Vanessa's stomach lurched. "Mama…"
"Don't worry, dear. Your father and I will take care of everything. You need only say yes when the time comes." Lady Wayworth patted her hand. "It's all going to be wonderful. You'll see. Lord Deane is such a respectable man. Such a steady character. You'll be very comfortable with him."
Comfortable. The word landed like a stone in Vanessa's chest. She didn't want comfortable. She didn't want respectable or steady or any of the other lukewarm adjectives her mother used to describe Lord Deane.
She wanted fire. She wanted passion. She wanted a man who looked at her the way Martin had looked at her tonight, as though she were the most important thing in the world, as though nothing else mattered, as though he would burn down everything he had built just to have her.
Edward caught her eye across the carriage. His expression was unreadable in the dim light, but there was something in it, understanding, perhaps. Support. A silent acknowledgment that he knew what she was feeling, and that he would stand by her no matter what she decided.
"I'm not certain…" Vanessa started.
"Nonsense. Lord Deane is an excellent match. Respectable family, good fortune, pleasant temperament. What more could you want?"
Martin,Vanessa thought.I want Martin.
But she could not say that. Not yet. Not here, in a carriage with her mother, without having spoken to Martin properly, without knowing what their future would look like.
"We can discuss it tomorrow," she said instead.
"Of course, dear. When you've rested." Lady Wayworth settled back against the cushions with a contented sigh. "It's all going to be wonderful. You'll see."
The carriage rolled through the dark streets of London, past the grand houses of Mayfair with their glowing windows, past the empty parks and quiet squares. Vanessa stared out the window at the passing shadows, her mind racing with possibility and fear and desperate, impossible hope.
Tomorrow. Two on the hour. The bookshop on Piccadilly.
Everything would change tomorrow.
Martin had said there were things he needed to tell her. Things she should know before they went any further. The words sent a chill through her, cutting through the warm glow of the evening.
Things he needed to tell her.
The letters.
The thought surfaced unbidden, and this time she could not push it away. The letters her aunt had sent, the letters that had haunted her nightmares for weeks, the private confessions she had never meant anyone to read. She had been so consumed by the terror of Martin receiving them, reading them, knowing her secrets that she had nearly made herself ill with worry.
And then he had appeared in the park, at the precise time and place she always rode. He had sent an anonymous gift that perfectly matched her tastes…tastes she had never told him about, but had certainly written about in those letters. He had looked at her differently at dinner, touched her ankle with a tenderness that had left her breathless, spoken of truths and confessions and things that could not be unsaid.
And tonight he had declared his affection with a passion that seemed to come from nowhere. After years of careful distance, years of treating her as nothing more than Edward's sister, he had suddenly confessed feelings that matched her own with uncanny precision.
Six years,he had said.I have cherished you for six years.
Six years. The same span of time she had been writing those letters.
The coincidence was too perfect. The timing too convenient.
He knew. He must know. He had read her letters, discovered her feelings, and…
And what? Decided to pursue her because he knew she would say yes? Used her own confessions against her, armed with the knowledge that she could not refuse him?
No. She pushed the thought away, but it refused to stay buried. The nagging suspicion that had been building all evening, every time he looked at her with that knowing intensity, every time he said something that echoed her own writtenwords, crystallised into something harder. Something that felt dangerously close to certainty.
There are things I need to tell you. Things you should know before we go any further.
The letters. He was going to tell her about the letters.
Part of her wanted to be angry. He had read her most private thoughts, her most vulnerable confessions, without her knowledge or consent. He had held that advantage over her, had known exactly what she felt while she remained in agonising uncertainty about his feelings.
But another part of her did not mind at all. If he had read the letters, then he knew the truth.
