twenty-two

I’ve always been a proponent of real, authentic, heart-aching love. But not when it interferes with a marriage.

~A scientist’s observations on love

I saw myself in them. Like a prism of possibilities, each fractured relationship in Crestwicke was an image of what I might become. I stood at the shadows and felt the dark emotions vibrate through the house the next afternoon as Burke Gresham stormed down the hall and slammed a door at the end. I shuddered.

Golda is Rose. Those three words resounded through my thoughts in ghostly whispers, even while I talked with Celeste and wandered about the house. All the bitterness that had twisted up Golda’s brittle soul now had a name—regret. Lost love. Abandonment, and then a marriage of necessity. One thought lingered above the rest—she hadn’t always been this way.

“What will you do about Grayson Aberdeen?” Celeste stood at the desk behind me and sliced through her mail with a silver letter opener. “Will you tell his lost love what we found?”

“I’ve no idea.” Sooner or later I’d find that letter, and then I’d have to make a decision. “What good could possibly come of it?”

She sighed. “I suppose you’re right. It didn’t end happily, did it? Perhaps we should keep the end of the story to ourselves.”

According to the maid, the elderly couple’s only son and heir, Grayson Aberdeen, had annulled his marriage to Rose Ellis, then died overseas in honorable duty to the queen—and had remained unmarried. How desperately I wished to hand Rose—no, Golda—that letter from her long-dead love, to let those words impact her deeply as she realized he’d died loving her. Yet he was gone and she was married to someone else.

I closed my eyes and saw the passionate strokes of pen on that vellum page, felt the warmth of the lost letter’s tender words. They’d never had a chance to touch Golda’s heart, to soften her with the truth, but they’d carved their way neatly through Crestwicke, disrupting lives and hearts, stirring desires and awakening hope. The letter’s original story may be over, dropped like a rock in the water, but its ripples were just beginning to cascade over the house.

“It almost makes one glad to be a spinster after all. Almost.” Celeste gave a weak smile. “I’d rather that than to be in Rose’s position, at least.”

I studied my friend. “Yet suddenly you’ve released your determined grip on spinsterhood. Was it the letter?”

She shrugged, giving a half smile. “It’d be silly of me, wouldn’t it, to admit such a thing? I can’t even be certain who he is.”

I pressed my lips together, pondering everything Maisie had said about this magical letter and its impact on the house. Awakening a desire for love—was it truly a good thing?

“Well, I don’t suppose I can be truly in love, but I’m open to it.” She looked toward the window, a faint smile about her lips. “For the first time in years, my heart is fertile soil ready for someone’s love to be cast onto it.”

My stomach knotted at the faraway look on her face, and I began to doubt Maisie. Celeste would be crushed—crushed—to learn the truth. “Perhaps you shouldn’t take that letter to heart, though. You’ve no idea—”

“Would you have me end up like Gabe, then? With love right before me, ever afraid to leap?”

This stopped me cold. “You mean Caroline?” I forced the name past my lips, and she nodded.

“She’s smitten with him, in spite of everything, and refusing all other suitors in hopes that Gabe will eventually have the courage to propose.”

“She’s in love with him.”

“Yet here we all sit, gathering dust and wrinkles, waiting for courage to find us.”

I stared at the woman who’d just weeks ago tried to talk me out of ever marrying. Oh, how that letter sliced through this house like a knife, changing and shaping as it went. “Truly, you think Gabe, who prefers solitude, should be married?”

Her smile softened. “Nothing softens a person’s hard defensive shell more than someone who loves him immensely.”

When dusk cloaked the world around the manor, I was looking in vain for an apple in the larder to give Luna. Essie the lonely parlor maid now danced around the otherwise-empty servant’s hall with a laundry tub paddle, and Burke Gresham banged out the side door and stalked away. Somewhere Celeste was dreaming and longing again for what did not exist.

What a mess I’d made of everything with that letter. A wretched mess. I grabbed a lantern and trekked out toward the stables. How would it ever be set to rights when the scaffolding of secrets came tumbling down? I knew it would, eventually. My thoughts intensified on my solitary trek across the yard, and I reached the stables in quite a state. Poor Luna would get an earful.

