He looked out of place there, almost disheveled with no cravat and no coat. It made Della imagine things she shouldn’t. Walking into a room like this, seeing Andrew in the midst of his work. Perhaps withhis curls all rucked up and ink all over his fingers. She’d step closer and he’d smile and—
“I would never presume to sit behind a viscount’s desk,” Andrew remarked. He’d interrupted her barely blooming fantasy with thoughts of a harsh reality, and she didn’t appreciate it. He seemed to be observing, too. He ran his hands over the ornate carved wood of the chair’s arms, and Della had never in her life been so envious of furniture.
“Does it make you feel duplicitous?” she asked. She tried to keep the scorn out of her voice, but it was no use.
“No.” Andrew’s face fell. Those dimples hid themselves away in the shadows of his discontent. “I wish it did. Then we could blame it on the desk.”
Della sat with that for a moment. Andrew had always been this way, blunt and honest and always forthright with his thoughts and feelings. He simply didn’t know any other way to be. She’d expected a laugh at her suggestion that the viscount’s recent behavior was underhanded and deceitful. She hadn’t expected him to agree, and so readily. She remembered his letter, though, in which he’d said he liked to blame her parents for inane, trivial things like puddles and lost spectacles.
This was so much more significant than any of that, and it really was a pity they couldn’t just blame the desk.
“I am sorry, Della,” he began again. His soft face went suddenly sharp. That face was so dear to her, and it caused her physical pain to watch that immediate transformation. “I know they’re your family and I shouldn’t disparage them in front of you, but they’re so...”
His voice trailed off on a frustrated sigh. Della watched as he tried to smooth wrinkles out of his suddenly creased forehead. She was momentarily mesmerized by those slow, rhythmic circles. Her breathing slowed, the beat of her heart relaxing into something lazy and soothed. It was almost hypnotic enough to make her forgeteverything, like where they were and who she was. That she had any problems at all in the world. That there even was a world outside of this room.
“You needn’t apologize, Andrew,” she emphasized. “You apologize too much.”
He stopped the mesmerism, his hand falling away from his face. Now, she could see him in earnest, and that was much more exhilarating than relaxing.
“Is that a habit of yours with everyone?” she asked, because she suddenly had to know. “Or is it just... a reaction to me?”
Andrew looked at her then. Their eyes met, and it was as if there was nothing and everything between them. Things like physical space and time ceased to matter, evaporating like morning dew in the midday sun, but their history remained. In those eyes, she saw the boy with the curls and the wide smile. She saw the only person who’d ever come looking for her.
“I am sorry if I apologize too much,” he sighed. She laughed at the irony, but his eyebrows pinched in response. “But I cannot be like them. I cannot be another person who hurts you.”
Her laugh fell into abrupt silence, like a drop of rain suspended in midair.
Della’s instinct was to refute and deny and dismiss. That passed, though. The raindrop of hurt resumed its fall until it crashed against the ground and shattered. She was hurt, and there was something about Andrew being so incensed on her behalf that brought warmth to the frigid emptiness in her chest.
Her parents were not well-liked people. Everyone she knew had something disparaging to say about them. They were rude. They were arrogant. They represented all the thoughtlessness and vapidity that defined high society.
No one had ever been upset with them because of her, though, and as much as she hated the sight of that normally genteel facetensing up in indignation, knowing all of that was on her behalf tugged at some previously unexplored chamber of Della’s heart.
“So what do we do?” she asked him, leaning forward in her chair and wrapping her shawl tighter around her chest. “How do we... resolve this?”
It felt like an impossible question, as if none of this were ever going to be settled. Her world had been upended, and the only thing she knew was that Andrew Lockhart sat in front of her, ready and willing to help. Even that was difficult to fathom.
“Do your parents keep any important documents here?” He began to look around, peering into desk drawers and eyeing the shelves on the wall behind her. “We could find the letters patent or look up the barony inDebrett’s. But there might be something here. I’ve no idea how many estates they have, or where they’d keep their records. I don’t believe my father ever dealt with things of this nature on the viscount’s behalf—”
He stopped speaking so abruptly, and Della could almost see the path of his thoughts.
“I am sure your father knew nothing about this,” she assured him. “And if he did, I could not blame him for choosing not to risk his position by sharing that information.”
Della remembered Andrew’s father. He was always kind to her, with that same warm smile she was so glad to see Andrew had inherited. There was nothing in her heart that could find ill will for him, even if he had been a part of keeping this secret.
“I am—” Andrew started again.
“No, please don’t apologize.” Della smiled. She took over the conversation from there, rubbing her palms on the skirt of her gown to keep the joints in her hands warm. Her mind raced with thoughts of where her parents might hide any tangible proof that the property in question was indeed hers.
Her mind came up empty, her thoughts trapped in a dense fog thataccompanied her worst pain. It was not the time for this, she decided. She was holding too much hurt already. She simply couldn’t add any more.
“Would you excuse me?” Della stood up too fast, and her entire body wobbled as her knees debated whether or not they’d support her weight.
She fled the room without looking back, and without another word from Andrew.
Chapter Eleven
Today was theworst of all days. It was time for the doctor to come attend to her, as he did yearly. Sometimes more often, if she fell particularly ill. More so than usual. That happened occasionally, and those visits were thankfully usually brief. He’d prescribe rest and constitutional walks and occasionally laudanum for her pain. These yearly examinations, though, were thorough and thoroughly vexing.
