by Mary Balogh
“Come,” Lady Crowther said briskly. “We will put everything back and go join everyone else. Perhaps Felicity and I can come back for another look tomorrow, with your permission, Justin. We will bring our daughters with us.”
“Do you want your mother’s jewels to go back into the safe for now?” the earl asked Maria.
“Yes,” she said.
Everything was put away— except the document or letter that was in the earl’s pocket. It seemed to Estelle that she was the only one who had noticed it. The safe was locked, the key removed, and the panel closed. The key was returned to its little nook behind the carved leaf. Lady Felicity led the way to the door while her sister linked an arm through Maria’s and followed. Estelle went after them, leaving the Earl of Brandon alone in his father’s room.
Everyone had returned to the drawing room, Estelle could see when they arrived there. The late-evening tea tray had been brought in, and Esme Ormsbury, Lady Crowther’s daughter-in-law, was pouring. She looked up and smiled at the returning party.
“Was Aunt Felicity able to find and open the safe?” she asked.
“She was,” Lady Crowther said. “And everything was there. We spread it all out on the bed. It felt almost like having Mother back for a few minutes. All the pieces looked so familiar.”
“This is very exciting,” Angela Ormsbury said. “The Wiley family treasures. We must all go and look tomorrow. May we, Mama and Aunt Augusta? But you are not the ones to ask, are you? May we, Justin? Oh, has he not come back yet? Ah, here he comes. May we see the jewels tomorrow, Justin?”
He was standing inside the door, Estelle saw when she turned her head. He was looking like what she thought of as his granite self, his hands at his back.
“Of course,” he said. “I will bring them down for everyone to see.”
“Come and get a cup of tea while it is still hot,” Esme said to the new arrivals.
“My mother’s jewels were there too,” Maria said, and though she did not speak loudly, there was something in her voice that silenced everyone. “They were in the bag where she always kept them. Everything was there. At least, everything I could remember was there.”
“But that is wonderful,” Paulette Ormsbury said, beaming at Maria while everyone else remained silent. “Well … is it not?”
“I daresay your mama was mistaken, then, Maria,” Lady Maple said. “So all is well that ends well. If there is any tea left in the pot, Mrs. Ormsbury, I will have—”
“No,” Maria said. “She was not mistaken. She lied. She knew her jewelry was in the safe in Papa’s room, where it was always kept. She lied to me about why Papa sent Justin away because she did not want me to know the truth. And if anyone is now thinking that Justin must have been … dallying with Mama and Papa discovered them together, then I feel compelled to say that I am as certain as I can be that that is not the truth either. I was only eight years old, but I knew my brother better than that. That is all. Brandon is not a thief, and I apologize for having accused him in front of you all.”
Estelle took a step closer to her friend. Bertrand too was drawing nearer from one side while Sidney Sharpe was coming from the other side. But someone else forestalled them all. Mrs. Sharpe was sitting on a sofa close to Maria. She lifted one arm jangling with bracelets and bangles.
“Come, my love,” she said in her comfortable voice. “Come and sit here.”
“Aunt Betty,” Maria said, sitting and snuggling close while Justin’s aunt set an arm about her, just like a bird with her chick. “I loved her so much.”
“Well, of course you did, my love,” Mrs. Sharpe said. “And of course you do. Here, look. Rosie has brought you a cup of tea.”
Rosie Sharpe sat on a footstool before the sofa and gazed up at her new friend with anxious concern. She held Maria’s cup and saucer in both hands. Mrs. Chandler had come to sit on Maria’s other side and was patting her thigh.
Everyone else launched into determined conversation.
Mr. Dickson was asking Lord Brandon about his years at the stone quarry and his acquaintance with Wesley Mort. The earl, Estelle could hear, instead of answering evasively, was telling the story of his broken nose.
“And just to think, Stell,” Bertrand said, coming to stand beside her, “that one of our main concerns in coming here was that we might be facing an unbearably tedious couple of weeks.”
“We will be home again soon,” she said.
“Is that what you want?” he asked softly. “To be home?”
She shrugged, and his arm came about her for a moment and hugged her to his side.
“Well,” he said, releasing her. “Maybe we need to think about where home really is.”
Estelle was sitting on the side of her bed, pulling a brush through her hair though her maid had done it for her just a short while ago in the dressing room before leaving for the night.
She was thinking of Bertrand’s questions. Is that what you want? To be home? … Maybe we need to think about where home really is.
Home was Elm Court, where she could be quiet and safe. Where she could have just her beloved twin for company. Where they had gone two years ago to find out who exactly they were and what it was they wanted of their lives. Had they discovered the answers? Had Bert? Had she? She would have said no— until with a single sentence her brother had revealed a truth to her. Maybe we need to think about where home really is. And she had found herself yearning for her father and her stepmother and … home. Redcliffe Court. The very heart of her family. For that was who she was— a member of a family, or, rather, of a group of families. And it was what she wanted of her life. Family. Belonging.
