Vanessa's blood ran cold.
No. Please, no.
She lifted the lid.
The box was empty.
For a long moment, she simply stared, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. The box was empty. The letters were gone. Six years of letters, six years of her most private thoughts and feelings, six years ofDear Martin…gone.
Where? How? Who could possibly have…?
"Vanessa, dear?"
She spun around to find Aunt Bertha standing in the doorway, her face wreathed in a pleased smile.
"I am so glad you found it. I was worried the box might have gotten lost in all the confusion. These moves are so chaotic, are they not? One never knows where anything will end up."
"Aunt Bertha." Vanessa's voice came out strange, strangled. "The letters. The letters that were in this box. Where are they?"
"The letters?" Aunt Bertha blinked, her smile faltering slightly. "Why, I sent them, of course."
The floor dropped away beneath Vanessa's feet.
"You... sent them?"
"Well, naturally. When I was helping with the packing…your mother asked me to check the upstairs rooms, you know, make certain nothing was overlooked…I found the key on the floor near your desk. It must have fallen from your ribbon. And whenI opened the box and saw all those letters, just sitting there..." Aunt Bertha shook her head, tutting softly. "Six years' worth, Vanessa! I could not believe you had let them pile up so. The poor duke must have thought you had forgotten him entirely."
"The duke." Vanessa could barely form the words. "You sent them to the duke."
"Of course. They were all addressed to him, were they not? 'Dear Martin,' every single one. I assumed they were correspondence you had written but forgotten to post. You know how these things can slip one's mind." Aunt Bertha smiled again, clearly pleased with her own helpfulness. "I had James take them to Montehood House myself, three days before we left. I wanted to make certain they arrived safely, you see. So much can go wrong with the post these days."
Three days. The letters had been at Montehood House for three days. Martin had them…had probablyreadthem…while she was traveling to London, oblivious, thinking her secrets were safely locked away.
He knew. He knew everything. Every humiliating confession, every desperate longing and every pathetic declaration of love she had poured onto those pages for six years. He knew how she felt about him. He knew she watched him across ballrooms. He knew she compared every suitor to him and found them wanting. He knew she had writtenDear Martinhundreds of times, thousands of times, pouring out her heart to a man who had never shown her anything but casual indifference.
"Vanessa?" Aunt Bertha's voice seemed to come from very far away. "Dear, you have gone quite pale. Are you feeling unwell?"
Vanessa could not speak. Could not move. Could not do anything but stand there, clutching the empty box, as the full horror of what had happened crashed over her like a wave.
"Vanessa? Should I fetch your mother? Perhaps some tea…"
"Those letters." Her voice was a whisper, a rasp, the sound of something breaking. "Those letters were never meant to be sent. They were private. They were…" Her throat closed around the words. "They were my diary, Aunt Bertha. Written to him, yes, but never meant for him to see. Never meant for anyone to see."
The color drained from Aunt Bertha's face.
"What?"
"They were private," Vanessa repeated. "And now he has them. All of them. Everything I have ever felt, everything I have ever thought about him, for six years…" Her voice broke. "He knows. He knows everything."
"Oh." Aunt Bertha's hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, Vanessa. Oh, my dear girl. I had no idea. I thought…I assumed…they were addressed to him, and I thought surely you had simply forgotten, and I only wanted to offer my assistance…”
"I am fully aware you wished to assist…” you wanted to help." The words came out flat, hollow.
“I am aware that you had the best intentions at heart, but have you any idea of what has just transpired?
Can you fathom …?”
She could not finish. She could not breathe. The room was spinning around her, the walls closing in, and all she could think washe knows, he knows, he knows.
