“Do not abandon hope.”
“Opening my mother’s parcel felt like losing her again. Relinquishing her necklace compounded that. And now I’ve lost my home too.” His words emerged a little sharp. He took a quick breath. “Please allow me a chance to grieve this all. I’m not ready to talk about any of it, so please don’t ask me to.”
“But I—”
“You have a letter to write, Céleste. The sooner you have made arrangements for taking care of yourself, the better your situation will be. You’ll be happier there.” And he would worry a little less about her. “Everyone will be happier with you there.”
She paled. Her hand dropped away, and he felt the loss of that touch all the way to his soul. “One of these days, Aldric Benick, you are going to stop hurting me.”
The rebuke hit its mark. He was so confused and lost. He didn’t know how he was meant to interact with her. He didn’t know how he was supposed to navigate a future that kept being snatched away. But there was no excuse for causing pain to the one person in all this world he wanted most to be happy. This was more of the misery his family forever inflicted on others.
She stepped away from him and pulled her violin case from just inside her room.
“I do enjoy when you play,” he said, “but if Crofton hears, he will likely find a way to use it as a weapon against you.”
Céleste didn’t say anything and didn’t look at him. She set the case on a bench in the corridor beside the doorway they stood in, opened it a little, and pulled something out before closing it again.
“You deserve to have your freedom, Aldric. You deserve a future.” She pressed whatever she had retrieved into his hand. “It is time you claimed both.” She stepped back.
In his hand was Mother’s parcel, still wrapped, still tied in twine, still just as heavy as it had been when he’d handed it to Céleste on the pier in Le Tréport.
“But you paid for our passage with this. We hadn’t money enough. You didn’t have any money at all with you. How did—?”
“I have a letter to write.” She slipped inside her room and closed the door.
It was a message he could not misinterpret: she didn’t want to talk.
He looked back at the parcel in his hand once more. How did she still have this? The captain ofl’Horizonwould not have given them passage out of mere charity, especially doing so in a cabin where they had privacy. How?
Until she was ready to explain, the question would nag at him. But her closed door told him he would have no answers that night.
She’d left her violin in the corridor. Would she even allow him to knock and return it to her? At least he could latch it closed so her violin would be safe should it be jostled.
He crossed to the bench. Not wanting to accidentally catch anything in the hinges, he opened the case.
His heart dropped to his toes.
The case was empty.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Céleste sent her note tothe Beaumonts shortly after breakfast the next morning. She didn’t expect an answer for hours, but she thought it best to set everything in motion as soon as possible.
She pulled on her cloak, tucking it snuggly around herself, and made her way to one of the back gardens. After an endless stream of days spent confined to a carriage, she was anxious to walk and wander and move. And she needed a little distance from the house and the possibility of crossing paths with Aldric.
Once we’re in England, we’ll go back to who and what we really are.
There was a poignancy in the memory of his declaration. At Norwood Manor, she felt very much as she had during her first visit two years earlier. Her heart still tugged when she thought of Aldric, still flipped about when she saw him. And it felt just as unrequited as it had the first time.
She knew she hadn’t entirely imagined his tenderness during their journey. He had come to care for her. He’d felt at least some of the pull she had. And while he had kissed her in order to convince people of the facade they had assumed, his moments of affection had not been limited to purposeful public displays.
He had changed his mind ... or something. She didn’t have the fortitude to sort out what that something might be.
“Miss Fortier?”
She turned at the sound of Mrs. Sommers’s voice. The woman was on the garden path very nearly even with her.
She held out a folded missive. “This arrived for you, and as I was planning to walk around the grounds myself, I’ve brought it to you.”
