Page 36

HE WAS on me the moment the library door closed, his fingers undoing the buttons of my collar as though to view his handiwork, and I gripped his shirt to pull him closer, unable to ignore my visceral attraction to Arthur now that the floodgates had opened.

“This doesn’t seem like a legal question,” I murmured as his lips found my throat, my surprise at his absolute passion outweighed by a realization that it had no doubt been years since he had allowed himself this sort of outlet.

He wasn’t like me, able to go to some gentleman’s club and find a man to sate his pressing desires, and at the moment… I was it.

“It’s not,” Arthur said, his breath hot against my neck, his mouth becoming more and more familiar by the moment. “Charles ordered you a suit, did he not?”

“He did,” I said. “Although I have not seen it yet.”

“I picked the color,” he said, and a thrill went through me; Arthur raised his head to meet my eyes. “Does that please you?”

“Yes,” I said, surprised that he had so quickly figured it out but realizing that I was an easy man to read when it came to Arthur.

“I like that you had a hand in it.” I raised a hand to drag my fingers through his hair, pulling him in for a slow, methodical kiss.

Last night had been a fluke, fueled by nothing more than excitement and passion, but if I only had a short time left with Arthur, I wanted to learn all I could about the man I’d thrown my lot in with.

“Charles mentioned wanting me to help with planning the last details of the ball.”

“Did he now?” Arthur said, resting his forehead against mine. “That would be quite the nice excuse to keep you by my side, wouldn’t it? But you have a case to work on.”

“As I told him,” I said. I left out the fact that Charles had me in mind for the new family lawyer to replace Garretty, the thought of telling Arthur that I might be a more permanent fixture heightening my nerves to a terrible extent.

I knew that if Arthur thought I would be around more, he would undoubtedly put an end to our affair, and I was so desperate for the opportunity to have him in my arms that I could not fathom telling him the truth.

“Besides, I have no ability to help with a ball.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he said, tilting my chin back with two fingers and peering at me for a moment before stepping back. “Anyway, I just wanted to see you this morning, see that you weren’t regretting how we had spent the night.”

“No regrets,” I said. “I would not regret a thing with you.” I nodded towards his desk, which was covered in papers that were no doubt integral to the running of the estate.

“It looks as though you have rather more pressing concerns,” I said, and he turned to look at the desk, his expression thoughtful.

“I want to collect some more paperwork about the estate,” I said.

“Did your father keep any documentation about possible agreements with the village?”

“If he did, it would be in the far shelves by the northern window,” Arthur said.

“Help yourself. I’ll be at my desk if you have any questions.

” He stole a last kiss before returning to his desk and, reinvigorated about my task due to a few weeks of removal from the drudgery of it, I moved to the shelf he had indicated and began looking through what was there to find if the late Lord Ashford had set anything in stone regarding the use of the manor grounds for hunting.

Arthur and I worked like this until well after lunch hour, the silence of the library punctuated only by occasional questions floated back and forth between the two of us.

I found that not only was any tension between Arthur and I gone thanks to the steps we’d taken the night before, but I was now able to look at him not as the older brother of my closest friend but a friend in his own right, the awe he had once inspired in me replaced by a comfortable respect.

I was halfway through an account written by a lawyer for the family in the late 1780s when there was a sudden burst of noise in the doorway, Felix and Charles talking over one another.

“What’s going on?” Arthur asked, and Felix and Charles began to answer him before Felix shushed Charles, gaining the brief opportunity to speak.

“The band has pulled out,” he said. “They’ve just sent a messenger to inform us that they received an offer to perform in France the same night as the ball.”

“Oh no,” Arthur said, and I ceased my reading to eavesdrop, my curiosity piqued; without a band, the ball would be a true disaster. “Is the messenger still here?”

“I offered him a meal and a fresh horse,” Felix said. “Truthfully, I was hoping that I could stall him long enough so you could make your argument. Charles has already made his, but—”

“Felix thinks I came on too strong,” Charles said, and I could easily tell what face he was making despite being out of view; he was absolutely imploring his brother to believe his version of events.

“But they have a contract with us to uphold. And to choose France over their native England? Foolish.”

“Hold on, I’ll come down to the kitchens with you,” Arthur said, before footsteps rapidly drew closer and he paused at the end of the aisle I was standing in.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” he said. “If you need anything at all, help yourself to it. There’s ink and paper on my desk if you require it.

” He turned and left, and a moment later I heard the library door close behind him; for the first time, I was alone in Arthur’s inner sanctum.

I busied myself with the journals I had been left to hunt through, but after only a few more minutes of reading I found an entry made by the Ashford’s grandfather, a description of a civil ruling made by the local magister when a hunting friend of the Ashfords had accused a villager of poaching.

The example was so strikingly similar to what had transpired the summer before that it was difficult not to see the parallels, and I wondered if perhaps James had read, or perhaps heard from his father, a similar account of what had happened.

I kept the page open to the account and made my way to Arthur’s desk in search of a fountain pen, immediately finding paper, but not a pen.

I searched for one on top of the desk before opening the drawers on the right side of the desk; in the bottom drawer, I finally found one.

I lifted it out and was about to continue on my way when I caught sight of the paper that lay beneath the pen, my eyes growing wide at what I read.

Dear Thomas .

A letter addressed to me, unsent but still meant for me all the same.

I lifted the page and found another beneath it, another, another, each letter clearly penned during my absence.

I glanced towards the library door before lifting all six letters from the drawer, reading through them like a man possessed, each subsequent page revealing more and more of Arthur than he wanted me to know.

