Who did she correspond with? His sisters-in-law? Some friend unknown to him? Family similarly unknown.
A lover?
He let the letter drop to the floor, the paper hot as burning coal. It opened even further, making some of the scrawled words legible. He couldn’t read it. He wouldn’t pry. Her private matters were none of his business. He turned to the window. The terrace houses where the Cresswells lived rose before him. He could have walked, but he’d wanted to emphasize his position. He swallowed and watched the house grow larger as they approached.
The paper so very near his boot grew hotter. The leather of his shoe would soon melt clean away.
“Hell.” He couldn’t help it. He ripped his gaze from the window and looked down at the letter, squinted. If he couldmake out just one word, his curiosity would be appeased. He leaned forward. “Hell,” he said again as the one word he searched for became clearer.
Two words, actually. He grabbed the paper and had the entire thing read and crumpled in minutes.
“Marry him? Marry him!” Mr. Tidsdale could rot in hell. Mrs. Dart wouldnevermarry that man.
The coach stopped, and the door opened.
“My lord?” the footman said. “Will you alight?”
Of course. He had a plan to set in motion.
But then why would his body not move? Frozen in rage. The temerity of that man!
He held in his hand a letter that threw all he knew to be true in question. Mrs. Dart had left him. She’d received this letter. Was she even now with Tidsdale? Were they plotting? His hands clawed around the edges of the seat, anchoring him even more.
“My lord?”
He swung his gaze out the door to see another door beckoning him. Beyond it, the woman he hoped to marry. But courtship seemed a waste of precious time with this cursed letter burning the world down around him.
“My lord, are you well?”
Why could he not move? Part of him demanded he put his feet on the ground and march into the terrace home and propose a marriage of convenience to a passingly attractive young woman with mountains of money.
Another part of him tore up the furniture of his mind in a fit of raving rage, demanded he put the coach in motion again and not let it stop until he reached Hawkscraig.
A terrible idea. It would ruin all his carefully laid plans.
But what did Mrs. Dart plan to do? Tidsdale offered, in his words, “a position in a new agency with better pay or marriage or both, whichever the lady prefers.”
Ah, there existed another option—hie off to London and rip Tidsdale’s head from his neck. He attempted to poach Drew’s employee. The scoundrel. Mrs. Dart was much too intelligent to fall for the man’s machinations.
She was.
Wasn’t she?
She had… left. Three days ago, she’dleftafter five years of never once leaving his side, and without a word to him. Was it because she’d had a Tidsdale-shaped secret? Was it because she knew this was only her first leaving, and the next would be permanent?
“My lord.” The footman’s voice high with agitation. Naturally.
But agitation crept up Drew’s limbs too. “Shh! I’m thinking.”
The door closed and Drew pressed his fingers to his temples, closing his eyes. The world around him swam, worse, shifted. He stood on sand. He hated sand. A slight breeze could send it skating into the air. No control. Impossible to control. He took steadying breaths. He must make a decision. No… no decision. He already possessed a plan. Marry a rich woman and continue his expansion. Yes, he should open the door and step into his future, as he’d planned.
But what were those plans without Mrs. Dart, the face of his agency, the playactor he needed to keep his clientele and expand it? If there was no Mrs. Dart… was there any expansion? Not at least until he trained another woman in her work. All his plans, put on hold. And he had no idea what her reaction to this letter was. She’d not even told him, jokingly during the tedious coach ride back to Manchester, that Tidsdale had written to her. She’d kept it a secret. Mrs. Dart kept secrets from him, and she wore pink to weddings, and he could no longer count on himself to understand her next, her every move.
He had to know. He could not wait a month. It would be pure torture.
Hell.
He threw open the door, and the footman, leaning against the coach and whistling, straightened, and looked at him expectantly.