Yet it was Gabe who looked up when I entered, bent over a horse’s upturned hoof with a knife to pry something loose. One casual look from him and the tip of a smile, and my soul calmed, the way those horses did around him. Yes, the man needed a wife—he was the sort of blessing who should not be wasted on a life of seclusion.

“She’s missed you.” He jerked his head toward the back.

Of all the people I’d invested in within this house, it was the horse who missed me. “You’ve asked her this, I assume?”

“Didn’t have to. She’s been standing at the gate, watching for you. She’s in there dancing back and forth in her stall because she knows you’re here.”

The distant shuffle of hooves made me grin. “It’s nice to be missed.”

He straightened with a pat to his horse’s neck, then led me back toward the creature to whom I had grown far too attached. At the sight of me, she bucked her head and danced, hesitantly approaching for her usual treat. “Sorry, girl. All I have to offer tonight is me. Little old me.” I reached my hand over the gate. She jerked away, tossing her head, but kept near the entry. “What a change in you, old girl. We’re nearly chums now, aren’t we?”

I felt Gabe’s eyes on me as I hummed softly and let myself into her enclosure. One lap about the fence, then she slowed, dancing in the corner. I moved toward her injured leg and inspected it with my fingertips. The flesh felt strong and healthy around the stitches, and they’d soon be ready to come out. She bobbed her head and trotted away.

“She certainly knows who helped her.”

I rose. “She’s still afraid, but she’s more grateful than most human patients I’ve had.”

Gabe opened the gate to let me back out, planting one boot on the lower rung. “What do you say to another ride?” His grin held a sparkle of challenge as he leaned near, once again my old chum. “The beach is wide open and the horses are itching for a good run.”

I felt the weight of all the trouble I’d caused slipping from my shoulders for a moment, and I smiled. “I think it’s you who is.” I raised an eyebrow, arms folded, and strode back into the main barn. A light glowed from an upper room in Crestwicke and a figure slid across it. “Perhaps away from the house, though, yes?”

Within minutes we were tearing along the beach, our mounts neck and neck, their hooves skimming the shallows. “You’ve met your match, Gabe Gresham.” I threw him a smile and laughed, the wind whipping my voice up into the dusky sky.

He watched me from his roan with sparks in his knowing eyes. “That I have.”

When we reined in at the curve in the cliffs, my heart kept pounding.

Gabe rode beside me, his tanned skin flushed with adventure. “Enough?” How different he looked out here atop that fine horse, how bold and regal. The confidence he lacked around other people saved itself for the moments he was out here, becoming one with a barely subdued wild animal.

“Never.” I gave a wide smile. “This beach tastes like freedom and feels like bliss.”

His eyes danced. “You paint the world a lovely color when you talk. You know that?”

I glanced at his profile, the rugged yet familiar lines of his face. “It seems you don’t find all my words objectionable, then.”

“You are sorely needed here, a candle in the shadows. Tapestry on a gray wall. The best remedy you’ve ever given . . . is yourself.”

His declaration burrowed deep into cracks forming that night and filled them with warm liquid gold. He was constantly doing that, just when I needed it most, and I began to wonder how I had gone the last five years without this friend. “All this, from the man who barely speaks.”

“I always speak up when I’ve something worth saying.”

I watched his face that was calm yet full of unspoken thoughts that numbered more than the stars. “You should speak up more. Especially to me.”

She must know all your stories. I could hear Caroline Tremaine’s melodic voice. No, Gabe had returned. Not the big ones. “You talk to Miss Tremaine, don’t you?” Our horses plodded over the hard-packed sand with the sparkling waves stretching clear fingers up the shore beside us. “Gabe, are you in love with her?” It was brash of me, but it was Gabe.

He stared at his hands clutching those poor reins like a lifeline, then looked out across the foamy water where it met in that distant line with the bright orange sky.

“Come now, it’s only me.” Our horses paused by the water and the silence congealed, weighted with many unspoken things. “Gabe?”

Then, without warning he lifted that vibrant gaze full of his entire soul, and I glimpsed the startling truth in all its raw power, shining out on me like the sun. It wasn’t Caroline he loved—not at all. His tender heart was full to overflowing with unbridled affection—for me.

