Page 16

T hey were love letters. Beautifully written. Poignant and filled with all the angst and longing of a love that wasn’t allowed to be, yet managed to survive regardless. The earliest ones were over twenty years old and intimate. The author of the letters described her joy at Gislingham’s tenderness alongside the emotional fulfilment the intimacy had created.

I suspected you were the one. Now I know it. I refuse to feel guilty for loving you.

A few years on and the situation appeared hopeless.

I know you are married and that I must be part of your past, but I think of you every single day and what we might have had and curse fate for introducing us to each other too late to change things.

In his haste to grab a decent sample, Gray had missed a decade’s worth of the doomed story of the star-crossed lovers, but the next letter had a wholly different tone. Chatty and filled with gossip. Family stories about her mother, her brother and her new nephew.

Such an adorable cherub with eyes almost as dark as your Thea’s.

This was a relationship where everything was shared. Almost as if out of their initial passion, they had found a way to be friends. Yet the final paragraph discussed a stolen weekend by the sea where they had been free to be solely with one another.

You are my everything. Tonight I shall lie on my pillow and blow you a thousand kisses. Make sure you catch them.

By the date, he was sure Gislingham had remarried by that time. All their intelligence suggested he had walked Caroline down the aisle within a year of his first wife’s death. Had he and his true love not reconnected before then? Was she also married? It seemed a great shame that these two people were clearly meant to be together, but, like ships passing in the night, never came quite close enough. He wished he had taken more of the letters to know the full picture, but was also glad he hadn’t. The Gislingham on the page was too likeable. Too much like the old man who had fretted about his niece yesterday and who loved to laugh.

The accounts Gray had taken from the Viscount’s desk were also surprising and thankfully thorough enough that Gray had no cause to break into Thea’s bedchamber. Her fortune was quite staggering and diligently managed. She did have stocks in ships—but a totally legitimate fleet. You couldn’t work hand in glove with the Excise Men and not know which companies were above board and which worked hard to appear to be. These were owned by Quakers and, famously, not only diligently paid all their levies and tariffs, but also eschewed transporting any items which had links with slavery. She also had shares in a successful pottery, several banks and a publishing house. None of which seemed even slightly dubious.

More curious were Gislingham’s private investments. He had a similar portfolio to Thea, but a quarter of its size. He was a wealthy man to be sure, but the majority of his money-making efforts—on paper, at least—appeared to be on her behalf. Almost as if he really was securing her future after he was gone, but was perfectly content to live comfortably within his means himself.

Completely incongruous with the man Gray suspected Gislingham to be—and more like the devoted, loving man in these letters. Unless those accounts were all the clever ruse of a genius who had known that someone would one day come looking and had constructed a legitimate facade which he hid behind. The Boss wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep any evidence of his criminal dealings at home. But were these love letters faked, too? He glanced back down at the one in his hand and cast it aside. The private emotions spilling on to every neatly written page made him feel ashamed to read them. Voyeuristic, even. Perhaps because he knew what it felt like to love deeply and then to lose it.

Unlike the Viscount’s, every heartfelt letter he had sent to Cecily before her marriage had been returned unopened. Something he was glad of now. She had ripped his young heart from his chest and trampled it. That was enough. She didn’t need to know exactly how much her betrayal had hurt him or how much he had wanted her back. The same day she married his brother in Wales, Gray had stepped on a merchant ship in Bristol bound for the Orient, strangely embracing the weeks of horrendous seasickness because it numbed the pain in his heart. Then he had banished her from his thoughts until he had arrived here in Suffolk, knowing the mere memory of her face, her voice and their shared childhood would stir it all up afresh.

Except it was different. Time had taken the sting out of the memories. He had to concentrate hard to conjure an image of Cecily. That face he had adored was hazy and blurred. He couldn’t hear her voice any more. Didn’t feel that sharp pain in his ribs when he pondered what might have been, because for some reason it no longer mattered—because she no longer mattered.