It was a clear violation of his privacy, and yet I could not stop myself, phrases jumping out at me from the writing.

The thought of losing you to London a terror that I cannot face.

The idea of you thinking of me has sparked an imaginative fire in my heart that I long thought I had quelled.

This hunger seems ever present.

I wanted to take you to the rose garden, slip my hand in yours, admit to you that I was consumed by the idea of kissing you the moment you gazed up at me from the grass in the noon sun.

This last sentence made my stomach do a flip, made my heart thrum in my throat like nothing I had ever felt before.

Without thinking, I folded the last letter into thirds and secreted it in my inside breast pocket, the idea of Arthur’s words so close to my chest almost unbearable.

I knew it was wrong even as I did it, knew that the man was entitled to keep these things secret.

I had been told that these were the equivalent of a journal to Arthur, and I would never have even considered tearing a page from his diary had I stumbled upon it, and yet I still stole the letter.

I replaced the other letters in the drawer and jotted down the note I’d come over here to find—the name of the man who’d been involved in the poaching case in the 1700s.

If his family was still in the area, I wanted to speak with them to see what had happened, if they had anything that might help me undo the damage that had been done three years prior during the most recent poaching case.

There was no way to overturn what had happened, but I wanted to mitigate the reputational harm that had come to Arthur from James’s actions.

After finishing my notes, I replaced the pen and closed the drawer, my fingers going to my vest where the letter lay, only thin fabric separating me from what was essentially a confession of love.

My conviction the night before that he was repeating what he had done with Rudolph with me was gone, replaced by a clear knowledge that he had in fact only been living out the fantasy he’d written about in this letter.

What I had read only made me more certain than ever that Arthur had true feelings for me, a crush that he was trying to bury, and if I could use our affair to spark that crush into adoration, even love ?

It was a naive thought, my usual logic obscured by how badly I wanted him.

How badly I desired a happy ending for the both of us, a way forward through a seemingly endless labyrinth intent on keeping us apart at the end of it all.

I could not see—or perhaps just did not want to see—that it was dangerous for me to want more than what I had, and that I was teetering on the edge of a cliff that would ruin me if I fell.

I returned to the shelf I had been perusing before finding the letter, trying to focus on the accounts I was reading, and not on the letter burning a hole in my pocket.

According to my pocket watch, it was nearly forty-five minutes before Arthur returned, his confident footsteps an indicator he was back long before he appeared at the end of the shelves, an exasperated look in his eyes that I don’t know I would have recognized at the beginning of the summer, but which I could now read as clear as anything. “Did you convince him?”

“He’s agreed to return to the band and make my argument for me, but I’ll have to spend some time finding a backup in case they decide they’d like to go to France still,” he said, running a hand back through his hair; a single curl fell over his forehead and sent a lance of longing through my chest, tempered only by the guilt I still felt at the theft of the letter.

“But the band is the least pressing issue at the moment, unfortunately. More bad news came when I was downstairs.”

“What could possibly have happened?” I asked, setting aside the book I was working my way through and stepping towards him; he caught my hand and raised it to his lips, kissing me on the knuckles gently.

The gesture touched me, affectionate and soft, and goose bumps ran down my arms at his touch. “Arthur….”

“We received word from Lady Jane Wright,” he said, and immediately I put two and two together. “I invited her to the ball because to snub her would cause more trouble than having James here would. She has informed us that she’ll be coming with her youngest daughter and, unfortunately, James.”

“I see,” I said, considering this carefully. “Did you know that there was another poaching case here about fifty years ago?”

Arthur shook his head, his brow furrowing as he looked at me. “You’re sure?”

“It’s nearly the same circumstances,” I said.

“I’m going to take Charles to talk to some of the families involved in both cases tomorrow and see what they have to say.

I think if I can collect enough evidence that there was an agreement between your family and the surrounding residents for hunting rights on the land, we can have the agreement formalized and restore relationships with the populace after the damage James did.

I know we can’t undo what happened, but we can fix your reputation.

I’d like to see how they feel about you, too, and work with that. ”

Even as I was saying it, I wondered if I was doing too much, going too far.

After the line I had crossed with Arthur yesterday, there was no way I could be the Ashford lawyer, and yet here I was, doing things that were within a family lawyer’s purview, and not within the scope of a family friend.

Arthur voiced my concerns before I was even truly aware of what I was thinking myself, a thoughtful tone to his voice.

“You’re committing yourself quite fully,” he said.

“Charles has no doubt mentioned to you that we’re without a lawyer at the moment. Were you hoping to fill that position?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said, raising my gaze to meet his. “Had you asked me before yesterday, I would have considered it, but this… I can’t go back to a professional relationship with you, Arthur. We should hold to our agreement that this ends when I leave.”

Like a fool, I had hoped to see disappointment in his eyes at this, but instead he just nodded, an immediate agreement to my terms. “If you can think of anyone who would suit our purposes, send them my way,” he said, still holding my hand in his.

“And the help you give now is more than enough. You have a true knack for this.”

“Thank you,” I said, leaning in to kiss him before I could stop myself, and as soon as our lips met I was back where I’d started, overcome by such strong affection for him that it was hard to concentrate on anything else.

I knew I was being a fool, that I had cost myself an opportunity that would lift me out of the class I’d been born into, and yet my desire to have Arthur, even for just these few weeks, was so overwhelming that I would have gladly given up anything just to have him close to me.

I had no idea yet what the true cost of our relationship would be, or the ripples it would have into the rest of my life, a pebble in a pond that caused waves to crash on the shore.