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With a little luck, Miss Barge is in our past now.
A gentle tap at the door disturbed Elliot’s thoughts.
“Enter,” he called to the door.
“Good day, Your Grace.” His new butler walked in and bowed deeply.
“Good morning, Mr Wilder.” Elliot bowed his head at the butler. After the calamity with Miss Barge, he and Ophelia had agreed not to take on any new staff that didn’t come with a personal recommendation. Fortunately, Mr Wilder had been a recommendation of Harrison’s, and he was already proving to be a very good butler.
“A letter has just arrived for you.” Mr Wilder offered forward a small silver card tray on which a letter was sat, addressed to Elliot.
“Thank you.” Elliot peered at the handwriting, certain there was something familiar about it, though he couldn’t quite remember where he had seen it. The butler was dismissed as Harrison leaned forward.
“Who is your letter from?”
“I do not know.” Elliot pulled open the blank wax seal and felt his body turn cold at what was written there.
My dearest lover, my duke,
I miss you more than I can say. Pray, come to see me again. You know you cannot turn your back on what you and I shared so easily.
Yours always,
Celeste.
“Important?” Harrison asked as Elliot lilt a candle beside him.
“No.” Once the candle was lit, he pressed the letter to the flame and watched it burn, aware that Harrison stared at him with interest as he burnt the letter to ashes.
“Well, that’s not remotely suspicious,” Harrison said, his eyebrows lifting higher. “Why on earth are you burning that letter, Elliot?”
“Because I do not wish to think of it again.” He watched as the last of it burnt low, then he stood to his feet and tossed the scrap into the fire grate in the corner of the room. “It speaks of a time in the past.”
A mad idea entered his head for a moment. He wondered if it was possible that if Celeste was so reluctant to let him go, maybe she was behind the strange happenings in his house—the mischief of Miss Barge and the hiding of the flowers. Surely, Miss Barge would not do it all of her own accord and would have to be put up to it by someone.
Maybe they know each other.
“I do not wish to think about that past,” Elliot said, stepping back as the last scrap of the letter burnt into cinders. “I wish to think of the future instead.”
“If I’m not mistaken, Elliot, I would say you were in love.”
“Love?” Elliot spun round to face his friend, watching as Harrison sat back in the window seat looking quite pleased with himself. His arms were folded, his chin lifted high.
“Look at you.” He nodded his head at Elliot. “Quite happy in your life, are you not? Going to all this effort for your wife, too.”
“She was good to me,” Elliot reminded his friend. “She saved Grace and me. That kindness, that goodness, it deserves to be repaid.”
“I quite agree.” Harrison’s smile continued to grow. “Shall I point out instead the way you keep looking through the window behind me at where your wife is riding? Or shall I discuss how you turned down my invitation for cards last night to spend more time with her?”
“Quit being so perceptive.” Elliot mockingly glared at his friend. “Remind me to be this troublesome when you are wed.”
“Ha! If I will be as happy as you are, Elliot, when I am wed, then I truly look forward to it.” He stood to his feet. “Pray, let you and your wife come for dinner tomorrow night. We’ll play cards, have fun, and I promise not to reveal the secret that you keep—that you are quite in love with your wife. You haven’t told her yet, have you?”
“No, I have not,” Elliot confessed.
***
“You are certain of this?”
