Chapter 21
By the time William reached Gabriel’s house, he had managed to make sense of absolutely nothing.
He had ridden hard enough that his horse was breathing heavily beneath him, yet the speed had done little to quiet his thoughts. If anything, the rhythm of hooves against the road had given them somewhere to run.
Lord Eastmere had left White’s in Algernon’s carriage.
That much appeared undeniable.
But why?
William searched through every conversation he could remember having with the earl in the weeks before his disappearance. Had Eastmere mentioned leaving London? An appointment? Some private matter involving Algernon?
Nothing came to him.
The earl had seemed entirely himself. William remembered seeing him at White’s just before he vanished, complaining cheerfully about the weather and declaring that London society would be considerably improved if half its members were required to remain silent after dinner.
Nothing about a journey. Nothing about danger.
Certainly nothing that explained why he would climb into Algernon’s carriage and disappear.
Then there was Augusta.
William had spent much of the ride trying to persuade himself that the note he had seen her pass to the footman meant nothing. She was a duchess. She sent servants on errands every day. Had William witnessed the exchange a week ago, he would not have spared it another thought.
But a week ago, he had trusted what he saw.
Now he knew better.
His own family had spent years protecting him with carefully chosen truths. Algernon had claimed to leave London and apparently had not. Augusta had given Rosalind information about her father that no one else could substantiate.
And somewhere among all of it was Lord Eastmere.
William swung down from his horse almost before the groom approaching from Gabriel’s house could reach him.
“Is Mr. Frost at home?”
“Yes, my lord. I believe he is in the library.”
William handed over the reins and went inside.
He knew the house well enough that the butler scarcely had time to announce him before William was already crossing toward the library.
He opened the door and then stopped.
Gabriel sat at a table surrounded by books.
That alone would not have been particularly remarkable. Gabriel read widely when the mood struck him, though he generally preferred doing so with considerably less determination than he appeared to possess at present.
It was the collection before him that gave William pause.
Several volumes on painting lay open across the table, accompanied by sketches, loose sheets of notes, and a book William recognized only because Gabriel had copied the title carefully onto the page beside it.
The Book of the City of Ladies.
Gabriel appeared to be taking notes from that as well.
William stared at the collection. “What on earth are you doing?”
Gabriel glanced up. “You look terrible.”
“And you look deranged. Only last night, you were lying upon my lawn lamenting the destruction of your life. Now you are studying painting and Christine de Pizan.”
“Precisely.”
William picked up one of the books on painting and looked at the notes beside it. “Why?”
Gabriel leaned back with the calm satisfaction of a man whose explanation was certain to make everything perfectly reasonable. “I have decided to court Isabella.”
For several seconds, William could only stare at him.
“Does Isabella know you have decided this?”
“Not yet.”
“Considering she denied knowing you before an entire room last night, that seems a rather important detail.”
“A temporary difficulty.”
“She despises you.”
“I intend to correct that.”
“She believes you deliberately exposed her identity.”
At that, some of Gabriel’s confidence finally faltered. “That may require rather more correcting.”
Despite everything, a laugh nearly escaped William.
There was something so profoundly absurd about finding Gabriel buried beneath books on painting and medieval women less than a day after discovering him sprawled dramatically across the lawn that, under any other circumstances, William might have enjoyed this immensely.
Then Rosalind’s face beside the pond returned to him.
I trusted you.
The amusement vanished before it could fully take hold.
Gabriel noticed the change immediately. He set down his pen, his own expression sobering. “What happened?”
William lowered himself into the chair opposite him. “Quite a lot.”
Something in his tone made Gabriel close the book.
William told him what had happened since he sent him to bed the night before. By the time he reached the carriage, Gabriel’s earlier amusement had disappeared entirely.
“You’re certain it belongs to Algernon?”
“One of our own grooms confirmed it. The carriage Eastmere entered outside White’s belongs to my brother.”
Gabriel sat back, absorbing that. “And Algernon has never mentioned seeing him that night?”
“Not once. I spent the entire ride here trying to remember whether Eastmere ever mentioned meeting him, taking a journey, anything that might explain it. I can think of nothing.”
