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Nervously licking his lips, Jennings sprinted over to the calling-card table in the hallway and snatched up a note. “She left a message for the marquis.”
“I’ll take it, Jennings.” Quickly, Dustin unfolded the note so both he and Trenton could read it.
Dustin:
I’ve thought of little else but our talk and all it revealed. The answers lie at Winsham, and I’ve gone to seek them. This is something I must do alone. With any luck, a solution awaits us. Don’t worry about me.
Ariana
“She’s with that unscrupulous brother of hers.” Trenton jerked his coat from Jennings’s hands and slammed back into it. “I’m going after her.”
“Don’t, Trent.” Dustin grabbed hold of his brother’s arm. “It would solve nothing. Baxter’s not going to hurt her and perhaps she really will learn something. Have a little faith in your wife.”
After a lengthy silence, Trenton nodded. “All right,” he conceded reluctantly. “But if she’s not back by midafternoon, I’m going to Winsham and bringing her home myself. I don’t trust Caldwell, or his motives.”
“But you trust Ariana.”
“Yes.”
“Then wait.”
Another terse nod. “Until three o’clock. Not a moment longer.”
As it turned out, they had only to wait until noon before the message arrived.
“A letter for you, Your Grace,” Jennings announced in the drawing room entranceway. “From the duchess.”
“For me?” Trenton scowled even as he strode forward to take the message. “How did Ariana know I’d returned?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, just tore open the letter and began to read. With every word, his expression stiffened, his eyes registering first shock, then pain, and finally anger and bleak resignation.
At last, with a vicious oath, he crumpled the note into a ball and flung it to the floor, stalking over to gaze out of the window, his back turned to the other men.
Dustin rose, dismissing Jennings with a swift inclination of his head.
The butler hastened from the room, closing the doors discreetly behind him.
“What is it, Trent?”
“Read it yourself.” Trenton’s tone was strangled.
Dustin scooped up the crumpled page and read:
Dear Trenton:
I’m sending you this letter both at Broddington and at Spraystone to be certain that it reaches you. What I have to say is far too important to take the risk of its not finding its way into your hands.
My love for you is absolute, and will never vacillate or desist. Never forget that.
These past few days of solitude have given me the opportunity to objectively ponder your behavior and how it affects our life together. You know I’m afraid of you. I’ve told you so more times than I can recount. At first I had only your irrational anger and vengeance to contend with, and perhaps, by themselves, I could have withstood them. But now you’ve become delusional, seeing people who no longer exist, striking out at me as if I were a dreaded enemy—one you mean to destroy.
I have wracked my brain for a solution to this agony, one that would help you and, at the same time, make our marriage a viable one. What I have decided may sound cold and unfeeling, but I assure you, I do believe it is our only hope; not just yours alone, but ours as well.
I ask that you commit yourself to an appropriate facility—for a short time only—where you can be among people who are able to help you understand the reasons for your disturbing visions and the mental confusion that has overtaken your life.
I know that, with the proper guidance, you will resolve your internal turmoil and soon be restored to the fine man you truly are.
Until you have acted upon my plea, I’ve decided to stay at Winsham with Baxter, for my own protection. I know the fact that I am safe and secure will comfort you greatly. I cannot, in all honesty, claim that I will miss my weeks at Broddington, nor am I eager to return. Without you there, the estate is a shell of a dwelling, reflecting no part of my soul amid its empty walk. Perhaps with your recovery, that will change and we can begin to build a life together, making Broddington a home and breathing vitality into its sterile rooms.
