Chapter 19

19

M iss Fenton had no real choice but to acquiesce to Grace’s request. Grace paused long enough to assure the children that all was well, and then hurried out of the nursery. The storage room was only a few doors down, but of course, the door was once again locked. Grace did not have the patience to ring a servant, wait, and then pose the request for them to fetch Mrs Yardley. She drew up the bottom of her skirt and held it in a tight grip, freeing her feet to move.

Grace found the housekeeper on the ground floor, bustling between rooms as she checked items off the daily cleaning list. She yielded the relevant key without a single question, telling Grace only to pass it along to a footman to return to her when she was done.

Back up the stairs Grace went, her chest growing tight from the exertion. It was not the pregnancy slowing her so much as the inactivity of the previous weeks. Without her daily rides and walks, her stamina was falling short. With the weather such as it was, she was unlikely to be able to change that.

Grace took a candle from the hallway and carried it into the now unlocked room. She lifted the candle high and studied the contents. Said trunk was still in the same spot, the metal lock darkened by the patina of old age. It had to be a half a century old, perhaps even more. She lit a few more candles around the room until she had plenty of light to see. After cleaning the last remnants of wax from the key she had found in the book, she slid it into the keyhole and held her breath.

The locking mechanism fought her attempts to enter, but it was clear that the key did indeed fit. Grace was not to be deterred. She pulled the key free and gave it a final polish with the wool of her skirt. She slid it back in and wiggled it, coaxing the lock into submission. With a final grate of metal on metal, it turned over and the lock clicked free.

The creak of the hinges sent a shiver down Grace’s spine, though there was nothing immediately visible to give her any concern. Much like the other trunks they had opened, this too seemed full of fabric. She pulled the top item free, filling the room with the scent of lilac, and unfolded it. It was a gown in a style long out of fashion. She held it against her body to get a better sense of the shape. The delicate colour and neckline suggested something a young woman would wear.

A debutante, Grace thought, remembering her own days this summer.

The picture of a young woman, one with dark hair and eyes, sprang into her mind. It was so far from the young girl she had imagined as Hannah that Grace could not hold onto the image. She draped the gown over a nearby trunk. When she looked again in the trunk, Grace spied the familiar ivory of foolscap.

It was a small bundle, wrapped and tied with a piece of ribbon. It was a wonder it had survived all these years. Assuming they belonged to the mysterious Hannah, had the young woman packed them away while she was still alive? Or had a maid tucked them in after her death?

There was only one way to find out.

Grace untied the ribbon and let it drop to the floor. There were three pages in total, written in a swirling, feminine hand with little regard for the cost of the material. Grace checked the name at the bottom and found exactly what she expected. Hannah had been the sender.

The answer to why Hannah had her own letters lay in the margins of the paper. The recipient had written his responses on the same pages, penning them in narrow letters written so close together that at first, they seemed like a decorative hand-drawn border.

Grace needed more light to read the small print, a cushioned chair and a roaring fire to keep her limbs from growing stiff. She made a last check of the trunk, searching for anything else unusual. Once assured she had the only item of real interest to her, she closed the trunk, clicked the latch, and left it sitting in the silent confines of the locked storage room.

She handed the door key off to a passing footman and went into her bedroom suite on the first floor. In her favourite chair, placed near the fire, she used the light of a full candelabra to read the old letters.

Hannah’s parts were the easiest to read. She began with the oldest letter, judging by the date on the top.

May 25, 1765

My Darling John,

In the grey and shadowed days of Alnwick, you are the light that pierces through, the only joy that stirs my heart. When we are together, I feel alive, as if the whole world has brightened just for us. But when we are apart, it is as though all the warmth of the sun has vanished, leaving me in a cold, unending twilight. I live only in the moments we share, and all else feels like a cruel prelude to an empty eternity without you.

