She could not look at him. “I’m not—a sudden headache. I must go lie in a dark room.”
“Susannah, you’re not well.“ He laid a cool hand on her cheek. “You’re pale.”
“I suffer from megrims at times.” She hadn’t had one since she stopped having her courses, but still. “I just have to lie in a dark, quiet room for a few hours.”
“I’m jealous,” Henry whispered. “Can I come see you in a few hours, then?”
“Yes, yes.” She tried to smile.
She’d be long gone in a few hours.
My lord?—
I think I’ll find it much easier to write somewhere else. In a few months time, I will either send you a completed manuscript or, failing that, return the money you have already paid me.
Thank you for your many kindnesses,
Miss S Beasley
Dear Mina?—
I wondered if you would mind if it didn’t turn out to be a Tommy Treadwell book I wrote for you? I am thinking of a very special set of adventures for a girl. I’d like to name her Willa. It’s an old name—this morning I discovered there were two queens named Willa! Queen Willa of Provence (that is in France) and another Queen Willa in Italy. Willa is very close to your own name of Wilhelmina, so if you would rather I chose a different name, I can change it.
But the heroine of my book is a brave girl and so clever—just like you.
I’m very sorry to run away. I hope you will forgive me.
Your humble authoress
(and friend),
SA Beasley
Sixteen
Every moon, the concubine bled, and her king consoled her by telling her she need not give him a child.
He meant to be kind.
He did not realize a child was something for him to give to her.
—The Concubine and Her King.Unpublished MS.
Henry had left a day after her and been a day behind her the whole way, no matter how often they’d changed horses, because when he’d first gone to her empty bedchamber and discovered her note to him, he had lost all sense of himself.
He’d forgotten he was once a damn good officer, and he should recognize a strategic retreat. He’d forgotten he was an earl, and he had the power to solve unsolvable problems. He’d even forgotten he was a man who should ensure the safety of the woman he loved.
Even if she didn’t want his love.
But in the middle of that long, dark, wretched night, beset by bullets that weren’t there and screams of silence, he had gone to watch Mina sleep. And he had remembered a lonely, empty man who didn’t even know he had love to give when he had breached the front gate of a foundling hospital and demanded his granddaughter.
Henry Delamere came back to himself, left the nursery, woke his household, made the carriage ready, left at dawn.
Now he strode heedlessly under the ancient lychgate, waded through uncut grasses that reached above his boots. The trunk of the stone elephant doused him as he went under it. No matter. He was already soaked through from the summer rain. He rounded the back corner of the church, stepped over stones, and?—
Susannah.
She sat, huddled in a corner of the ruined church, as bedraggled and wet as he. She saw him and pulled her knees to chest and hugged them.
