hers.
It was perfect. An old conservatory with three walls and a roof of glass, it was flooded with the natural light her workspace in her father’s home had been devoid of. There was just enough space to accommodate her workbench, a good area for carving, and a few niceties.
She yanked the sheet off the marble she’d ordered for her exhibition piece and smiled. To most this was just a rough-hewn block of stone. To her it was potential.
She ran her fingers over the bumpy surface, imagining herself chipping away layer upon layer. Each sculpture was different, and this one would be her largest and most challenging—appropriate, for it would also be her clandestine entry at the Royal Sculpture Society’s summer exhibition. Women were barred from entering the competition, but there were ways to submit her work that would leave the judges none the wiser.
She’d decided to carve a scene from Hero and Leander, two of her favorite characters from Greek mythology. Hero would hold her drowned lover in her arms, weeping over him just moments before she threw herself off her tower to join him in the afterlife. It was an ambitious choice, requiring careful planning to execute the entwined arms and make the stone come to life with Hero’s grief, but if she managed it no one would be able to deny her skill.
At her workbench, Ina pulled out a stack of sketches bound up in a leather portfolio. She’d been working up drawings late at night when her aunt couldn’t bother her. Details of hands and feet joined full drawings of the two figures—Leander nude with his hair still dripping from the river and Hero wearing a gown befitting her role as Aphrodite’s priestess. The work would be controversial, dynamic, and thrilling.
She was still sifting through drawings when a quiet cough drew her attention. Norris was waiting just on the threshold of the studio.
“Do come in, Norris,” she said, setting aside a study of an elbow joint.
“Mrs. Russell, Mrs. Nell, and Miss Breck inquire whether you’re home,” he said.
Of course her friends were here. They’d want to know all about the rest of her wedding day. She just didn’t know what she was going to tell them.
“I’ll see them in here. If you could arrange for another chair or two and ask Mrs. Hart for tea
also, that would be appreciated,” she said.
“Very good.”
Christine’s high, trilling laugh drifted down the hallway a few moments later. The door to the studio swung open and Norris sidestepped out of the way to avoid being hit by wide-flung arms as the three women she cared most for in the world rushed forward to greet her.
Lana pressed Ina into the warm comfort of her embrace. “My dear, marriage clearly agrees with you.”
“I’ve been married just twenty-four hours,” Ina reminded her friend with a smile. “I’m not sure it’s had a chance to work any effects, positive or ill.”
“One day is all it takes if it’s done right,” said Christine with a wicked glint in her eye.
“And often,” teased Lana.
Over Christine’s shoulder Ina caught a glimpse of the butler turning a rather comical shade of pink.
“Norris, the tea, if you would,” she said, aware of the need to excuse the poor man before her friends utterly embarrassed him.
With a grateful look, he bowed and swiftly exited.
A little smile tugged at Christine’s mouth. “He’s rather handsome for a butler, don’t you think?”
“He’s quite young too,” said Anne, her eyes still fixed on the door Norris had just slipped out of.
“Your mother already hates me, Anne. Don’t give her another reason,” said Ina.
“Because of your butler?” asked Anne.
Christine wiggled her eyebrows. “She’s worried your mother might think you’re coming here just to see him.”
Anne blushed a glorious shade of red. “I only meant that—”
Taking pity on her youngest friend, Ina said, “He was one of my father’s footmen.”
“Poaching one your father’s own servants!” Lana gasped in mock horror. “How disloyal.”
“The only servants my father knows are Cappleman and his valet, Burns. Little did I know Cappleman had already been training Norris in anticipation of the day I married and moved out of the house.”
It was rather optimistic of the family butler given she’d had no intention of marrying until forced into it, but it turned out that he’d been absolutely right—as he so often was.