Chapter 36

Colin looked at the envelopes in his hand, recognizing the familiar handwriting on some of them. The name it was addressed to, however, was someone he had never heard of.

"What are these?" he asked his friend with a dark frown.

Daniel merely leaned back in his chair and propped his ankle atop his other knee, looking for all the world like a gentleman without a care in the world. He most probably was, but Colin did not really care at the moment.

From the looks of the envelopes in his hand, his mother was in correspondence with a man. Someone he had never known.

Was this what spurred his father's jealous rage? Even then, he had no right to murder his own wife before ending his life.

"I suggest you read them before you jump to conclusions," Daniel told him with an arched eyebrow. "It would do you no good at all if you carried on without knowing the whole story. Ignorance is not always bliss, my friend."

"Of course, you would think that," Colin muttered. "You know everything about everyone."

Instead of being insulted, Daniel looked supremely pleased with that observation. "Knowledge is power." He grinned. "The more you know, the more leverage you possess."

But Colin did not care overmuch for what his friend considered to be of paramount importance. There were some things that he was better off not knowing—like the sound of Alice's laughter in the afternoon sunlight or the feel of her body as it welcomed him.

These were things he would rather forget, but at the same time, he clung to them as if his very life depended on these handfuls of memories he had of her.

They are all you will have of her now,a small voice in the back of his head taunted him. After everything you have done, after you have hurt her beyond fixing, she will never look at you in the same manner again.

He pushed those thoughts aside and opened the first letter. The first words had the effect of lightning striking him indoors.

To my dearest Eleanor,it read. It has only been three days, and already, my longing for you knows no bounds…

Colin frowned as he read one letter after another, each one of them addressed to his mother. All of them came from a man only known as Jacob. All of them spoke of such love that it would make even the most hardened boulder cry.

But perhaps the way men and women saw the world was so different. While his mother might have read these letters with ardent affection, Colin felt a cold shiver run down his spine as he read them.

Each one of them spoke of this Jacob's longing for his mother, but they also carried an undercurrent of something else more sinister than a torrid affair. They spoke of a man far more knowledgeable about the world, bewitching a naive young girl on the flush of her first love.

"These are all before her marriage to my father," Colin remarked.

Daniel nodded. "All except the last one."

Colin pursed his lips as he opened the last letter, still addressed to his mother. This one, however, was from a Mr. Jenkins. The scrawl was barely legible, and there were numerous misspelled words, quite different from the previous letters, which were written in impeccable, flowing script and with such words that would make a young lady's heart flutter.

To Her Grace, the Duchess of Blackthorn,it read. We regret to inform you of the passing of Mr. Jacob Grantham…

It was dated just a few days before the tragic fire that claimed both his parents and an entire wing of Blackthorn Estate.

"I… do not understand," Colin murmured. "What does this have to do with anything?"

"Your sister and I came upon this particular collection on the night the Dowager Countess arranged for the treasure hunt at Fitzroy Hall," Daniel explained. "Evie… was being Evie when she knocked a book off the shelf. That was when we discovered these letters."

"It had been in the library all along?"

His friend nodded. "I took the liberty of searching out this Jacob Grantham fellow, at your dear sister's behest. She was insistent that I find the man—or his gravestone—and I did."

It was difficult to picture Daniel doing anything Evie would tell him, but a challenge like this might prove intriguing to his friend. Daniel might say that Evie had forced him to do it, but Colin had the suspicion that he could not resist the temptation to test his skills—and his connections.

Colin absently folded the letters and tied them up with the string. "And what did you find?"

"That he came from a good family that had fallen on hard times." Daniel shrugged casually. "He had an education—as much as can be managed with a meager income anyway—but poverty required him to seek employment, and he found it in the stables of the Earl of Wellington."

My grandfather. This man worked for Grandfather?

"The information was a little difficult to come by, granted that most who knew the story have already died," Daniel explained. "But there is nothing that cannot be hidden forever." A satisfied smile flashed across his features. "As you might have noticed, the last letter was shortly before your parents were wed."

Colin nodded.

"Do you know what happened around that time?"

"Not really. All Mother ever told us was that Father proposed at a difficult time for their family, and Grandfather accepted his suit to save the family."

Daniel smirked. "I suppose that is one way of putting it. I dug a little deeper and guess what I found?"

Colin was getting tired of his friend milking the information and baiting him with it. "What?" he snapped.

"There was a scandal at that time," Daniel told him. "One that involved your mother being caught with an unknown man."

Colin sucked in a harsh breath. A scandal of that magnitude would not only have ruined his mother, but it could have pulled the entire family down with her. At the time of her wedding to the Duke of Blackthorn, she had a younger sister who was to make her bow in the next Season. If the scandal had been allowed to spiral out of control, it would have ruined his aunt as well as the rest of the family.

"Your father did not propose simply to force your mother into wedlock," Daniel told him somberly. "He did it to save her—and she accepted it."

That particular revelation nearly caused Colin to drop the stack of letters in his hand. Even after Daniel had left him, shortly after divulging the circumstances surrounding his parents' marriage, the tremors did not ease.

He was still in his study when his grandmother and Evie arrived after attending the opera. He could vaguely hear his younger sister declare that she was tired and would head off to her bedchamber posthaste. His grandmother said something, but he could hardly hear it.

Moments later, he heard a light knock on his door, and it opened to reveal the Dowager Countess of Wellington.

"You are still awake," she sighed. "Go get some sleep, Colin. It would do you much better than to work yourself to an early grave."

He laughed harshly and covered his face with his hands. "How can I, Grandmother?"

Her normally regal features softened. "I know that the failure of your betrothal has affected you more than you would care to acknowledge?—"

"No, no, no. I am not talking about that." Colin shook his head. "I am talking about this—" he gestured to the stack of letters on his desk. "Tell me, Grandmother, why did Mother marry Father when she did not care for him much?"

Shock flashed across the older woman's face, but his grandmother had weathered so many shocking things in her life that it did not remain there for much longer. Slowly, she walked to the sofa close to his desk, and with a gentle look in her eyes, she sat down.

"What do you want to know?" she asked him softly.

"Everything," he said harshly. "About this Jacob Grantham. About Mother. And please, start from the beginning."

"All right." His grandmother smiled sadly. She took a deep breath and looked him squarely in the eye. "You might want to sit down for this. It is quite a long tale."

Colin stood up and then sat beside his grandmother, his heart pounding.

"All right, Grandmother. I am ready."