The Look of Love

by Kelly, Julia

  “Hello,” he said, putting his pen down and rising.

  “No, please don’t get up,” she said hurriedly.

  He settled back in his chair. “Is there something I can help with?”

  She handed a letter across the desk to him. “A letter came for you in the second post. It’s from Edinburgh. I thought you might wish to see it immediately.”

  His heart skipped a beat when he turned the envelope over, but instead of Ina’s delicate, looping writing, it was Moray’s speedy scrawl.

  “Thank you,” he said, setting it aside. He’d look at it after he was done with his work. His friend’s lively gossip about the newspapers, Eva, and all of their acquaintances would provide welcome respite.

  When he glanced up, Grace was still standing before him, hands twisting.

  “Is there something I can do to help? You need only to ask,” he said, for, though she wasn’t the woman at the center of his world any longer, she was still his brother’s widow. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose a spouse in such an unexpected way. A trick of fate, and Grace’s entire future had shifted. He remembered she’d always been a proud woman and knew she wouldn’t appreciate his pity, but he could give her his kindness.

  She gestured to the chair across from him. “Might I sit for a moment?”

  “Please do.”

  The pause gave Grace enough time to compose her thoughts, purse her lips, and nod. “I realize that it must be odd to be living here in the same house as me.”

  He shook his head. “Not at all. All I ever wanted for you was happiness, and I’m glad you found a life with my brother.”

  A sad smile played over Grace’s lips. “Years ago I couldn’t imagine you saying something so gracious.”

  “We all change,” he said.

  No one more than me.

  Right after Gavin’s mother had coldly informed him that Grace would marry Richard and Grace herself had confirmed it, he hadn’t been able to stand the idea of being in the same room as her. She was the reason he’d left Oak Park that night—not his father, his brother, or his mother. It had been all Grace.

  It was strange to think that she’d had such a hold on him, when now he could look upon her as nothing more than his sister-in-law. Time had helped, but mostly it was Ina. He’d thought he loved Grace back then, but he now knew he’d loved the idea of her more than the reality.

  Ina was an entirely different matter. He’d known her as a friend and understood her flaws almost from that first day. That first day when she’d leveled her impertinent gaze at him and declared he was interrupting her serious work as a sculptor, he’d begun to leave Ashington, his family, and Grace far behind.

  When he’d finally realized he was in love with Ina, he’d lived for her. He still did, despite his best efforts to put her behind him.

  “I fear that some of us change less than others,” said Grace with a little smile. “Sometimes I think I’m still that seventeen-year-old girl you used to write letters to.”

  He hardly knew what to say to that, so he just sat and let a grieving woman speak.

  “I know it must be hard to believe, but rejecting you was the most difficult decision I’ve ever made.” Her eyes fell to her lap while her fingers played with the edges of her cuticles. She stopped and spread her hands out on her skirts as though trying to calm herself. “You must believe that the decision wasn’t entirely mine.”

  He huffed out a laugh. “Of that I’ll never be sure.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, a touch defensively.

  “We always have a choice, Grace. We could’ve married. I would’ve become a teacher or lecturer at a university and written when I could. We could’ve lived on my salary. It wouldn’t have been the luxury either of us had known growing up, but I was willing to make that sacrifice to be with you.”

  The expression on Grace’s face became pained. “It sounds so easy when you say it like that.”

  He shook his head. “It would’ve been hard on both of us, but I would’ve gone to the ends of the earth for you. I believe that’s what I told you when I proposed.”

  “I—I know.”

  “Do you remember what you said to me when you rejected me?” he asked.

  “Gavin, please don’t think that I meant any of those things,” she said.

  “But you did,” he said. “You told me that I was the second son. You told me that I’d never live up to be the man my brother would be. That I’d never own an estate like Oak Park. That I could never give you the life that you wanted. And at the time everything you said was true.”

  “There was no love between Richard and me.”

  That surprised him. “How could there not be? You’re beautiful, Grace. Surely he saw that.”

  She scoffed. “There’s more than beauty in this world, Gavin. You should know. You wrote about it.”

  “You’ve read my book?” he asked.

  “I ordered it from London. I wanted to see what the man I rejected had made of himself. And then you became a baronet.” Grace paused. “One who is in need of a hostess.”

  All his senses went on alert. “I have a wife.”

  “And she’s not here,” said Grace.

  “What are you saying?”

  She held her head up high, her eyes meeting him directly. “We could have something of what we lost all those years ago. We could have an arrangement.”

  “I have a wife,” he repeated, shocked she’d even suggest becoming his mistress. As though he’d ever be disloyal to Ina.

  “And I have nowhere else to go but Oak Park. My parents are dead, and my brother hardly speaks to me. He’s still resentful I wouldn’t intercede on his behalf when he was selling a piece of land to Richard. There’s no one for me. But we could start again. I know how to run a house like Oak Park. I could be your hostess. People would think you’re being charitable to your brother’s widow. No one would have to know.”

  “I would know,” he said sternly. “And I’d never do that to Ina.”

  She held his gaze for a long moment before shrugging one of her elegant shoulders. “You’re so certain—a man whose wife has left him.”

