The Love Note

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  “Now then, there was no earthly reason their union should occur, no advantage other than love itself, and that alone made it special.” Her watery gaze lifted to the tall window beyond us that sparkled with moonlight. “Those are the stories that deserve a happy ending, but rarely seem to get one.”

  I could scarcely breathe. “Which was wealthy and which was poor?”

  As if in a trance, she continued right over my question. “The girl who caught Grayson’s eye, Rose Ellis, had a deep love for people, a loyal and good heart. She was wildly beautiful, and as fate would have it, she eventually fell deeply in love with Grayson Aberdeen, who was bold and dashing but so very unsettled. It was like fireworks—beautiful sparks of energy and delight when it was good, and a blazing fire when it was not. There, you see? It’s nothing like your story. Nothing at all.”

  I pinched back a smile.

  “He met her quite by accident one day in the gardens as she was pilfering some prize flowers to make a rose crown for her beloved godmother, who’d taken ill.”

  “Forget-me-nots, by chance?”

  “Roses.”

  “So they were his flowers she was filching, I assume?”

  Her face scrunched. “Are you going to let me tell it? No, they were not his flowers. What man has flowers?” She grumbled, eyeing me. “So then, he came upon her settled among the tall grass, her long hair in a glossy black waterfall down her back, and he immediately became enchanted with her.”

  Black. Long black hair. The ghost girl! At times my instincts were uncanny. I tipped forward with eagerness to drink in every drop of the story she was serving.

  “It wasn’t love at first sight, mind you, but a definite enchantment settled around the man’s heart that first day, never to be removed. He peered over her shoulder at her sketchbook. She was an artist and a writer, she told him, and she illustrated her stories in charcoal. Her mind filled in the colors her papa refused to buy for her. So of course, upon their next meeting in the field beyond the garden—for he returned every day until he saw her again—he came bearing silver tins full of fresh pigment. Oh, but she was ecstatic, and more than a little drawn to the young rogue who flirted and brought her paints. ‘Will you teach me to paint too?’ said that grown-up imp. He was determined, you see, to win her heart however he could.”

  I sighed, slipping into the dreamy scene she painted. Perhaps that’s what I needed—a man to bring me a gift of medical equipment or perhaps a new bag. Only then would I know he truly appreciated my chosen profession . . . and me. My mind wandered, thick with tiredness that pulled at the edges. My eyes were suddenly dry and weary. “So did she teach him to paint?”

  “She gave it her best, but he wasn’t a quick hand. Poor lad wasn’t one for sitting still, so he’d often dash the paint across the canvas in anger and walk away while she laughed him off. But he always came back to see his little Rose. They didn’t talk of everyday things, but of art and love and things they found beautiful.”

  The soft voice was lulling. Almost magical. What a lovely story. Perhaps someday I’d have such a love, with sweet days passed together in fields of flowers. I could picture a man standing behind me to watch as I painted, then we’d look out over the water . . .

  My eyes blinked open. How had they closed? When had they closed?

  Aunt Maisie was smiling at me. “You’re exhausted. Traveling to Crestwicke, days of rigorous demands, and now a sleepless night.”

  “But who was he? You didn’t finish the story.”

  “Well, if you slept through the ending, that isn’t my fault, now is it?” Her lips tucked around her gums again as she smiled. “You will come back though, won’t you? Come back and hear the rest of it?” Eagerness curled her body forward.

  “Will you tell me all of it?”

  “Eventually. You’ll have to visit enough times to hear it all.”

  “At least tell me this—did they find a way to be together?”

  She sat back a little, content with my response. “They did.”

  So the letter writer had found his happily ever after already. I couldn’t help but feel a tad disappointed that I’d had no hand in it. “What a wonderful ending.”

  Her narrow eyebrows raised. “I never said it was the ending. Did I say that? I didn’t say that. You’ll have to come back and hear more. You promised to come back.”

  “But they married, did they not?”