But being a twin had taught her about two halves of a whole. She would always need Bertrand to complete herself. But over and above that connection, she would need two families. Two sets of families. She had not even left Everleigh yet, but already she knew she would miss the Ormsburys, the Sharpes, the Dicksons and Chandlers.
She wanted Justin Wiley, Earl of Brandon.
Oh yes, she wanted him in that way. Of course she did. She yearned for him, or, rather, for it. For it with him. But it was not the only way. She wanted him with all his darkness, with all his contradictions. She wanted him with all his complexities, with all the dizzying array of experiences that had shaped him into who he was now.
A man in deep pain. Possibly a man with no way out of that pain ever. For his pain centered about his father, who was dead.
He was a man who could perhaps never be happy. Not even in those brief snatches of joy that comprised happiness for most people. No one, surely, ever lived happily ever after. Even her father and stepmother. Even Camille and Joel or Abigail and Gil, her stepsisters and their husbands. Or Anna and Avery, Duke and Duchess of Netherby. Or any other couple she could think of whom she considered happily married. But for most people there was happiness to be found.
Perhaps Justin could never be happy. Could she live with that?
Would she be given the chance to live with it? Most of the guests here were planning to go home the day after tomorrow. She and Bertrand were planning to leave too.
Would he offer her marriage again before then?
Would it matter if he did not?
Perhaps it would ultimately be a huge relief. She would not have to make the momentous decision.
Or perhaps she would be heartbroken. Really? Just a couple of weeks ago she had disliked him intensely. She had been repulsed by him—but only because you did not recognize that what you were really feeling was attraction, Estelle. An attraction that horrified you because you did not believe he was the sort of man to whom you ought to be attracted.
He was not at all the man she had thought he was.
She had a sudden mental image of him standing on the terrace outside the house here, gazing toward the Palladian bridge, his face lit up with a smile like sunshine as he gazed at Ricky. She saw him laughing and catching Ricky up in his arms, dirt and smell notwithstanding.
A m
an filled with sudden and total joy. He was capable of happiness.
She sighed.
There was a light tap on the door of her bedchamber. She stopped brushing her hair. Her maid? No, Olga would have let herself into the dressing room if she had forgotten something. Bertrand? Normally he would just come on inside after tapping on the door to warn her. She crossed the room and opened the door a crack.
Ah. She was suddenly aware of her nightgown and bare feet and flowing hair.
“I am going out to the summerhouse,” the Earl of Brandon told her, his voice soft.
Now? At this time of night? It must be close to midnight.
“I need to … read it,” he said. “You saw?”
“The document from the safe?” She spoke as softly as he and opened the door wider.
“It is addressed to me,” he told her. “In my father’s handwriting.”
“Oh,” she said. In the flickering light of the candles on her dresser he looked very pale. She reached out and set a hand on his arm, forgetting her appearance for a moment. He was wearing a greatcoat and boots and looked even larger than usual.
“I need to read it,” he said. “But not here. Not in this house. I am going to take it to the summerhouse. Will you come with me?”
She closed her eyes. The letter might say nothing of any significance. On the other hand, it might be full of bitter recriminations. Or it might offer a final word of forgiveness. It might be everything. Or nothing. Whatever it was— or was not— it might break him. She opened her eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “I will get dressed.”
“I will wait here,” he told her before she shut the door and stood for a few moments, her eyes closed again, her hand still on the doorknob.
She hurried into her dressing room.
Twenty-one
Justin sat on the top stair while he waited, a lantern beside him. He tried to still his thoughts, something at which he was generally good. He did not want to consider the fact that he normally kept to himself all that was deeply personal and shared it with no one. Solitude was his preferred state, especially when something was weighing upon him. It had all started, he supposed, on that day twelve years ago when he had made the decision not to defend himself to his father. It had not been absolute then, for he had fled to his aunt and uncle and poured out the whole of it to them. But he had felt almost instantly the burden he had put upon their shoulders and had resolved never to do that again.
So why the devil had it seemed important— even essential— to him that Lady Estelle Lamarr be with him when he read his father’s letter? And why tonight, now, close to midnight? At the summerhouse, rather than here?
He tried not to think.
He did not time her. But fewer than ten minutes must have passed between the shutting of her bedchamber door and its opening again. She was wearing a long dark cloak with the loose hood pulled over her head. He took hold of the lantern and got to his feet.
Her eyes were on him as she approached, large and steady and calm, and he took her hand in his and led her down the stairs. He released it in order to unbolt the main door and open it. She stepped out beneath the portico ahead of him and waited while he shut the door. She raised her hand and set it in his again.
It was not a dark night. The lantern was hardly necessary. It was not cold either. He hesitated for a moment when they reached the corner of the house. Normally it was to Captain he turned for company and comfort. One did not have to confide in a dog. A dog sensed when it was needed. But tonight it was a person to whom he had turned. Tonight he kept on walking.
