Page 2 of A Secret Correspondence (Hearts of Harewood #4)

Chapter One

EIGHT MONTHS LATER

Was it wrong to love a woman one had never met?

Perhaps Samuel had met her but was unaware she was the woman who held his heart in the palm of her dainty hand.

Or hardy hand. Calloused, work-worn hand?

He hadn’t any notion what her hand looked like.

He was, however, intimately familiar with her elegant handwriting. That, he loved with all his heart.

But more than the loopy, well-executed scroll of her quill pen, he loved her words.

Samuel fanned his playing cards, ignoring the chatter around the table. His mind wasn’t on the game. It was on the woman he loved and who she could possibly be.

It had all been an accident, the way Samuel had initially stumbled into the correspondence.

When he’d left the letters for his anonymous friend at the kissing gate, he had struggled to find a decent location to put them—placing them upon the stone wall would be too obvious, but down in the mud was clearly not an option.

He had been looking for a place to wedge them in the wall when fortune had smiled upon him and he’d discovered a loose rock.

Samuel had hidden the letters there, leaving only a portion visible in the hopes that when the woman returned to search for her dropped letter, she would see it.

It had taken longer than Samuel would have liked, but it had worked. Within a fortnight, she’d eventually seen it, taken his note, and written back to him, hiding her reply in the very same place.

Now, eight months had passed since their correspondence had begun, and their letters had not slowed.

When he had grown determined to do away with his unrequited love for Ruth, he had not expected fortune to introduce a new woman to him through such strange means.

Samuel had fallen in love with his nameless correspondent from Harewood.

Yet when he asked her to meet with him, she had refused.

There should be a law against that.

He flicked his finger along the top of his six of spades.

He could always find a place to hide in the trees beyond the kissing gate and wait day and night until she arrived to leave him another letter—discover for himself who he was writing to.

But a small feeling deep in his chest told him it wasn’t the right thing to do.

That trust, once broken, might never heal.

Therefore, his anonymous friend remained perfectly incognito, as she desired.

Of course, no one was aware of the way Samuel’s heart had been claimed by this woman through the exchanging of letters. He feared if he told any of his friends, they would think him mad.

He looked around the card table now, judging their candlelit countenances one by one.

Lord Ryland, an old friend, recently married and hopelessly in love with his wife.

Jacob Ridley, their town blacksmith, married just before Ryland and also desperately in love with his wife.

Then, finally, Samuel’s cousin and closest companion, Oliver Rose, the man who had recently won Ruth’s heart and hand in marriage, the woman Samuel had loved for years.

Oliver was also, predictably, fiercely in love with his new wife.

Perhaps these men would not cart Samuel off to an asylum if they learned of his clandestine letters. Mayhap they’d be more likely to help him discover the identity of this woman and secure his own happiness, as each of them had recently done.

Now Samuel was just being silly. Clearly, the late hour—or perhaps the drink—had gone to his head.

“You’re staring,” Ryland said without looking up from his cards. “Do I look pretty this evening?”

“I’m trying to see through your cards.” Samuel flipped his hand of cards face up on the table and leaned back in his chair, sighing. “It is not my night, gentlemen.”

Ridley folded as well, stretching his arms over his broad chest and stifling a yawn. “I should be leaving soon. It will be a rough morning if I don’t.”

“One more hand?” Samuel asked. He would prolong the night as much as he could, since the only thing waiting for him at home was a cold bedchamber and his parents. He shuddered. “I do not have an early day tomorrow.”

Oliver watched him with concern. “You promised to ride with us.”

And spend the morning with Oliver and his bride?

Before Samuel even had his breakfast? Surely there was a way to free himself of that situation.

Samuel gathered the cards nearest him and organized them into a stack.

“Are we certain that was a promise ? I imagined it was more of a loose understanding. We all know how I feel about early mornings. ”

“Ruth is expecting you.”

A ready response made its way to Samuel’s tongue, but Ryland kicked his shin beneath the table and he bit down on it instead, offering Oliver a smile. The man was no fool. Their history was rich and deep, embroiled in a messy tangle of branches that was too complicated to sort out at this hour.

