Chapter Nine
Colin sat in his dressing gown and nothing else, staring at his empty bed and listening to the throbbing pulse that echoed in his aching head. A night of drinking had done nothing to make him forget Jane. In fact, it had only made the emotional pain become mirrored by the physical version.
“Nothing less than you deserve after what you did to her,” he muttered to himself. There was a knock on the door and he sighed. “Yes?”
“My lord,” Simmons said, cracking his door partly. “You have a visitor.”
Colin jumped to his feet. “Jane?”
The butler refused to meet his gaze. “I’m afraid it is not Lady Wharton, my lord, but an inspector from the guard. He says that you told him to call if he had anything further to report on the…situation yesterday.”
Colin tensed. He had said that to the inspector the day before. Only a day? It felt like a year. A decade. A lifetime. But Arthur’s mess would have to be dealt with, no matter how bereft Colin was over Jane.
“Show him to the parlor and see if he would like some breakfast,” he said with a sigh. “And send in Drake to help me ready. I’ll be down as soon as I can.”
“Yes, my lord.”
His butler left, and in short order his valet came in. He picked Colin’s clothing, asking his usual questions about waistcoats. Normally Colin participated in his morning routine, but today he waved the questions off, allowing Drake to choose everything. What did appearances matter? Appearances were what had gotten him in this mess in the first place.
Eventually he was dressed. He thanked his valet with an apologetic nod and then collected himself as he strode downstairs to the parlor where the inspector waited.
He drew a deep breath, trying to put on the visage of Viscount Wharton rather than a grieving husband at a loss. He wasn’t certain how well he did when he opened the door and the inspector turned, pastry in hand, and frowned at him with concern.
“Good morning, Inspector…” Colin said, entering the room and holding out a hand.
The other man shook it without putting down his croissant. “Hyde, my lord.”
“Of course,” Colin said. “My apologies for not recalling that.”
“I understand, my lord,” Hyde said, finally putting aside his breakfast with a blush on his round cheeks. “Yesterday was a trying one, I’m sure.”
“And I think your appearance here must signal that today will be little better. Is there an update on my cousin?”
He braced himself for the news, but Hyde shook his head. “Nothing much, my lord. He was taken to Bedlam in the end.”
Colin frowned. “I thought as much. Perhaps better for him than prison. I’ll ensure he is taken care of comfortably. God, his mother will be devastated.” Hyde nodded somewhat uncomfortably, and Colin shook off his musings. “But if there was no update beyond that one, what is it you came for, Inspector?”
“Ah, yes,” Hyde said, digging into his inside pocket. From it, he withdrew a packet of letters, bound with worn ribbon. “When we searched your cousin’s offices yesterday evening, one of my men found these.”
Colin held up a hand. “I assure you, sir, I have no need to read my cousin’s private correspondence. I’m certain if you think—”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, my lord, but these aren’t letters to your cousin. They are…they’re addressed to you.”
Colin took the packet, untying the ribbon even as he stared at the inspector. “Me?”
“Yes, my lord. It appears your cousin was intercepting certain correspondence before it reached you, keeping you from receiving it.”
Colin looked at the hand on the top folded sheet. It was in Jane’s handwriting. He flipped to the next letter, the next. They were all from Jane.
“Mr. Hyde,” he said, hearing the hollow sound to his voice. “How many letters were there from my wife?”
“We counted thirteen, my lord.”
Colin’s stomach turned. Thirteen. And judging from the dates written on the back of each envelope, this time in his cousin’s hand, they had been sent every week for the three months before Jane made her unexpected return to London.
Now her comment the night before about her pleas for forgiveness, for starting over, made sense. She had written to him every week for half the time they had been apart.
And his silence had been a rejection to her. A verification that he didn’t care for her. That her words meant nothing to him. When, in reality, they meant everything.
Hyde shifted under the weight of Colin’s silence. “That’s all I came for, my lord. I should leave you to your day.”
“Thank you,” Colin said, barely registering as the man stuffed what was left of his croissant into his mouth, bowed awkwardly and left.
Colin sank into a chair when he was alone. Carefully, he arranged the letters along the tabletop, in order of the dates scrawled across them. The inspector was correct that there were thirteen.
He broke the seal on the first and began to read. And sat there for an hour, turning page after page, his eyes stinging as he read Jane’s pleas for an explanation, her apologies for unknown crimes, and also her description of her life in Applegate. Although she always asked him to respond and sometimes there was a desperate tone to her letters, there was also a conversational way to them. Like she hoped that if she shared the minutia of her day, it would open his heart to her.
And it did. God, how it did.
He stood and refolded the letters, binding them again as he called out for Simmons. “Yes, my lord,” he asked as he entered the room.
