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“Go on,” Joan encouraged.
He turned to her, then back to his mother. Kneeling beside the bed, he withdrew his hand from Joan and placed both on his mother’s frail one. “Mother, I want you to meet Joan. She’s to be my wife.”
Joan blinked back tears.
Rowles continued. “She is the loveliest, kindest, most honest and intelligent woman I’ve ever met, and through some miracle she has accepted me.” He gave a low chuckle of disbelief. “We talk for hours, and she continues to challenge my thinking, my opinions, and I’m a better man for it. She is good, Mother. Her heart is benevolent and selfless, and so much more. I…wish you could meet her. Yet maybe this is for the best. You’re not well. So I pray to God that you can hear my words even as you sleep, and that they comfort you.”
Joan reached up to wipe a tear from her cheek as Rowles stood and reached for her hand. She gripped it tightly. “What beautiful words.”
“It was nothing but the truth,” he answered and turned to meet her eye to eye.
She read the honesty in his expression, and it fed her soul. “I know. Yet another reason I am grateful to be yours.”
Rowles swallowed as if tamping down his emotions before speaking. “Thank you for suggesting I talk to her.”
Joan nodded. “I…did the same for my father when he passed. My mother as well.”
“Experience can be a painful teacher.”
“Indeed it can be,” Joan agreed.
With a soft sigh, Rowles nodded once and gestured to the door. “I think it’s time to leave her in peace.”
Joan followed him out into the hall. He studied the nurses. “Please notify me at once if there is any change. Any at all.”
“Of course, Your Grace.” The younger nurse curtsied.
Rowles thanked them and led Joan back down the hall. Her maid met them at the front door as they all climbed into the carriage.
“Penderdale House,” Rowles instructed the driver, and they were soon off and down the street heading toward Grosvenor Square. The carriage was quiet, the sound of the horseshoes on cobbles and breathing the only sounds. Joan was deep in thought, debating on whether to speak to Rowles concerning the last revelation she needed to divulge, or whether she should wait.
Turning her focus to his face, she read the tension there, but it was less than before, as if speaking to his mother had lifted some of the burden. Indecision followed her as they slowed before her house and all exited from the carriage.
“Will you have tea?” Joan offered.
Rowles gave her a nod. “Yes, thank you. I need to speak to your brother as well.”
“Of course,” Joan agreed, and as they entered her home, she handed a footman her reticule and sent a maid off to procure tea for the green salon.
“Morgan is likely in his study. He should be finished with his business in town,” Joan said over her shoulder as Rowles followed. The first to enter through the open door, she noticed three letters on the top of the desk. Curious, she went over to the desk and scanned them quickly.
Three letters.
Three different messages.
Irritated, she wondered whose brilliant plan it was to constantly send false messages along with valid ones to confuse the recipient. It hadn’t worked so far, so why would they keep trying? She’d rather thought criminals were more inventive than that.
She read the third letter and paused.
Rounding the desk, she lifted all three letters and compared them, her heart racing as she checked, then double-checked her suspicions.
“Joan? Is something amiss?” Rowles’s voice interrupted her scattered thoughts.
“Good God, they’re setting a trap,” she whispered, her eyes shifting from one page, to the next, then back. “They want to find out…” She paused, then glanced to Rowles, then back to the pages.
Well, she had been wondering if today was the day to reveal her truth.
It looked like there wasn’t any other option.
