So it had been a fine idea to go searching for a quill and an inkwell. She’d found paper in the secretary in her room, but nothing to write with. If she could jot a letter to Juliet—whether or not Talen would actually allow her to post it, it would ease all of the madcap thoughts running about in a circle in her brain.
What she should do next. How she could ever find a life away from Gilroy. Her attraction to Talen and everything he was—though she fought against it every day.
He didn’t want her. He’d made that clear. Insisted she turn away.
Yet he would still arrive at the townhouse deep into every night after the business of the Alabaster was done, bringing her something—a dessert, a new book, a map of the stars. They would train. Then eat. Then sit on the terrace looking at the stars until the first rays of dawn streaked into the sky. He lived his life opposite the sun, and she’d flipped her own schedule so that she could spend as much time as possible with him.
Something she should cease, if she was smart.
But she was quickly deducing that when it came to Talen, she wasn’t thinking straight.
She needed to tell all of this to someone, and Juliet was her only option, whether or not the letter was actually sent.
Ness stepped into the study, quickly spying an inkwell at the top left corner of the desk. Perfect. Now she just needed a quill.
No quills were next to the inkwell so she rounded the desk, quickly pulling open the set of drawers on the left side. Papers, a letter opener, but no quills. Onto the middle drawer. Three were lined up neatly with sharp nibs ready for writing. She pulled two free and her eye caught the red wax of a broken seal on a letter in the drawer.
She paused. A seal she knew. The distinctive north tower of a castle with garland curling up the sides. The Whetland Castle seal.
Her eyebrows drawing together, she fingered the edge of the paper. Juliet had said she would send a letter posthaste after Ness left Edinburgh, but she wouldn’t have had access to the Whetland seal—they had brought nothing with them to the city besides the clothes on their backs and the coins in the heels of Juliet’s boots.
Juliet must be back at the castle.
Good.
Relief flooded Ness. She had been in fear that she’d destroyed everything between Juliet and her brother-in-law, Evander, with how they’d escaped from the estate.
Ness set the quill down and picked up the tightly folded letter. Talen hadn’t said anything about a letter from Juliet, aside from mentioning the first letter he’d received from her a day after Ness had arrived at the Alabaster. She flipped it over and saw her name on the outer swatch of paper.
Her name. Not Talen’s. Her letter. Not his.
Her hands shaking, she unfolded the letter, quickly scanning the contents.
Then scanned them again.
Then sank onto the chair behind the desk, studying each word in Juliet’s elegant script.
…Gilroy is dead…
…Come back to Whetland…
…Evan has written to your father of Gilroy’s death and he travelled here to collect you…
… I told them you were visiting a friend in London. For appearances sake, it would do well for you to travel up here if you are feeling well enough…
She stared at the letter, frozen in place for far too long. Hours. Hours she sat with the letter in her lap, rereading the words over and over.
Gilroy was dead.Dead. She was free.
She stayed frozen in place, staring at those words, her mind not able to move past that one line.Gilroy was dead.
Frozen, until she heard the rear door open and close on the floor below her. Talen’s heavy footsteps walking along the main corridor below. Up the stairs, passing by the first floor and continuing upward.
The echo of his footsteps a level above, steady, then quickening, disappearing higher to where she could no longer hear them.
It wasn’t a full minute before they thundered down the stairs, the pace of them frantic as they moved from room to room above her.
Out back to the stairs. Down to the drawing room. The ballroom. The dining room. The respite room.