Chapter 7
Dragging in ragged breaths, Christina leaned heavily against the wall of her bed chamber, having managed to keep her composure steady right up until the moment she had stepped into her rooms. The drive home had been an agony, her thoughts so weighted that they had pressed an ache right in between her eyebrows.
She had managed to use it as an excuse for her silence, at least, telling her mother and father that she was weary and tired, and they, to her relief, had not pressed her with any further questions.
Now, however, Christina was alone, and it felt as if the shadows were pulling in at her, threatening to drown her in the depths of their darkness.
She could remember that letter as if she held it now in her hands, could almost trace every word with her finger.
The terse words had ripped away at her happiness until she had been left with naught but agony, her hopes broken and shattered around her.
The way she had seen him in that moment, her view of him as the days and weeks and months had gone on… that was now a falsehood.
He had not written it.
Closing her eyes to steady herself, Christina kept one hand on the wall beside her, using its stability as her only source of strength.
Memories assailed her, pushing back into her mind Lord Coventry as he had been – perhaps, even now, as he was.
The gentleman she had loved, the gentle smile, the fervor with which he had asked her to marry him – all of those things were still true, it seemed.
She had believed them all to be lies, to be a mask he had worn to deceive her into loving him.
She had been wrong.
Christina did not go to bed. She could not be still — her body would not permit it.
She paced the length of her chamber, her steps quick and uneven, her skirts hissing against the carpet with each turn.
At the writing desk, she stopped. Her fingers hovered over the small drawer where she kept her personal correspondence — letters from Sophie, birthday notes from her father in his careful hand, and beneath them all, folded and refolded until the creases had become permanent, the letter that had shattered her world.
She pulled it out. Unfolded it with hands that trembled.
The handwriting spilled across the page — familiar in its loops and angles, heartbreaking in its coldness.
She had read it so many times that the words were scored into her memory, but now she read it differently.
Now she was looking not at the meaning but at the making of it.
The ink was a deep black — not the faded brown of the ink Lord Coventry had used when he had written to her father requesting permission to call.
She remembered that letter, too; her father had shown it to her, proud and pleased, and the ink had been a warm sepia, the handwriting tilted slightly to the right with a distinctive flourish on the capital C.
This letter’s handwriting did not tilt. The capital C was formed differently — rounder, more controlled.
Christina’s breath caught. She carried the letter to the candle on her dressing table and held it close to the flame, tilting it to catch the light.
The paper was thick, cream-colored — expensive but not distinctive.
She turned it over. No watermark. No identifying feature beyond the seal, which had been plain wax pressed with what appeared to be a signet ring.
She closed her eyes, pressing the letter to her chest. Who had access to wax and a signet ring? Who had known where she lived, where Lord Coventry lived? Who had known of their connection at all?
The silence of her chamber offered her nothing — no answer, no direction, only the steady hiss of the candle flame and the unbearable weight of not knowing.
Someone else orchestrated this.
Christina pushed herself away from the wall. Her legs were unsteady, but she crossed to her writing desk, pulled the chair out with a scrape that sounded too loud in the quiet room, and sat down. She lit the candle with trembling fingers, opened her writing box, and drew out a sheet of clean paper.
She dipped her pen.
At the top she wrote: What I know. Beneath it, in a hand far less steady than her usual: He did not write the letter. I did not write the letter. Someone else did both.
She stared at those three lines. Then, below them, she wrote: Questions. Her pen hovered, dripping a small blot of ink onto the page. Who knew of our engagement? Who had access to both households? Who would benefit from our separation?
The pen stalled. She pressed it to the paper, but no answers came — only the blot spreading slowly, darkening the fibers. The questions circled like crows, and she had no answers for any of them.
Christina set down the pen. She pressed her palms flat against the desk, her shoulders rigid, her breathing shallow and deliberate. For a long moment, she held herself there, as if the solidity of the wood could anchor her against the tide rising in her chest.
It could not.
She dropped her head into her hands and began to weep — not for the loss of him, which she had already mourned, but for the monstrous waste of it.
Two years. Two years of believing herself discarded, of performing composure over a wound that had never been permitted to heal, of hating him for a cruelty he had never committed.
All of it built on a lie that someone else had written in ink that was not even the right color.
She did not know how long she sat there.
When the tears finally subsided, Christina lifted her head and looked at the page before her, at the three facts and the three unanswered questions drying in the candlelight.
Her eyes were raw, but something in her chest had shifted — a small, hard knot of determination taking root beneath the grief.
She folded the page, slipped it into the drawer beside the forged letter, and locked it. Then she stood, crossed to the bed, and lay down fully clothed, staring at the ceiling until sleep finally, mercifully, claimed her.
“Christina, you look pale.”
Giving her sister a small, sad smile, Christina tried to keep her tears at bay. “I am sorrowful, Sophie.” The light summer breeze whispered through the carriage window, trying to steal Christina’s tears away as her sister looked at her with concern.
“For what reason?” Sophie asked, leaning forward as Christina pulled out her handkerchief. “Whatever has happened?”
Swallowing the tightness in her throat, Christina took in a deep breath to steady herself. “Lord Coventry danced the waltz with me last evening.”
Sophie’s eyes shot wide. “The waltz?”
“Indeed. I do not know what his intentions were in doing so, I cannot imagine what he wanted from it, but it forced us together and forced us to speak.” Her vision blurred, and she pressed her handkerchief to the corners of her eyes. “There was such anger in him, Sophie.”
