Chapter 13
Graeme sat alone in the study, the Monday morning sun only beginning to warm the windowpanes.
The journal lay open before him, the ink faded in places, but unmistakably the late earl’s hand.
His intention had not been to read the journal without Miss Whittington, only to move it from the desk before she arrived, but an idle glance had drawn him in, urging his impulse to read one page… then another.
Until a line read:
My little P.W. was in my thoughts again this morning.
A cold thread wound through him.
He read the line twice more, as though repetition might rearrange the letters into something sensible. But no… they stood, stark and unyielding: P.W.
He sat back, pulse quickening, and let his eyes skim the next lines.
She is the brightness in my dusty tomb. I must provide for her.
Graeme swallowed. This was no legal phrasing, no dispassionate bequest. This was… affection, deep and personal. But for whom? No surname, no description of age or circumstance, no likeness or connection. And Miss Phoebe Whittington had sworn she had never corresponded with the man.
He believed her.
Whether the earl had written some romanticized invention of her, or someone else entirely, needled at him, namely, the not knowing.
He could question the codicil witnesses.
Until recently, he had been so sure the P.W.
was Miss Whittington. Who was to say the witnesses knew differently?
No, he did not wish to involve others, not unless it became necessary.
For now, the answer seemed to lie in the earl’s own writing.
A soft knock interrupted his thoughts. He marked the page and closed the journal.
“Come,” he called, hoping his voice did not betray his restlessness.
Miss Whittington stepped in with her maid trailing behind, sunlight following her into the room. She carried herself with a new kind of radiance, the echo of their ride still shimmering through her, softened now into something warm and quiet and irresistible.
Brightness in a dusty tomb, he thought, unprepared for the line to take on new meaning.
“Good morning, Mr. Ellison.” Her smile tugged at unguarded emotions inside him. “Fanny insisted I not rush my hair today. I fear she will resign if I appear wind-tossed again.”
From behind her, Miss Greeley mumbled something about despairing, not resigning.
Miss Whittington laughed, a lighter sound than the unexpected storm he could faintly hear gathering outside. “See? A tyrant of propriety.”
Despite the weight on his mind, Graeme’s mouth curved.
Her gaze flicked to the journal still in his hands. “You started without me!”
“Only a few pages. I meant to tidy, but temptation proved stronger than order today.”
She claimed her usual chair with the careless grace of someone who belonged in a place she did not realize she belonged. The maid settled near the window with her mending.
“And what judgments of society has he rendered this morning?” Miss Whittington teased, reaching as though to snatch the journal from him. “Has he written of Mrs. Duck-Laugh again?”
He hesitated. Only for a heartbeat, but it was a beat too long.
Her smile faded. “Is something wrong?”
Her eyes asked a quieter question: Did another letter about me arrive?
Graeme drew a steadying breath and slid the journal towards her, opening to the marked page as he took his seat. “Perhaps you should read this entry.”
Her brows knit as she leaned in. She traced the lines with her fingertips until… bewilderment, not recognition, formed her features.
“P.W.,” she murmured. Then, almost absently, “Oh! Those are my initials.”
She did not tense.
She did not pale.
She did not look away.
Instead, she tipped her head in puzzlement. “I cannot decide whether to be flattered or alarmed. Why would he write about me?”
“You… never knew him,” Graeme asserted gently. “Not personally.”
“No.” Her fingertips brushed the page. “My father corresponded, as I told you, but I did not. Perhaps… perhaps he wrote these while thinking of my father’s letters…
in anticipation of my arrival? Then, he’s overly fond of cryptic abbreviations, as we’ve discovered; this could refer to anyone.
” After taking a quiet moment to think, she offered with a broadening grin, “What if he writes about Prudence Warren! Or Poppy White? Oh! I know! Prunella Wiggensworth, shepherdess extraordinaire!”
Graeme barked a laugh, which dislodged much of the tension that tightened his chest. The names were absurd, as there were no such people.
“Whatever the case,” she continued, “he was a lonely man with a penchant for gossip and invented companions. This P.W. may have existed solely in his imagination.”
“But he wrote of ensuring her welfare,” he pressed, keeping his tone neutral. “That suggests someone real.”
“Then he was sentimental and besotted with the fair-haired Prunella. Shepherdesses have been known to inspire poetic devotion.”