I looked away, but his gaze remained on me, steady and solid. I could feel it. Gabe, dear Gabe—like a brother, a soft soul so easily punctured, the friend of my heart and childhood. He’d fallen for me, much more deeply than the mere infatuation I’d suspected, and I hardly knew what to do with it. I only wanted to handle this affection delicately until I could place it back in its box and hand it to its rightful owner.

He shifted, boots creaking in the stirrups, and cleared his throat. My skin tingled with the familiar cliff-like sensation of a coming declaration, the feeling of impending loss, the ache of the inevitable end that came to so many friendships.

“Willa . . .”

Gabe’s sleek profile feathered at the edges in my hazy vision. The cliff edge was near, and I was going over.

I said the only two words a lady could say when facing a fifth declaration. “Race you!” I jabbed my poor horse in the sides, shocking her into motion, pivoting with a spray of sand and water. I wished I could pivot this slowly unfolding reality in the same way and turn everything back to what it was.

I leaned into the wind, feeling the power of the creature beneath me and the intensity of the race. I dreaded its end. I’d lost so many friends this way, but I couldn’t stand—couldn’t bear to lose Gabe. The very idea of devastating him, of losing the sweetness of our friendship, ripped my heart from my chest.

Yet I couldn’t bear to say yes. Not to anyone except the admissions board of Durham University, to the patients dying in hospitals, and to a lifetime of freedom.

Yes. Yes, I’m coming for you, just as fast as I can.

Together we tore across the sloping countryside, my horse and I, daring anyone to cage our free spirits. My heart thundered in time to the pounding hooves and I threw a glance over my shoulder. Gabe followed in the near-dark, broad chest bent low over his horse. We climbed the winding incline, rounded the fence, and reined our mounts to a dancing stop at the stables.

Pulsing with nerves, I dismounted and turned to meet my pursuer with what I hoped was a chummy smile, even in the descending dark. “I suppose I’ll have to concede that race since I didn’t give you fair warning.”

“Do you ever?”

“Come now, I’ve granted—”

A bolt of movement flashed before us, and Gabe’s horse startled, dancing and throwing back his head. “Woah, woah.” Gabe climbed down but a shadow whipped before us. The horse bucked, whinnying and kicking.

I clutched my reins. “A person. It’s a person.”

A sickening thunk of hooves on flesh, and the figure flew left and hit the side of the barn with a guttural groan. With a terrible, wrenching cry, the horse reared and bolted into the dark. I ran to the poor wretch who lay on his side, writhing and panting with pain. It was a stranger—a mere boy —and he rolled in agony, clutching his abdomen. “Only meant to look. Just look.”

“Shhh. Lie still.” I smoothed clumps of wavy hair from a half-starved lad’s forehead and ran practiced fingertips over his torso, along the ribs.

He hit my hands away and rolled onto his side with a wretched groaning noise. I touched his ribs on the right and his body spasmed.

“Where do you come from? Where are your parents, child?” I reached toward him again and he growled like an animal, slapping me away.

Gabe scooped the lad into his arms and strode toward the stables while the boy fought in vain. “Willa, bring your horse. I’ll go for mine later.” To the boy, his voice was firm but gentle around the edges. “It’s no use. You’re not fit to run.” He loped across the yard, holding the boy close as his flailing slowed. “We’ll help you.”

The boy eventually went limp, the spell of Gabe Gresham falling upon him with those few rumbling words. I tugged my mount into her stall, grateful she wasn’t as skittish as Gabe’s, and yanked a lantern off the wall to inspect the boy’s injuries. His ribs flexed easily under the pressure of my fingers, and the grimy skin was moist and desperately in need of a wash.

When I pried his hand off his side, I glimpsed a jagged laceration across deeply red, swollen skin that would become a terrible mess by morning. I poked the flesh gently, and the boy recoiled. I squeezed the raw skin together and wrapped it when Gabe brought me clean scraps, but I could do nothing for the possible damage inside.

