Page 51

SO BEGAN the most difficult work I had ever undertaken.

I had crawled out of the lower class, had kept perfect grades at school to facilitate scholarships, had clawed my way into a respectable career as a lawyer, and yet winning Arthur Ashford back would prove to be a thousand times more difficult than any of that, a Sisyphean sort of torture that seemed destined to last forever.

First, there was the fact that he hardly left the library, and that if he saw me when he did, he would rapidly leave the area.

Several times I had come upon him in the garden, only to have him turn and flee in the opposite direction, and Felix had told me in no uncertain terms that I had been forbidden from the library.

I was finding that despite my optimism that I could eventually wear him down, this was impossible if I couldn’t even speak with him.

Still, I could be stubborn too. I kept at my work, repaired my relationship with Charles, wrote small missives to Arthur every day as he had done when I was in London.

There was nothing life-changing in these notes, just that I still loved him and would continue to do so until told otherwise, but I did not keep them in the bottom drawer of my desk; rather, I slid them under the library door, had Felix put them on his breakfast tray, left them where I knew Arthur would find them.

Summer was giving way to fall, the nights beginning to grow a little colder and the grass frosty when I woke up most mornings.

I was standing on the balcony with a cup of tea, watching the sun glisten on the frozen dew that carpeted the lawn, when the sound of carriage wheels, faint but still audible, reached my ears.

I had heard nothing about a visitor, but the thought that it was a telegraph or the mail overrode any actual speculation as to who it might have been.

I had effectively put it out of my mind when a rapid series of knocks came at the suite door.

I had barely turned to look at the door, let alone given my permission to enter, when both of the Nelsons were in the sitting room.

Ida was in only a slip, her hair cascading around her shoulders, and I had never seen her look so disheveled; Rudolph was not much better, his shirt too tight.

The longer I looked at him, the more I was sure that he was wearing Felix’s blouse, but any curiosity about where the siblings had spent their mornings was quickly replaced by concern as they hurried into the room. “What’s going on?”

Rudolph closed the door behind him, turning to look at me with wide dark eyes. “It’s Lady Wright.”

I stared at him, uncomprehending, before it dawned on me exactly what he meant. “The carriage? I thought it was mail!”

“So did we,” Ida said, hurrying over to my balcony, although she didn’t step out onto it, simply looking out into the garden. “Thank goodness Felix was paying attention. He fetched Rudy right away.”

“I’m sure that was easy to do when you were in his quarters,” I said, and Rudolph shot me an exasperated look before moving to stand by his sister. “Why would Lady Wright be here?”

“We think it’s to do with Hattie,” Rudolph said. Abruptly, they moved back from the doors. “I knew they would go outside.”

“Arthur loves to walk and talk,” Ida said, and I went to stand with them, still holding my tea and peering out at the garden.

Arthur and Lady Joanna Wright were walking towards the hedges, their backs to us, and I could tell that he had offered her his arm, his head bowed towards her in deep conversation.

She was dressed extremely fine for a woman who was just on a social call, and something twisted up in my stomach as I realized exactly why she had come wearing her best clothes.

“I thought Arthur had already told her no,” I said.

Still, I was haunted by the idea of him saying yes.

His continued disinterest in me combined with the appearance of Lady Wright indicated to me that perhaps he had reached out to her to accept her terms, that perhaps what I had done had made him swear off love and instead agree to a marriage of absolute convenience. “My God, what if he says yes?”

“Calm down,” Rudolph said, helping himself to one of the scones on the tea tray I’d been brought that morning. He crouched down by the door even though there was no way we would be able to hear the conversation, sucking his teeth in frustration. “You should have brought your opera glasses, Ida.”

“I apologize for not knowing in advance that we would be spying from a distance,” she shot back, looking up at me. “He’s not going to say yes to her, so don’t start down that road.”

“But what if he invited her here?”

“Arthur, invite someone like Lady Wright over this early in the morning?” she asked, and I had to agree that the odds of him taking a meeting before noon was almost unheard of.

