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“She is involved in the scheme to get me married. Now, I cannot begin to tell you how much that breaks my heart.”
"Daphne is her friend. If she thinks you are pursuing her friend and will make a good match, then she will encourage her to welcome your suit,” Nicholas returned.
"You don’t understand me. Your wife is aboard this scheme along with the old crone."
Nicholas was quiet for a moment. He knew his grandmother and Jenny got along on occasion but he never would have guessed they would work together on something like this. Ernest seemed sure but Nicholas still had doubts. "It is quite unlikely that they would work together to get you married. Not unless—"
Nicholas cut himself off as he recalled the dowager’s opera invitation; how healthy she had appeared the following afternoon when they had called upon her. If she indeed had been sick the evening prior, she would have looked it. Could she be—?
“Your Grace? The Duke of Seaton?”
An attendant of the establishment was standing with a missive in his hand when Nicholas looked up. “Yes?”
“This arrived for you.” He preferred the missive.
Nicholas accepted it, rummaging through his pocket for some coin to be delivered to the post boy that must be waiting outside as was customary, but the attendant declared, "The boy is gone, Your Grace."
"The post boy?" Nicholas asked, surprised.
"It was no post boy, Your Grace. The fellow looked like one of the vagrant children in the neighborhood. He seemed in a bit of a hurry, too."
That struck Nicholas as odd. "Very well. Thank you.” He dismissed the attendant. Messengers never passed an opportunity to make some extra coin. The missive was sealed with plain sealing wax and there was no return address. Nicholas unfolded it and scanned it, noting the fine penmanship that judging by the punctilious strokes could only belong to a woman.
Your Grace,
Some truths may be forgotten by you but will never be lost to those it has harmed. We do not begrudge you your newfound happiness but know that what you have done in the past will certainly surface in your present. Be prepared.
Sincerely,
An old acquaintance.
The missive was brief, but the cryptic message alluding to his past and the mention of a forgotten truth and how it could change the present cast a bleak cloud over his mood, and a hundred different questions sprang to his mind. “What is it? You look like you received a letter from a ghost.”
“It is nothing. I should go.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.” Ignoring Ernest’s remark, Nicholas stood to leave.
* * *
As Jenny quietly nibbled on her toast and cast furtive glances at her husband who sat across from her at the round breakfast table, she thought about how he had not been himself since his return to the house yesterday.
His current preoccupancy appeared to be more than just an effort to avoid her. He had contrived to spend as little time with her as possible since that dreadful conversation but this was more. Something was happening beneath the surface. It was clear that she was not the reason he put up tall walls to shield himself.
Asking him what was in his mind last night over dinner had given her very poor yield and although she was tempted to ask him this morning, she supposed the outcome would be the same; he would likely dismiss her again.
She carefully spread a generous amount of blueberry jam on a slice of toast and placed it on his plate. He gave her a surprised look. “You have not been eating. Coffee alone will not sustain you until luncheon.”
“Thank you,” he murmured, picking up the toast and biting into it.
Regarding him right then, she felt as if he was silently making an effort to reach out to her but was being hindered by something. Perhaps that hindrance was the very thing that had brought on his current predicament.
"Your grandmother has invited me to go riding with her later today," Jenny announced. "Would you like to join us?" She asked in the hopes that he would accept it as a means of diversion. It could do him some good.
"You go on. I have accounts to reconcile. I will see you at dinner." He folded the newspaper he had been occupying himself with and pushed to his feet, tucking the paper underneath his arm.
Jenny opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. She did not know what to say. With a sigh, Jenny reached for her overly sweet coffee. When she had woken that morning, it had been with a hankering for something sweet. “Bentley,” she called, finishing her coffee. “Have you learned anything new about my rocks?”
“No, Your Grace, we have still been unable to find them.”
