Page 61 of The Earl's Secret
“There are not copies for everyone?”
“No,” Hope said. “Just for you.” She looked to the rest of the women. “Perhaps we can read our own novels while you learn more of what awaits you.”
“Very well,” Cassandra said slowly, unable to help her suspicion. Something was clearly amiss, but she supposed the only way to find out was to read. Perhaps it had something to do with the riddle. But why would Hope not have come to her immediately if she had discovered an answer?
“I can hear you thinking from across the room,” Madeline said impatiently. “Just read.”
“Very well,” Cassandra grumbled as she set the pages down upon her lap and allowed her eyes to run over the heavy script.
Five years ago, our hero and heroine were at a house party, it began.
It just took a few lines to realize that the story written upon the pages was not just any story. It washerstory. Hers and Devon’s.
“Hope,” Cassandra said imploringly, lifting her head, her eyes boring into her friend, but Hope simply shook her head.
“Keep reading,” Hope said, her voice more insistent than Cassandra had ever heard it before. With the instruction coming from her most mild-mannered friend, she didn’t seem to have a choice but to continue.
She knew the story well, and yet she couldn’t help the quickening of her heart as her eyes skimmed the words in her need to know what was coming next. For the details included on the pages were those that only two people knew – her and Devon.
Had he written this? But why?
She forgot all of her questions, however, as she continued to peruse the page, needing to know how he would have this end.
She looked up at her friends, who were pretending to read but were quite obviously watching for her reaction to the story.
“You do know that I don’t appreciate unhappy endings,” she muttered, not missing the smiles they were trying to hide.
“Just read,” Faith said with an exasperated sigh, and Cassandra tilted her head back down to finish the story. It told of what had happened five years ago – to her, and to the man who had left her, who had always regretted it, and had wanted nothing more than to apologize – and to make her his wife. Her pulse quickened at that, as Devon had told her what his intentions had been, and yet it seemed more real when it was written down in front of her. He had truly wished to marry her, all of this time?
All that had been holding him back, it seemed, was his belief that she wanted nothing to do with him – which made sense, considering that she had refused to talk to him, would not receive his messages or entertain any invitation to meet.
Her eyes began to smart, and she had to blink back the tears that threatened. So much time wasted, a lifetime that could have been…
The story continued to their time together here at Castleton, their search for the treasure, and what it had all led to – them being caught again in the library, and her refusal of his proposal, because she believed that it was nothing more than a ruse in order to win a wager with his friends.
The story finished with a sentence that echoed her own thoughts – of the tragic loss both of them had experienced in never knowing what true happiness could be, due to their own stubbornness and inability to tell one another their sincere feeling. There was no blinking back tears now as they rolled freely down her face, and as much as Casandra had no wish for any of her friends to realize how she was truly feeling, she looked up without shame.
“But why—” she began, only for her words to end on a gasp.
For as she had become caught up in the story, her friends had vanished, silently stepping out of the door.
But she wasn’t alone.
Instead, a large frame stood in the doorway, light from the windows beyond shining behind him.
“Devon,” she whispered, coming to her feet, uncertain of what to say, how to feel, what he wanted from her anymore. She lifted the pages toward him. “Did you write this?”
“I did.”
“I hate tragic endings.”
“I know,” he said, one side of lips quirking upward. “So do I.”
“Then why—”
He brought the hand that had been behind his back in front of him. “I have an alternate ending.”
It was one sheet of paper, with just a few lines written upon it. Cassandra reached her hand out toward it, annoyed to find that her arm was shaking, but Devon didn’t comment upon it. She took the paper from him wordlessly, looking down at it, blinking the sheen of tears away from her eyes so that she was able to read.