“Shh, shh.” I smoothed hair off his forehead, watched his eyes slide closed. Those scrawny shoulders relaxed beneath my grip, and I looked this pitiful child over—he couldn’t be more than eight or nine years of age. How would I get him clean enough to avoid infection? It seemed the dirt had become part of his skin, rubbed into his very pores, but at least he was calmer now, his breathing more even. I turned to Gabe. “Can you help me lift him if I have to move him?”

He gave a single nod.

I looked over the boy’s sorry clothing, the rope belt holding up frayed trousers several sizes too big. “What are you doing all the way out here? Have you family nearby?”

“Come from just outside Crawley.” He took several hard breaths, as if willing the pain away. “No one’s left, though. Come here to find work.” The talking seemed to distract him from pain.

“And what is it you plan to do?” Those scrawny arms could be broken with two fingers.

“Anything that needs doing, miss. Came here when I saw the stables.” He looked past me, eyes bright and breath still heavy. “Never seen such a fine set of horses. Like someone took a wild animal and . . . and made friends with it. Let it keep being wild.”

That thought played about my heart, tugging at some question festering in the background, but I shoved it all aside, my focus on saving a life. Nothing was more important.

I waved Gabe out to the fringe of the lantern’s glow and stood close. “We need to bring him to the house tonight. Your mother is away and I must watch him.”

“He’s that bad, is he?”

I hugged my middle against the chilly evening. “Definitely some damage to his ribs. It’s hard to tell more without seeing inside, which is why I must keep careful watch tonight. I don’t want him out of my sight.”

“Can you give him anything?”

“Perhaps a little laudanum to dull the pain, but that’s all. I don’t want to ignore whatever his body needs to tell us, because it could quickly become too late.”

We returned and I explained to the lad where we’d be taking him. I stood back to watch Gabe scoop the boy into his arms again, oblivious of the blood and grime smudging his white shirt. Gabe looked down at him with gentle concern. Solidness. How quickly Gabe’s protectiveness flared out, blanketing any creature who came near. It wasn’t pity in the man’s face, but a sort of empathy—of knowing what it meant to be beat down and wanting to do whatever he could to ease this little soul.

He crossed the yard with long, silent strides while the boy’s worn boots thudded against Gabe’s thigh. We brought him in through the back entrance and snuck him up the narrow rear stairway to my little room, where I settled him on some blankets and gave him a touch of laudanum.

His eyelids soon drooped with the effects of it. “I don’t need nothing fancy, miss. Truly.”

“Food is the next order of business. You stay here and we’ll return with something.”

The heavy lids fluttered. “Won’t say no.”

Together Gabe and I slipped down the service stairs to the kitchen.

“I’ll see to his food, and you go take care of the horses.” I handed him my lantern. “Thank you, Gabe, for everything. Now pray no one finds out he’s here . . . and that he lasts the night.”

As he slipped into the darkness, the distant rumble of an approaching carriage made me freeze. The glow of four swinging lanterns highlighted the sleek black vehicle carrying Golda Gresham and her attendants up the long drive. All I could think when I looked out and pictured the woman’s austere face framed behind the glass was, That is Rose.

I brought a little food upstairs, but I was soon swept along with the other servants to bring the lady of the house to her chambers and settle her in the sitting room. The boy remained on my mind with aching clarity, but with one glimpse at Golda’s pale face, eyes glassy with resignation, I knew I couldn’t leave her. I’d seen that look often—just before the hallucinations began and death descended.

I checked her for signs of worsening and pulled out my stethoscope, placing the wooden horn on her chest. “You are all right, Mrs. Gresham?” Her pulse seemed weak, her heart about the same.

She merely turned her gaze on me and didn’t honor my question with the obvious answer. Red lined her eyes and a grimace pulled her features into an odd contortion. Her head angled toward my room and a frown flitted briefly over her face.

I stiffened, not daring to glance at the door separating this woman from the little stable waif we’d tucked inside. Stay silent, boy. Don’t open that door. Not for anything. Why hadn’t I warned him?

“Aside from sneaking about the kitchen with my son, have you also brought the contents of my stables up here? It reeks of horses.”

My heart stretched in every direction. Her statement, though sharp, was utterly drained of all force. She’d been gone a day and aged a decade. I had never wished harder for the staccato of her retorts.