I have pleaded with His Grace, begged him to see the truth of our love, but he remains as immovable as the castle walls that keep me here. He speaks of duty and propriety, but it is nothing but pride that bars us. What more can I say, John? What more can I do to melt his heart? My spirit weakens with each passing day we are denied. If he cannot be swayed, I fear we will have no choice but to part forever, and that thought alone is enough to shatter me.

Yours in anguish,

Hannah

Grace could understand how trapped Hannah must have felt. Grace was a married woman, with responsibilities aplenty and a child on the way, yet even she had more hours in the day that she could fill. For Hannah, Alnwick must have been dreadfully boring. Yet, she had obviously crossed paths with this John, to whom she wrote. She was desperate for him to take her away.

But what had John thought about the matter? Grace had been warned of bad actors who would pledge their love and then leave the woman, unwed and ruined, to face the consequences on her own. She shifted the first letter closer to the candles and leaned in, with her eyes squinted, as she struggled to make out the words. Slowly, but surely, the script came into focus and she was able to mouth the words as she read them.

My Dearest Hannah,

I beg you, once again, to speak with your brother. Our love is true, and I cannot bear the thought of living without you. Surely he will see reason and grant us the blessing we need to marry. Do not lose hope—our future rests on his mercy.

Yours always,

John

Hannah’s second letter, dated in early July of what she assumed was the same year, continued on in the same vein, lamenting how much time passed between their stolen hours. She begged him to run away with her.

In response to her pleas for an elopement, he cautioned her to wait. He said they should bide their time, lest risk being left to make their own way in the world. He did not have her wealth, and he feared she would regret her choice to leave it all behind.

Hannah’s last letter was more cryptic.

Beloved John,

I was too overcome with joy yesterday to properly express myself. I had lived in such fear of your response to my news. I had prepared myself for the worst, and all you showed was love. You are right. We are not to be ashamed. I must find the courage to speak with the duke. He cannot deny us. Not now.

Yours, always,

Hannah

Once again, Grace recognised something of her own experiences in the letter. Could it be that Hannah had faced the same trial? She turned the page sideways to read John’s response.

Dearest Hannah,

If ever there was a time to approach him, it is now. I have faith he will see things differently once you share our news.

With all my heart,

John

Something had indeed changed in their relationship, something that should have offered Hannah some sort of leverage.

Something like a child, Grace thought, resting her hand on her midsection. A child, conceived out of wedlock, the product of a love affair between a highborn lady and a poor man with few prospects. Of course Hannah would feel shame and fear. John had encouraged her to rise above that and push for what they wanted.

Had the duke refused to help his sister? Or had he done all he could, but lost her in childbirth? It was not such an unusual outcome, even if Grace firmly blocked the possibility from her mind.

But what of the child?

Grace thought of Roland, growing up alone in those large houses. Of Thorne, abandoned along with his mother. Was there yet another child of the ducal line living in the world?

Grace folded the letters and slipped them into her pocket. She checked the time. Roland would still be in his study. She set off once again at pace, barely stopping long enough to knock. Roland glanced up when she stepped inside. He was alone.

Secrets had done enough damage to the Percy family. So, she told him everything.

Hannah’s letters in hand, Roland strode down the hallway towards his grandfather’s suite of rooms, Grace following a step behind. The footman stationed there looked startled to see them both approaching, but to his credit, he recovered quickly.

“My lord, my lady. Would you like me to see if the duke is available?” the man asked.

“Tell him to make himself available,” Roland declared stiffly, but not rudely to the footman. “If he must make himself presentable, we will wait.”

But the duke was in his sitting room already, and the footman ushered them in quickly. Roland hesitated briefly in the threshold as he took in the scene—his grandfather sitting by his fireplace, without book or cup, a blanket over his lap, as if he had been staring into the fire.

“Your Grace,” Roland said into the silence, uncertain about the duke’s state of mind.

“What do you want, Roland?” the duke asked in a surprisingly soft, casual manner, not bothering to turn to face his grandson or the countess. His voice was steady, but distant, as if his body were here, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

Was he was lucid then? He did not seem insensible from whatever Withers had given him earlier. But as he opened his mouth to speak, the duke turned to them and his face blanked further.

