∞∞∞
Anthony returned to his residence late in the evening, having spent far too many hours holed up within his solicitor’s office poring over the myriad documents which would, at last, transfer ownership of the selected estates from him to his sisters-in-law. A more complicated process thanhe had hoped it would be, but a necessary one—neither Esther nor Helen had ever had to handle the financial aspects of running an estate, but he had not wished to put either of them in the same confusing, tangled mess into which he had been thrown, left to fend for themselves without a clear picture of both their resources and their responsibilities.
It had all come out well, he thought. The folios with which he had returned would outline for them clearly the summation of their assets and project the expected income to be received from the tenants upon their new lands. But the doing of it had eaten up the better part of his day.
And his evening. Dusk had fallen hours ago. He’d kept Charity waiting well beyond what anyone could be reasonably expected to bear.
Redding was waiting to admit him as he climbed the steps, opening the door well before he had reached it. “Evening, Redding,” Anthony said. “Is Charity in the drawing room?”
“No, Captain,” Redding said. “Miss Nightingale did not arrive this evening as expected.”
“She didn’t?” Disappointment struck deep. Well, at least he had not kept her waiting for him as he’d imagined—but he had hoped to see her. She was meant to have come this evening, and he’d missed her these last few days.
“She did, however, send a note round,” Redding said. “I have got it here, with the rest of your correspondence.”
Rather too much of it, Anthony thought as he accepted the stack of letters. But the mail was delivered several times each day, and he’d not been home to receive it, so it stood to reason that he would have to contend with more of it than he’d hoped.
Anthony thumbed through the stack of letters as he headed for the stairs to his study, separating out those which could be put off until tomorrow. He had only just settled into his chair and lit his lamp when the last letter in the stack gave him pause.
A letter from the Church.
For a long, difficult moment he could only sit and stare at it laying there in his hand. His heart wrenched itself into a vicious pound, beating at the cage of his ribs as if there were some wild beast trapped within his chest struggling for freedom.
He didn’t have to know what the letter said, he realized. He knew already what he wanted it to say.
And there it was at last. A bolt from the blue, just as Charity had once suggested. The one he had hoped to feel. Not for the woman he wassupposed to want, the woman whose name had been scrawled upon the carefully-curated list of acceptable duchesses. But for the woman who had shown him such kindness so many years ago. The woman to whom he owed his very life. The woman who had offered him her friendship, her tutelage, her compassion. The woman who had mended his broken family and taught him that his worth was not measured by his appearance, nor by the acceptance of society. The woman who had helped him to discover a life worth living when he had despaired of ever finding one.
There was the sense of impending disaster looming before him. The fact that Charity had not arrived this evening, the letter she’d sent in her stead—it all added up to one terrible, heartbreaking conclusion. She had certainly received a letter of her own, knew already what the judgment had been. The rapid pace of his heart slowed to a crawl as he peeled up the wax seal and carefully unfolded the letter. Read, in the dim lamplight, the words scrawled within.
The Church hereby grants an annulment in the matter of the marriage of Anthony Sharp, Duke of Warrington, and Miss Charity Nightingale. The Church concludes that no such legal marriage ever existed and is to be considered invalid from its inception.
That was it, then. Such sharp misery boiled down to only a few sentences upon a page. He was not married. According to the Church, he never had been. In the space of a single letter, he’d lost so much more than an eye, than the prettiness of his face.
He’d lost the whole of his heart, torn of out his chest still beating.
It was Charity’s letter in his hands now, the fluid flourishes of his name rendered in thick black ink on the outside of it. No hesitation marred her perfect penmanship, not even the tiniest blot that would suggest some manner of disquiet, of conflict within her. Nor even a wax seal, as if it had not mattered to her how many hands her letter might have passed through, who might have read it before him. Anthony opened it with trembling fingers, carefully peeling back the pleats and tucks that sealed it.
Dear Anthony,
I wish you every joy. For my fee, all I ask of you is your happiness.
I trust that this will now prove no great obstacle.
Yours, Charity
No. His mind rebelled, a violent revolt that sent his senses reeling. How could she ask that of him? Money he could have paid her, or the precious jewels she favored. Buthappiness? She had asked the one thing of him that he had lost all hope for the moment this verdict upon their marriage had been rendered.
The only way to give her what she’d asked of him—
His heart shuddered in his chest. A fearful, cringing quake.
The only way to give her what she’d asked would be to make the biggest gamble of his life, and hope againstdesperate hope that she might have him.
Chapter Twenty One
The butler had, naturally, slammed the door in Anthony’s face owing to lateness of the hour at which he had arrived, but he did not intend to be so easily dissuaded. He pounded upon the door with his fist until even the nearby windows rattled with the force of it. He’d wake the whole damned household if he had to.
After what felt like an eternity, there was some manner of sour grumbling from behind the door, which slowly opened once more to expose Chris’ scowling face, his blond hair tousled and disheveled. He braced one hand upon the door jamb, revealing the crimson velvet sleeve of his banyan robe, suggesting he’d been pulled—none too willingly—from a sound sleep.
