“Ha,” she muttered. “As if sleep will come easily before this situation with Colin is fully resolved.”
She had no idea how long she lay there, her spinning mind reminding her of every word he’d written, of every kindness he had ensured for her while they were under this roof together. Thinking of London and the way he had touched her there, physically and emotionally.
She knew she loved him. That had been true for a long time, and the depth of her feelings meant she couldn’t just forget it. Or him. But was she a fool for love if she let him in after what had passed between them?
“Is love enough?” she whispered, the words hanging in the air like a crack of a whip.
There was a sound at the door that connected their chambers, and she sat up. A letter now rested on the floor close to her door, which meant Colin had slipped it under. Was he still standing there?
She stood and walked over, crouching down to take the letter and peeking at the space beneath the door. The light from the other room looked unimpeded. It seemed he had walked away after delivering the missive. Aside from their chance meeting in the woods today, he was serious about not forcing his presence on her physically.
Just his words.
She broke the seal and drew a deep breath before she read over her letter to him from so long ago. Her hand had shaken less as she wrote this one. And yes, it contained continued pleas for him to respond, but this was where she had shifted her approach. It had been so very lonely in Applegate. She was liked by the tenants and the staff, she knew that. But they all saw her as lady of the manor. None could be counted as friends.
In her quiet, in her loneliness, she had decided she would write to Colin and tell him about her life. Partly she had hoped it would soften him to her. Partly it was to share something with someone other than her sister, who wrote back regularly, but mostly to protest her being sent away.
So she had written this letter and told him about the state of his estate, the kindness of those who served him, and one funny story about their minister, who had not noticed that he was wearing two different shoes when he got up to the pulpit the Sunday before she wrote.
Dearest Jane,
You don’t know how this glimpse into the life you led while we were apart made me smile. I would not have been able to keep myself from doing the same had I read it when it was meant to be delivered to me months ago. After all, Reverend Lancaster has been serving the Applegate community since I was in short pants, and I recall his forgetfulness. I hope to one day tell you stories of pranks we played on the poor man and what a good sport he was.
I would have written to you by this point, Jane. I would have begun to open my heart and questioned whether or not the lies I believed were true. I must hope I wouldn’t have been so cruel in the face of your sweetness, your light. God, I hope I would not have been.
That you love Applegate means the world to me, you know. I adored coming here as a child. I have a hundred stories to tell you and a dozen hidden gems to show you if I ever earn the privilege. I cannot wait to read more about your time here, despite all my regrets.
All my love,
Colin
Jane felt a tear slide down her cheek and wiped it away with the back of her hand. It was funny that this was the letter he had written to her, considering their encounter earlier that day. Those moments in his company had shown her how they could explore this place they both loved together. To merge their experiences, share them while they laughed. Perhaps create some new ones together. That future felt so real, so powerful that she could almost grasp it in her hands.
She crossed to her bed and climbed up, setting the third letter beside the first two. She stared at them, lined up in order, then picked up the first and read it, followed by the second, followed by the third. With every word, with every swirl of his hand, with every moment that passed, her resolve against him weakened.
“Could you not grasp your future in your hands?” she asked out loud, letting the words hang around her. “Could you not find a way to face this, not alone in this room, but with him at your side?”
She closed her eyes and rested back against the headboard of her bed. Colin had always been such a formal presence. He was proper except for those moments when he was overcome by desire. And yet in his letters, he allowed himself to be open. To reveal parts of a painful past to her. To reveal himself as he offered his apologies to her, his explanations, his heart.
Allowing her eyes to open, she looked at the door that separated her from Colin’s chamber. All of her wanted to open it. To open to him. And yet a tiny, niggling doubt remained. A fear that kept her from going to him.
“Sleep on it,” she advised herself, knowing it is what her sister would say if Alicia were here to talk to. “Sleep on it one more night and let tomorrow come. And with it all the risks that could come from letting him in.”
With a sigh, she leaned over and blew her candle out, burrowing into her covers as her fingers clutched Colin’s letters, her mind ran over Colin’s words and her heart throbbed in time to all the hopes she had for what every tomorrow could bring.
Chapter Twelve
Jane arched into Colin’s body, feeling his warmth swirl against her as his mouth sought hers, his hands ran over her. It was everything and she sank into it, opening to him as he positioned himself over her and—
She jerked awake and stared at the canopy above her bed, her breath coming short and her body throbbing as her dream faded and reality returned. She was alone in her bed, her sheets tangled around her legs. And what had woken her was the scrape of something coming under her door.
She bolted upright, dragging the covers up as she stared across the room. There, sitting on the wooden floor waiting for her, was the fourth of Colin’s letters to her. And suddenly all her questions from last night were answers, all her hesitations erased. She wanted to see her husband. She wanted to start anew with him.
She wanted it all now.
Throwing back her covers, she leapt from the bed and raced to the door, but she heard Colin’s chamber door shut before she could open it. With a sigh, she caught up the missive on the floor and tore it open. Her message to him, folded within the pages of his, was about her life in Applegate and more requests for an audience.
When she began to read his response, her breath caught.
