Chapter 13 #2
PS You have likely seen the note accompanying my letter by now.
I received it yesterday morning and debated whether to even send it to you.
I haven’t read it, of course, but the servant who delivered it came from the Haythorne household, so I have little doubt who it is from.
If you read it, know that whatever she says to you, she has no power over you anymore.
Or better yet, simply throw it in the fire as I was tempted to.
I straightened, my skin going cold. I dropped Ginny’s letter on the table beside me, then slowly picked up the smaller note that had fallen to my lap.
I did not recognize the handwriting, but Miss Lacey was dashed across the front in a decidedly feminine hand. It had to be from Clarissa Haythorne, but why on earth would she be writing to me?
I knew myself too well. There was no possible way I would burn the letter before reading it.
I broke the seal and opened the letter, dread filling every empty space in my chest.
My dearest Miss Lacey,
What a fortuitous coincidence it was to come across you while shopping yesterday!
If I hadn’t, I would not have had a single clue you had returned to London.
You are ever so private these days, though I can hardly blame you after the business with those awful rumors. I never believed a word, my dear!
I tightened my grip on the page, bending and twisting it.
I did wish to remind you of our conversation when last you were in London. I hope time has not dulled your memory! I would hate for there to be any misunderstanding between us. The past should stay firmly in the past, do you not agree?
Perhaps we might take tea together soon. I imagine we would have much to talk about.
Clarissa Haythorne
Her name was signed with a ridiculous flourish, overbearing and presumptuous.
I stared at the note, throat tight as if it might close over entirely.
My eyes pricked for a very different reason now—anger.
Anger at the unfairness of life, at the futility in attempting to reclaim my reputation, at the absolute injustice that Clarissa Haythorne ruled her London world while I cowered in the country.
That she could pretend such innocence about ruining my reputation when she was the mastermind behind the entire affair.
“Are you well, Miss Albright?”
Mrs. Rawlings’s words were cool, yet there was a strange tone to her voice that I hadn’t heard before. Concern? Curiosity?
I stiffened. I did not want her to see me like this.
“Perfectly well.” I choked on the words.
“If you’ll excuse me.” Grasping my letters in one hand, I stumbled to my feet and hurried from the room.
I started for the stairs, then came to a wobbly halt.
I did not want to go to my room. Agatha might find me there.
Instead, I turned on my heel and darted for the library. In all the time I’d spent there, no one else had ever entered, and I craved that quiet, that privacy.
Closing the door behind me, I retreated to the spot I’d claimed as my own—a particularly comfortable chair settled behind a thick bookcase, which shielded me from the door. I curled into the chair, bringing the letters to lay against my knees. I stared at them.
Ginny’s kind words—her sweetness, her worry—blazed at me from the page.
I attempted to focus on them, reminding myself that it did not matter what Clarissa said or thought or did.
It was the same thing I’d tried again and again to believe in the last two years, but I’d never completely succeeded.
When one had so little control of one’s life, it was easy to feel helpless and hopeless.
Normally, whenever I crumbled under this grasping, deepening powerlessness, I knew how to counteract it. I went for a brisk walk or visited Ginny or made myself useful to Mother. But here, so far from all that was familiar to me, I had no defenses.
I turned on my side, the pages tumbling from my lap to the ground.
And I cried.
“Miss Albright?”
The voice came from far away, distant and muffled, as if in a dream. I lifted my head and tried to open my eyes, but they resisted, swollen and tender. Why should I bother?
I dropped my head again and drifted off to sleep once more.
“Miss Albright!”
I jolted upright. The room was growing dark around me, and I squinted to make out my surroundings as my eyes adjusted to the setting sun. The library. I was in the library. But who was shouting?
The door to the library was thrown open, banging against the wall. The sudden sound was like fireworks in my brain, and I winced, holding my head. What on earth—
“Beatrice, so help me, if you don’t answer me in the next—”
“I’m here,” I called, my voice scratchy. “Just here.”
Mr. Rawlings rounded the edge of the bookcase in the next moment.
The light from the corridor outside the library shone on him dimly, and I stared.
His eyes were fierce, angry, and there was a tension in his body I’d never seen before, not even after our incident in Vauxhall.
Those dark, wavy locks, normally so rigidly arranged, had fallen into a disheveled mess, and his clothing was wet, his shoulders drenched.
“Where the devil have you been?” he asked, voice edged like a blade.
My mouth parted. “I—I’ve been right here,” I stammered. “I fell asleep, and—”
“You fell asleep?” He stepped closer, that alarming glint in his eyes only sharpening.
I realized then that I might be a little disheveled myself. My hands straightened my skirts and hair even as my brain attempted to unravel the meaning behind his words.
“Yes,” I said defensively. “I came in here to read and fell asleep. Is that such a crime?”
He ignored me, throwing a wild hand toward the door. “And you did not hear the dozens of calls for you? Blast it, the entire house has been looking for you for two hours!”
Two hours.
I gaped at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said, “that you disappeared and no one knew where you went. You weren’t in your room, and you did not answer our calls.
We searched the house, every outbuilding, and the entirety of the gardens, and I thought—” He stopped, breathing hard.
“I thought something happened to you,” he finished.