“No, she’s arrived solely because she thinks she’ll have caught him on the wrong foot at this time of day. He’s not even wearing his nicest coat.”

“How can you tell?” I asked, peering at the pair as they drifted in and out of view between the hedgerows. Arthur’s overcoat, long and a deep brown, looked the same as any coat I’d ever seen him in before.

“His nice coat is black,” Rudolph offered. “You said Charles believes she had a hand in the blackmail?”

“Yes, he thought so,” I said. “Do you think she’s here to follow up on it?”

“I’m sure she’s been putting her case together since news of his death reached us,” he said darkly.

“This will be her last attempt, I think. There’s been rumors that Hattie is being courted by a merchant from Glasgow.

Lady Wright really needs to accept that she will need to go and live with her eldest son, and not here at the hall. ”

I considered this, leaning against the frame of the balcony door and keeping my eyes on the garden.

The sadness of the situation wasn’t lost on me, the idea that the Wright family had been trying for years to infiltrate the Ashford family despite having their own title and their own home.

It was the sort of social climbing I had never been able to wrap my mind around, the minute differences in reputation and wealth that were beyond my ability to comprehend, but armed with the knowledge that James had committed his terrible acts out of a misguided desire to bask in Arthur’s warmth, that Lady Wright was here now to attempt to reclaim the house where she had grown up, I could see how desperation drove these people onwards.

I was pulled out of my pity for the Wrights by yet another invasion of my suite, this time by Charles, who was inexplicably bearing a tray of tea.

I must have given him a strange look because he shook his head as he set the tray down on my sitting table.

“I passed Felix and had this foisted on me,” he said.

“He said we would need refreshments for spying. That is why everyone is gathered here, isn’t it? ”

“Yes,” Ida said, looking up at him. “Did she tell you why she’d come?”

“You saw her?” I asked, surprised, and Charles nodded, stepping aside as Rudolph made a beeline for the tea. “When?”

“Arthur and I were having an early breakfast to discuss, uh, matters,” Charles said, glancing at Ida, and I very quickly realized what the matter might have been.

“Lady Wright interrupted us, said she had an urgent matter to discuss with Arthur. She seemed hesitant to talk to me about it.” He shook his head, walking towards the balcony but staying out of sight; Arthur and Lady Wright were far enough away that I’m sure they wouldn’t have noticed us, but the risk didn’t seem worth it.

“I fear she realized that I had been up to no good when I visited the house and stole James’s notebook. ”

“Ida and I think she’s here to convince Arthur to marry Hattie,” Rudolph said, settling on the sofa in my suite, clearly finding it unnecessary to be next to the open door when there was nothing to be overheard. “Did you get that impression?”

“Oh yes, that would make a lot of sense,” Charles said. He looked at me. “Is that why you look so miserable?”

“I’m not miserable,” I said, even though I could not shake the fear that Arthur would somehow be compelled to agree to the marriage. “When you visited Lady Wright, where did you leave the conversation?”

“Hm,” Charles said, peering out at the garden.

“Well, I made no promises to her. I told her I wanted to hear why she thought that Hattie and Arthur would make a good match, even though I knew that she had no reason other than the fact that marrying Arthur would ensure Hattie would be rich and that she and James would be well looked after. I told her I would take what she said back to him.”

“And what did she say?”

“That Hattie was pretty, that she would be a fine mother and a good woman to have in charge of the house. To be honest, I was hardly paying attention to her when she was telling me her reasons. I was too busy thinking about how I could get to James’s room and go through his things.

” Without even looking down, he offered Ida his hand to help her to her feet, having clearly noticed her beginning to grow bored.

“Have some tea,” he said. “Felix insisted it was for you all.”

“I’ll keep watch,” I promised her, and she laughed and went to join her brother.

In all truth, I was watching more to assure myself that Arthur would give some sign that he was not listening to Lady Wright, that I would be able to read on his face or in the way he held his shoulders that he was simply hearing her out before he turned her down.

I crossed my arms over my chest and peered out at the garden, a slight fog beginning to rise from the frosted grass as the sun melted the dew.