Page 111 of Thief Taker

“You wouldn’t tell me, I know.”

Her silence was expressive.

Elias swallowed, his eye caught by a small writing desk near the window. “Would you—? If I was to give you a note for him, my lady, would you be willing to send it once you’re able? There’s something…” His face heated. “I want him to understand something.”

“He understands well enough what you are, sir.”

How much had Kit had told her? Not everything, surely. He’d not confess that to a sister. Getting a firmer hand on his unruly feelings, he said, “I want him to understand that I ain’t got no need to pursue him now. No one has.”

Lady Charlotte walked away from the fireplace, turning her back to him. She moved with the same grace as her brother, the hem of her gown sweeping the floor as she stepped over to a small desk. “That is a message I could tell him myself,” she said. Against the grey morning sky, he could see her only in silhouette.

“It is,” he agreed. “But I’d rather say it in my own words.” If he could, if there were words to express what he felt that wouldn’t risk condemning them both if discovered.

Her ladyship was silent again, the fingers of one hand tapping on the wood of the desk. Then she opened it, revealing pen and ink—her own, by the look of it. “You may write your note, Mr. Cole. I confess that you are not what I expected.” He sensed rather than saw her eyes fix on him. “I know my brother,” she said then and walked away from the desk with a gesture for Elias to make use of it.

Tentatively, he sat on the delicate chair and reached for the creamy paper and inkpot. But what to write? How to convey all that he wanted to say in this, his final message to Kit? How to convey it in a way fit for his sister’s eyes? He had no doubt she’d read it. He supposed she had that right.

He stared at the blank paper, willed words to form. He couldn’t write of how Kit made him feel needed, how, in his arms, he felt at once protective and protected. How, in his wild imaginings, he’d dreamed they might sit together before a fire of an evening and do nothing but talk and laugh, how he’d dreamed he might wake in the night to find Kit’s head heavy and warm against his shoulder. How he’d hoped the hollowness Will had left in his life might be filled, the restless drive to hunt the lawless would be quelled, if he woke each morning to those tender smiling eyes. How, in Kit, he’d found the home he’d thought lost forever the day his brother died.

None of that could be written with Kit’s sister in the room, ready to cast her intelligent eyes over his words. Besides, Elias was no poet. He’d learned his letters, but eloquence was beyond him.

Which brought a thought to mind. From his pocket, he produced the note Kit had left for him and smoothed it out on the table.

…remember the words I spoke last night, he’d written, and know that they were true, are true, and will always remain true. I am yours, always.

Dipping the pen into the ink, he began.

Mr. Duvall—he had no choice about the salutation, but hated the formality—Last time we met, I allowed you to think that certain declarations I had made were untrue. I spoke in anger then and would have you know that they were true, are true, and will always remain true.

I wish you nothing but good fortune and happiness, and will always remain your most faithful friend,

E.C.

It wasn’t perfect, but he could do no better and he thought Kit would understand, that he’d recognise the echo of his own words and take the meaning from them. He sanded the ink and then, helpless against his aching chest, pressed his fingertips over the words as if by touching them he could touch Kit himself one last time. Then he folded the letter and rose to his feet. “Thank you,” he said to Lady Charlotte.

She put down the book she was pretending to read, stepped forward and took the note Elias proffered. Her eyes ran over her brother’s name, where Elias had written it across the front of the folded paper, then lifted back to face him. “I will see he gets it, but it may not be for some months now.”

The heavy weight in his heart hadn’t lifted and only sank deeper at her words. “I understand,” he said, and gave her his valet’s bow again. “I’ll take my leave, my lady.”

She dismissed him with a nod and an appraising look, a frown like Kit’s settling between her dark brows.

When Elias opened the parlour door, he found a footman stationed outside, a big man who eyed Elias with overt suspicion. He wondered again what Kit had told his sister that made her so afraid of him but supposed he had given Kit reason enough not to trust him. It burned, though, to think that Kit had left the country thinking so ill of him.

In silence, the burly footman showed him out. Elias was eager to be gone from this austere house, to be inside the coach where he could succumb to his wretchedness in private. But the coachman made him wait while the horses, still in their traces, finished eating their oats.

Just as the nosebags were being put away and Elias was opening the carriage door, he heard running footsteps behind him and turned. Lady Charlotte came trotting down the steps from the house, her skirts lifted in one hand. In the other she clutched a letter—Elias’s letter.

“Mr. Cole,” she said, slightly breathless.

Had he been too overt, despite his best efforts? He tightened his grip on the coach door and braced himself. “My lady?”

Her fingers were a tight knot around the note; he could see black ink between them. “Wapping waterfront.”

He frowned. “What?”

“That’s where Kit sails from. His ship is the Lady Jane, bound for New York.”

“I don’t—Wait. Sails from?”