Page 99

Would she mention the yew maze? Would she slip in sly references to past conversations? To intimacies? He would soon find out.

Carefully, he slid a knife beneath the seal and then unfolded the paper.

The lines were straight and the letters neat and narrow, but careless dots of ink splattered on the edges. He frowned.

Carelessness was not part of Lenora’s character. At least, the not part of the Lenora he’d thought he’d come to know. And yet her lines’ thickness changed in places, betraying inconsistency, hesitation, perhaps even impatience.

Had she found writing to him a chore? Was that why she’d taken so long to post a letter?

He stared down in consternation. His anticipation slowly drained.

Wary now, he began to read. In the following fifteen minutes, he learned that Eliza intended to festoon Ravenswood with holiday greenery, notwithstanding Adrian’s initial dissent.

He learned Millie had created a pattern for a dress to wear at Almack’s which required the entire county’s worth of tiny, pearled buttons. And that the sisters had gone on four different excursions to find just the right ones.

He learned Emily had just finished yet another notebook of sketches.

And, finally, he learned that, Nettie, besides making pastries and collecting words, had dedicated herself to a new endeavor—learning to play the lute-harp.

But he’d learned almost nothing about his soon-to-be wife.

What was her state of mind? Was she feeling regret?

He reread the letter, hoping to find a trace of the Lenora he recognized—the genuine Lenora. His endeavor was not a success.

Just as if she’d been playacting correspondent, the real Lenora had disappeared between the lines as completely as she hid herself behind other people’s roles.

The only detail she’d shared about herself involved knitting tiny wool spheres to place in her ears while Nettie was practicing. While admittedly amusing, the anecdote was not the kind he’d been hoping to hear.

He’d wanted—no, needed—some proof of her affection. Of her commitment.

Of her love.

By her deeds, she’d proven she loved him. But on the last occasion they’d met, they’d both been so consumed by physical desire, neither of them had ever actually uttered the words.

She’d been angry with him when she first entered the stables. Later, that anger had transformed into a lustful fire. He remembered closeness. Joy. Relief.

But what if he’d been mistaken? What if the catharsis had simply been the release of pent-up desire ignored and stifled for years?

What if their separation allowed remorse to creep in?

A tiny grain of doubt had entered his mind, lodged like sand caught between an oyster’s organs and shell. That doubt rolled back and forth, unevenly coated by fears and uncertainties he knew weren’t quite rational, but that he could not expel.

He’d hoped her letter would ease his worries, prove to him her thoughts had turned to the future and were not dwelling on the many mistakes he’d made in the past.

And not hearing what he’d hoped to hear left him... concerned.

Acting, she’d told him, was her armor.

The first time she’d let him kiss her, she’d responded even though she’d been fearful. What if she’d done the same when they’d made love?

And now, what if she’d intentionally disappeared into impersonal lines of script?

Was she suffering from regret?

He stared down at the ink splatters and lines as if they held some indecipherable clue.

He’d been half-expecting her to come to her senses. He’d a vague fear of suffering the punishment of the mythical Tantalus, with Lenora the water beneath him that vanished whenever he bent to drink, and the fruit on the branches that raised whenever he reached for them.