Gabriel rose and began pacing, his expression thoughtful.
“None of it makes sense,” William continued. “Every lead we find seems to create another question.”
Gabriel slowed. “Perhaps we have been looking at this incorrectly.”
William frowned. “How?”
“We keep saying the carriage is our only useful clue.”
“At present, it is.”
“No.” Gabriel turned toward him. “There is the letter.”
“Which is at Rosalind’s house. And considering she ended our courtship less than an hour ago, I doubt calling upon her to borrow it would be particularly well received.”
“We don’t need the letter itself. We already know what mattered about it.”
William stared at him.
“The quotation,” Gabriel said.
Understanding came swiftly. “Byron.”
Gabriel nodded.
William rose from his chair as the significance of it settled over him.
The quotation from Lord Eastmere’s letter had troubled them from the beginning.
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.
They had recognized the line as Byron’s immediately, but only now did its significance seem obvious. Edmund and Algernon had shared a particular fondness for his poetry, spending countless hours discussing it together.
William was already rising. “The books.”
Gabriel nodded. “Algernon’s collection.”
His brother owned shelves of Byron, many of the volumes so heavily annotated that the margins contained nearly as much of Algernon’s hand as the poet’s. If the quotation had been placed in the letter deliberately, there was every possibility it referred to something among them.
“Why that particular line?” William asked.
“That I do not know.” Gabriel began closing the books upon the table. “But if Eastmere wanted to leave a message connected to Algernon, Byron would be the obvious language.”
William frowned. “Or if someone else wanted Rosalind to make that connection.”
Gabriel paused.
The possibility settled uneasily between them.
They still did not know who had written the letter, nor whether the quotation was a warning, an accusation, or something else entirely. But they finally had somewhere to look.
“Algernon’s books are at Aldermere House.”
Gabriel reached for his coat. “Then I suggest we stop wasting time here.”
William turned toward the door before something occurred to him. He glanced back at the table.
“At some point, I intend to ask why courting Isabella apparently requires reading a fifteenth-century defense of women.”
Gabriel shrugged into his coat. “She intends to prove she can do anything a man can. I intend to be prepared when she begins explaining why.”
William stared at him. “That may be the most intelligent thing you have done since meeting her.”
“I know.”
“Which is deeply concerning.”
They were outside moments later.
As William mounted, urgency tightened through him again.
The answer might have been sitting in Algernon’s rooms all along.
William only hoped that whatever they found among those pages did not cost him the last pieces of his brother he still knew how to trust.
***
Night had nearly fallen by the time William and Gabriel returned to Aldermere House.
The last of the daylight lingered faintly beyond the windows, leaving the entrance hall in shadow despite the lamps already being lit. William scarcely slowed long enough to hand his coat to the footman.
“Candles,” he said.
The servant looked mildly startled. “My lord?”
“Two. And a lamp.”
Gabriel handed over his own coat. “Perhaps three candles. His determination tends to exceed his eyesight.”
William gave him a look.
“I am attempting to be useful.”
“You might begin by being quiet.”
The footman returned with the requested candles, and they headed upstairs without further delay.
Algernon’s study was empty.
William had expected it to be. His brother had gone out earlier, though William had neither asked where nor particularly cared at the time. Now, as he stepped into the familiar room, he found himself wondering whether Algernon’s absence was merely convenient or something else he ought to question.
He hated that every ordinary thing had begun to feel suspicious.
Gabriel closed the door only far enough to keep the draft from extinguishing their candles. “Where are the books?”
William gestured toward the shelves covering the far wall. “Everywhere.”
Gabriel surveyed them. “Of course they are.”
Byron occupied nearly three shelves.
William had known his brother possessed an extensive collection, but he had never appreciated quite how extensive until he and Gabriel began pulling volumes down one after another.
Some were beautifully bound editions Algernon had purchased in recent years. Others were older, their spines cracked from use and their pages crowded with notes.
Those were the ones William concentrated upon.
For the first hour, every mark seemed important. Algernon had underlined passages, circled words, folded corners, and filled margins with observations William could barely decipher.
They found the quotation from Lord Eastmere’s letter easily enough.
And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on.