From her perch near the window, Miss Greeley made a noise suspiciously close to a smothered giggle.
Graeme ignored her. Instead, he watched Miss Whittington, seeing only the sincerity of her confusion and the openness of her expression.
There was no guile, no hint of calculation, no questions or curiosities of promised provisions.
If she were the P.W. of the codicil, the bequest had been the earl’s whim, not her ambition.
He found himself studying the curve of her face, the warmth in her eyes, the ease with which she met uncertainty and refused to let fear or vanity cloud her honesty.
How curious it must be for her to read initials so familiar yet have no notion whether the earl had written about the young bride he hoped for, or some other creature entirely: a lost love, a married woman for whom he pined, a favorite hound.
“Fanny,” Miss Whittington said suddenly, “be a dear and fetch the next volume. Upstairs parlor, third shelf on the right.” For Graeme, she flashed a mischievous smile. “Perhaps he’s embellished about our mysterious Prunella in the next journal!”
Although Miss Greeley rose, she held none of her mistress’s enthusiasm. Wringing her hands, her apprehension overshadowing her obedience, she hesitated. “Miss… ought I?” Lowering her voice with a flick of her gaze to Graeme, she added, “I would never wish to be accused of snooping….”
Graeme nodded reassuringly. “You have my permission. Nothing in this house is forbidden to our most honored guest.”
Relieved, the maid curtsied and hurried out.
Before Miss Whittington could speak again, thunder cracked low and rolling, ominously close, shaking the glass in its lead.
They both jumped.
Only then did Graeme realize how much the light had dimmed. He crossed to the window as the sky darkened from blue to brooding slate. “A storm is nearly upon us.”
As if his words heralded the uninvited guest, a blast of wind rattled the casements. A sheet of rain slapped through an open window, splashing across the rug.
Miss Whittington shrieked, a hand flying to her mouth. “Oh, Mr. Ellison!”
Graeme lunged forward. “Stand back—”
But another gust swept into the room before he reached it, sending loose papers swirling across the floor. Rain pattered across the floorboards, catching several pages before he could rescue them.
Miss Whittington darted after scattered sheets, breathless with laughter. “What a wicked storm.”
He secured one window, then another. A gale beat at the house, determined to gain admittance. As another whoosh surged, Miss Whittington abandoned the airborne papers and rushed to help latch the remaining casements.
At the second window, she gasped, “This one is stuck!”
Rain sprayed through the opening. She let out a startled little laugh as droplets hit her sleeve.
Gallantly, Graeme reached her in three strides. “Allow me?”
She stepped aside, but not quickly enough to avoid another scatter of rain across her hair and cheek. She ducked behind him in a half-instinctive, half-delighted motion that sent his pulse skittering.
He tugged at the window. The hinge was stuck, unmoving.
The wind drove the rain harder with every attempt to tug the window closed.
At last, he worked the iron free, coaxing the blasted thing into submission, just as a gust shoved at the frame, forcing the window shut with a violent thud and knocking him backwards.
Straight into her.
She caught at his shoulders to keep from falling. He pivoted, wrapping an arm around her waist to steady her.
They froze.
Her breath feathered against his throat.
Her curls grazed his cheek.
Her body aligned with his as though shaped for his embrace.
Miss Whittington cleared her throat softly, stepping back with visible reluctance. “What an undignified battle… with the window,” she said, color rising to her cheeks.
Graeme found his voice, though roughened. “The window was no match for us. It surrendered once it saw how formidable were its opponents.”
Thunder rolled again.
She shivered.
Without hesitation, he slipped off his coat and draped it around her shoulders. “Here. Summer storm or not, you’re chilled.”
When she looked up at him, truly looked, her expression stirred something tender between them, soft as a breath but twice as dangerous.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He swallowed, unable to summon a proper reply.
Lightning flashed. Rain pummeled the glass.
Clutching his coat close, Miss Whittington glanced back at the journal still open on the desk. “Perhaps we should read only the less tumultuous pages today.”
“Perhaps.” His smile teased.
It had only been a storm. It had only been two initials. But everything had changed. He knew it as surely as he knew his own name.
Not because of the storm.
Not because of the initials.
Because of her.
Because she had trusted him. Because she had chosen truth when evasion would have served her better. Because she stood before him, wrapped in his coat, cheeks flushed, unaware of the hold she already had on him.