Did Samuel still have feelings for Oliver’s wife? No. Of course not. He’d known Ruth his entire life. He would always consider her a good friend. When she had married Oliver, she became his cousin too.

But did Samuel desire a wife of his own? Yes, dearly. Ergo, witnessing marital bliss was not precisely how he wanted to start his day.

Although a prime seat to the marital discord within his own house was not exactly ideal, either.

He picked up the other stack of cards and shuffled them together. “Another round? What do you say, gentlemen?”

They all blinked at him. When they looked at one another, he knew it was over.

The wives had won. Not that Samuel blamed any of them.

If he had a woman waiting for him, he wouldn’t have remained for even this long, he imagined.

Tossing the cards on the table, he let out a weary sigh.

“Oh, get on with you all. Go home to your loved ones.”

Ryland cleared his throat. “This is my house, Sam.”

Ridley grinned. “Too much to drink? I can carry you home if needs be.”

Why did everyone always think that? A man could be a little ridiculous on occasion without the aid of alcohol. But Samuel let them think what they would. He’d prefer they imagined him too far in his cups than just plain silly. He had been drinking, after all.

Oliver stood, pushing his chair in. “It was a pleasure to win tonight. Multiple times.”

“Your humility astounds me,” Samuel muttered .

“How does Aurelia feel of late?” Ridley asked, gathering the cups and cleaning up the table.

As an earl with a large estate, Ryland had a horde of servants to do his bidding, but Ridley was used to doing things for himself and the manners were ingrained within him.

The men had ceased trying to break him of the habit well over a year ago.

“Quite nauseous.” Ryland scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t recall the sickness lasting this long for my first wife, but Edmund is ten years old now. Aurelia is far nearer to the end than the beginning, so we are grateful for that, at least.”

“I will inform Eliza of her difficulties,” Ridley said in his deep, even way. “Mayhap she will have a remedy that helped ease her illness. Though by my recollection, very little worked.”

“Thank you. Though, judging by how often our wives speak, I would assume Eliza is well aware of Aurelia’s health.”

Samuel meandered toward the fireplace while the men discussed their wives in various stages of pregnancy and illness, babies, children, parenting.

The flames crackled, giving him something to focus his attention on.

He stood on the outside, both figuratively and in reality, with nothing to add to the conversation.

The quiet yearning for that companionship which had bloomed in his heart so long ago had now grown like a vine throughout his body, covering his lungs and crawling down his bones.

He could feel it taking over, suffocating him with a want so deep and full he was hungry for it.

To anyone looking on, they would see three friends speaking of their families and the dandy listening in, bored and ready to leave.

Samuel had developed his mask well, and it suited his purposes.

He pulled his watch from his pocket by the chain, fobs clinking, and flicked it open with a practiced thumb.

“Good night,” Ryland said, snapping him from his dark mood.

Samuel nodded to his friend and followed Ridley and Oliver to the door, where their saddled horses waited .

“Sunrise?” Oliver asked, climbing into the saddle.

“Better not count on me.”

“I had a feeling you were going to say that. Should we plan to meet for breakfast instead?”

The vines tightened, curling around Samuel’s stomach and continuing downward. He wanted to be seated at his writing table that very moment, penning a letter about the suffocating feelings to his friend. She would understand. She faced unfairness herself.

He affected a yawn, grateful when it turned into a real one, stretching his mouth wide. “I think I shall sleep until noon. Good night, gentlemen.”

Urging his horse, he was off, leaving his friends behind.

He could have ridden the first part of the road at their sides, but he needed the separation.

He was antsy for it, as his thoughts were beginning to get the best of him.

If he wasn’t careful, he’d soon begin edging into feelings of bitterness and jealousy, and those were things he never wanted to associate with the people he cared about most in the world.

Gads, but he needed a bucket of water to dunk his head in.

Something to give him a shock and send him back into a healthy frame of mind.

He made his way up the High Street, noting a light flickering behind the window in the modiste’s shop.

The poor woman ought to refuse patrons if they were plying her with too much work.

Or perhaps that was a French custom—he wouldn’t know.

He’d never taken much interest in that country.