Chapter 11
The Duke of Linthorpe’s Study,
Acklan Castle
James had sent word to Darling the previous evening and to Daniel first thing that morning, and by half past eight all three of them were sequestered in his study with the door closed and the weight of Hawkesworth’s letter hanging heavily in the air.
Darling read it first. Then he passed it to Daniel as he quietly paced the length of the study. "Valenciennes," he muttered as he started his third path across the rug.
"A good hotel on the main square." James nodded. "Looking well, damn him."
Darling said nothing, but a muscle twitched in his jaw.
Daniel, who'd arrived cheerful and bright-eyed on the morning after his wedding, finished the letter and then dropped it back to James' desk. The brightness in his eyes dimmed and his brow furrowed. "John Hawkesworth," he said with a shake of his head. "I had no idea he was in France."
“For some time,” James told him.
Daniel snorted. “He has no idea that it means anything, him seeing Chopwell.”
"Indeed," James agreed.
"When did this arrive?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
"Yesterday—" Daniel leaned forward in his chair. "Good God, James. It was my wedding day, not my funeral. You should have told me."
"I'm telling you now. I’m telling you both now."
A silence settled upon the room.
“It’s the first sighting anyone’s had of him.” Daniel finally broke the silence.
"I need passage," Darling decided and stopped his march across the rug. “I’ll make my way to Valenciennes, and—”
"Hawkesworth wrote this a fortnight ago," James said, keeping his voice level. "Chopwell could be anywhere now. And if you go to France and he hears you've arrived—"
"He’ll run again," Daniel said.
"And then we’ll lose him again,” James agreed.
The muscled ticked once more in Darling’s jaw. "Then what do you suggest?"
"There’s a fellow. Burroughs," James said. "Spent the war with the Foreign Office. He works privately now and is quite good at finding people in France, even those who don’t wish to be found.”
“Burroughs?” Darling echoed.
James nodded. “I met him at Whitehall some time ago. He’s discreet." He paused. "I can have a letter to him today. He can confirm whether or not Chopwell is still in Valenciennes before we do anything further. Quietly. Without alerting anyone who might alert him."
"How long?"
"A fortnight. Perhaps three weeks."
Darling looked at the letter and scoffed. “That’s a bloody lifetime, Linthorpe.”
“Losing him would be worse,” Daniel said.
Darling raked a hand through his hair once more. “A fortnight," he said. "Not a moment longer." Then he left the room without another word and closed the door behind him.
The study settled into a different silence without Darling in it.
Daniel didn’t leave. Instead, he leaned back in his chair and let his gaze settle on James in the same way he’d done since that awful morning in London when he’d suffered that damned episode. “You didn't sleep," he said.
James shrugged. "The letter was on my mind."
“That's all it is?"
That wasn’t even the half of it. James would have shifted in his seat, but Daniel would notice that. So, he stayed perfectly still instead. “Of course.”
“Mmm.” Daniel clearly didn’t believe him. “And how are you feeling?”
“I’m all right.”
"I mean that as a genuine question, not a pleasantry."
"I'm all right,” James said again but with a bit more steel to his voice this time.
"James."
"Damn it, Daniel. I am all right."
"For a man who is all right, you look like you haven't slept in three days.
You've been—" Daniel shook his head. "I've been watching you since we arrived, you know?
You've been carrying something. I thought it was the usual weight of you being you, but this morning you look different. And I don't know if it’s the letter or something else but I’m concerned about you. "
James was quiet for a moment. He looked at his brother, at the open worry on Daniel’s face, and wished he could make the burden go away. But he had nothing to offer.
"It's the letter," James finally said. "Chopwell sitting in France looking well. Laura in the house. Everything it brings up." He paused. "It's a great deal to manage all at once. That’s all."
Daniel’s brow furrowed further. "That's all it is?"
"That's all it is," James lied.
Of course, those things were real and they did weigh on James.
But he was declining to mention the other thing that was weighing on him, a certain young woman in the library at midnight with his late wife's book of sonnets in her lap and the way she had said ‘I care’ as though it were the simplest thing in the world.
Daniel held his gaze for another moment. Then he released a breath. "Wells said stress…He said to manage it."
"I know what Wells said."
"I'm simply reminding you."
"I know you are, but I don’t need a reminder. It is ever-present in my mind." Then James picked up his quill. "I'll write to Burroughs this morning. Go and have breakfast with your wife, Daniel. It's your wedding day."
"It's the day after my wedding day."
"Then go and enjoy the day after your wedding day."
Daniel looked at him once more, with that same careful attention that James had never once in his life been able to deflect entirely. Then he stood.
"Come to breakfast when you're done," his brother said. "Cait will notice if you don't appear. Then she will ask me questions that I won't want to answer, but I’ll answer anyway because Cait can always tell and—"
"Half an hour," James said.
Daniel nodded and left.
James sat alone with the fire in the hearth, the rain against the window, and the letter on his desk.
He retrieved a fresh sheet of foolscap, dipped his quill, and began to write.
Breakfast Room
Acklan Castle
Cori had come down to breakfast earlier than was strictly necessary.
She was not, she told herself, looking for anyone in particular. She simply preferred an early breakfast. She always had. Besides, there was nothing unusual whatsoever about being the first of the guests to arrive in the breakfast room at Acklan on the morning after her sister's wedding.
