He had a feeling those words in particular would haunt him until his dying day. His breath caught in his throat, but he managed to level it out. He would not cry. He could not bear the thought of crying now.
He turned, determined to head for their adjoining door and speak to her when something caught his eye beneath the door. There was a thin slip of paper folded up neatly, and on the front, he read his name —Allan.
With sudden energy, Allan bolted toward it. He picked up the note and unfurled it, his eyes falling on Frederica’s cursive handwriting.
Dearest Allan, my husband,
He broke off momentarily. He could not remember Frederica ever actually referring to him as her husband before. It made his heart ache.
I hope someday you’ll come to understand why this was the best course of action. For believe me, it was. It is the only way I could be sure of your…
Allan noticed here she had scrawled out one word then written another with the first word completely illegible.
…happiness. That is what matters now, happiness.
I hope you will be happy, that you’ll live your free life as you were always meant to long before I returned to London and ended up trapping us in scandal.
You’re free of me now, Allan. You’re free to be the man you always wanted to be.
I will be gone when you read this, but take this as my final goodbye and my true wish for your happiness.
I hope we shall meet again someday.
Yours, Freddie
Allan didn’t dare breathe as he finished reading. The fleeting happiness he had felt at her signing her name with the very name he had given her was a wonderous thing, but it was gone in the next second. She’d already gone!
He had to be certain.
He reached for the door, only to find it locked. When it wouldn’t move, he stuffed the letter deep down into his pocket then rammed his shoulder into the door. It gave way easily, the door fracturing open around the lock.
He marched into the room, his head turning back and forth.
“Freddie?” he called out her name, searching for her, but the bed was neatly made from where the maid had already made it up again with no sign at all of Frederica ever having slept the night there.
He hurried toward the bureaus. He pulled open the closet, but that was empty as was the chest of drawers. The more places he searched, the more frantic he became. He even searched under the bed, looking desperately for some sign of an odd pair of shoes — any proof that Frederica had been there at all, but there was nothing.
Had he not lived it, it would have been easy to believe that Frederica had never been here at all.
“Mrs. Long?” the words burst from him.
He strode out of the room, practically sprinting all the way to the staircase and down the steps.
“Mrs. Long?” he called again.
She was not the only one to come. The butler appeared too as did Miss Lucy, Frederica’s maid. They halted in the entrance hall, having just run up the servants’ stairwell.
“My Lord?” Mrs. Long asked, her pallor pale. “What is it? What is wrong?”
“She’s gone!?” He never lost his temper with his staff — it was just not something he did — but he couldn’t keep control of himself now. “When? When did she go? Where did she go?”
“She left first thing,” Lucy answered when Mrs. Long hesitated. “We prepared the carriage, and she left.”
“Where? Where did the carriage go?” Allan asked, jumping down the last of the steps to note that Lucy hung her head, coloring pink.
She knows.
“We do not know.” Mrs. Long held her head high. “I am sorry, My Lord. Truly, I am. I wish she had not wanted to go, but it was what she wanted.”
