Page 54 of My Darling Mr. Darling

“If I knew what it was you were looking for,” John said, “I would help you find it.” His hair stuck up at odd angles, as if he had just rolled out of bed, and though he had clearly thrown on a pair of trousers, his chest was bare. He carried a candle in one hand, which he set upon the desk.

“How—how did you know I was here?” Violet heard herself ask, resisting the urge to slip the letter behind her back like a child caught doing something naughty.

“My room is just across the hall,” John said, with a jerk of his head toward the door. And then, as an afterthought, he added, “I watched you break in one night. What have you got there?”

Silently, Violet held out her hand to him, surrendering the letter.

“Ah,” he said, his tone bland, unbothered. “I don’t open those.”

“You should open that one,” Violet said, and her voice trembled on the words. “The wax is black.” There were many kinds of sealing wax used on letters—red being the most common. But black…black meantdeath. A portent of doom delivered even before the letter itself had been opened.

John paused, his hand extended to drop the letter into the rubbish bin. “I hadn’t noticed,” he said finally, his voice inscrutable. “I never look at them, really.”

A sharp, bitter pain tore at Violet’s heart as she thought of that little boy the duchess had described to her. Lost, alone—probably afraid. Forgotten by the man who was supposed to care for him, to protect him.

She had been so wrapped up in her own pain, in the terrible grief of losing her beloved father, that she had rarely stopped to consider how many different kinds of suffering existed. How much did it hurt, exactly, to have relatives that simply didn’t care for you at all? To seek approval from someone who would never be capable of giving it? To turn to someone whom you should be able to trust with the whole of your heart only to have them scoff at it?

For all that it had ended in tragedy, Violet’s childhood had been a happy one, full of laughter and joy, and so, so much love. Her father had loved her twice as much as he might’ve if her mother had lived, and more over still—but who had loved John?

Just the duchess, and even she had been stripped away from him at too young an age.

“How—” Violet’s voice was a raspy croak, ripping through the veil of silence that had fallen between them. “How did you come to live with your grandfather?”

For a moment she thought he would not answer. He simply stood, staring down at the letter in his hand. But at last he spoke, with a sort of practiced distance in his voice, as if he were reciting something inconsequential. As if, by speaking the past in a rote monotone, they could not hurt him.

“My parents died in a building collapse when I was just six years old,” he said slowly. And then, seeming to understand that such a simple explanation could yield only more questions, he added, “My father was the spare, as it were. Grandfather insisted he ought to purchase a commission and join the military, but father fell in love with a parlor maid and eloped with her. Of course, he was immediately cut off—Grandfather does not take well to his plans being thwarted.”

“I see,” Violet murmured, in what she hoped was an encouraging tone.

“Father and Mother ran off to London, but the best they could afford without Grandfather’s support was a rented room in Whitechapel. I remember the roof leaked whenever it rained—which was often—and Mother had to take in the sewing to make ends meet. But they were happy. I have…very few memories of them. But I do know they were happy.”

It seemed to him to be a very important announcement, as if that fleeting happiness had made all that had come after it worth it, and so Violet nodded her agreement.

“The house was ancient, and…not well-made,” he said. “One day, one of the other renters was deep in his cups and decided to climb into the rafters for a lark. But one of the beams had rotted through, and it could not support his added weight. The whole house collapsed in an instant. The fire that had been set in the hearth blazed out of control almost immediately. It was like something out of a nightmare.” He took a deep breath and scrubbed at his face with his free hand, and Violet knew he become lost in the mire of the past. “Several people died that day, because the houses had been built too closely together, and the blaze took four more homes with it before it could be contained. I survived only because I had been playing near a window, and I managed to crawl free before the frame collapsed entirely. When at last I was found amidst the chaos, I was taken to the Bow Street Magistrates’ office—and it was two days before the magistrate managed to convince my grandfather that refusing to take me in would reflect poorly upon him in his social circle.”

“That’s despicable,” Violet said, her heart breaking for that poor, bereaved little boy who had sat alone for so long, waiting for someone to come and claim him.

“That’s Grandfather,” John said, his voice direct. “He was profoundly uninterested in his half-noble grandson. Most days he simply pretended I did not exist at all.” He scraped his fingers through his hair, ruffling the dark strands which fell into his face, giving him a disreputable air. “An easy enough task, given that for several years, I lived with—”

“The Duchess of Davenport,” Violet said. And then, as John canted his head to an inquisitive angle, she added, “She, er—she came to visit.”

“I thought she might,” John said. He let the letter fall from his grasp, still unopened, and caught Violet around the waist, lifting her to sit at the edge of the desk. “Did she like you?”

Awkwardly, Violet braced her hands beside her, gripping the edge of the desk. “I suppose she must’ve. She might have offered to make me a duchess.”

John gave a snort of laughter. “She’s been trying to marry Alex off for ages.”

“Oh,” Violet said. “Should I not feel flattered, then?”

“No, you certainly should. She doesn’t offer her son up to just anyone, so she must have liked you a great deal.” His hands fell upon her knees, warm even through the fabric of her skirt. “So you spoke with the duchess about me. Why?”

“I—I don’t know.” Violet chewed her lower lip as John’s fingers slid along her inner thighs, stretching the fabric of her skirt tight. “She wished to tell me about you. I don’t know why. What are you doing?”

“I don’t find speaking of my past to be a particularly pleasant endeavor. You’ll forgive me if I comfort myself with something a bit more pleasurable.”

“Abit?”

The disgruntled retort made him laugh, and the puff of his breath coasted across her cheek as he bent closer. The scent of shaving soap lingered on his skin; just a hint of it left over from his morning shave. The new beginnings of a beard shadowed his jaw, but the abrasion of it as his cheek touched her temple was not unpleasant.