When the maids left, the patient was abed, and we were alone, I knelt by her side. “What did they do to you?” I clutched her cold hand and felt for her pulse again.

“Exactly what they could do for a woman in my condition—absolutely nothing.”

Only then did I recognize the change in this magnificent woman. She had given up. She’d known all along what ailed her, but the truth had finally been handed down like a judgment, her fate determined, outcome unavoidable. A few cold words of truth had given actual shape to her grim reality, demolishing my petty attempts at restoring life to her soul.

She stared at me with those slitted feline eyes that still shone brightly under dark lashes. “Promise me something, Miss Duvall.”

“Anything.” In that hasty promise, I realized how dear this woman had become to me.

“If something should happen to me before . . . promise me you won’t marry Gabe.”

Her words hit me like ice down my back, but I forced a smile. “You’ve nothing to fear, Mrs. Gresham. Gabe is a dear and trusted friend. Nothing more, and certainly not less.” Gabe’s own words. “But I’ll not hear you speak this way, as if the end has come.”

“I’ve nothing left to do here, no reason to linger in a place that has shown me more than my share of pain.”

I sat forward, alive with one specific thought—the letter! She still didn’t know what had happened to Grayson, and that he died loving her. Yet what sort of ending might it bring to her story? There had to be a way to bring her joy from it, to bring resolution to so many broken pieces of her story. “You cannot allow yourself to slip away just yet. I simply won’t let you.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I wasn’t aware my time of death was up to you.”

“You never know what’s around the corner.” When I looked into her eyes that seemed to dim like a neglected hearth, desperation eclipsed all fear. “Mrs. Gresham, I know about all the pain in your past, and I can’t bear to let it end there. There are more chances, more love, to be had.”

She trained those pallid blue eyes on me as if waiting for proof of my claims, not even flinching that I knew some of her secrets.

“If there’s one thing I learned in this house, it’s that medical people—myself included—have no control over these bodies compared to the God who created them. That means there’s so much hope for new and beautiful chapters, because God’s the one writing them and he isn’t done yet. You never know what’s coming—unexpected tender moments, closure and healing, delightful surprises, a chance to fix what’s broken.”

She narrowed her eyes. “With words, right? Isn’t that what you told me before? What I say has the power to cut or shape, wound or heal. Well, I took your advice. I’ve done what you suggested.”

Under her steady gaze, awareness flashed over me. I’ve had another letter, miss. I heard Essie’s voice, then Celeste’s.

“You. It was you who left those new letters. But how . . .” Another realization struck, the full puzzle coming together. It wasn’t just the new letters she’d written, was it? I lifted the sacred volume of verses from the table and opened it for the first time, and there it was—those spiraling letters that looped and swirled, creating the same beautiful artwork contained in the lost letter from my desk. It was her.

I thought back to the very first clue that had set me chasing after the name Aberdeen—the inscription in those books in the library: G. Aberdeen. Not Grayson, but Golda Aberdeen. She must have insisted on thinking of herself so, even after the annulment. She’d written her reckless feelings in a letter and hid it in the old desk where no one found it—until me. I looked back at the wilted woman on the bed who’d somehow produced the most beautiful, passionate words I’d ever read. Life had broken her. It could break any of us, with enough weight. “You wrote the unsigned love letter from years ago, didn’t you? And the ones that came after it.”

Her steady gaze was the only affirmation.

“How did you know . . . ?”

“I sat in that very chair over there and listened to you telling Aunt Maisie about my letter, about everyone who’d stumbled upon the thing, and it seemed that you were right—words can change so much. My words, even. So I merely extended that impact, handing each person the . . . positive words you so strongly believed they needed—through the mouth of a secret admirer. They’d never have believed them coming from me.” She ended with a weakly wry grin.

I took her hand. “Which is the perfect reason to keep living. They should hear them from you. Believe me, you are not yet ready to die.”

She frowned, her gaze holding mine. “I’m not afraid of being dead, Miss Duvall. Only of getting there.” She shifted. “Will you stay with me for a while?”

My heart swelled with sadness and despair. Dread. “Of course.”

