“Go on.” Dr. Hulke’s hand on his shoulder offered comfort—or condolences.
Please, God. Help me accept what is to be.It was the only prayer to be had now, the only hope there was. Without his sight, his world would remain forever dark.
That isn’t true.
Beatrice.She had brought him into the light again, even when he couldn’t see. She had made life worth living again. He would have courage as she did.
Slowly Theodore opened his eye.
THEODORE STARED AT the two papers, one a letter from Violet that he had received during the war, the other the letter telling of her elopement.The handwriting is different.His stomach turned over, accompanied by a feeling of utter dismay.
He’d been so certain it was Violet who had lied about the letter.Not Beatrice.Had he regained partial sight only to have his heart broken?
Pushing the letters aside, he held the candlestick over the open drawer and used his free hand to rifle through the papers there. He pulled the entire bundle out, set the candle down and began spreading the papers across his desk.Eight.The sum total of letters he’d received from Violet throughout the nearly three years they’d been separated. It wasn’t a lot. She was not a prolific writer. Yet he’d loved each one of her letters, had treasured them and read them again and again.
The handwriting on each was as he remembered, the same carefully crafted script. It matched the writing on the first letter he had extracted. None matched the writing on the letter breaking their engagement, which meant it was Beatrice who had written such painful words.
Theodore turned away from the irrefutable evidence covering his desk. Violet had been telling the truth. It was as he had suspected at the beginning. She’d been a victim, and Beatrice—Miss Worthington—was the actress.Maybe a murderess, too.No.He couldn’t believe that of her. He could scarcely believe this.
His mind returned to the first moments she had gained his trust, when she had gone on about the flowers in his garden, painting vivid pictures with her words, distracting both of them from the awkward task at hand as he’d maneuvered himself back into his chair. She had a way of seeing and appreciating the world that had brought him back into it. She’d brought him beauty and light, much as Violet’s letters had done when he was in Crimea.
The letters. What if—Theodore swept the whole bundle from his desk, including the hateful one, calling him a blind cripple. He wedged the lot between his leg and the chair then wheeled himself toward the door. Earlier, after he had told everyone to leave, Violet and her mother had gone shopping for the day. Beatrice was working in the kitchen. The library would be empty. He’d only to get himself inside—without being seen. Excepting Dr. Hulke, they all believed him to be entirely blind now.
Instead,perhaps,I am just starting to see.
THEODORE WAITED ON the front drive, his eyes hidden behind the dark spectacles Dr. Hulke had left for him. When he heard the front door open and close, he refrained from turning to see Beatrice.
She stopped in front of him. “I was told you wished to see me, milord.”
“You may cease the formality. Your aunt and cousin have left.” He softened his voice at the worry in her expression. “You need never fear them again.”
“Why have they—”
“I asked them to leave. Or rather, I insisted upon it. I may have even suggested that if they did not vacate the premises immediately, I would send their carriage ahead without them, and they would have to walk to Inverness on their own.”
“Oh dear.” Beatrice clapped her hands to her cheeks as she gazed down the drive.
“I suppose that was rather churlish of me,” Theodore said, unconcerned. “Though somehow, it felt less so than when I once made a similar suggestion to you.”
Beatrice smiled. “It appears we have made little progress with your manners this summer.”
“I will likely require a great deal more work if I am ever to be considered a gentleman again,” he agreed.
Her smile faded. “Oh, Theodore, I am so terribly sorry about your eyes.” She clasped her hands in front of her and bent her face to them as if in prayer. “What may I—is there anything I may do for you?”
“Would you be so kind as to guide me to the rose garden?”
“Of course.” She fell into step beside him, and they started down the drive. Theodore closed his eyes as he wheeled his chair, not wishing her to know his secret just yet.
They walked in silence, excepting Beatrice’s occasional sniffle. It required a great deal of self-control for Theodore to refrain from looking up at her. Instead, he followed her directives that guided him safely into the heart of the fragrant garden. He parked his chair between two bushes, one ablaze in yellow and the other red.Flanked by friendship and love. That he had neither with Violet now was most apparent.But what of Beatrice?It was a question he suddenly longed to explore.
No.Notsuddenly.That was not a fair assessment to either of them. The sight of her had not brought about these heightened feelings, though he wantednothing so much in this moment as to look at her at his leisure, to drink in the sight of her and commit every detail of her beautiful face to memory.
But his feelings for her had been growing for weeks, one at a time like stones that were stacked one upon the other to build a castle. It felt like he had crested the top of the wall and seen the glorious views around him. And it was so much more than any disappointment he had felt over Violet, both today and earlier this summer.
But while his senses soared with sudden awareness, it appeared that Beatrice was not of a like mind but weighed down with some unknown sorrow. She had seated herself across from him, one hand pressed to her mouth as the other dashed furiously at quickly falling tears.
“Why are you crying?”