Why that was, he wasn’t inclined to examine—suffice it to say that it was an entirely different woman who consumed his thoughts now. And as he approached the stables at Gislingham Hall, he felt his blood fizz with excitement at the prospect of seeing her. Another thing best not examined. He was here for Archimedes and to catch The Boss. Those were the only two tangibles he would focus on in a swirling sea of variables and he would cling to both like a piece of driftwood in a storm.

The big horse was munching hay, apparently quite content to have the ceiling bear most of his weight and not the least bit bothered by the peculiar harness supporting his belly. Without asking permission from the stable hands, he made a huge fuss of the brute, then crouched down to unwrap the poultice from his fetlock. Last night, to give his mind something else to do rather than worry about how badly Thea had taken the injury, Gray had visited the stable again late and reapplied a fresh one. Now the joint was still swollen, but less so. He was able to run his hands over all of it without Archimedes flinching once. A very encouraging sign.

Seeing as his unlikely treatment appeared to be working, Gray repeated it, bathing the leg in ice, then wrapping it in another cooling poultice, then took himself off to report the progress to Thea.

‘She’s gone off to lick her wounds.’ The Viscount had insisted Gray eat breakfast with him in his private sitting room. ‘Came down this morning apologising for carrying on, checked on Archimedes and I haven’t seen her since. She does that, does Thea. She’s one to mull by nature. Ponders everything far too long and then pretends to everyone she is fine and dandy, when we all know she isn’t. She’s always been the same. I never quite know what’s going on inside her head.’

‘Was she the same when her father died?’

‘Worse. Bottled it all up inside. It took more than a year to see smatterings of the old Thea return.’ He chewed thoughtfully on his bacon. ‘Heartbreaking.’

‘What happened?’ Because all the King’s Elite intelligence had focused on Gislingham’s past, Thea’s was a grey area. He watched the older man slump a little in his chair at the memory, then felt guilty for dragging it up. ‘It’s really none of my business. I’m sorry.’

‘No... You of all people should probably know.’ What did that mean? ‘They were staying here. They always came down from Cambridge to rusticate here over the summer. It’s a short journey back and my brother would sometimes return to attend to whatever business he had to attend to. They’d argued. I told you that. Over something nonsensical, as was their wont, and he’d stomped out, muttering about being cursed with the most wilful daughter any man had ever been cursed with while she haired up the stairs like a banshee and slammed her bedchamber door. An hour later, the constable came. The brake on his gig had failed as he’d tried to avoid something in the road. I can’t say I know exactly what happened that dreadful morning, suffice it to say his gig overturned and his neck was broken.’

Thea watched her feet swish backwards and forwards in the water, feeling both stupid and guilty. The logical, adult half of her brain knew that what had happened to Archimedes was a fluke. Out of anyone’s control and just one of those awful things that happened from time to time when you least expected it. But Impetuous Thea’s brain still remembered the crushing guilt she had felt as a child at angering her papa so that he had driven away for the last time in a temper. A memory which might have been forgotten, had her uncle not had his stroke within an hour of another blazing row brought about by her wilful, rebellious nature and selfish intention to do exactly what she wanted—regardless of what he wanted.

Somewhere along the line, those two tragically similar events had become intertwined and she had promised herself never to behave like that again, just in case they were linked and she was entirely to blame. It was nonsensical, yet she couldn’t shake it. She had always shouldered much of the blame for both her father’s untimely death and her uncle’s stroke—and always would. Carried both events around in her heart daily while trying, and ultimately failing, to behave better than that wilful girl she had been. Digging her heels in, shouting and slamming doors were largely a thing of the past.

But as Gray had warned her, leopards didn’t change their spots. As much as she tried to curb Impetuous Thea, sometimes it was just too hard. Yesterday, she had allowed herself to be tempted again by forbidden fruit and it had ended in tragedy. Or at least near tragedy. Another similarity, which in her distressed state had petrified her and rendered her senseless for a good hour.

