“No, she’s very neat,” he said. “Things are gone. Her favorite dresses and her books—and the patch box her mother gave her,” he said, looking at the other patch boxes and noting that one was missing.
“Have you checked your chamber?” Julian said, the jest suddenly gone out of his voice.
Nathaniel’s head moved, but his legs were already doing the work. He made his way down the seemingly endless corridors, turned right, walked down another corridor, and finally—after what felt like an eternity—arrived in the west wing, where they had been staying together of late.
She still kept her own chamber, but she had stayed with him most nights. He entered the bedchamber, took the stairs two at a time—but found that she was not there either.
“Do you think she’s gone home?” Julian asked, having followed him.
“This is her home,” he said. “This is our home. I thought it was.”
Julian shook his head and walked around. He stopped by the bedside table.
“Well, it seems whatever storm possessed her did not hold at your bedside or your bedchamber,” he said in motion. Nathaniel came around the bed and saw that everything had been knocked off his nightstand. There was a candle lying separated from itscandle holder, a book turned upside down, and a sort of trinket on the floor. The pillow wasn’t where it was supposed to be either, lying in a strange spot, teetering between the bed and the floor as if trying to stand at attention.
Then he spotted it. There was a letter on his pillow—or where his pillow should have been. He picked it up and sat on the edge of the bed, while Julian leaned against the window frame across from him.
He wetted his lips and cleared his throat.
“Nathaniel,”she wrote.
“I wanted to believe that you had told me the truth about everything. That we had a future together and could be happy. I already envisioned the pitter-patter of small feet running up and down the halls outside our chamber. But I know now that this can never be, because nothing you told me is true.
I overheard you speaking to Julian. I know that you think that you are trapped in this marriage—trapped with my father—that you wish we had never met. I heard everything. And as if that was not enough, I already know that you still go to the club and see women in the back rooms. And I know what you do there with the women. I know what you’ve done there with the women all along. You told me you got into a fight and that’s why you looked disheveled—but I know that’s not true, is it? And after the theater, I smelled a woman on you. But you were never at the theater, were you?”
Julian said nothing, but shook his head, looking as shocked as Nathaniel felt.
“I was at the theater. What is she talking about? I smelled like Lady Haxham’s perfume because she spilled it onto me while applying more during intermission.”
“I do not understand either,” Julian said while Nathaniel looked back at the letter.
You have been seen not by one, but two different people. Why did you not tell me the truth? There was no need to pretend that you loved me when you didn’t. We had an arrangement. I could’ve continued living my life as I did—filling my hours with purposeful causes. Why did you have to pretend you loved me and make me believe that there was a different future for me?
For that, I shall never forgive you.
By the time you read this, I will be gone. I suppose eventually we shall have to see one another, but I would prefer to make such communications through my father and your solicitor.
If you have any care for me at all, you will allow us to continue being married, so I might live my life as I had planned. If you insist upon a divorce, I shall not fight you.
“She’s gone,” he said. “She overheard us talking in the garden—and she must’ve thought I was talking about her.”
Julian frowned. “How is that possible? I thought it quite clear that we were talking about Lady Charmaine.”
Nathaniel said, “I do not know. But I suspect if one walked in mid-conversation and did not hear the start of it, it might not be quite as clear. Goodness gracious—she’s gone. She thinks that everything I ever told her was a lie. Clearly, somebody told her these lies. But who? Who would do such a thing?”
“Well, we know one,” Julian said in a dry tone. “Halston. But she surely would not believe him.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” Nathaniel said. That, he was absolutely certain of. “But somebody else must have.”
“Well, who has a reason to?” Julian asked. Then his eyes grew wide. “I daresay I have an idea.”
Nathaniel felt the mirror coming on. “As do I. My friend, I shall require your assistance.”
Julian united his stance. “Whatever you need. I stand ready to storm any enemy’s fortress with you.”
Nathaniel smiled at his friend, full of gratitude. “Well, we shall not storm any fortresses today—but I have a certain townhouse in London in mind.”
“Onward we go!” Julian said, and raised one fist into the air as though they were indeed a confederacy of soldiers about to ride out at dawn.