I watched her fall asleep, my head bowed over her, heart squeezing with earnest pleas. God, please leave her here. Her story cannot end this way, so steeped in bitterness and pain. I see myself in her, full of sharp words coming from a critical spirit, and I long for her to have the release I have only begun to feel. Please grant her that before taking her, Lord. Grant it to her and to this household.

My gift was in saving lives, yet I was helpless on so many levels that night. How desperately I wanted to tell her that change was possible, that life could be beautiful, and also what I’d learned of Grayson—that he’d sacrificed himself for her. It might utterly destroy the last remnants of her peace, or perhaps releasing that part of the past would allow her to heal, and to repair the family that had become infected with her pain. Yet as I watched her sallow face in sleep, I feared it might already be too late for either one.

Life was so wretchedly unfair.

I tore myself from her side and snuck in to check on the boy. His face was contorted in pain, even in sleep, and he jerked about on the makeshift bedroll. His chest rose and fell in quick bursts, as if he strained for breath, and I put my hand on his ribs. I half expected the rhythm to stall out.

I prayed over him too, giving the entire house into God’s care as I released all control, thread by thread, from my tight grip. At times my abilities seemed so minuscule, but there was a lovely, crucial peace in that realization. It was a daily wrestling match to let trust win out, one I’d been bringing to the ruined tower every morning. It’s up to you, God. But it’s always been that way, hasn’t it? With that prayer filling my soul, I hurried down to the kitchen for the boy’s bread and found Gabe in the shadows. He looked at me with a probing question in his eyes.

“He’s asleep, but miserable. I’m afraid we’ll have to take further action come morning.”

“And Mother?” His voice held a raw edge.

I chose the merciful path of truth. Better to know while there was time than to be surprised. “Resting, but she has a new weakness—a deeper one.” No medical equipment could reach this ailment.

He gave a grim nod. How many years had he lived with the knowledge of his mother’s impending death?

“I’m afraid the specialist did nothing but steal her cushion of hope.”

“I’m glad she has you, Willa.” I trembled at the raw depth of his masculine voice. “You’ve given her more than any specialist, and I don’t want you to leave. I couldn’t bear it.”

“Where would I go?” I gave a wan smile. “Besides, I now find myself with two patients. I cannot very well abandon them, can I?”

A hint of smile flickered in return, gratifying me in this night so heavy with dread. I gave a nod and turned, but something made me look back. Perhaps it was the budding doctor in me needing to know he was all right, or perhaps it was the tender moments we’d spent together knitting my heart to his, aching when he ached.

I regretted that last look the minute I glimpsed the brokenness streaked across the face of the man who had always been so strong. His broad shoulders sagged. I simply reached out and squeezed his arm, for I couldn’t bear to ruin the moment with words.

Then he did something so very un-Gabe-like—he moved closer as if compelled by need, by force, and wrapped those massive arms around me to pull me close. His chest jerked in and out against the side of my face and his heart fluttered near my ear. He clung as if I was holding him up, and he shared, without words, his deepest hurts.

I made small circles on his back with my fingertips, as I so often did for hurting patients, assuring him of my presence without intruding.

With one shuddering exhale, he pulled back and lingered in the doorway, the night sky highlighting his haggard face. “We do seem to find the adventures, don’t we?”

“Or they find us if we’re too long about it.” I offered a warm smile. “It’ll be all right, Gabe. You’ll be all right. Maybe not this moment . . .”

“I know. And Willa—thank you.”

I squeezed his hand, the same one that had pulled me up out of the depths when my own mother had died. “It’s what friends do.”

Frogs and birds chorused behind him, creating a lovely symphony of night noises. His jaw twitched against the force of bottled-up thoughts. “Willa, what you said about . . . about me speaking up.” His features tensed, as though he were wrestling with some mighty unseen thing. “I need to tell you something.” His voice was husky.

I put a hand on his arm to stop him as my stomach knotted. “Let’s not take this night any deeper. Perhaps another time.”

He relaxed, his mouth returning to its natural pleasant curves.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow.”

Yet there was a great deal of night to be lived through first, and death hovered over Crestwicke. I sensed that before another night passed, it would descend. That familiar panicky helplessness tightened around me—strangling, suffocating.

I can’t do it, God. I can’t save them. I need you.