Then common sense and reality had prevailed and she was heartily ashamed of herself. It was one thing to think nonsense in the private confines of one’s own head. It was quite another to allow the world to see it. Thea had worried her poor uncle when he didn’t need the stress, dominated all of poor Aunt Caro’s afternoon with her wailing and probably sent Gray running for the hills.

Lord only knew what the poor man had thought. One minute she had been shamelessly pursuing him and the next she was a snivelling, grizzling mess against his chest. At the time, it had been the only place she had wanted to be. Still did, truth be known, and that didn’t frighten her half as much as it should, if at all.

Gray had chiselled his way into her thoughts and occupied far too many of them, just as he had since she had first encountered him.

Here.

The exact spot where she had headed at the crack of dawn to lick her wounds. That was only partly what she had been doing for the better part of two hours, when she couldn’t glance at the water without picturing him in it and had probably come here with the express intention of doing so. Unhindered, unwatched and unjudged for her outrageous, lustful fantasies in which there was just her and him, cool water and a shocking absence of clothes.

‘There you are.’ He strolled into the clearing, making her jump, and stood a little awkwardly, eventually settling with his hands on his hips, taking in the whole clearing as if seeing it for the first time. How splendid. They were both beyond uncomfortable. ‘Archimedes seems well. It’s early days, of course, but so far so good. He has made excellent progress in just one day.’

‘Yes. I saw. Thank you. Even our pessimistic stable master is hopeful.’ She should probably apologise for her out-of-character and childish outburst, but had no earthly idea where to start without looking like a complete fool. Instead she stared back at her feet in the water, cringing, willing him away.

‘I suspect we need to have one of those honest conversations you’re so fond of.’

‘I suppose so.’ She couldn’t look up, but sensed him move closer. Then heard him tug off both boots before he lowered himself on to the bank next to her. He sat quietly, his bigger feet idly swishing next to hers, clearly assuming she should start. It was time to bite the bullet.

‘I’m sorry about yesterday. I got myself in a fluster.’ A hysterical mess more like. Clinging on to him like a ninny. Irrationally inconsolable.

‘A fluster?’ She could hear the smile. She didn’t need to humiliate herself further by looking at it. ‘If that’s what a fluster looks like, I’d hate to see you in a state. You scared the hell out of me. Do you want to tell me about it?’

‘Not particularly. It was a shocking bout of useless self-pity that I am heartily ashamed of.’

‘We all have our moments, Thea. Your horse was hurt and for a while things seemed grim.’

‘And in the midst of the crisis, I was a hindrance rather than a help. I hate that.’ Almost as much as she hated the hideous display of histrionics she had subjected him to.

‘I disagree. It was you who suggested the cart. You who fetched it and organised the grooms. In the midst of the crisis you were a rock.’ His hand found hers where it sat in her lap and he closed his fingers around it, instantly making her warm. ‘Only once the crisis was past did you falter. Something you are entirely entitled to do. Nobody can be a rock all the time. I just came to check you are all right now. I hated seeing you so upset.’

‘It’s silly having such an attachment to a horse. He’s just a horse.’

‘I’d be devastated if anything happened to Trefor. I adore the useless mutt. And Archimedes isn’t just a horse. He was your father’s horse. I understand how much the things which link you to a lost parent matter. My mother’s ruby means the world to me. I could never part with it. Fortunately, I never have to watch it age and die. Such attachments merely make us human, Thea, and, in case you were wondering, I certainly don’t judge you for falling apart at the prospect of losing him yesterday. Grief is also human. It’s real and it’s visceral and it hurts.’ Something he would understand more than most. ‘What does concern me is the way you blamed yourself for what happened, when you were blameless and it was the droning, spitting Colonel who shot the gun. He just came around to apologise, by the way. I left your uncle reading him the riot act.’ His other hand gently tipped her face to him. ‘Why would you blame yourself for a freak accident?’