Colin held out the letters. “Take these to my chamber. And have my horse brought around. I have somewhere I need to go immediately.”
Colin sat in Alicia Beckford’s parlor, shifting uncomfortably in a chair as he awaited the arrival of his wife and her family. He had no doubt her protective older sister would not welcome him here.
He knew full well he didn’t deserve their warmth or their welcome. But he would bear their censure if, in the end, he could somehow make up what he’d done to Jane.
The door opened and Alicia Beckford stepped in. Like Jane, she had blonde hair, but she wasn’t as delicate as her sister. Her eyes were brown rather than blue. At present, she also looked like she was very capable of breaking a chair over his back.
He stood quickly. “Mrs. Beckford,” he said. “Very nice to see you. Felicitations on the birth of your son.”
Alicia’s face remained drawn and angry, and she didn’t offer a hand of welcome to him as she paced inside the room. “Get out of my house, Lord Wharton.”
He froze at her cold order, gathering his composure in the face of her anger. “I understand your rage with me, madam. I know I deserve it. But I must see my wife. Please.”
Her eyes narrowed at the please, but she shook her head. “Even if Jane were here, I would not allow you to see her.”
“If Jane were here?” he repeated, his stomach sinking as a dozen horrible possibilities flashed through his mind. “Jane isn’t here? She did make it here last night, didn’t she?”
Alicia scoffed. “Are you pretending you care for my sister’s well-being now, after what you did to her?”
“I do care,” he insisted, his voice elevating slightly. “Please tell me she arrived here last night.”
She pursed her lips. “She did,” Alicia admitted at last. Colin almost sagged in relief. “And she left very early this morning. So you have stolen her from me not once, but twice.”
Colin stared. “She—she left?”
“Yes, at dawn,” Alicia said with a pained sigh. “As she was sobbing in my arms last night, she just kept saying she wanted to go home. As if you ever provided her with a home. But somehow she loves that Applegate place of yours. She feels safe there, out of the line of your disdain. So you should congratulate yourself, my lord. It seems you’ve gotten rid of her just as you always wished.”
Colin couldn’t help himself. He sank back into the chair, putting his head in his hands as he tried to process what had just happened.
“I don’t want her gone,” he muttered through his fingers. “I know you don’t believe me. I don’t even blame you for that. But the last thing I want is for her to leave.”
Alicia laughed. “Which is why you banished her based on a lie.” He lifted his gaze and found her nodding. “Oh yes, she cried out the whole sordid tale to me last night. I could hardly understand what she was saying through her hysteria.” She took her own seat. “Though you did save her life yesterday. That is the only thing I will ever thank you for.”
Colin shook his head. “I don’t deserve even that. Damn it, Mrs. Beckford…Alicia…I know I’ve bungled this terribly. In ways that were in my control as well as ways that were not. But I promise you, the last thing I want is her gone.”
Alicia stared at him, reading him. “Why? Why would you want her to stay? For your reputation? Your pride?”
He swallowed. “None of those things. They’re the last on my mind. I want her here because I…I care for her.”
Alicia got up and paced away. “How utterly romantic. You care for her.”
“The first time I admit I love her, it isn’t going to be to you,” he snapped.
She spun around at that statement and stared at him. Her defensive posture didn’t change much, but her expression softened ever so slightly. “If you feel as you say you do, I won’t tell you that you don’t have a chance,” she admitted, almost reluctantly. “But you will have to work at repairing this. I have never seen Jane so hurt to her core.”
He nodded. “I hate myself for causing it, I assure you. I’m going to follow her.”
“She’s only half a day ahead of you. In a carriage. It’s a long trip—on horseback, you could likely catch up with her at her first stop at an inn tonight. I can tell you which one she intends to take a break at.”
He considered it for a moment, but then shook his head. “No. What I have to say, what I must do, it can’t be done on the road. At an inn where there is no privacy. Jane wants to go home, so I will let her go home. It will give her a few days of peace, which is what she asked of me. On horseback, I can get to Applegate a day and a half ahead of her. Which gives me time to prepare. I must prepare.”
He realized he was musing aloud when Alicia cleared her throat. He looked at her sheepishly and found her looking at him, her demeanor and expression now far less hostile.
“I-I want my sister to be happy,” she said. “If you intend to make this up to her, if you intend to make amends, I just hope you’ll allow her to come back to London. I miss her, Lord Wharton.”
He bent his head. “I have failed her and all who love her. And I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to make it up to all of you.”
She nodded at last. “Then you best be on your way, my lord. After all, it’s a long ride.”
He followed her as she got up and motioned him to the door. “And I have a stop to make before I leave London. A very important stop, indeed.”