  She fidgeted. “In a manner of speaking. Well, yes and no. But it didn’t end there. The good ones never do. There is far more to come, and you simply must come back to hear it.” The woman stood and fluffed her many layers. “Another time, though. Go and take yourself to bed.”

  “Where is he now? Grayson Aberdeen, that is.”

  “Your questions have no end, do they?” She grimaced. “Ask them all, and there’ll be nothing left to hear next time.”

  I looked over the woman most deemed useless and found utter delight in her presence. “Last one, I promise. For tonight, anyway. Please tell me, Aunt Maisie. Where is Grayson Aberdeen? I need to find him.”

  She leaned forward until I could see the thin hairs on her upper lip. “You’ll never find him, Miss Duvall. It isn’t worth looking.”

  “He’s at Crestwicke, isn’t he?”

  She merely raised her eyebrows. “Do you know anyone here by that name?”

  “He’s changed it, then. Who is he?”

  She shook her head. “Grayson Aberdeen would never change his name. Too much a part of him. Of his legacy. No, that man will be Grayson Aberdeen until his death.”

  I lifted my candle, now dripping large tears of wax down its thickening sides, and strode into the hall. Realizing I’d forgotten my teacup, I turned back to the library, but the sight of Aunt Maisie stopped me in the doorway. She stood facing the darkened window, aged back hunched, her frail body so small in the center of that old library. How odd that of all the interesting thoughts and wisdom in her lace-capped head, the advice she’d dragged out to the front was giving one’s self over to falling in love—even though she was alone. I’ve been on that journey and it was the most incredible one I’ve ever taken in my long life.

  Yet it had ended, as had Grayson’s and so many others. I’d reminded myself of that many times over the years, whenever I faced a flicker of longing, a temptation away from my goals. At least a medical degree would be forever—once I became a doctor, no one could take it from me. It would be who I was.

  I turned back to the stairs through the dark hall, but a noise ahead stopped me, and I stared into the shadows. Grayson was at Crestwicke, wasn’t he? Hiding, perhaps. That’d be why I hadn’t run across him . . . yet. I held my candle aloft, but everything beyond its glow was black. “Hello?” I swallowed back the urge to add the name Grayson Aberdeen, fearful of what that might summon. “Is someone there?”

  Only my own voice ricocheted about. What a terribly sad house this was, within beautiful walls. It echoed with something terrible, something only magnified by the somber moan of wind forcing its way through the cracks along the windows and groaning high up in the rafters.

  Moving swiftly through the passageways and toward the stairs, I jumped when a clock bonged in some distant room, and there on the landing stood the dark-haired ghost girl, a long, thick plait down one shoulder as a hall light flickered just behind her. “Oh, it’s you.” She descended to meet me, stepping into the little circle of my candle’s light, and I saw her clear as day—she was no ghost. “I heard people about. Who were you speaking with?” She spoke with a delicate, lovely voice, yet it was tight and clipped with tension.

  “Just an acquaintance.”

  Pink washed over her high cheekbones. My, but she was lovely. She looked older than a child, though, when seen up close. Maybe eighteen or nineteen years of age. “Burke?”

  “Aunt Maisie, actually.”

  Something crucial released in her face and her expression smoothed.

  “You needn’t hate me, you know. We’ve never even
spoken. Though I’ve been wondering who you are.”

  Sparks returned to her eyes. “I saw the way you looked at him on your first day here. Burke doesn’t care for you, though. An old spinster like you doesn’t know how to catch a man’s attention.”

  My shoulders tensed. Yet the longer I studied that angry little face with its pure contours and wide eyes, pity swarmed my heart. “You fancy him your suitor, do you?”

  Those deep violet eyes flashed, slicing me with a look. “No, I fancy him my husband.”

  I blinked, stumbling to reorder everything I thought I knew. No wonder Burke had been confused when I’d asked about a girl at Crestwicke—truly, there was none, for it was a married woman standing before me. “Forgive me. I was never told of the marriage. I had no idea you were—”

  “It was a quiet ceremony. Burke didn’t wish to have a large affair.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “If you’ll pardon me, Miss Duvall, Burke will be wondering what’s become of his wife.”

