He sighed. What could he say to her? It was clear that she was unwilling to let this go the way he had hoped she would. She wanted an answer.
Maybe she ought to have one. He couldn’t tell her everything, of course, but maybe he could tell her some of it. Maybe if he let her in a little bit, she would at least be comfortable in the knowledge that his actions were not a betrayal of her.
“I’m looking for something,” he told her. “That’s why I go out every day. There’s something I need to find.”
“All right,” she agreed. “What is it you’re looking for?”
He shook his head. “That I can’t tell you,” he said.
“Of course, you can’t.”
“I really can’t,” he said. “I need you to trust me, at least somewhat. I’m telling you as much as I can because I realize how frustrating it’s been for you to be kept in the dark. But there aresome things I must keep to myself. I can’t tell you every detail. Let it be enough for you to know that I’m conducting a search for something, and I don’t know how close I am to finding it. But until I do, I’m afraid that a great deal of my energy must be devoted to the search. It’s something I can’t allow myself to turn my back on.”
“Are you saying there will come a time when this search of yours will be over?” Isabella asked. “And things will change?”
“Maybe,” Arthur said. “I certainly hope so. It isn’t something I can promise to you. But all the work I’m doing is in hopes that I can bring my search to an end and that I’ll no longer have to worry about any of the things that keep me so occupied right now.”
“This is why you don’t want me to go into your office, isn’t it?” Isabella asked. “There’s something you don’t want me to know about. Something you don’t want me to see.”
“Something I wish to keep to myself,” Arthur confirmed. “It’s not that I have any desire to keep secrets from you, Isabella. It’s just that some things must be managed privately. It will do neither of us any good for you to know all the details. I know you feel as if you’d like to know more, but I have to ask you to trust me in this.”
Isabella hesitated. “I would like to trust you,” she said. “I would like to believe that things are as simple as you say they are—that you’re taking care of something I simply don’t need to know anything about. But it’s difficult to do that when the ruleskeep changing, and our lives are so full of secrets. Where’s the foundation for trust? What can I possibly hold on to? Nothing is constant.”
“I suppose that’s true,” he agreed. “And yet…I do have to ask for your trust. It’s all I can do.”
Isabella nodded slowly.
“You will trust me?”
“I’ll try. For now, I’ll try.”
Arthur sighed. “Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it. And do you believe me, at least, that I’m not having an affair?”
“Yes, that I believe,” she said readily, and he was surprised by how relieved he felt to hear her say it. He hadn’t known until this moment how unhappy it was making him to think that she could suspect him of such a thing. “It never did seem like the sort of thing you would do,” she added. “It never seemed like your character. I suppose I suspected you because I know gentlemen can be that way to the ladies in their lives—I mean, just look at my father. He never married my mother even though she gave him two children, and when she died, it was only by a miracle that we had anywhere to go at all. I’m sure he would have been just as happy to be rid of us—send us off to an orphanage or even into the streets to make our own way. He didn’t care.”
Arthur nodded. When she put it that way, it was easy to see why she would find it challenging to simply trust anyone. “You know that I would never do anything like that,” he said. “I would never turn you out. I would never allow anything bad to happen to you. You’re my wife, and that’s something I take very seriously. I’ll always look after you, no matter what.”
“I know,” Isabella said quietly. “I understand that, Arthur.”
“Good.”
“I have another question.”
“You may as well ask it since we’re getting everything said tonight,” he told her. “I wouldn’t want you to walk away with anything lingering on your mind.”
She nodded. “You may not like it.”
“That doesn’t appear to have stopped you up until now.”
Isabella smiled slightly. “All right,” she said. “My question is—the attic. You’ve told me I can’t go up there. You don’t permit any of the staff to go up there. It does make it seem as though you’re hiding something very serious. And I want to trust you. But I can’t stop asking myself—what could be in the attic if it’s so important for everyone to stay away?”
Arthur nodded. He had been a fool to think he could avoid this forever.
“Come on,” he said, putting his tea down. “I’ll show you.”
CHAPTER 25
Isabella could hardly believe this turn of events.