‘It’s ridiculous. You really wouldn’t understand.’

‘You understood how I lost my fortune thanks to my momentous fluster all those years ago. What makes you think I won’t be equally as sympathetic?’ Those unusual silvery-blue eyes were unwavering and kind. ‘I am assuming it has something to do with your father... Your uncle told me the last words you exchanged on the day he passed were said in anger.’

‘They were.’ Thea considered lying, then discounted it. He would know if she lied. He was that perceptive. ‘He wanted me to spend an extra hour with my governess perfecting my times tables. I wanted to climb Uncle Edward’s apple tree. I told him I hated him and he never came back.’

‘You were a child. He knew you didn’t mean it.’

‘Did my uncle also tell you that the last words I said to him before his stroke were also said in anger? Just like that awful day when my father was killed, I had given the rebellious part of my nature free rein and as a result my uncle and I butted heads worse than we ever had before. The eerie similarities are not lost on me.’ He frowned, disbelieving. Who could blame him? To her own ears what she was trying to articulate sounded daft.

‘There was a man. An officer. He was a few years older than me, handsome, dashing and charming and like a dolt I believed all his flowery words. Uncle Edward saw right through him from the outset, but I wouldn’t listen. Even when I was presented with evidence of the man’s many debts I refused to consider such an experienced and intriguing gentleman would be so shallow to want only my money when he sounded so sincere. To cut a very short story shorter, being underage, I was forbidden from seeing my dashing soldier again and in response I was a total horror. I accused my uncle of being jealous, because his relationship with my aunt was so hideous he couldn’t bear to see me find true love.’ The next part was the bit she was most ashamed of, so turned her head away in case he also judged her as harshly as she judged herself.

‘My uncle is not one to lay the law down, so the fact he had was unusual and I should have heeded him. But against his express instructions, I sent my beloved a note and crept out that night to meet him. He tried to seduce me, promising he would happily marry me once my virtue was gone, and alarm bells began to ring. We barely knew each other—three dances over two separate assemblies was the full extent of our acquaintance and already he was suggesting marriage? I was a dolt, but clearly still a suspicious one. It didn’t ring true. I tested the theory by lying and telling him that I wouldn’t receive a penny of my fortune till I turned thirty.’

‘If he had loved you, he wouldn’t have cared.’

‘I know. But instead he said something which proved me to be the stupidest of fools and the most wilful of idiots.’ She mimicked the scoundrel’s overly sincere voice. ‘Your uncle won’t see you in the poor house, my darling . I am certain the terms of your trust can be altered.’

‘Ah.’

‘Ah, indeed. I ran home with my tail between my legs and walked through the door to chaos. My aunt was wailing about what was to become of her. Bertie was beside himself with grief and the physician said my uncle wouldn’t survive the night.’

‘Ergo, in your mind, you were somehow responsible for his stroke just as you were your father’s carriage accident? When you weren’t present for either event, nor witnessed the particular circumstances?’

‘Both times I was lured by forbidden fruit.’

‘Did your uncle know that you had disobeyed him?’

‘No. He still doesn’t.’ Gray was using logic when all the tangled emotions inside her were completely illogical. ‘I told you it was daft. But perhaps if I hadn’t roused both of their tempers, neither tragedy would have happened?’

‘And perhaps they still would have. None of us can fully control what fate has in store for us. How old were you?’

‘Barely twenty and too green for my own good.’

‘It’s a dangerous age, twenty. You think you know it all when really you understand nothing of the world. As I know to my cost.’ His foot brushed hers in the water and he stared down at it for a few seconds before moving it away. ‘I suppose there were echoes of what had happened before. Enough for a vivid imagination to combine and jump to superstitious conclusions. But that doesn’t explain yesterday’s reaction. You never once lost your temper or rebelled. Did it churn all that misplaced guilt up again? All we did was have a perfectly pleasant morning ride to the village.’

‘That Impetuous Thea orchestrated.’