His words hung there in the silence, twisting and breaking the tension between us.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I didn’t know. I was crying, and then I was asleep. I didn’t—” I pressed a hand to my forehead, taking a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry.”
He said nothing, only stood there, the rough scrape of his inhales and exhales filling the entire room. Then he turned and stalked out the door. “She’s here, Mother,” I heard him say. “Call off the search.”
Mrs. Rawlings said something in return, though I could not make out the words.
I crossed my arms on my knees and dropped my head on top of them, so many emotions rushing through me it was impossible to identify them all.
Embarrassment, though, was quite prevalent.
Had the entire household really been searching the four corners of the estate for me? How had I not heard them?
The library door closed again. Well, at least Mr. Rawlings had left me to wallow in peace.
But his footsteps came again, slower, until he stood before me. I blinked, staring at his muddy boots on the rug beside the letters I’d abandoned there.
“Why were you crying?”
His question was so unexpected, so quiet that I thought I’d heard him wrong at first. I looked up at him, my hands trembling in my lap.
The fading daylight caught the distinct lines of his face, the habitual furrow between his brows.
But there was also something new in his expression.
Concern. It stood out in stark contrast—Alexander Rawlings was not a man accustomed to softness.
“I . . .” I gulped. “It was a moment of weakness. I was simply overwhelmed.”
He inspected my face, perhaps searching for signs of my tears. He fished about in his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief, offering it to me.
“I’m not crying now,” I pointed out, though something about his gesture reached inside and touched the coldest part of me, warming it slightly.
“Well, it is the only thing I know to do in such instances,” he said gruffly, “so take the blasted thing, will you?”
I took it, settling it between my hands in my lap.
Mr. Rawlings noticed the letters at my feet and bent to pick them up, placing them on the table beside him. He paused, fingertips balanced on the top page, not looking at me.
“I’ve neglected you,” he said. “Haven’t I?”
“You are busy.” My words came out uneven.
He gave a short, humorless laugh. “You needn’t be polite. You can be honest.”
“Very well, then, I shall be honest.” I raised my chin.
“I know hardly a soul in this house, in this town, and in the last four days, I’ve exchanged perhaps twenty words with you, the only person I do know.
I’m quite certain you do not even like me, which would make sense, considering your mother despises me for reasons I cannot ascertain, no matter how I try.
Not to mention that Ginny says there have been no developments in finding our attacker, which means I shall be trapped here for time indefinite, which led to me crying and falling asleep and you shouting at me.
So yes, you’ve neglected me, though abandoned might be the better word, and I am just very, very tired. ”
I took a deep breath and locked my lips together. It had all spilled out of me in a rush. I could not take it back, and neither did I wish to.
Mr. Rawlings stared down at me, his face as confounded as I’d ever seen it.
He gave one shake of his head, dragging a hand through his damp hair, his waistcoat and jacket pulled taut against his chest. Watching him sent a tingling swoop through my stomach, and I firmly scolded my body.
There was to be none of that while I was angry with him.
“I am sorry,” he finally said, dropping his hand again.
“Truly. I thought it for the best if we did not act too familiar, considering what the household believes about your presence here. I distanced myself, believing it the professional, responsible thing to do. But I did not stop to think how it might make you feel.”
He paused. “And I am sorry for shouting at you.” His voice grew lower, rougher. “I was not myself.”
I toyed with his handkerchief, the memory of him storming into the library searing through my thoughts. He certainly hadn’t been himself. He’d been desperate, untethered, his eyes blazing with something wild and unspoken. Had it been fear . . . for me?
I gave a tight nod, accepting his apology. “Thank you.”
He stood there, his tall frame silhouetted against the setting sun, and seemed not to know what to say next. I took pity on him.
“You truly had the entire household looking for me?” I asked.
Mr. Rawlings shifted his weight. “Yes.”
“You thought . . .” I paused. “That he’d found me?”
His gaze flashed to mine. “Aye. For a time.”
This sent another jolt through me. That Mr. Rawlings thought our attacker could find us here . . . It was easy to pretend I wasn’t in constant danger here in the quiet, dull isolation of Briarstone. But it would take only one wrong move to bring devastation down upon us both.
I pressed my lips together. “I did not mean to worry you.”
“Yes, well, suffice it to say,” he said, “I shall be keeping a much closer eye on you.”
Perhaps I ought to have felt irritation at that, that he felt the need to watch my every move. Instead, a strange pleasure bloomed inside me. “Likely for the best,” I managed.
“To be safe.”
We looked at each other in the hush of sunset, the room awash in gold and amber, and it felt as if we stood on the edge of a cliff.
Teetering. Uncertain.
But tempted.
He cleared his throat and glanced out the window at the darkening sky. “Come,” he said. “It’s nearly time for dinner.”
“I’ll be along soon.” The edges of my mind were still frayed and unraveling. I needed a few minutes to compose myself.
Mr. Rawlings nodded, his eyes returning to rake over me, as if reassuring himself that I was there, that I was safe. Then he turned and strode from the room without a backward glance.
I fell back against my chair, breaths shallow. Something had shifted, that much was clear. In myself. In him.
Never had a man reacted to me, to my safety, in such a way. As if the thought of me in danger might be his undoing. I brought my knees to my chest, curled my arms around them, and sat in the quiet chill of the library. But for once, I did not feel the cold.