Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dearest Eleanor,
The night was cool, but beads of sweat clung to his hairline and he could feel them soak through his necktie.
He tugged it free and threw it to the floor.
What could he possibly say? How could he admit the truth and expect her to forgive him when she’d made it clear that she wouldn’t?
She may have been fond of the Captain, perhaps even loved him, but she detested the duke, and he didn’t know which feeling was stronger.
Heart thumping, he wiped his hands so they would not warp the paper.
Before I confess how I know your name, I must tell you a different truth.
My affection for you is all-consuming. For months, you have dominated my thoughts.
You have haunted my dreams so much that I hold on to sleep when I should face the morning.
Your words are fireworks as I read, and the spark does not fade.
It stays with me as I go about my days that have not, traditionally, glittered.
Every moment, I want you. All versions of you—the ones you intended to share with me, and the ones you didn’t.
He released his breath. It did not loosen the tension that gripped him.
He’d hoped that writing those words would make the rest easier, that admitting his feelings to her would be a relief.
Instead, his anxiety ratcheted up. There was no guarantee she’d reciprocate his love.
Even if she did, there was every chance she’d react just as he had, casting all affection aside in a state of shock and anger.
If that was the case, he deserved the heartbreak that would follow. His actions had been unconscionable.
These past weeks, my world has become smaller again. It is what it used to be but I am no longer satisfied with it. My days have been dull and colorless because you haven’t been part of them, and that is my own fault, and my own regret.
This was it. It was time to confess. He inhaled swiftly.
The truth is, I did come to you that night. Nothing could have kept me from meeting the one person who had captured my heart. But when I arrived, I realized that we were already acquainted. Our relationship in real life has been contentious, to put it mildly.
I was too cowardly to tell you the truth, and I apologize for that.
You didn’t deserve my lies that night or my absence since.
It was that cowardice that kept me from responding to your letters.
I can only hope that when you get this one, you have the courage that I didn’t.
I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me, and then perhaps we can see what this relationship could be with full understanding of each other.
With deep affection,
Peter Montgomery, Duke of Strafford
He almost cast up his accounts signing his name. He had no hope of forgiveness. He’d behaved abominably. As the Captain, he had forsaken her, and as the duke, he’d destroyed her life. How could she be persuaded to discover Peter, the man who was them both?
His breathing had become short and shallow. Darkness crowded his vision and he became lightheaded. He flattened his palm on the mahogany grain to keep himself upright.
No. It could not happen. Losing her was not a thought he would tolerate.
She was everything he wanted—intelligent, kind to others if not to him right now, hardworking, forthright.
She did not turn to jelly in the face of his title.
She did not change herself to please him.
She’d always told him the truth, whether he liked it or not.
She wanted nothing from the duke, and that made him want to give her everything.
She liked him. They’d gotten to know each other without the trappings that usually hindered his relationships. He’d been himself for the first time in years, and he wanted to continue being that person in real life. Ideally with her.
That wouldn’t happen if he sent this. His only chance was for Peter to stand up and show her that he was worthy.
He needed to undo the damage he’d caused to her and others, as much as it was possible.
Even if she rejected him, he’d be able to sleep better at night knowing he’d done the right thing—not just for those within his estates but those outside, for whom he’d finally come to realize he was also responsible.
And he needed her to love all of him before he revealed the truth.
He screwed up the letter and tossed it into the wastepaper basket by the desk, then pulled out a fresh piece of paper.
Dear Booklover,
I apologize for my absence these last few weeks. I’ve been detained… Not in a criminal sense, since I know your mind might go there. Rather, I’ve had some personal issues of my own to contend with.
No, that’s not honest. Chief amongst the things I appreciate about our friendship is that we have always spoken the truth.
I have spent the past months making a series of mistakes that I now have to face and repair if I can.
The most egregious of those failings was not meeting you that night.
If I could take it back, I would. My only excuse is that I was accosted by my fears, and I did not face them with the grace with which you are facing yours.
Can we travel back in time? Can we return to where we were before that night?
I was not around for the Battle of Waterloo, given that I am only thirty years old.
I remember the London International Exhibition that you mention.
The stained-glass windows were beautiful, though my child self did not care for them as much as it did the telephone.
I believe that was the start of my fascination with science fiction.
The telephone seemed like magic, and I became obsessed with what the world could be. My mother bought me every novel she could find. That changed when she died, though. My reading habits had to be put aside—at least that was what I was told. Instead, they became secret.
Now I am a fully grown man who still hides in a closet with a candle reading about speculative worlds. You are the first person I have shared that with.
I fill my days serving those for whom I am responsible, and I have come to realize that group of people is wider than I initially thought. I have not been serving as well as I had prided myself on. I will do better.
I am not married, if that’s what you were trying to ascertain. I have never felt the desire to merge my life with another’s, but we grow over time and a season of spring is upon me.
I have coffee far more often than I have cheese. How else am I expected to get through a full day’s work? Cheese is a luxury that I rarely have time for, though I enjoy it. Perhaps one day we will explore French creameries together.
Yours,
—Captain O.T.N.