She was absolutely not hoping to see James Westham before the rest of the house descended. And she was absolutely not thinking about their kiss in the library.
Still, James was an early riser. So, if he happened to come down to breakfast before the rest of the party…
As though to mock her, his chair sat empty.
Cori took her own seat, accepted coffee from the footman, and looked at the empty chair at the head of the table with an expression she hoped would convey nothing in particular to anyone who might appear.
The duchess entered the breakfast room a moment later.
"Good morning, Corinna," the duchess said, as she gestured to the footman for a cup of coffee of her own. "You look well."
"Good morning, Your Grace," Cori said.
"Did you sleep well?"
"Tolerably," Cori said, which was not precisely true but was not precisely a lie either. She had slept. Eventually.
The lingering memory of his kiss had not made it easy.
"Hmm," said the woman as she accepted her cup, her shrewd eyes settling on Cori.
Thankfully, the room began to fill. The Upwells arrived, and the Reverend Fairleigh came in after them, quietly settling with a book at the far end of the table.
Emma Atherton appeared, then Lucien followed shortly after.
Finally, Mr. Atherton arrived. The last among the early risers.
He assessed the table with his usual cheerful disposition and took an empty spot beside Cori.
"Good morning," he said brightly.
“Good morning, Mr. Atherton.”
He cast her a sideward glance. "You look as though you have something on your mind, Miss Beckett."
Goodness! Could they all tell something had happened just by looking at her this morning?
"All the rain,” she hedged. "I’m thinking about…drainage."
Mr. Atherton considered this. "Is that so?"
"The north field.” She nodded. "I, um, I hope it hasn’t flooded.”
"Ah," Mr. Atherton said, though he didn’t sound as though he believed her in the least.
Cori glanced again toward the head of the table.
Still empty.
Her stomach roiled.
Mrs. Fairleigh came in then with Hannah at her side. The little girl took her seat, bright-eyed and already scanning the table with intent. She caught Cori's eye across the room and gave her a very small, very deliberate nod, which Cori returned in kind.
Cara arrived and settled beside Cori, close enough to speak quietly if she chose to. She looked at her sister for a moment and said nothing.
Cori drank another cup of coffee and nibbled at her toast. She participated in the conversation around her with what she hoped was a reasonable approximation of her usual self and made every attempt to not look at the head of the table again.
She looked at it twice more.
The breakfast room eventually began to empty as the other guests drifted toward their next activity. Still, James had not arrived.
Finally, Cori pushed away from the table. After all, she could not stay there all morning not looking for James. She was considering a return trip to the library which felt either like the perfect choice or a terrible one, she could not determine which, when Cara appeared at her elbow.
"Walk with me," her sister said.
They found a small sitting room off the east corridor that was empty and smelled of woodsmoke and old books, and Cara closed the door behind them. Then she turned and pinned Cori with an expression that made it clear she knew something was going on.
"What happened?" Cara asked.
Drat!
"Nothing happened." Cori bit her bottom lip. Oh, she was a horrible liar.
Cara folded her arms across her chest. And she waited some more.
"Very well. Something happened," Cori admitted.
Then she dropped onto the nearby settee and told her sister all of it. The library. The fire. The kiss.
"…and he said ‘Good evening, my dear’," she finished with a sigh. "And then he walked away into the night with Hannah and I haven’t seen him since."
Cara was quiet for a moment. “My dear? "
"My dear," Cori confirmed.
"The Duke of Linthorpe called you his dear? "
"In that tone," Cori said. "Yes."
Cara sat back. She was quiet in a way that meant she was thinking. "But this morning he wasn't at breakfast?"
"No."
"And you don't know where he is?"
"No."
Cara was quiet again, which was neither reassuring nor the opposite. "Cori," she said at last, carefully. "He kissed you and he called you his dear. Those are not the actions of a man who has decided against something."
"I know," Cori said. "But he didn’t come to breakfast…”
“Perhaps he slept in. Yesterday was rather eventful.”
Cori didn’t for one moment think he had slept in. He was as early a riser as she was, and she was about to say as much when the sitting room door opened.
Reese stood in the threshold. He did not appear to be his usual gregarious self. His expression was pinched and his eyes were troubled. "Cara," he said. “There you are.”
“Were you looking for me?”
“Just wandering.” He shook his head. “Tired of the incessant rain.”
He was not himself. Not at all.
“We are in England,” Cara reminded her husband as she reached her hand out to him. “Is everything right? You seem out of sorts.”
“Of course,” he said and though he smiled, his expression did look forced.
“I should leave you to it,” Cori said and would have pushed out of her seat if Reese hadn’t waved her back down.
“No, no, no,” he said and directed his wife back toward the settee. “Don’t leave on my account. Tell me what we are discussing this morning.”
“Cori and I were simply talking about yesterday,” Cara said, keeping her gaze directed on her husband’s face as though trying to sort him out. “Cait was the loveliest of brides.”
“She was indeed,” Reese agreed. “Though not quite as lovely as you, my dear.”
My dear. The endearment hung in the air and Cori tried, for the hundredth time to not think about the man who’d called her those words the night before.