Chapter 27 #2
I do not yet have enough to accuse any man before the world, but I have enough to know that your father was right to question what he questioned. Your mother was right to refuse what she refused. She was not wrong.
He stopped there. The sentence struck him with such force that, for a moment, he could not go on.
How little, and yet how much, those words might have meant years ago had someone with rank, with consequence, with a voice society could not so easily dismiss, stood beside Lady Finch and said them aloud?
Would she have remained in England? Would Aurelia have grown to womanhood under kinder eyes?
Would her father have died less burdened by unanswered questions?
Owen pressed his hand briefly over his eyes. Then, he wrote on.
I began this inquiry believing it a matter of honor, and perhaps of curiosity, too. I wished to know what had been concealed, and whether I had benefited by concealment. But I cannot pretend that is all it is now. I pursue it because your family deserves justice.
Your mother deserves to have truth returned to her name. Your father deserves to be known not as a man chasing shadows, but as one who saw clearly when others chose blindness. And if we can bring this matter into the light, then perhaps others may be vindicated, too.
His breath had grown uneven. He had written more than he intended. The page did not sound like a gentleman discussing evidence. It sounded like a man who had reached the limit of restraint.
Perhaps he had. He dipped the pen again.
I must also tell you something less easily justified by the investigation. I have missed you these past days.
He froze. He ought to cross them out. Instead, he sat staring at the words until they seemed to accuse him of cowardice.
I have missed your company, your judgement, and the strange comfort of being understood without having to arrange every thought into acceptable shape.
I have grown fond of our conversations, and fonder still of the honesty you permit me in your letters.
I do not write this to burden you, nor to ask anything of you that you are unwilling to give.
I know too well that our arrangement was made for practical reasons, and that you have never sought more from it.
He stopped again. That was not enough. It was too careful still.
He thought of Aurelia at the gallery, her hand upon his arm, the compassion in her gray eyes when he had spoken of the battlefield.
He thought of her on the street that morning, saying his name softly, as if accepting a gift neither of them had dared to offer aloud.
He thought of the life she had been forced to endure because men like Langley had found truth inconvenient.
Life was short. Life was cruel and ungenerous with second chances.
He wrote the next lines before prudence could interfere.
But if this false courtship has taught me anything, it is that false things may sometimes shelter what is real.
My regard for you is real. My concern for you is real.
The happiness I find in your letters is real.
If I have concealed that too carefully, it was not from indifference, but from fear of placing you in a position you did not choose.
God help him. He could not send it. He was a marquess.
He was not some boy writing beyond himself after his first dance.
Aurelia had made it clear, more than once, that marriage was not for her.
Her life was already tangled with scandal, duty, and danger.
What right had he to add his own feeling to the burdens she carried?
What right had he to make their arrangement more complicated simply because he had failed to keep command of his heart?
He stood abruptly and crossed to the decanter. His hand was steady when he poured the whisky. That irritated him. A man’s hand could remain steady while the rest of him came apart.
He drank. The spirit burned down his throat, sharp and clean, and for one moment he welcomed the pain. It was honest, at least. It did not pretend to be anything but fire.
He looked back at the letter lying open upon the writing table. He could destroy it … write another, a better one, a safer one. He could speak only of Thompson, Carter, Greenwich, the next step. He could return to the language of evidence and duty, where nothing bled.
Then he thought of the dead boys in Spain, of Lady Finch in exile, of Carter hiding with the truth in his mouth like a swallowed blade, and of Aurelia, who had spent years learning that silence was safer than trust.
No.
He was tired of safety purchased by silence. Owen sat back down and added only one final paragraph.
You owe me no answer beyond what your own heart and judgement permit. If this letter causes you unease, I will never refer to these words again. But I could not, after what I learned today, continue to write to you as though time were generous and truth could always wait for a more convenient hour.
He signed it before he could lose courage.
Yours faithfully,
Owen
For a long moment, he remained motionless. Then he folded the letter, sealed it, and rang the bell. When Harcourt entered, Owen placed the letter upon the tray.
“To Miss Finch. Tonight.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The door closed. Only then did Owen allow himself to lean back, feeling his heart beating with the reckless terror of a man who had stepped from cover.
He had sent it and whatever came of it now, at least one truth had not been buried.