She looked up at him, fixing him with a stare.
“Do you remember how that night ended?”
“Which night?”
“The first one. With us.”
He realized she meant the night in the Tremberley gardens.
“Of course. We parted ways after we were discovered.”
She sighed, her exhalation pure exasperation. “No. Youleft. I believe you said to Lord Tremberley, ‘Get them off the grounds.’”
“I shouldn’t have done that. But I was shocked. I had no idea who you were.”
“I didn’t know whoyouwere either. And yet you left me there, with my bodice wrenched down, with Marisa and a mortified viscount, who told us we needed to leave immediately.”
He said nothing. He had never considered the scene after his departure.
“You don’t think I was mortified, too? And horrified? That you were—you wereyou. But I didn’t treat you like that.”
“You didn’t see your face.”
“Still.I didn’tleave. And you alwaysleave. That night in the gardens. In the inn. In the study. Even today with Mrs. Warburton.”
“I assure you neither yourself nor Mrs. Warburton wanted to see what I would have been forced to do had I stayed in that room.”
“This is just a jest to you.” She was now working through the letters at a fast clip. She laid each one down again with an angry smack.
He reached out and took her hand, stopping her progress.
“It is not a jest to me. When I leave, it feels that I have no other choice. It is not because I don’t want…to be near you. It is because I can’t figure how to be.”
His own words surprised him. She met his gaze now.
“I am very sorry, Catherine. I never want to hurt you.”
He saw her take in the words. She still didn’t seem completely assuaged, but right now these words were the best that he could do.
They sorted through the rest of the papers until they reached the bottom of the stack. There was no shortage of letters from Eton and Oxford complaining about his halting progress in school. John was surprised his father had saved them all.
“There’s nothing here,” he said, when they reached the end.
“We had to try. In a day or two, we should begin calling on her friends. They very well may know more.”
Catherine was hidden from view, as she was bent behind the drawers, returning their stacks to their former homes.
He heard her moving a drawer violently back and forth.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” The scraping frayed his nerves.
“I think I found something.” Her voice sounded breathless.
“What?” He rounded the desk.
She was holding a torn piece of paper in her hand.
“I found it stuck in the drawer. Tucked into the seam. But I know it’s in Mary’s hand. I spent hours looking at that letter of hers, the last one she sent me.”
