P.P.P.S. And if I should say anything to upset you terribly, please do believe that I have never meant to hurt you—or to put our friendship in jeopardy.
The first postscript Clarissa had more or less expected—one did not become a recluse by being perfectly at ease in the company of others. The second postscript had her smiling. The third one, however, made her frown. They had written more than a thousand letters apiece to the other, exchanged countless ideas and gifts, and enjoyed years of closeness—intimacy even. And Miss Kirkland was afraid that Clarissa would take offense because she was less than accomplished at small talk?
Clarissa read the letter once more, then carefully slipped it into a thick portfolio dedicated to their correspondence—the third one, in fact, such had been the volume of their dispatches.
As she often did, after filing away Miss Kirkland’s latest, she extracted another letter at random, to see where they had happened to be in their years-long conversation on life, love, and everything else under the sun.
It was a letter dated shortly after the duke’s passing.
My dear Duchess,
I daresay I have no idea your state of mind just now, having such an enormous change thrust upon you all of a sudden. But if I may, I’d like to offer you a few words of counsel.
Do not be shocked if you are struck by a greater grief than you had anticipated, for no matter what, His Grace was and will always be the man you once loved.
Do not let futility seep into your heart that in the end there was no grand reconciliation to make up for years of neglect and casual cruelty.
And do not let guilt bother you, should relief—or even hope—wash over you. The duke breathed his last because of the will of God, not because his wife wished she could start her life anew.
While no one can predict what the future will bring, rest assured that I pray fervently for your happiness, and long to do what I can to help ease you into your new life and many new possibilities.
Yours devotedly,
J.M.K.
It never failed to move Clarissa, this particular letter—the fineness of Miss Kirkland’s understanding, the stalwartness of her support, and, between the lines, the unspoken but staunch optimism that things would turn out all right.
A knock came at the door.
“Yes?”
A footman bowed. “Mr. Kingston would like a moment of your time, Your Grace, if it is agreeable to you.”
Her chair scraped audibly as she rose.
In their entire acquaintance, Mr. Kingston had never sought her company. But a man acted very differently, did he not, when he perceived carnal curiosity on a woman’s part? Her long gaze upon him from the window—had he interpreted it as an invitation? Was this why he wanted to see her now, when he had been otherwise content to not approach her and not speak to her?
In her mind she experienced a silent, unsmiling Mr. Kingston pressing her against a wall, his body hard and muscular, his kiss ardent, almost bruising.
Her heart thumped. She took a deep breath. “You may show Mr. Kingston to the solarium. Tell him I will be there shortly.”
Chapter 3
***
In the solarium, Mr. Kingston stood near the fireplace, reading a horticultural guide Miss Kirkland had sent Clarissa. He looked up as he sensed her approach.
Clarissa nearly came to a dead stop. She had believed that in her mind she must have exaggerated the degree and intensity of his beauty. But the clarity of his eyes, the angularity of his brow, the carved precision of his high cheekbones—if anything her memories had been but a pale imitation of the reality of him. And the day coat of deep green he had changed into only served to emphasize a physique of spectacularly perfect proportions.
He bowed, still holding on to the book from Miss Kirkland.
She took a seat and spent a few seconds assiduously rearranging the folds of her skirt, to give herself time to recover from his effect on her. It would not do, would it, to speak to him all breathless and moon-eyed?
“Mr. Kingston, how do you do?” she said, perhaps a bit too severely.
He took a deep breath. “I am well, thank you. And you, Your Grace?”
Mesmerizing, the way his lips moved, beautifully sculpted, yet mobile and soft. And his voice, low and rich, was perfect for the whispering of sweet nothings.
She swallowed, her tone turning even cooler. “I understand you wished to see me, sir?”
His fingers tightened on the book. “I wanted…to thank you for your kind invitation.”
“When I invited Miss Elphinstone I thought of you, since you had enjoyed her company when you were last here at Algernon House four years ago.”
An outright lie, that; it had been quite the other way around.
He rubbed a thumb against the spine of the book. “I’m sure I will find her company equally gratifying this time.”