  “O-of course.” I fumbled the two simple words as she turned, braid hanging between her two jutted shoulder blades, and left. She moved with purpose into the deep shadows of Crestwicke, and I knew. I knew as I watched the poise and slenderness of her retreating back, that there was so much more to her story.

  ten

  Choose wisely whom you allow to share your home, for you will slowly become what he or she believes you are, an image chiseled out word by word, day by day.

  ~A scientist’s observations on love

  Clara Gresham chided herself all the way up the grand staircase as she climbed by feel, hand gliding along the well-oiled railing. Her suspicions were silly. Burke was likely buried in work, not sneaking off for dalliances with the new nurse. He’d warned her when they married that work consumed him, and it had proved truer every month of their life together. She paused outside their chamber for a moment, leaning on the door and allowing the cool dark to swallow her thoughts. She brushed her hand against Essie’s love letter in her pocket, willing herself to stop longing.

  Suddenly the door fell away and she stumbled into Burke. She looked up into his chiseled face, the one that had drawn her away from her childhood home. She’d gone willingly enough then. To be always in the presence of such a formidable man, to claim him as hers, would be nothing short of heaven, she’d thought. What girl didn’t dream of having such a man to call her husband?

  Yet now, only hope kept her there. She’d been outrunning her misgivings all this time, stuffing them down, but they’d caught up with her. That simple love letter—given to the maid, of all people—filled the cracks reality had made in her heart and enlarged them, making her fully aware of how much was lacking in her marriage to the great Burke Gresham.

  Burke’s frown was magnified by the shadows. “Where were you?” How readily that frown came, especially around her. She’d never have guessed their union would turn into this.

  “I couldn’t sleep.” Especially with him still not abed. She puffed up her meager courage and lifted her gaze. “Where were you?”

  His sharp warning glare was the only answer. It was an offense, she knew, to poke at him with questions to which she should already know the answers, if she trusted the man she married. And mostly, she did. Yet it seemed impossible for a woman who had married so well to not have doubts now and again.

  Ducking past him, she slipped into their chamber and tightened the robe about herself.

  “I’ve given you the grandest suite you’ve ever had in your life, but you hardly ever use it. I suppose you were up in that attic again, buried in your paints.”

  “I wasn’t painting.”

  “But you were wandering alone by yourself at night. What will it take to entice you to act a lady?”

  “You needn’t treat me this way. I’m not a child, Burke.”

  “Then stop behaving as one. I need a wife, Clara. One who can walk among nobility with poise, stand beside me as an equal.”

  His words assaulted her as tiny pellets to her heart that stung but did not kill.

  “I purchased that book of manners for you. I suppose it was a waste, just like all the costly gowns with paint smears on the sleeve. It’s as if you don’t care a whit for the beautiful things you have. Do you? Do you care at all?”

  Her very soul curled in on itself as her body remained in the room but her mind separated itself from what her life had become. She should have changed the wretched frock. Instead she’d let passion send her hurtling up the stairs when inspiration struck, heedless of what she wore, and she’d ruined it. She hated to know how much these gowns cost, but he always made sure she did.

  “Tell me how to make this work, Clara. How can my wife and the opulent life I’ve brought her to exist together? Tell me what needs to be done and I’ll do it. Shall I hire a tutor? Would that help you remember the social graces that always seem to elude you?”

  “I’ll try to remember.” She turned away, humiliated. She wasn’t certain exactly where the failure was, in herself or in the marriage, but she felt it keenly. Hurt welled up in her, its abundance spilling warm and wet from her eyes and falling down her cheeks.

  Burke saw, and growled. He always saw. “Why are you crying again?”

  She cowered into her settee, which made him growl louder.