Shifting across the carriage entirely, Sophie came to sit directly beside Christina, her hand going to her arm. “I do not understand. Where does such anger come from? He was the one who wrote to you, who ended your engagement, so why should he have any upset towards you?”
Christina closed her eyes. “He said that I was the one who had written to him.”
There was a long, pronounced silence, and when Christina looked back at her sister, she saw nothing but shock written there. Sophie’s eyes were rounded, her mouth a near-perfect circle, and she had drawn back from Christina a little, as if trying to take her in.
“He received a letter from me, and I received a letter from him,” she said, simply. “But neither of us, it appears, sent any letters at all.”
“But… but how could that be?” Sophie’s voice was hoarse with surprise. “You mean to suggest that someone else wrote them, that they tried to set you apart for their own reason?”
Spreading out her hands, her tears abating, Christina nodded. “I cannot see another explanation.”
“Then you believe him.” Sophie’s expression drew into a frown. “He could be misleading you again, Christina. Have you thought of that?”
Christina shook her head. “I saw his anger when we spoke first, and then the shock in his face when he realized the truth. When I spoke of the letter I had received, he appeared utterly overwhelmed. I am sure of it, for it was precisely the same thing as I felt.”
“Goodness.” Sophie put one hand flat to her forehead, giving herself a slight shake. “That is extraordinary.” Her hand fell back to her lap. “But who would do such a thing? And why?”
Spreading out her hands, Christina gave her sister a long look which, in turn, only made Sophie sigh.
There was no immediate answer, no name that came to Christina’s mind.
“The engagement took place one evening. The following day, late in the afternoon, I received his letter. How could it be that someone else knew of it? I did not share it with anyone.”
“Did he?”
Licking her lips, Christina frowned, hard. She had no knowledge of Lord Coventry’s actions that night, wondering now if he had told someone else and if that someone else had then, for whatever reason of their own, decided to separate them both. “I do not know.”
“You will have to ask him.”
That made Christina’s whole body tremble as she pressed her lips together against the image that rose in her mind. “I cannot imagine what he would say to me.”
“My dear Christina, if he is just as confused as you are, if he is just as conflicted, then you must talk.” Grasping Christina’s hand, Sophie smiled and gestured to the door of the carriage.
“Look, now, we are just about to enter Hyde Park for the fashionable hour. I am sure that he will be present, and with the crush of guests, it is an excellent time to search him out for a conversation.” Her fingers pressed Christina’s for the second time.
“And I will be with you. You need not face him alone.”
Christina opened her eyes and let out a slow breath, pushing it between her teeth as she tried to gather her courage.
It felt as if it were constantly slipping through her fingers, being pulled back down without restraint, and leaving her with nothing but weakness.
“I am afraid of what he will say should I attempt to converse with him.”
“Recall his shock,” her sister said, as the carriage came to a stop.
“Remember his expression when you told him of the letter you had received, just as you told me. That is the gentleman you are going to speak with, not the angry, distant, cold gentleman you have known before now. Think of it, Christina! This may be the path back towards him.”
“A path he might not wish to walk along,” Christina said, heavily. “I cannot let myself believe that this will return us to the situation as it was nearly two years ago.”
“Is it a situation you would wish to return to?”
Looking back at Sophie, Christina had no choice but to nod. “Fool that I am, I would,” she admitted, hoarsely. “One word from him and I would fling myself back into his embrace, as if all the pain and confusion were never truly there to begin with.”
Sophie smiled gently. “I do not think you a fool but one who is still in love,” she replied, softly. “And love is one of the strongest forces in this world, I think, so it is little wonder that you are not freed from its grip as yet.”
Christina said nothing to this, but her mind immediately ran to Lord Coventry, back to the moments they had shared and the whispers of love upon their lips. If she was still tangled in the threads of love, then was there any possibility whatsoever that he, too, might be caught there?
Sophie was quiet for a long moment, her gaze drifting to the carriage window where the first trees of Hyde Park had come into view. When she spoke again, however, her voice had changed. The softness of a comforting sister had given way to something sharper, more purposeful.
"Christina, you still have the letter? The one you believed was from Lord Coventry?"
She nodded, her brow creasing. "Of course. I could not bring myself to destroy it."
"Good. Keep it safe." Sophie turned back to her, her jaw set with quiet determination.
"If neither of you wrote those letters, then someone else did — and that someone left traces in the handwriting, the paper, the ink.
When you speak with him, ask whether he still has the letter he received.
Compare them side by side. If the same hand wrote both, the proof will be there. "
Christina stared at her sister. It was the first practical suggestion anyone had made since the revelation — the first step from bewildered grief toward something that resembled a path forward.
Something loosened in her chest, a thread of purpose winding itself around the ache that had settled there.
"You are right," she said, slowly. "I had not thought of it."
"Then it is well that I am here." Sophie pressed her hand once more, then straightened in her seat as the carriage slowed. "Now — dry your eyes, my dear. We are about to enter the park, and the ton will be watching. Let us give them nothing to remark upon but two sisters enjoying the afternoon."
Christina drew in a steadying breath, tucked her handkerchief away, and lifted her chin. The questions that had circled through the long, sleepless hours were still there — unanswered, relentless — but they had shifted, ever so slightly, from torment to purpose.