Page 94 of A Match Made in London
Chapter 28
Tristan burst through the door of his Upper Grosvenor Street home early the following evening, eager after a day and a half on the road to find Rosalind.
He knew, even as he sprinted up the main staircase to the second floor and the family apartments, that something wasn’t right. The house was too quiet, too empty.
Even so, he could not stop from rushing to her room and throwing open the door. He stood in the doorway, looking at the bed where they made love. It was as neatly made as it ever was. Everything was in its place. But it was more than that; it was as if her very presence had been stripped from the room. It felt barren, achingly so. Even her scent, the wonderful perfume of roses and lavender, was barely discernible.
Yet still he needed proof. He strode to the armoire, peered inside, went to the dressing table, the small table beside the bed. Everything was empty, stripped bare.
She was gone. She had left.
He was too late.
Desolation swept over him. Needing to escape the room and the memories that permeated the very walls, he left, walking blindly down the hall. At the doorway of his study, Danielson found him.
“Sir Tristan, welcome back. We did not expect you so soon.”
“Good afternoon, Danielson. Lady Belham and Miss Merriweather have left, I see.”
“Yes, just this morning.”
“I don’t…” He cleared his throat, tried again. “I don’t suppose they left a letter or message for me?”
The butler’s normally impassive expression faltered, a look of what appeared to be pity flaring in his eyes before his calm demeanor slid back into place. “No, sir, there was nothing.” He paused. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
“No,” Tristan mumbled, the brief hope that had flared snuffed out completely. “Not a thing.”
The butler bowed and left. Tristan stood there for a time, utterly weary, before, with a sigh, he entered the study.
He sank into the chair behind the massive desk. He should go to the cabinet, pour himself a healthy glass of whiskey, drown himself in the stuff until he could no longer think or feel. It did seem like a sound plan. But he did not have even the energy for that, and so the next best thing it would be. He would drown himself in work.
He flipped listlessly through the large pile of letters that had accumulated on his desk. Several were from his steward back at Sainsly, one from his solicitor, a few from merchants on Bond Street. And one from Josephine.
The old anger tried to find purchase as he looked on his stepmother’s delicate handwriting. The woman would not listen. He had told her time and again to go through the proper channels in reaching him. They had nothing to say to one another, not after the years of hurt that separated them.
He dug deep, found a shred of outrage to hold onto, and gripped the letter tight to rip it asunder.
At the last moment Rosalind’s voice drifted to him, from that magical night at Vauxhall.
Perhaps it is time for you to heal from the pain your father caused you and reconcile with her. She could be lonely, could be wishing to make amends.
The outrage drained from him as quickly as it had come. How many letters had she sent in the past weeks? Three? Four? Perhaps Rosalind was right, and she was lonely. She had no other family, after all, from what he knew.
With a glance up to the heavens for guidance, he sighed and opened the letter.
It had been written nearly a week ago. The letter started off with talk of the local families, of births and deaths, repairs that had been made upon his orders. Everything he already knew from his steward’s many letters. She must know that, he thought in frustration as the letter rambled on.
Finally he came to the end.
“I do not know if you are receiving my letters,” it read. “I wish that things were different between us. I am for London to visit an old family friend, and should be there by the end of the week. I had hoped to see you while there. It has been too many years, Tristan. If you do not choose to see me I want you to know I understand. But I have enclosed the address, should you decide in favor of such a plan. I hope you do.”
She signed it, “With love, Josephine.”
He stared at it for a long moment, waiting for the anger, the bitterness, the hurt that had typically accompanied all thoughts of her to rear up. To his surprise they were muted. Instead a sadness enveloped him. Was she truly lonely as Rosalind had suggested?
But it was madness to think he could have a relationship with her after all this time. Damn it, she had never once fought his father on making sure Tristan was included. She had been more than happy with her little family, without her husband’s heir coming in and mucking up everything.
As he looked over her carefully penned letter, however, he only saw the loneliness echoing within her words. She wrote as if she had penned him a hundred letters like it, speaking out into the void. Begging for a word back.
