He closed the door softly behind him. That was when Annabelle noticed her spice map hanging on the wall. Amidst the practical maps and shipping schedules, space had been cleared for her ridiculous piece of whimsy.
She ignored the ache in her chest and forced herself to walk toward the first filing cabinet. The cold metal handle triggered a swirl of nausea as she pulled the drawer open. Everything about this was wrong. She wasn’t a snoop. She wasn’t a spy.
But you are.
It didn’t take long to figure out the filing system Gray used, and it brought an unwilling smile to her face. He organized the work by plant taxonomy, making the files nearly irresistible to her botanist’s heart. Most of the information was about herbs, but he had files on orchids, cacti, and roses. Why roses? Why would a stern man like Gray Delacroix be interested in something as frivolous as roses? She desperately wanted to know. Every time she learned something new about Gray, it revived her fascination with him.
Unless he was a traitor. Hopefully she could absolve him of that charge. She closed the file on Mexican roses to continuelooking for information about Cuban revolutionaries. The faster she paged through documents, the harder she prayed she would find nothing.
And it seemed her prayers were answered. After three days she’d found no evidence to implicate him in treasonous activity. Nothing! She’d gone practically cross-eyed reading shipping records, account ledgers, and scientific reports. She’d even read the letters Gray sent home to his father. At first it was in search of suspicious dealings, but it was impossible to look for such evidence without reading the personal messages as well.
And in so doing, she fell a little in love with him. These letters were stunning in their beauty and the affinity between Gray and his father. Most of it was business, but each letter carried a few personal sentiments as well. Many of Gray’s letters included sketches of the ports he visited, charcoal rubbings of interesting leaves, even a few drawings of the people he met, and he was a surprisingly good artist.
Everything about this job was troubling, but as she neared the end of the files, a seed of hope took root. She stood on the edge of being able to exonerate Gray and return to her normal, mundane scientific job. There were still more letters in the trunk of personal family correspondence to read, but those seemed the least likely to contain anything nefarious. She’d found nothing so far, and each night she prayed nothing would emerge.
Gray finishedSense and Sensibilityshortly after Annabelle brought it to him. He hadn’t read a book for pleasure in decades, and Jane Austen’s merciless social commentary was impressive. The social-climbing Mrs. Fanny Dashwood, with her sense of entitlement and ravenous greed, reminded him of the Magruders. Despite his muscle aches, despite his fever and exhaustion, he lit every lamp in his bedroom to stay awake and keep turning the pages late into the evenings.
As for Annabelle’s assertion that he reminded her of Colonel Brandon, well, it was probably a compliment. The character was a little stuffy, but a man of honor on whom his entire family could depend.
But Gray worried about Annabelle. For the past two days he’d watched from his bedroom window as she came and went from his house. Her shoulders drooped, and she seemed dispirited as she headed up the walk each day.
Something was wrong. She was usually such a sunny person, but it seemed the stress of her sister’s situation was wearing on her. Everything in him admired Annabelle and wanted to save her. He wanted to rush downstairs and plow through the library alongside her in search of something to please the bureaucratic paper-pushers in the government. He’d even considered sending Otis to Mexico in search of that elusive orchid the Smithsonian seemed so eager to discover. Which was ridiculous. That orchid was long extinct, and he depended on Otis for the daily operations of his business.
But the burning urgency to help Annabelle would not ease. He’d use the book she loaned him as an excuse to talk to her.
Pulling on a pair of pants made his head whirl, and he had to sit for a moment to regain his balance. He put on a necktie, combed his hair, washed his face, then grabbed the book and carefully headed down the stairs.
He moved slowly, placing his feet gently to avoid setting off a firestorm in his head. The door to the library was closed, but he knew she was inside because he’d watched her arrive only an hour earlier.
He opened the door to see her sitting on the floor, an explosion of paperwork in stacks around her. It didn’t make any sense. What was she doing with all those old papers? When she looked up, her face was awash with guilt.
The antique chest containing his most private letters was open. He looked at the papers before her, unable to believe hiseyes. He moved closer, and there could be no doubt. She was looking throughhis family’s personal correspondence.
“What are you doing with those?”
She abruptly closed the trunk and gaped at him, apparently speechless. His father had saved his letters, hundreds of them sent from the Far East, Africa, and Central America. Those letters were like peeling back the skin on his soul, and she had been reading them. It took every ounce of willpower not to snatch them from her hand.
Dizziness drove him to reach for a chair before his knees gave out. He held on to the back, bracing himself against the anger roiling inside.
“I am a private person,” he ground out. “My father was as well.”
“I’m sorry,” she stammered.
The letter on top of the stack was from his station in Patagonia. Gray had written of the terror he’d suffered when his ship rounded the infamous Cape Horn, long known as the sailor’s graveyard. The letter was barely legible, written with half-frozen hands while his ship battled surging waves and dangerous winds. Over the years, he’d shared everything with his father, all his triumphs and letdowns. He’d written of his disappointment in failing to establish ties with the Dutch and his confession of the time he had been swindled of their investment in a nutmeg plantation. He wrote of the beauty of the Polynesian women as they danced. He wrote of drinking yak milk and learning the art of pollinating rare vanilla orchids by hand.
Gray closed his eyes and gathered his thoughts. Maybe there was an innocent explanation. After all, he was fascinated by the details of Annabelle’s life, but even if he’d stumbled across a treasure trove of her diaries, he never would have snuck a peek. He valued privacy too much for that sort of violation.
“Why were you reading those letters?” he finally asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said on a shaking breath. “That’s all I can say. I know it was wrong, but I was curious, and I’m sorry.”
It had the ring of truth. While a piece of him was tempted to go on one of his typical rants, there would be no point in it, as she was already awash with shame. The offense was done, and there was no undoing it. He didn’t want to resent her over this. He hadn’t told her she couldn’t explore the trunk, so he needed to let this go.
He shook with exhaustion as he lowered himself into a chair, relieved to be off his feet. “What did you think of them? Our letters?”
Her eyes widened in surprise, and after a moment the shame drained from her face as she pondered his question.
“I’m envious,” she finally said. “You and your father shared a wonderful friendship. That much is obvious from every letter.”
