Isabella snorted. This man had blackmailed her family, had given Rowan a black eye. Did he think her a halfwit?
“You stole it!” Haws pointed at Samuel. “You paid a bloody thief to snatch it from me!”
“I did not. But try telling everyone that. Because you’ll also have to tell them what I stole, which would be bad for me, but then you’d also have to reveal why I’d want the letter stolen, what you meant to do with it, and on and on and, my dear Mr. Haws, it does not bode well foryou, either. Your daughter does not deserve to be shunned, no matter what you deserve. So leave my home at once and never darken my doorway again. Do you understand?”
For a moment, it seemed like Haws wouldn’t budge, like he might tackle Isabella and wrench the letter from her grasp. Then all that hot air and bravado leaked out of him, and he left with heavy steps and rounded shoulders.
Imogen tumbled onto the sofa, throwing an arm over her eyes. “I did not expect him to give in so easily.”
Samuel collapsed beside her. “Me neither, truthfully. But he has nothing now. Nothing to bend me to his will. And no means of getting it back. Because we’re burning it. I should have burned it last night, but… I read it and… it was like hearing Mother’s voice again. I thought the rest of you might like to read it. Then we’ll burn it.”
Imogen jumped to her feet. “We must make haste. I’ll gather the sisters!”
Before she stepped outside the room, Samuel called out, “Wait.”
She leaned against the door frame. “Yes?”
“Thurston… why are you really marrying him? Did you establish this union simply to buy me time?”
“I want to marry him.” Imogen’s head tilted to the side. “Why does everyone think otherwise?” Then she bounded away.
Isabella took her spot on the sofa beside Samuel, and he rolled his head toward her. “Because they’re not a good match. Am I wrong about that, Issy? I’ve been wrong about so much else.” He covered his face with his hands and groaned, then growled, then dropped his handsto the sofa cushions in a world-spinning sigh. “Just before he died, Father told me that falling in love happens all at once. The lady appears, and suddenly your future, which had seemed at best foggy, is bright and clear. Her in every image of it. Before you meet her, it’s like viewing the inside of a house through a foggy window—nothing but vague shapes. After… like looking at the most realistic oil painting. Do you think that happened for Im?”
“I don’t know. I think, perhaps, it happens differently for everyone.” For Isabella, it had been more like a gradual certainty. Like a room in a house being redecorated in the dark. She knew things were rearranging, but she could not see what the end result would be. Then a thousand candles had flickered on at once, and she’d known. Everything was new. And everything was perfect, just how she liked it.
Not perfect any longer.
Samuel shifted to better face her. “The gentleman from last night—Mr. Trent. Admiral Garrison’s son, I suppose… How do you know him? I’ve heard the admiral speak of him, but Trent has never come around. I owe him an apology.”
Somehow, the corners of her lips tipped up. “I do not think you will find it easy to serve him one. He dislikes dukes, anyone with a title really. He dislikes company, too.”
“Titles and company can be tedious. I envy his ability to escape it.”
“I wish he would not.”
“Isabella.”
“Oh, do not speak to me in that gravelly, duke-ish tone. I was searching for your letter in his hotel—the Hestia on Conduit Street. It is where the Haws reside when in Town.”
“Isabella!”
“I was safe. I’m always safe. I know how to disguise myself well, and the Hestia is the safest of hotels for maids. The others aren’t nearly so strict in keeping watch over their well-being.”
“You’ve snooped around other hotels as well? What for?”
“I hate not knowing.” The simplest way of explaining it.
“I don’t understand.”
She didn’t want to say the words out loud. But if Rowan was right,if she hid behind her gossip as he hid up in his rooms, she needed to say them, to confront her fear, and file its teeth to nubs. She inhaled, exhaled, and dove in to the day that would always ring loud in her memory. “You kept Mother’s and Father’s death from us. I hadn’t even known they were leaving. What if I could have done something for them? What if I could have kept it from happening? If I’d known, Samuel, perhaps they’d still be here. And I can’t… I can’t fathom the possibility I might lose someone else when I could have done something. Helped in some way. I had to snoop about hotels to find out about the men my sisters would marry or the women who wished to be in our book club. Or the suitors who courted us, or the women you courted. And then to find the letter. Becausenotto do something, anything… I feel so… helpless. The world spins by so quickly it is all I can do to hold on.” Controlling it? Next to impossible.
Samuel’s hand slipped into hers, squeezed. “I should have told you. But still, you could have done nothing. And even with all your lurking about, you’d not have stopped Haws from blackmailing me.”
She closed her eyes and tried to give that truth home inside her chest. Some things she could not know, would never be able to control, and she would have to find peace with that.
Samuel squeezed her hand again. “But you did help me retrieve the letter. Thanks to you, Sister, I can choose a bride myself. Perhaps not quite by myself.”
“What do you mean?”
