Page 87 of Lord Ramsey's Red-Headed Ruin
She glanced at it on the table between them. She had never seen it before.
“I carried it with me from Paris.”
Amber tipped her head in question.
“Your Aunt Cecily gave it to me the day she came to see me. The same day I came and took you from him.” Between them, they never mentioned the man’s name. Such a pact of silence between them appealed to her. Greatly. “Your aunt told me it was for you alone. I honored that. And have not opened it. But it is yours. From her.” He stood. “I leave you to it.”
She caught his hand. “Don’t go.”
“I think what is in there is best received in the solemnity of one’s heart, alone.”
He worried. Poor man, he worried a lot these days. Amber saw it as they sat in his marvelous library, reading, delighting in the peace. Yet occasionally she would look up and find his gazeon her. Worried about her health, he also feared what she would choose for her future. Even before she knew of this folio, she knew what she would tell him today.
“I can share it with you,” she told him.
“Later you can.” He stood, gave her half a smile, and headed down the stone steps to the garden, alive with his mother and grandmother’s roses waving in the breeze.
She gathered her thoughts and pushed her expectations far away. Whatever she had wanted for her life, even as recently as a month ago, was now very different. After she looked at the contents of this portfolio, she would tell Ram what she hoped and what she wanted. No matter what was in this folder.
Unwinding the leather ties, she admired the fine leather and reached inside. Out came a stack of letters. Documents of different sizes and on different quality vellum and paper. On top was an open letter in her aunt’s handwriting.
My dearest darling Amber,
Since you were nine years old, you have been a constant light in my life. I have tried and often not succeeded too well to show you how I value who you are and the wise and witty woman you have become. As you leave all here in France, I hope to give you the courage and the means to live in the land of your true heritage with the inheritance that will ensure your survival.
You and I have not spoken often of your parents. But I want you to avail yourself now of the opportunity to travel to Bath and satisfy your natural curiosity about them.
Your mother, as you know from my own words about her, was a childhood friend of mine. Annette Timmons de Vray comes from an old family who lived in West Yorkshire, descended from a Norman family in an areacalled Vray. She had bright-red hair, like you, and large, expressive brown eyes. With great humor and a jolly approach to life, she and I took French lessons together from a tutor my father and hers hired for us. Annette was my dearest friend, consoling me when I first became acquainted with the prince regent and later, when I had to marry Earl Nugent. She supported me when I decided to move to Paris, and we wrote often. When she became pregnant, she was overjoyed. Hoping for a son, as did her husband James, she wished to pass to her boy the gift of land and money her mother had set aside for her.
Your father, a very upright man, James Notting Gaynor, I liked very much. Tall and impressive with deep-blue eyes and brown hair shot with red, he was a dashing creature and loved your mother from the moment he first saw her.
I know not much of his family origins. Perhaps now you may investigate it for yourself. I know only that he came from a merchant family who lived and traded in Brighton. As James would tell the tale, living there in that town, he became acquainted with the prince regent and his younger brother, the Duke of Kent, by happy accident on the shore one day. James soon went into service for the duke, and in time, the regent knighted him for his loyalty.
Of your father’s devotion to your mother, I will say I never heard the equal. He was more than courteous and honorable. He was kind, chivalrous, and a husband all others should emulate. His passing soon after your mother died was a tragedy.
I learned of it from the prince regent himself and hurried to England to bring you home with me. I dare to hope that when I meet my God, He will judge me at leasthalf as wise and tender as your mother and father were to each other and to all who were fortunate to be their friends. I loved you, my dear Amber, as if you were my own—and what I taught you by word or example about love of country and your fellow man and woman I hope can buoy you throughout your life.
The enclosed documents will be useful to you as you begin your life in Britain. You will find each useful, a spur to greater understanding of those who bore you and those who nurtured you.
I urge you to use them each to your benefit and your joy. For wealth and land are comforting. Knowledge of one’s ancestors is enriching. Using all to build a satisfying existence for oneself and one’s loved ones is the finest gift to yourself and all who know you.
I press this page to my heart and send you all the love and courage I have to help you meet your new challenges. I urge you to consider the enormous love Godfrey DuClare bears you, for he gave all of himself to deliver you from evil.
Honor and keep him. One loves once totally. Twice, rarely. But when love comes upon one, it is vital to nourish and protect it.
I wish you well, my darling girl.
Accept all within this portfolio as your honest and legal due.
With my love,
Your aunt.
*
Minutes later, Amberrose from her chair and made her way toward Ram. The roses greeted her with a perfume thatintoxicated her.Would that it also inspires me to say the right words to him.
He had wandered far to the other side of the orangery. She found him sitting on a bench, which surprisingly reminded her of the one she had often sat upon waiting for her superior in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Abbey gardens. A duty now done. A duty well done—and one she took pride in, but left now happily to others.
