She bent her head. There was no use trying to lie. “No. I don’t want to leave, nor would I have left if I’d known you were here.”
Relief flowed over his features and for a moment he was younger, less stern, more the man she’d always hoped he could be. “Good. That means I have some small chance.”
She clenched her hands before her and forced herself to remain in her place. “Why did you come, Colin? After everything that happened between us, after everything I said to you, why not leave it be, as I asked you to do back in London?”
He held her gaze steadily and drew in a ragged breath before he said, “Because I love you, Jane.”
She heard a little cry escape her lips, but his expression didn’t change as she processed that declaration, as it wound its way into her heart. There was so much of her that wanted to walk across the room to him and fall into his arms. To accept what he told her and surrender to him.
But when she thought of how he’d been so willing to believe the worst of her, how he’d sent her away and hadn’t even bothered to respond to her when she pleaded with him to give her even a moment of his time…
She had to harden herself.
“Perhaps you believe you do, or think that you must after treating me so callously,” she said, hands shaking before she shoved them behind her back. “But love is not abandonment.”
His face crumpled. “Yes, I do have a great deal to make up for. I want you to understand that I come here with no expectation that you will forgive me quickly or easily. I know I’ll have to earn your trust and your love after all I did to hurt you. But I must tell you one thing that may make it easier.”
She tilted her head. “And what is that?”
“I never received your letters,” he said, stepping into the room for the first time, closing just a fraction of the distance which separated them. “Arthur intercepted them, as part of his plan to keep us apart. So your pleas, the ones you mentioned in London…I now understand what you meant. And I didn’t respond to them because I didn’t ever know they were being made.”
Her lips parted in surprise. There was some part of her that was softened by that truth. At least she knew he hadn’t been ignoring her directly. And yet she still couldn’t fully let him in.
“Colin, this is your home and I have no right to tell you what to do or if you should leave. But whether you knew about my letters or not, you still madenoattempt to bridge the gap between us, judging me harshly without even allowing me to defend myself.” She lifted her chin. “Right now, I have nothing else to say.”
He nodded. “I understand that. You deserve your feelings. But you are right that I remained silent for a long time, based on a lie. A good portion of that fact is held on my shoulders, no matter how I was manipulated into it. If you have nothing to say, then allowmeto speak at last.”
He drew a long breath, then moved forward, pulling a letter from his pocket and holding it out to her. She stared at the folded sheet and then up to his face. “What is it?”
“Please take it,” he whispered, his voice cracking just a fraction.
She blinked as she did so, and he stepped away as soon as she had, granting her the space she claimed she desired. The space that felt less needed now that she’d felt his warmth so close to her.
“You—you wrote me a letter?” she said, forcing herself to remain focused.
“A response,” he clarified. “One long overdue. Read it at your leisure. Read all of them at your leisure. I will not push you, I will not interfere with you. But Jane, I’m not leaving. I’m simply waiting. Just as I made you wait.” He walked to the door where he paused and turned back. “Good night, my love.”
He departed the room, closing the barrier behind him and leaving her in a state of utter confusion. She shook her head and broke the seal on his note, unfolding the sheets. Within, she was surprised to find the first letter she’d written to him, over three months before. She read over it, flinching at the raw pain in her words, the pleas for an audience with him.
Then she turned to his response.
Dearest Jane,
This response is long overdue and for that I am endlessly sorry. I am sorry for a great many things. In truth, perhaps I wouldn’t have responded to this first letter had I received it six months ago. I was hurt and angry, poised on the edge of a cliff where I had no faith in anyone. Pushed over that edge by a manipulator I called a friend. But that does not excuse what I did and all I failed to do for you. I hope that somehow I can find a way to make up for it.
Yours forever,
Colin
She gasped as pain flooded her, and she read his words again and again until they were blurry from her tears.
She set the letter aside and paced her room, confused and torn. His first response had been honest and she appreciated it. But she was still hurt by him. His words didn’t change that. She was so confused. So hurt down to the core of herself that she didn’t have the strength to do anything at all. Not respond to his letter, not think about what she felt.
She let out her breath in a long sigh, then set the letter aside on the bed, eyeing it as she unbuttoned her gown and stepped out of it. She set her dress on the back of her dressing table chair, then shed her underthings and walked naked back to the bed. She stared at the letter, re-reading it until the words felt seared on her mind and her soul.
She glanced back toward the adjoining door. Colin had made no attempt to return to her. She didn’t hear him in the sitting room that acted as an antechamber between their bedrooms. It seemed, against all odds, that he truly meant to give her the space she needed to process all that had happened between them.
She sighed and slid between cool sheets, blowing out the candle as she clutched his letter in her hand. Sleep was what she needed. A good night’s sleep. Only as she stroked her fingers over the thick vellum of his letter, she wasn’t sure sleep would come easily.