They did not talk. Neither of them had uttered a word since she closed her door to get dressed and accompany him. But Justin did not believe he had ever felt closer to any other person. The letter— paper? document? The whatever-it-was in the inside pocket of his coat had a physical weight and heat out of all proportion to its appearance. It might be no more than a list of what Justin would find in the safe. It might be anything in the world. At the very least, though, it was paper upon which his name was written in his father’s distinctive hand. It was ridiculous, perhaps, to take comfort from that single fact. Perhaps what was inside that sealed paper would break his heart, or what remained of his heart. And perhaps that was why he had not immediately broken the seal and read what was inside. And why he had not done so when he went to his own room. Maybe it was why he needed her with him.
He led the way up the stairs inside the summerhouse to unlock the door at the top, holding the lantern in such a way that she could see her way up behind him. He set the lantern down inside the door, found the tinderbox, and lit a few candles. She closed the door and stood inside it until he was finished and turned to her.
“Thank you,” he said.
She looked at him with that smile of hers that was not really a smile but a beaming outward of some warmth or light. And let no one ever try telling him that he was good at expressing meaning in words.
“Everyone ought to have a twin,” she said. “Since you do not, you may borrow me.”
Her words might have sounded flippant, but they did not come across that way. She was offering something priceless. The sort of close connection she normally felt only with her brother. Though he wanted more than just to borrow her.
“Come and sit down.” He indicated one of the chairs, the one without books on it. It was not cold in the room. It must have been trapping sunlight all day and was still holding on to it.
She removed her cloak, sat, and relaxed back into the chair. “I have been trying to imagine,” she said, “that I had suddenly discovered a letter addressed to me in my mother’s handwriting. I would recognize it. My aunt once very generously gave me a letter my mother sent her after she learned she was expecting Bertrand and me, though she did not know at the time that there would be two of us. I am trying to imagine discovering a new letter. I know that breaking the seal and reading it would be the hardest thing I had ever done.”
He stood looking down at her, his hands at his back. “It feels like a very last chance,” he said. “But chance for what? I do not know. It is a one-way communication with no way of replying. And perhaps it is nothing anyway. Or further condemnation. It is foolish, is it not, to let the possibilities roll around in my head while I have the answer, whatever it is, in my pocket?”
Those large, calm, fathomless eyes looked steadily into his. Understanding him. Knowing how he felt. Feeling with him. What the devil was she doing with a fellow like him, with his workman’s hands and muscles, with his broken nose and dour manner? With a man who had made a mess of his life and was only just beginning— perhaps— to set it on some sort of course for the future?
“Sit down to read it,” she said softly.
But he could not sit. He went to stand at one of the windows, where the light from a candle would shine down upon anything he held in his hands. He took off his greatcoat and tossed it over the back of the desk chair, and he drew the letter from his pocket. His father had once held this. He had put it into the safe on top of the jewelry and shut the door. And Justin had been the next person to touch it. He held it to his nose for a moment, but nothing of his father lingered there. He broke the seal with his thumb, and his heartbeat drummed in his ears in such a way that he thought he might faint. She had known that. She had suggested that he sit down. He concentrated on his breathing— on the feel of the air coming in and going out. And he unfolded the letter.
My dearest son.
He stared at the words for what might have been a minute or ten before he had the courage to let his eyes move lower.
There are times in life when one’s God-given freedom to choose good over evil at all times, no matter the circumstances or consequences, is snatched away, and one is left only with the choice between two evils. It is what is meant by the term “hell on earth,” I have come to understand.
I was faced with such a dilemma, as I hope you will never be. As I hope all those dear to me and even my worst enemies will neve
r be. I chose one of the evils and sent you away. Perhaps I hoped the choice would not be irrevocable. I expected, perhaps, that you would seek help, and even maybe shelter, from your mother’s family or mine. I hoped they would set your feet on a good and prosperous path until I could somehow claim you again.
Alas, it was not to be. Whether by chance or by design, you disappeared, and put yourself beyond my reach. I believe— I must believe— that your steadiness of character has enabled you to make a decent life for yourself. It is my fervent hope that you have found some happiness with friends and even made a family of your own. It is the consequence of my own choice that I do not know and will never know.
I make no excuses. When a man marries, he has a great deal of power over his wife. Both the Church and the law see to that. It is unfair, even unjust, but it is the reality. He must compensate by offering her his unyielding support and protection, by treating her always with gentleness and courtesy. If in doing those things he must treat his own flesh and blood unjustly, then so be it. I made my choice. I honored my wife and disowned my son.
Ah, but not in my heart, Justin. If the words of a man who has somehow sullied his honor are of any importance to you, then know this. I did not for a moment doubt you. I have never, even for a single minute, stopped loving you. It would not be possible. You are the son of my ever-beloved first wife. You are my son.
Although I will be dead when you read this, and though I can never deserve or earn your forgiveness, I would ask for it. Not so much for myself— I will be dead, after all. But for yourself, Justin. If you still think bitterly of me, let the wound heal. And if you cannot love me, then love my other child, your sister. Love Maria.
Live a good life, my son. You were always good at loving. You lit up my life and your mother’s. You lit up Maria’s life. You were loved wherever you went. Do not allow bitterness and the injustice with which you were treated change you forever. Live a life filled with love. It is, ultimately, all that matters.