He reached for the page as though to fold it at once, then stopped himself. A soldier could face gunfire and still be made a coward by a sheet of paper. The thought almost made him laugh, though there was no humor in it.
After a long moment, he took up the pen again.
Whatever Carter chooses, I will not abandon the matter now. The truth is closer than ever before. I swear to you, Miss Finch, I will see this through, not only for your father or your mother, but for you.
Yours faithfully,
Owen
Owen sanded the page, folded it with care, and sealed it. He sat with his hand resting upon the letter, feeling the heat of the wax cool beneath his palm.
For the first time all day, the road did not feel entirely closed.
Chapter 30
Aurelia read Owen’s letter the following morning beside the window, where the pale light fell across the page and made the ink seem almost newly written. She read it once with breath held, then again more slowly.
Carter was alive. Carter had admitted the report was false.
The words ought to have filled her with triumph, yet they left behind a strange ache instead, for truth, once found, had still proved unwilling to stand upright in the world. A frightened man in a cottage had spoken what her mother had suffered years to preserve, and even then, he would not say it where it mattered.
Still, it was something. Hopefully, more than something.
Aurelia pressed the letter lightly against her lap and closed her eyes. Owen had not retreated from her. He had not regretted the openness of his earlier letters, nor the dangerous kindness that had passed between them in words. If he had seemed formal at the theater, then perhaps they had both been guilty of the same fear: each mistaking the other’s restraint for withdrawal.
She drew a deep breath. There was no use sitting in uncertainty until it consumed her. Carter might refuse. London mightwhisper. General Langley might threaten. But Clara still had a season to survive, and that afternoon they were expected at tea with several ladies whose approval, or at least whose tolerance, might yet soften the cruelty beginning to gather around them.
Aurelia folded the letter carefully and placed it with the others.
They would go and attend the tea party.
So, by two o’clock, Clara’s room had become a battlefield of ribbons, gloves, muslin, and indecision.
“I look dreadful in lavender,” Clara declared, staring at herself in the glass with tragic solemnity.
“You do not.”
“I look bruised.”
“You look charming.”
“That is what people say when one looks bruised, but respectably.”
Aurelia laughed and came to stand behind her, adjusting the fall of the sash at Clara’s waist. “Then wear the blue.”
“The blue makes me look hopeful.”
“That is usually considered a virtue.”
“Not when one is trying to appear above disappointment.”
Aurelia met Clara’s eyes in the glass and saw, beneath the attempt at humor, the shadow that had settled there in recent days. Clara still smiled. She still spoke brightly when she remembered to do so. But the effortless light in her had dimmed, as if some careless hand had lowered the flame. It made Aurelia’s heart tighten.
“Then we shall make the blue look defiant,” she told her.
Clara turned a little. “Can blue be defiant?”
“On you, certainly.”