  He felt sick that she’d thought he might ever be open to such a suggestion. He’d never betray Ina that way. Even knowing she’d walked away, he loved her too dearly.

  “Grace, I will happily find you a place in Ashington to live and a companion to keep you company, but I think it would be best if you left Oak Park,” he said.

  She rose from her chair and glided over to him. “Your charity isn’t what I’m after. I want you.”

  Grace slipped a hand around his neck and moved as though to settle herself on his lap. Gavin jumped out of his chair, knocking her back a few steps.

  “You forget yourself,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me that you haven’t thought about this,” said Grace with a laugh. “What it would be like.”

  “Not for many years, and I don’t intend to start now. I love my wife,” he said.

  “And yet she’s gone,” Grace said, taking a step toward him.

  He stepped back. “That changes nothing.”

  For the first time since he’d arrived at Oak Park, he saw the tiredness around Grace’s eyes. She sighed. “As though there was any doubt I chose the wrong brother, you continue to provide me with more proof.”

  “You should go,” he said. He wanted her out of his office. Just being alone with her after she’d suggested starting an affair felt disloyal to Ina.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep away. I’m not a woman who enjoys courting rejection,” said Grace. Out of the pocket of her dress, she pulled a small envelope. “You’ll forgive me for not handing it over right away, but I’d hoped this conversation would end differently.”

  He stared at it for a moment, not knowing whether he wanted to
take the letter. With a small snort, Grace leaned over and left it on the table.

  He was still staring at the envelope when she shut the door behind her. He didn’t trust Grace. She’d learned too many of his mother’s tricks in manipulation.

  Blindly, he drew Moray’s letter to him. He’d read that now. Then he’d drink himself into a stupor and wonder how the hell his simple, straightforward life had fallen apart so spectacularly.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “YOU’RE CERTAIN GAVIN’S coming?” Ina asked Moray for what must have been the tenth time that day.

  The newspaperman blew out a frustrated stream of air and stared up at her from behind his desk, where he was trying to finish a last set of proofs before disappearing. “Yes. He wrote yesterday to say he’d be on the noon train into Waverley.”

  “He’ll be here,” said Eva, placing a hand on Ina’s arm. The two women had met only a few times before because Eva rarely went out in society, but Ina felt a bond with her. The editor was kind and far more ready to trust her than Moray was—although Ina suspected he was slowly coming around. He’d sent the letter, after all.

  It had taken Mrs. Sullivan just a few minutes to explain the plan she’d devised to get Gavin to return to Edinburgh, and just a little while longer for Ina to tweak and change it to suit Gavin, for she knew him best. Then they’d hopped in Mrs. Sullivan’s carriage and taken a ride down to the Lothian’s offices. If the matchmaker hadn’t been with her, Ina doubted Moray would’ve let her in, for he’d had a letter from Gavin telling him of her abandonment. However, even Moray couldn’t say no to Mrs. Sullivan, and so he’d called Eva into his office and all four of them had sat down to listen to Ina plead her case.

  Now, four days later, she clasped her hands together in front of her and tried her best not to stare at the massive iron clock that hung on the wall of Moray’s office.

  “It’s not even eleven forty-five,” Moray said, his voice softening a touch.

  “I know,” she murmured.

  “Do you know what you’ll say to him?” Eva asked.

  She nodded. “I do.”

  “What is that?” asked Moray.

  Eva smacked him on the arm with a rolled-up newspaper. “Can’t you not think like a journalist for once and stop your incessant prying?”

  “As though you don’t want to ask the very same question,” he said.

  “I have the decency to wait until after she’s won Gavin back to demand the whole story,” said Eva primly.

  The butterflies dancing the polka in Ina’s stomach began swirling around in double time. “If he’ll take me back.”

  Eva shot her a smile. “You just tell him how you feel and he won’t be able to say no.”

  Ina watched silently as Moray and Eva shuffled out of the office, just as the duo had agreed when she and Mrs. Sullivan had revealed their plan. When the front door shut, she knew she was the only one left in the building.

  Her hands trembled as she untied the ribbons on the large leather portfolio she’d brought with her and began pulling out sheets of paper. It was time to win back the man she loved.

  The train shuddered to a stop on track two, and Gavin jolted in his seat. He’d been lost deep in his thoughts, Moray’s letter half open in his hand.

  He’d read his friend’s entreaty that he return to Edinburgh over and over again until the page was soft from being handled too often. By now he practically had the thing memorized, and each and every time he read it a new tide of worry washed over him.

  G,

  One of the reporters for the Tattler has heard of a rumor brewing around your wife. I’m doing my best to stem it any way I can, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep it contained. You’ll understand that the need for discretion is of the utmost importance. I don’t dare put anything in writing. We must speak as soon as we can.

  —Moray

  When he’d read it, his natural protectiveness of Ina had roared up with a power that had surprised even him. He’d cursed Moray for refusing to name the rumor, because it meant his mind went in a hundred different directions, each more frightening than the last.

