I suspect you will discover there is reason not to turn away again.
Her step was lighter as she walked on toward Eu Plate. He hadn’t said he loved her, but he wanted her to stay. He wanted her to be happy but doubted she would be while building a life with him. This was not the insurmountable obstacle she thought she’d been facing.
She’d gone nearly halfway to the Beaumonts’ home without hardly noticing the distance she’d covered. Her heart was light, and it sped her steps. She didn’t know precisely where Aldric would make his home once Crofton made good on his threat to toss him from Norwood Manor, what had beenhis home the past two years. But he would know where she was, and she no longer feared he would forget her there.
She set her hands in the pockets of her cloak, the beautiful, warm cloak that he had given her. In the right, her fingers brushed against the note from the Beaumonts, she having set it there as she’d begun her walk. In the left was the note from Adèle’s book.
Céleste slipped it out once more, eyeing it as she always did. She didn’t have to read the words; she knew them forward and backward. And in a flash of realization, she knew the handwriting.
She knew it, and that sudden knowledge stopped her in her tracks as terror froze her on the spot.
“I have loved you for seven years.”
Seven years.
Aldric had first met her seven years earlier. She was so young then, Henri’s “little” sister. When she’d arrived at Norwood two years ago, he’d been struck by how much she had grown up. She was stunning and confident and, she’d made clear then, annoyed with him.
But she’d been in love with him the entire time.
I deserve to finally be loved in return.She didn’t realize that she already was.
He’d tried so hard not to hurt her or let his inadequacies cause her more pain than she was already experiencing. And that had convinced her that she wasn’t loved. She’d told him that only Henri had ever said he loved her. Aldric had compounded that pain by pushing her away.
She had asked him if he would be happier when she was gone. And she’d asked in a way that made clear she believed he would be. He hadtoldher he would be. Lud, he had made such a mess.
Benicks ruin families. Benicks ruin everything.
But she had given him a chance to make it right.
When she returned from visiting the Beaumonts, he would tell her how he felt and what he worried about. He would explain the way he’d fallen short in his efforts to help so many of the people he cared for and how walking away, even from the Gents, was the only way to make those failures stop. Then she could decide for herself if he was someone she truly wanted to take a chance on.
Roderick was in the midst of his daily lessons with his governess, so Adèle was with Aldric in the library at Norwood. He would be required to depart the moment Niles and Penelope arrived, which, he had calculated, was likely to happen that day or the next. He was unlikely to be given any grace in gathering two years’ worth of his life in this home that was supposed to have been his permanently. He was sorting through papers in his desk, attempting to determine what needed to remain because it was part of the estate and what needed to go with him. He had his mother’s letter securely packed, along with the parcel that had come with it. The parcel Céleste had pulled from her empty violin case.
Music was a shield to her. It was also a source of joy. That violin was the only thing other than clothing and toiletries that she had brought with her from her home. The only thing. And she had traded it for their passage so that he wouldn’t lose his mother’s gift and the freedom it gave him.
Stanley had offered him a family. Céleste had offered him a future. But what was that future without either of them in it?
He shook off the maudlin thought. He couldn’t have Stanley back, but he didn’t have to lose Céleste.
Adèle was content with her doll, though she did look over at him a few times, likely to make sure he was still there. When he was forced from Norwood, they would have to be separated. That would break her heart. It was already breaking his.
What they all needed was one of those elusive miracles Stanley had always insisted he believed in.
Aldric turned his attention back to his papers, flipping through a few of them and sorting them into the necessary piles. He came across one he didn’t recognize mixed in amongst the papers from his father’s time. The late duke hadn’t often been at Norwood, but he hadn’t avoided it entirely.
Knowing that there had been a haphazard mixture of things, Aldric couldn’t be absolutely certain that this particular letter was one attached to the estate. He opened it and read.
April 3, 1787
Your Grace,
Mr. F. has expressed concern about our approach to our most recent investments. While they have become très lucratifs, it hasalso become très dangereux. I suggest we apply caution for the time being, allow suspicions to settle un peu.
The combination of French and English suggested the writer was a Frenchman.
Fate rewards the patient. We can wait to see how Mr. F. proceeds, then determine our best course. Should he cause us des difficultés, I will address the problem.
Aldric knew his father had been involved in some questionable things, so the contents of the letter, while unexpected, were not truly surprising. Even the overtly threatening tone didn’t shock Aldric. But something about itwasbothering him.
