The appearance of a first wife—stillhis wife—a year later had shred those vows to threads, thin and weightless and quickly lost to the wind. Her marriage null and void, her reputation tattered, her name infamous.
Her damn father-in-law (not legally) had let her know it, too. He’d propositioned her the night before his son’s trial. She still remembered every word and every inflection he’d spoken.You’ve been a whore for a year; remain one, sweetling. I’ll pleasure you more proper than my son ever could.She’d said no, ran, his final words—threats against her, her family—chasing after her.
Vile man. She did not want to touch the letter with his name scrawled across it, to trace the knife-slice black of the ink across its folded surface.
Yet, it was a letter, not a snake! Paper, ink, wax, some man’s musings, and a man she’d never met at that! She’d not give it power over her. She’d traveled the world. She’d earned her own keep. She’d kept herself alive when few others cared whether she breathed or not. When few others still knew she breathed.
Gwendolyn tore at the seal as if it were the man’s eyes, unfolded the wavering, water-warped paper. She tried to read. Shetried. But few words made sense.
“No. No, no, no.”
Marianne took the paper. “Let me have a go. Hm. Is that…death? Ominous, that. And…sins?”
Gwendolyn groaned and dropped her face into her hands. Ominous indeed. “Can you find a word that’s not going to fuel my nightmares?” She peeked at her friend.
Who read further, then winced.
“What have you found?”
“I can’t be sure. Nothing terrible.”
“Then you will not hesitate to tell me.”
“Deceit. Gwendolyn, these words could mean anything. They could not even be accurate. This letter is next to ruined.”
Gwendolyn took the letter back, folded it up, and slipped it into her reticule. “It is of no matter, addressed to a dead woman.”
“You’re shaking. Itdoesmatter.”
She didn’t have to imagine what the old man wanted from her. What everyone had wanted for her. Even her parents. Her father and mother, the man who’d called himself her husband, those she’d thought her friends. They’d all sung the same tune—how foolish you were, how utterly wanton, too, to be a bigamist’s third wife. As if she’dknown. As if she’d complied. What about her father’s foolishness for marrying her to a man already married? They’d all said she was lucky the marquess had offered to make her his doxy. Until he bored of her of course.
Marianne leaned back in her chair. “Must say… glad it’s out of my hands. Been tempting me. I’ve thought a thousand times over of opening it, seeing what he has to say. And then there’s the guilt for ruining it.”
They shot Sally another glare.
“I wish I knew what it said.” Not knowing clawed at her, opened gaping wounds in her mind and heart.
“Surely it’s nothing bad. What can he do to you, after all?”
“I don’t know. He seemed so powerful back then. I married Daniel not thinking of his father. I had not met him before the wedding. Didn’t meet him till after our names were splashed all over the front pages. Daniel was not the marquess’s heir. He had an older brother. I never met him either. I should have known something was quite wrong. Daniel had been hiding me.”
She’d been naïve. Trusting. Foolish.
No more.
Marianne’s hand stretched out to her once more, begging a connection. “Don’t worry on it. The letter is ruined, so you cannot know how to reply.”
The letter was ruined, which worried Gwendolyn even more. What did the man want after all these years? To renew his entreaties and his threats? To make good on them? To blackmail her in some fashion? The room seemed to lose its air. There was nothing to pull into her lungs. Her arms and legs tingled.
What to do?
Run,Lady Mary Lytemore whispered.Run! It’s what she’d done six years ago, and it had saved her. Gwendolyn pulled the thick air into her lungs. She was not that scared girl. She’d traveled the world and become an experienced woman. She rolled her shoulders and banished her fears, as well as Lady Mary, to the farthest reaches of herself.
Then she reached into her reticule. “Thank you. Here.” She slid the small parcel across the table. “For you. I know how you like them.”
Marianne grinned and unwrapped the flat ribbon and brown paper with fleet fingers, pulling forth an iron key. She whistled, held it up. “Look at the intricate work on this one. I love it. Thank you. Where’d you find it?”
“It used to belong to a trunk that held old gowns. The trunk was falling apart, so the woman who owned it all gave me the key when I asked for it. Useless without the trunk, anyway.”
