Would it matter if he did not?
Perhaps it would ultimately be a huge relief. She would not have to make the momentous decision.
Or perhaps she would be heartbroken.Really?Just a couple of weeks ago she had disliked him intensely. She had been repulsed by him—but only because you did not recognize that what you were really feeling was attraction, Estelle. An attraction that horrified you because you did not believe he was the sort of man to whom you ought to be attracted.
He was not at all the man she had thought he was.
She had a sudden mental image of him standing on the terrace outside the house here, gazing toward the Palladian bridge, his face lit up with a smile like sunshine as he gazed at Ricky. She saw him laughing and catching Ricky up in his arms, dirt and smell notwithstanding.
A man filled with sudden and total joy. Hewascapable of happiness.
She sighed.
There was a light tap on the door of her bedchamber.She stopped brushing her hair. Her maid? No, Olga would have let herself into the dressing room if she had forgotten something. Bertrand? Normally he would just come on inside after tapping on the door to warn her. She crossed the room and opened the door a crack.
Ah. She was suddenly aware of her nightgown and bare feet and flowing hair.
“I am going out to the summerhouse,” the Earl of Brandon told her, his voice soft.
Now? At this time of night? It must be close to midnight.
“I need to... read it,” he said. “You saw?”
“The document from the safe?” She spoke as softly as he and opened the door wider.
“It is addressed to me,” he told her. “In my father’s handwriting.”
“Oh,” she said. In the flickering light of the candles on her dresser he looked very pale. She reached out and set a hand on his arm, forgetting her appearance for a moment. He was wearing a greatcoat and boots and looked even larger than usual.
“I need to read it,” he said. “But not here. Not in this house. I am going to take it to the summerhouse. Will you come with me?”
She closed her eyes. The letter might say nothing of any significance. On the other hand, it might be full of bitter recriminations. Or it might offer a final word of forgiveness. It might be everything. Or nothing. Whatever it was—or was not—it might break him. She opened her eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “I will get dressed.”
“I will wait here,” he told her before she shut the door and stood for a few moments, her eyes closed again, her hand still on the doorknob.
She hurried into her dressing room.
Twenty-one
Justin sat on the top stair while he waited, a lantern beside him. He tried to still his thoughts, something at which he was generally good. He did not want to consider the fact that he normally kept to himself all that was deeply personal and shared it with no one. Solitude was his preferred state, especially when something was weighing upon him. It had all started, he supposed, on that day twelve years ago when he had made the decision not to defend himself to his father. It had not been absolute then, for he had fled to his aunt and uncle and poured out the whole of it to them. But he had felt almost instantly the burden he had put upon their shoulders and had resolved never to do that again.
So why the devil had it seemed important—even essential—to him that Lady Estelle Lamarr be with him when he read his father’s letter? And why tonight, now, close to midnight? At the summerhouse, rather than here?
He tried not to think.
He did not time her. But fewer than ten minutes musthave passed between the shutting of her bedchamber door and its opening again. She was wearing a long dark cloak with the loose hood pulled over her head. He took hold of the lantern and got to his feet.
Her eyes were on him as she approached, large and steady and calm, and he took her hand in his and led her down the stairs. He released it in order to unbolt the main door and open it. She stepped out beneath the portico ahead of him and waited while he shut the door. She raised her hand and set it in his again.
It was not a dark night. The lantern was hardly necessary. It was not cold either. He hesitated for a moment when they reached the corner of the house. Normally it was to Captain he turned for company and comfort. One did not have to confide in a dog. A dog sensed when it was needed. But tonight it was a person to whom he had turned. Tonight he kept on walking.
They did not talk. Neither of them had uttered a word since she closed her door to get dressed and accompany him. But Justin did not believe he had ever felt closer to any other person. The letter—paper? document? The whatever-it-was in the inside pocket of his coat had a physical weight and heat out of all proportion to its appearance. It might be no more than a list of what Justin would find in the safe. It might be anything in the world. At the very least, though, it was paper upon which his name was written in his father’s distinctive hand. It was ridiculous, perhaps, to take comfort from that single fact. Perhaps what was inside that sealed paper would break his heart, or what remained of his heart. And perhaps that was why he had not immediately broken the seal and read what was inside. And why he had not done so when he went to his own room. Maybe it was why he needed her with him.
He led the way up the stairs inside the summerhouse to unlock the door at the top, holding the lantern in such a way that she could see her way up behind him. He set the lantern down inside the door, found the tinderbox, and lit a few candles. She closed the door and stood inside it until he was finished and turned to her.
“Thank you,” he said.