“Hannah?” he asked Grace.

“No,” she murmured, looking wary. “I am Grace. Your grandson’s wife. Do you remember?”

The duke blinked and squinted at her. Like the break of dawn over the horizon, Roland could see recollection in the duke’s face as his memory ordered itself again. “Of course, I remember,” he growled, sounding much more like himself. “What do the two of you want from me at this hour?”

All of the annoyance and certainty Roland had felt rushed out in the next breath. Was there any merit in disturbing proverbial graves? The duke had told Grace Hannah was dead.

Discarding all of the rehearsed, angry lines in his head, Roland thought for a moment. “I never knew,” he began instead, “you once had a sister. Hannah. You have never mentioned her. No one has mentioned her.”

The duke lifted his chin slightly, turning back to the fire. “Only Withers might have remembered. It was a very long time ago.”

Roland turned the letters over in his hands. He had skimmed just a few lines from them. It felt, somehow, almost sacrilegious to read such private words of love when they had been intended for another. But an awful suspicion lingered in his mind as the broken pieces began to fit together in his mind. A young girl who had been in love, gone from the family records without a trace?

“She was not just sent away. She was disowned. Excluded from the family.” Roland was rather certain of that deduction.

The Breaker made a sound in his throat that was nearly a growl. “She was a willful, disobedient simpleton?—”

“Because she fell in love?” Roland interrupted.

“Because he was the son of a bloody sheep farmer!” the duke roared, banging his cane against the wood for emphasis.

“Distancing yourself from scandal, sending her to the country, that I could understand. It is another matter entirely to sever things so completely?—”

Grace touched Roland’s arm, her brows drawing together. “Hannah was not cast out simply because she loved a sheep farmer. She was cast out because she was enceinte.”

The duke’s face grew grim. “She was cut off because she refused to be sent away for the birth. She refused to be sent away from him . And because she did not want to give the bastard up. It was an intolerable situation.”

A river of emotion ran deep beneath the duke’s words, but he wouldn’t let it touch his face. Frowning, Roland looked at the date on the final letter, doing a quick bit of maths in his head. Gideon Percy would have been twenty and seven at the time. The same age Roland was now. “Your father was dead. You were the duke who pruned Hannah from the family tree.”

His grandfather did not bother to deny it. Instead he gave Roland a level look. “I warned her. I told her if she insisted on going to him, that she would be dead to the line. There would be no money. I would not recognise her progeny or look after her. I tried to give her every reason to stay. To make the right choice. She chose to leave anyway.”

Roland’s lips parted at such coldness. “And after that, you never once looked into her situation? Her welfare?”

“Not once. Hannah died the night she skulked out, as far as I was concerned.”

His grandfather clearly did not like Roland’s weighted silence, for he continued, “Your great grandfather, the man who was the first Duke of Northumberland I will remind you, asked me to swear upon my own life that I would protect the title and ensure the Percy line. That I would make certain it became a force to be reckoned with. I loved my baby sister.” His gaze grew hard, and he snatched at Roland's hand to pull him closer. “ I loved her ! But after our father died, Hannah became a liability to everything we had built. To willingly submit ourselves to that level of scandal… It could have cost us everything .”

For most of his life, Roland had considered His Grace the same way everyone else did. He was the Breaker—practically a force of nature. But as he looked down upon his grandfather, he saw past the carefully cultivated, prickly facade to the tired, old man that lay beneath. The one who had sat alone at the impromptu celebration after Roland’s announcement of his wife’s pregnancy, and who had withdrawn when Grace had tried to draw him in.

Gideon Percy was no longer quite so fearsome. In fact, Roland pitied him.

“It seems, Grandfather, that it cost you everything important anyway,” Roland said quietly. “I hope you still think it was worth the price.” And he took Grace’s arm to depart, leaving the duke sitting by the fireplace.