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“We are going to continue our botany lesson inside,” Mr. Roberts said. “You are welcome to—”
“No. Thank you.” He felt like a fool. He’d gotten caught up with these girls, had spent an hour pretending what might have been. He picked up his coat.
“Is there anything you’d like to speak to me about privately?” Mr. Roberts asked.
Joshua looked at the girls, at their now-dirty faces and hems. How several of them had gathered around a caterpillar inching its way along the garden path.
“No, thank you.” He tried to smile but couldn’t seem to manage a proper one. It felt like his mouth stretched out and was on the verge of a scream. He thanked Mr. Roberts again and walked out of the school, passing the overstuffed classroom, the tidy-but-cluttered office. He walked out the open front door and paused to drag breath into his lungs.
He’d just spent an hour with a dozen or so young girls and had survived. The children were...adorable. He glanced back, trying to make sense of the pain in his gut. But when he looked back, something caught his eye. He leaned to his left. It was a bit of cream paper.
He walked to the door and leaned again, peering around the edge. No. It couldn’t be. But itwas.It was a letter, addressed to “A Resident of Devonshire, Concerned.” When did Roberts do this? While he was repairing the row? Before that? Joshua glanced all around him to see if anyone was watching. He yanked the letter free of its tack, shoved it into his pocket, and strode quickly to his horse. And then he rode like the devil away from that school.
At Hollyfield, he stormed inside, eager to read the contents. He was intercepted by Miles, who wandered out of the dining room with Joshua’s dogs escorting him. “There you are. Where have you been?”
“You’re returned to us so soon?” Joshua asked. He glared at his dogs. They would let a band of thieves into the house.
“And a good afternoon to you, too, sir,” Miles said with an exaggerated bow. “I was just about to have lunch. Care to join me?”
Normally, Joshua would have joined him just to remind him that he didn’t actually live there, and therefore could not summon up a lunch at his whim. But the letter was burning a hole in his pocket. “I’ve got something I need to do.”
Miles shrugged and smiled. “As you like.” He went back into the dining room, and his two canine sentries turned and followed him.
“They are my dogs!” Joshua yelled through the door, then stomped to the stairs. He took them two at a time, strode to his master suite, shut the door, looked at it, and locked it. He didn’t trust Miles not to stroll in.
He removed the letter from his pocket, broke the small seal, and read the contents.
He read it again.
And then he sank slowly to the edge of his bed, forcing Artemis to leave his patch of sunshine with a meow of disapproval. But Joshua didn’t hear him. He was staring into space, his mind trying to understand how this had happened. This letter was abouthim.And now he knew that Mr. Roberts hadn’t been writing the letters all this time.Shehad.
How was it possible? And yet, she clearly thought he was someone else. She didn’t know she was writinghim.
He read it again. And once more. He had to respond.
How did he respond? How did he tell her that he didn’t know the answer to her question and wanted to know the answer, too? How did he say that maybe compatibility is a form of love, and it only grows deeper with time? How did he say that she’d bewitched him, confused him, and he’d wanted so much more, but was unable to give her more?
How did he tell her that he was terrified of reliving the same fate with another woman? How did he carry on, knowing her feelings, suspecting his own, and after having seen those girls today?
Joshua slid off the bed and onto the floor. He felt almost in a daze. He loved, he wanted, and yet he held himself away from all that he needed. His breath grew short. His heart pounded in his chest. He tried to stop the burn in his eyes, hetried. But when the first tear fell, the rest rained down on him.
He sobbed for what he’d lost and what might have been. He sobbed for Diana and Carla, for all the mistakes he’d made as Diana’s husband. He sobbed for Amelia—golden, unique Amelia. He sobbed for his broken heart and spirit, he sobbed for those beautiful girls, those perfect, exceptional girls. He sobbed until he couldn’t draw a breath and thought he might suffocate, and then Artemis climbed on his lap and began to claw his leg.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
AMELIAHEARDALLabout the duke’s visit to the school the day before—she figured she must have just missed him, as she’d had been there earlier, answering correspondence. And leaving her own, tacked to the door.
“The Duke of Marley?” Blythe asked a second time over breakfast. She was as incredulous as Amelia.
“Tilly made us curtsy,” Maisie said. “You’re to curtsy to dukes. Everyone knows it.”
“Sariah didn’t know it,” Maren said. “Sariah didn’t curtsy. She doesn’t know how.”
“But what would the duke be doing there?” Blythe asked Beck.
“What does anyone do at a school? Observe, I suppose. I really haven’t the slightest idea.” Beck held Birdie on his lap, and she kept trying to grab his nose.
“And he dug a hole?” Blythe asked her oldest daughter again.
