“What does it say?”
She handed the fragment to him. The page was ripped so that her sentences were fragmented, but, unmistakable, in the lower left corner of the page, he read the words,I start for Edington tomorrow, as you asked.
“She came back to see him,” John said, stunned. “He knew.”
“Heaskedfor it. She was coming back because he wanted her to.”
They sat in silence, looking at the scrap of paper.
“Someone has to know,” Catherine said finally, “what happened. They met here. She came back here to see him.”
“But he must not have known where she went after. If he had known her location, he could have easily put it in the will. Why wouldn’t he have known? I don’t understand it.”
“Neither do I. But it means we’re on the right path.”
Their eyes met.
John swallowed hard, because this new piece of knowledge seemed to have knocked something loose in him.
He needed to tell her the truth.
He couldn’t bear to have it between them anymore.
He needed to see what would happen if this piece of the past no longer stood in the way.
“I didn’t tell you the truth before. Or, at least, not the whole truth, about why I left. At Tremberley. Or the inn.”
She looked up at him. Her eyes glinted, dark and beautiful, in the low light. “Are you going to now?”
“I know you understand,” he began, his pulse thrumming, “what I have been through better than anyone. But, still, we’re not the same.”
He began to pace the room, running his hands through his hair, but she didn’t press. She waited. Finally, he stopped before her.
“Idiscovered them. That day.”
John saw the knowledge hit her. It made her eyes dilate. For the past three days, he had hated himself for hurting her, hated himself for recoiling when Henrietta knocked, and hated himself all over again for thatday, when he had sealed their fates with one childish mistake.
“What do you mean?”
He had never told anyone about his own role in the scandal. Not even his best friends. The only people who knew were the ones who were there. It was a detail that had not made it into the papers. He supposed it was seen by others as incidental. But it wasn’t for him. It had never been a detail.
Nevertheless, he wanted to tell the truth to Catherine now, even if she rejected him. He wanted her to understand everything. He couldn’t let her think he recoiled fromher.
“My father wasn’t with the guests on the lawn. My mother wanted him by her side. She was vexed, I think, that he wasn’t mixing with her guests and usually he was very gregarious. And she asked me to go find him. I searched everywhere. It felt like it took an age.
“I realized I hadn’t checked his study. It hadn’t occurred to me that he could be there, because he was supposed to be at the party.”
“I know they were found in the study.”
He nodded. Of course, she would.
“When I got here, I pulled open the door and there was my father and Mary Forster. And then my mother appeared, with three of her friends, right behind me, at that exact moment. I guess my mother had gotten frustrated with how long I was taking.”
Catherine’s eyes were wide. “So, three days ago, when Henrietta was at the door…?”
“I couldn’t imagine how I’d come so close to making the same mistake. I hated him for years and yet—how am I any better?”
“I never knew that. That you found them.”
