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“Would you like me to?”
She glanced up, surprised. That was a course of action she had not considered. If Nick read through it first, then he could tell her if there was any information pertaining to his history with his brother. And if there was none, she could wait until she was ready to read it herself. To see her father’s scrawl and touch pages he had carefully scribed was a pain she could postpone a little while longer.
She froze mid-thought. Would allowing Nick to read Father’s journal be a betrayal? She searched the man seated before her for any sign of malintent but struggled to find any. Nicholas Pepper was family, after all. He was the future earl and her Father’s cousin, albeit in a distant way. But it was not as if he was a complete stranger.
“That may be a good idea, yes.” Once she had answered, she could feel her shoulders sag from a weight relieved. The journal had sat in the drawer in the table beside her bed for the duration of her time at Halstead, and in the corner of her trunk prior to that for eight months, all the while mocking and taunting and pulling her in. It was a constant reminder of something left unfinished, yet it was something she had no desire to even begin.
Guilt warred with a low buzz of anxiety every time she eyed the holding place of the book, one of the very few things that Father had specifically left to her. He’d even expressed a desire, in his final few hours, that she commit to read it cover to cover. She had promised she would, and naturally she would one day fulfill that promise, but that day was not today. It was not going to be anytime soon.
“You know,” Nick said slowly as he leaned forward, his head tilting in consideration, “we can go through the journal together if that would be easier for you.”
She shot to her feet and swiftly moved toward the door, clutching her hands before her. “No,” she called over her shoulder, “you may read it. I have far too much to do anyway.”
She did not turn back to see his reaction, but instead picked up speed. By the time she reached the west wing she was running.
You know, Ames, she thought, as she made her way into her room and toward the drawer that held her father’s journal, a letter would be awfully nice right about now.
