Page 49 of A Lady's Wicked Revenge
A nearby sound reached her ear, sending a silent shudder through her bones. Through the half-closed study door, she could hear Colin speaking with a servant. She could scarcely understand what he was saying, but it seemed he was feigning drunkenness and trying to send them away.Have to hurry,Diana thought, setting the will aside.
The conversation fell back into silence after several long, painful moments of searching. Diana grew increasingly discouraged, her hope of salvation beginning to slip through her fingers.
There!she thought, seizing on an envelope addressed to James Leeson. She ran her fingers over the lettering, recognising her mother’s handwriting.
Eagerly she stood and paced towards the fireplace. The dancing orange light revealed the contents of a single page, one that looked as if it had been crumpled into a ball before being carefully replaced in its envelope. Diana’s eyes raced across the page:
‘To my dearest brother: I confess, I was saddened if not surprised by your most recent letter. I understand you are facing still more financial difficulties, and you have my wholehearted sympathy. But I’m sorry to tell you that that is all you will receive from me. Not due to the hurtful words you used in your letter, but due to the bitter facts of this situation.
‘William and I have been as generous as we possibly can, and by his reckoning, have given you thousands of pounds to help with your many monetary problems over the last several years. If you can stomach some sisterly advice (poor medicine for any problem, I confess), it would be this: more money will not solve your problems, James. However much money you can bring in from your business, it will not continue to maintain that awful, ostentatious house, nor sustain your poor investments and the constant, impulsive gifts to your friends and peers. The time has come to do as a man must and change your lifestyle according to your situation.
‘I wish things had been different, James. But through your own decisions you have brought hardship upon yourself—I ask that you do not visit the same upon your sister, your brother-in-law, and your niece. I look forward to speaking with you and helping in whatever other way I can.
‘Your Adoring Sister, Catherine.’
There was nothing Diana could do to stem the tide of tears that washed over her now and watered the paper in her hand. Forcing back a sob with a hand over her mouth, Diana rushed to the door and Colin, forgetting to close the safe as she left.
“Here,” she choked out, beckoning for Colin to follow her into the little staircase that led down towards her room. He complied, and they closed the door behind them just as Diana thought she might fall away into a faint.
Poised at the top of the stairs, every sound sending a bolt of lightning into her veins, Diana felt herself wilt away like a leaf in the rain. Colin’s strong arms once again reached out and kept her aloft in their steely grip. Looking up at him, she saw pure, undisguised concern shine down at her from his emerald eyes—the laughing mask that had been ever kept between them was now utterly gone.
“Whatever you found, Diana, and whatever becomes of all of us …” said Colin in an otherworldly voice, the words seeming to flow freely from his soul. “Know that I love you more than life itself.”
There, atop the narrow staircase, they kissed once more. Desperate to delay the heartbreak that she knew would come when he read the words in the letter, Diana clutched his hair between her fingers, tears still running freely down her cheeks.
Then she could delay no more. Weakly, she passed the letter to Colin, who read it in the dim autumn starlight that came in through the narrow window of the stairwell. Her heart hammered like thunder—or was that his heartbeat she felt?
“This is …” Colin put a hand on Diana’s shoulder, and she felt a thrill of excitement run through her frame at the contact. But this sensation turned cold and comfortless when she glimpsed the sadness behind his mask of stoicism.
“We have to tell Mister Arnold,” he said softly. “And now.”
“What will we do then?” Diana asked weakly, hanging onto Colin as tight as she dared. “Whatcanwe do?”
“Leave that to me.”
* * *
“Bloody hell, Colin, what the devil’s the matter with you?” roared Sir James Leeson as he stomped into his study. “Don’t you know dinner’s about to be served? Are you expecting all our guests to go hungry while you invite me for idle chatter?” He looked around the darkened room, seemingly not seeing Colin, though his stepson was seated nearly right in front of him.
“Not so idle, sir,” said Colin, earning a startled jump from his stepfather. He gestured to a nearby empty chair. “Will you sit with me a moment?”
Sir James shook his head wrathfully. “I’ll have none of your nonsense tonight, Colin. Davenport tells me you’re drunk. If this is your idea of a joke, you and that Adam Radcliffe, I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life!”
Colin grimaced.I’d hoped this would not be so difficult, somehow.“This is important, sir. I ask you again if you won’t sit so we can—”
“Hang whatever you call important, boy. That dullard Gerard Dunn is in attendance and is anxiously waiting for my return. We’re to announce Diana’s engagement to him after dinner. So get off your arse and come down here so we can—”
“Is there anything you can tell me about this?” Colin held aloft the folded-up Hann will and the envelope with the letter from Diana’s mother.
The man looked at him, uncomprehending, before he drew his shoulders tall, puffing out his chest in outrage. “You’ve been going through my safe, then, have you? You devious little devil, I …” Sir James stopped then as if stricken by an idea. “What the hell do those have to do with anything, anyway?”
Colin folded his hands in his lap and looked down sorrowfully. “Sir …” he began, then stopped with a sniff. “Father, why didn’t you tell me we were having problems with money? Were things really so bad that you had to ask your brother-in-law for so much?”
Sir James’ eyes jumped from the papers to the burning hearth. He stepped forward, reaching out a hand to snatch away the papers, but Colin stood in one fluid movement, holding them away from him even as he put out another hand to stop his stepfather from coming any closer.
“The house isn’t everything. We could have lived somewhere else if we needed to,” Colin protested, his eyes growing hot.
James snarled, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