  His first instinct had been to suspect Gowan was at the center of whatever Moray’s reporter had discovered, and his blood pressure had soared. Without a second thought, he’d snatched up a pen and jotted down a note to Moray, telling him he’d be there. Then he’d rung for Harper to begin making the arrangements for his return to Edinburgh.

  Through all of the packing, however, he hadn’t opened the letter Grace had given to him. He’d left it at Oak Park, hoping to leave behind all the misery that had been forged there.

  Ina had been right, as she so often was. He was miserable in that house. His mother was now safely ensconced in the dower house, but he could still feel the weighty judgment of her influence in every bit of his childhood home, from the decoration to the way the staff was run. The house itself felt as though it was pressing down on him, trying to squeeze him into the mold of his father and all the other baronets who went before him. Men he was never going to be like. He’d be a writer first, always. Ina had seen that even when he couldn’t.

  He knew now that his greatest mistake in life hadn’t been defying his father’s wishes, loving the wrong woman, or having the uncontrollable misfortune of being born second. It had been letting Ina go and stubbornly refusing to follow her.

  He’d been foolish to delay their return to Edinburgh, and, even worse, he’d sacrificed her happiness for his own pride. She’d left her work, her friends, and her home without question to travel with him and offer comfort to two women she didn’t know when he’d needed her to, and he couldn’t keep a simple promise to return with her to their home. He’d failed her as a husband.

  Their last fight still stung him. He’d been furious when she began to speak of Grace as though somehow his former love might be a replacement for Ina. In her eyes, it was Grace he should be married to, not her. It had shocked him, and his anger had boiled over. He’d demanded that Ina tell him she loved him, and when she couldn’t, he’d turned on her with the bitterness and scorn.

  She’d wanted to share a life with him in Scotland. That was what mattered. All that mattered.

  And yet he’d ruined everything, driving her away until all she could do was run. He’d pushed her away. It was his fault.

  He didn’t know how he’d begin to repair the damage he’d wrought, but at least he could do his best to protect her as he’d always done.

  He folded Moray’s letter and tucked it away amid the clatter of conductors and porters preparing the train for passengers to disembark. Gathering up his case and donning his beaver hat, he stepped down to the platform and wove his way through the teeming crowd of people in the station.

  It was easy enough to find himself a hansom cab. He gave the address of Moray’s offices, and as soon as the driver clicked his tongue and flicked the reins, they were off.

  When they arrived at the newspaper office, the street was quiet. The giant presses that made up the foundation of Moray’s empire weren’t running, but that was no great surprise. They were most active in the evening through to the early-morning hours. Now the workmen would be preoccupied with cutting paper, cleaning the machines, and beginning to sort type in preparation for the hard night’s work ahead.

  He paid the driver and climbed down with his bag. He’d thought of driving to the house and dropping his things, but that would mean risking Ina finding out he was in Edinburgh. The ache to see her was powerful, but he wasn’t sure he’d be welcome, and that was too painful a prospect to even consider.

  He was about to open the office door when something caught his eye: a piece of paper half jammed under the door. Stooping, he gently pulled it free. It was a drawing showing the back of a man with a hand outstretched as he reached for a doorknob. He squinted and then looked up at the brass plaque embedded
in the wall next to the doorframe. 108 High Street. He looked down at the paper. 108 High Street, read the sketched plaque next to the man’s bent head in the drawing.

  With a grunt, he pushed open the door and dropped his bag in the entryway. No one was there. The front desk where the newspaper’s diminutive secretary, Mr. Uglow, sat during the day was empty. There were no shouts or clangs of tools through the frosted-glass and wood door leading to the printing presses. Instead it was eerily silent as he’d only ever heard it after the last edition was out, when Moray would sit with a cigar and a glass of whisky, enjoying the momentary peace so unusual in his life.

  “Moray,” Gavin called up the stairs. But almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth he stopped. There was another piece of paper on the first step leading to the offices.

  He scooped it up. It was another sketch, and this time he knew exactly what he was looking at. In breathtakingly realistic detail, it showed a young woman standing with a hammer and chisel in her hand, frowning at the smiling face of a man seated on a little stool, his arms crossed and his mouth open as though in midsentence.

  His heart skipped a beat. He held in his hand a drawing of the first time he’d inserted himself into Ina’s life all because he was fascinated by this young woman who spent her days in a tiny downstairs room rather than promenading in Princes Street Gardens or calling on friends.

  Carefully he placed the drawing on top of the one he’d found outside and looked up the stairs. Another piece of paper sat six steps up, and he took them two by two to reach it. Snatching it up, he smiled. This time he and Ina were each crouched low in the saddle as they raced across Holyrood Park with Arthur’s Seat looming behind them in the background.

  Another four steps up he found a drawing of Ina’s studio once again. This time she was carving an angel a church had commissioned years ago. He was sitting—in a full chair this time—with a book in hand, reading by candlelight as he kept her company. Emotion lodged in his throat. He’d never thought she’d remember such a simple, quiet time as this, but he’d never forget it, for it was in the quiet moments when he’d sat with her while she was carving this diminutive statue of Saint Catherine that he’d first fallen in love with her.