  “For pity’s sake, Clara, stop doing that. Have I ever struck you?” He paced. “Have I?”

  She forced herself to straighten and turn back to him. “No.”

  “You were so eager to take on this life when we were courting.” He gripped the chair back, face intense.

  A glimmer of hope sparked in her chest at the earnest way he looked at her. It was as if he was fighting a battle within himself concerning her, and perhaps everything was about to change. He’d come to himself again, adoring his little Clara and delighting in her amusing ways.

  “It brought me such joy to think of giving you everything you’d always wanted, showering you with the beautiful gowns you used to gaze upon in the windows of Harrods, but you barely seem to care.”

  “I do care.” Indeed, she was the problem. She was such a child. Irresponsible and rash, flitting about her lovely life without concern for what others did for her. Though she’d been a Harrington, she lacked the deportment that went along with that old family name, their natural dignity wiped out by a single generation of poverty. She’d have to try harder, especially since it was important to him. “Truly, I do.”

  His gaze oozed with doubt.

  Turning, lashes fluttering away tears, her hand crumpled against the letter still in her pocket. That terrible, troublesome, utterly beautiful letter. She’d meant to look through the study for handwriting samples, but she couldn’t help feel a personal connection to this note now.

  How she longed for—ached for—what the letter offered. Burke had been that way once, hadn’t he? Everything she did had been splendid and charming. He’d even been the one to purchase her paints and set up the attic studio, where he soon after proposed to her.

  Slipping the note onto her desk, for she could not bear to be reminded of the fool thing every time she moved, she turned and looked at her husband’s back outlined by candle glow as he stared out the window.

  Without another word—for what could she say in the face of her obvious lacks?—Clara slipped beneath the sheets and curled around her hurt. She did not even bother to remove her robe. Though they were man and wife, she could not bear to be vulnerable in any way just then. She tucked her hand under her pillow and caught sight of a blue-green dash of paint still on the inside of her wrist.

  She touched it, remembering the first time Burke had kissed her. It had been a sacred action, much like a crown being placed on her head. “You mustn’t feel you need to hide yourself from me, Clara,” he’d said when she tried to conceal a similar paint smear.

  At that point, a whole twenty-six months past, she’d been young enough to believe him.

  One day things would be better. They had t
o be, for she belonged to God even more than Burke, and no one was more able than God to right every wrong in the lives of his children.

  It wasn’t until morning that everything changed. Burke Gresham woke to a cold bed and flung his arm across the rumpled sheets. Head pounding, he pushed himself upright and stared into the harsh glow slicing through a crack in the drapes. The lovely little form beside him was gone. Not that he was surprised.

  With a groan, he planted his feet on the morning-chilled floor and splashed his face with water from the pitcher, willing the ache in his head to recede. Feeling for a towel, he knocked books from a chair and papers from a desk. Finally his hand connected with a cloth and he blotted his face and blinked, looking down over the mess. It was a bit like his life at this moment.

  He stooped to shuffle the chaos together, and that’s when he saw it. The letter was edged with crimson, and it begged to be pursued further. She’d slipped it from her pocket to the desk last night when he’d turned his back, but he’d watched her in the window’s reflection. He lifted the little missive from the invitations and clippings on the floor and flipped it open, catching a brief and sickening glance at the opening. Dear one, it began.

  Dear one?

  He dropped it like hot coal. Firming his jaw, Burke swept the entire pile together, letter and all, and deposited it back on the unkempt little desk. She was his wife, letter or not. It was better not to know.

  He rose and fresh pain assaulted his head, sending him cowering away from the bright window and into the desk chair. Why did she have to be so wretchedly closed off these days? It was as if she’d pretended to be this woman of poise and raw talent, a true lady simply fallen on hard times, so that she might catch the attention of Crestwicke’s heir. Once she’d wedded him, the light had slowly dimmed to reveal a simple, absent-minded child-creature who was nothing like the woman he’d chosen. That letter might explain what had changed. He had a desperate urge to read it.