Emma waved, having already bid Arabella farewell.
Arabella likewise raised her hand over her head and waved at her sisters, who now settled in the carriage and took off.
Once the carriage had disappeared around the bend, Arabella rushed back inside the house. She had planned to go to Harry’s study early, but he hadn’t left until just before her sisters did. She wasn’t sure what had caused his delay, as he usually left the house before she awoke to avoid having to converse with her.
Not that he had breakfast with her and her sisters that morning. She had invited him, but he had declined with the excuse that he did not want to intrude on their sisterly time. Arabella had known it for what it was—yet another of his excuses. However, she had said nothing and simply accepted it.
Yet, she had secretly anticipated his departure. Now that he and her sisters were gone, she rushed to his study. She sent Mabel into town with Mrs. Blomquist and had observed the butler setting off in the direction of the laundry. She knew she was safe for the time being.
Quickly, she slipped into the study and closed the door behind her. She looked around, her heart racing. How could she find evidence that her husband was seeing another woman? How had she ended up in this situation? She was a young, beautiful woman, and she was saddled with a husband who clearly did not care for her and who was, by all accounts, keeping a mistress.
Anger bubbled up inside her, and she clenched her hands into fists, grateful that she was wearing gloves, for otherwise her nails would have dug into the palms of her hands and drawn blood.
She looked around his desk, carefully picking up various papers and rifling through drawers, always making sure to put everything back in the same state she had found it.
Then her eyes fell on a box he kept by the window. He had been looking at something here—drawings—and when she had caught him, he had reacted rather severely. Was he hiding something in there?
She squatted down, taking care not to trap the satin fabric of her peach-colored gown underneath her half-boots for fear of ripping it, and then unlatched the box. Fortunately, it was not locked, and it opened almost immediately.
Within, she found a number of items—bonnets, ribbons, handkerchiefs, and a cane. She examined these items and found that they all bore the initials of his parents’ names.
“What am I doing? I should not be here. This is wrong,” she whispered to herself, guilt and curiosity warring within her.
Yet, despite knowing that this was not what she should be doing, she couldn’t help herself. She pulled out a leather binder that was leaning against the back of the box. She recognized it as the one Harry had been looking at.
She felt guilty—she truly did. She was not the sort to invade someone else’s privacy. Once, she had caught Emma rifling through Hanna’s belongings and had been enraged at the sight, and now here she was, doing the same thing.
However, Harry had left her no choice. If she felt she could talk to him, she would, but he was so evasive, always hiding from her. She had no other option but to stick her nose where it did not belong.
She untied the knots on the leather binder and pulled out its contents. They were pencil drawings, and good ones at that. She flipped through them one by one and recognized the faces of Harry’s parents. They were younger in some of the drawings but older in others, which was peculiar because they had died before they reached forty.
There were also drawings of older people who bore a resemblance to Harry and his parents. Grandparents, perhaps?
In another drawing, she saw a young woman holding a child, and her throat constricted. She did not recognize the woman, nor did she look anything like Harry or his family.
Who was she? Was she the person he was going to see? And the child, was it his? Was he seeking a place where his child could be sent away forever?
If that was the case, she supposed she should be happy that he even cared enough to question his valet about the location. But still, a child? How old was this drawing, anyhow? She flipped it over to see if there was an inscription on the back, the way some painters sometimes did, but she found nothing. All she spotted was the letter ‘H’ at the bottom right corner.
H.
Was this the painter? Who was he?
Then it came to her.
It was Harry! Harry had drawn these pictures, she was certain of it. It made perfect sense. He had drawn his parents as he remembered them, and how he imagined they would have looked as they aged. The other people, those older individuals who were not his parents, had to be his grandparents.
Which left her to deduce that the woman was indeed the woman he loved. She had been drawn in great detail—the fine lines of her eyelashes, the curve of her lips—more carefully than those inthe other pictures. The detail was astonishing. Even the freckles were sprinkled across the woman’s face with painstaking precision.
No, Harry had drawn her with great love—it was quite clear. And the child? The child was not drawn with as much care, indicating that whoever had made this drawing did not care for the child as much as their mother. It made sense.
“Harry,” she whispered. “Harry, what secrets are you keeping from me? Why… why did you not tell me the truth?”
“Your Grace?”
She leaped up and spun around, dropping the drawings on the floor.
“Baxter,” she said, her voice shaking. “I did not hear you coming.”
