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Grace glanced up at him, then turned back to Lady Augusta and gave her a nod.
Lady Augusta moved away and down the corridor.
Ezra waited until they were alone before speaking. Still he kept his voice soft. “I feel I need to apologize again.”
She spared him only a passing glance. “Do you?”
“You are clearly upset.”
“Of course I’m upset.” For the first time that morning, a bit of sincerity etched its way into her tone.
“Perhaps if I explain again—”
“No.” She held a hand up and stepped back and away from him. “I need some time to think this over.”
He didn’t want her to leave, not still angry or confused because of him. Lud, it burned, this knowledge that he’d caused her pain.
However, if she needed time and space to think, he would respect that. “Will I see you at the ball tonight?”
Her impassive expression was back firmly in place. “I don’t know.”
With that, she turned and left him standing alone in the corridor.
Grace spent the rest of the day in her room. She hadn’t brought all of “Frances’s” letters from home with her. But she had brought a few of the more recent ones. London Season had proved to be overwhelming and lonely, and she had rather feared that this holiday house party may prove the same. So she’d packed a few letters in case she found she needed the connection and reassurance they always provided. She’d not known then how much she’d need to read them over again now.
Did it pour in Cavershire like it did here in London last week? We were shut away for several days, and I found myself thinking of our previous conversation regarding Byron and his words: “And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong.” There truly is a most magnificent strength to a fierce storm, one I cannot help but be inspired by.
She’d fully believed they’d been Frances’s words when she’d first read them. Now, reading over them again, she could only hear them in Ezra’s voice.
Mother was ill again today. I have sent for the doctor, and he assures me she will soon be well and that it is nothing serious. But there are moments I look over and all I can see is the white in her hair, the wrinkles around her eyes, and the years that seem to hang from her shoulders, dragging her down. I have tried to be a support and a comfort to her, but I fear there is much I will never be able to do. Though she speaks of him infrequently, I know she misses my father most terribly.
Grace read the familiar lines, seeing them in a wholly new light now. The evening wore on, and soon she had to light a candle beside her to keep reading. To either side of her room, she could hear the bustling and excited tones of the other ladies getting ready. Her own mother had come to check on her a few times throughout the day, but Grace had simply said she wasn’t feeling up to socializing now. Eventually, her maid had come to help her get ready, but Grace had asked for a few more minutes alone.
She’d been so looking forward to tonight’s ball, but now she felt certain she wouldn’t be able to enjoy herself, even if she did attend. She was much too confused; she had no idea what to think about the letters and all Ezra had told her.
A soft noise caused her to turn her head. A small slip of white rested on the floor near her bedchamber door.
Another letter.
She walked over to it and picked it up. It wasn’t sealed as the Ezra’s other letters had been, but it was clearly his handwriting scrawled across the front. Grace tapped it gently against a hand as she moved back to her desk. She placed it atop the others but didn’t open it.
He’d written her again.
But is that what she wanted? More written words?
In a way, yes. She loathed the idea of losing the companionship she’d found in Ezra’s letters. They’d developed a friendship that had become paramount in her life.
But now?
Now it could never be the same.
She didn’t want it to be, if she were being honest with herself. What she and Ezra had had before wasn’t enough.
But with the lies heavy between them, what chance did they have of building something more?
