Oscar arrived at Scarfield with the speed of a man who had outrun every other fear but one. He did not wait for the groom to steady his horse; he dismounted at a leap, tossed the reins to a blur in livery, and stormed the front steps two at a time. The door was still swinging wide behind him as he entered the foyer.
“Where is the Duchess?” he demanded of the butler, who blinked at him in shock.
“Your Grace, the Duchess is not in the drawing room, but perhaps?—”
Oscar was already moving, coat unbuttoned, boots echoing up the marble stairs. He tried the drawing room first, then her office, which was empty except for the scent of ink and the faint warmth left by her body in the chair.
He pressed his palm to the desk, willing it to conjure her out of memory.
He was halfway up the main staircase when he saw her. Nancy was at the far end of the hallway, walking toward her chambers with a slow, measured tread. She carried a book—one of his, he realized, recognizing the worn blue spine—and seemed lost in thought.
He called her name. She turned, and for a moment, the sight of her undid him completely.
“Nancy,” he said, voice hoarse.
She looked at him, an instant of confusion passing over her face before she smiled.
“I was just thinking of you,” she said. “I wanted to?—”
Her words cut off as Miss Mercer emerged from a side door, bearing a small bouquet of white chrysanthemums and a sealed note. The governess performed a perfect curtsy.
“These arrived for the Duchess,” said Miss Mercer. “The runner brought them not five minutes ago.”
Oscar’s eyes snapped to the bouquet. “Who sent them?”
“There was no card, Your Grace. Only the note.” She extended it on a silver tray, impeccable as always.
Nancy reached for the envelope, but Oscar got there first. He turned it over in his hand. No seal, only her name—Nancy—in a looping, unfamiliar script.
He looked at Miss Mercer, who seemed the very soul of innocence. “Thank you, Miss Mercer,” he said. “I’ll see that the Duchess receives them myself.”
She bowed and withdrew.
Once alone, Oscar tore open the letter and read:
My Duchess?—
I saw you at the ball, radiant and untouchable. I have never known such hunger.
I dream of the moment I will see you again, my dearest Nancy?—
When the world is less cruel, when your husband no longer binds you?—
Think of me, and I will come.
You are a flame, and I am already burning.
With love,
Your devoted admirer in the darkness
Oscar felt the blood drain from his head, then come rushing back all at once. He crumpled the letter in his fist.
He turned on his heel, stormed into her office, and began ransacking the drawers. Letters, notes, even a slim volume of poems—every page addressed to her, every word a dagger to the chest.
At the bottom of the drawer, he found a book of Wordsworth’s verse, pressed inside with a dried rose. He opened to the inscription:
To N?—
