Page 68 of Taken to the Grave
Dearest Audrey,
I have started this promised letter to you a dozen times, and a dozen times I’ve thrown it to the fire, questioning if it should be sent. But when I realized it had been a year—a full year—I knew I must complete it. By now, the person I suspected you loved, and who loved you, will have asked for your hand. Knowing you, before accepting, you will have confessed to him everything. While I cannot claim to know him well, I do believe he is a man of honor. He will keep your confidence. So, I suppose this letter is to you both.
Let me start by saying I am sorry. For the burden I’ve placed upon you, for my selfishness, for the guilt you have undoubtedly shouldered this last year. You’ve unwillingly given me the greatest gift I will ever receive: the chance to be who I want to be, and with whom I want to be with. In return, I can only assuage my conscience by hoping that I have given you the same gift. Do not be afraid to open it, my darling.
This will be the last you hear from me. When this letter reaches you, we will already be crossing the ocean for a distant corner of the globe. There, we will become who we were always meant to be—for however long a time we have left together. I still struggle with my malaise, and though the illness may be advancing, I plan to keep fighting. You, too, have your own life to live and fight for, and my deepest hope is that it be full and happy and long. Goodbye my dearest friend. I will forever carry you in my heart.
Audrey lowered the letter to her lap. Hugh’s throat cinched tight. His eyes burned. He’d never liked Philip Sinclair. He’d been arrogant and aloof, privileged and, at times, churlish. On more than one occasion, he had been tempted to drive his fist into the man’s chin.
And then, he’d left. He’d given up his life, faked his death, and as his letter had just acknowledged, left Audrey to pick up the pieces. He’d expected her to uphold a lie that had causedgrief for people she cared for, and that had caused her no shortage of guilt. For that alone, Hugh had wanted to track him down on the Continent and put him in the ground, in truth.
And yet, had the duke not been a selfish prig and abandoned his life, Hugh would not be here, with the woman he loved. He would still be stuck loving a married woman with no hope of ever being able to declare himself. Philip’s decision had damned them as much as it had freed them.
“He’s gone,” Audrey whispered, her voice cracking. “This whole year, I tried so hard to convince myself he would never return, but I always feared maybe, one day… But I can feel it now, that certainty. He is gone.”
Hugh hooked her hip with his arm and brought her against his side. He put his lips to the wet, fragrant crown of her head. It had been his lasting worry too. But as he took the letter from her hand and read it again, the worry he’d lived with, that had become a part of him, dissipated. He felt lighter than he had in months.
“I don’t know whether to feel happy or sad or relieved,” Audrey said as she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. He folded the letter and brought her closer.
“I think all three are warranted.”
She looked up, her eyes a blue so clear and vibrant, they pierced him. “I’m ready.”
“Ready?”
“To open my gift, like Philip said.”
Hugh kissed her brow. Then, he reached into his waistcoat pocket. “I’ve been carrying this around, intending to give it to you, but the timing was never quite right.”
Audrey sat up straight, her lips falling open before curving into a radiant smile.
Hugh slid from the divan, his knees hitting the carpet as he came to kneel before her. He held up the thin gold band, studded with a brilliant mine-cut sapphire.
“Marry me,” he whispered.
She laughed. “I’ve already said yes.”
“I want to hear you say it again. Every day for the rest of our lives would suffice.”
He took her hand, and the ring glided smoothly into place on her finger. When Hugh looked up, she wasn’t staring at the ring. She was watching him, her eyes brimming.
“Yes. Yes, to every day for the rest of our lives.”
When she leaned down to press her lips to his, Hugh did something he never imagined he would ever do: He thanked Philip Sinclair, the late Duke of Fournier.
Chapter
Twenty-One
The study inside Violet House was the room Audrey was going to miss the most. It was the one room in the Curzon Street residence where she’d always felt at home. As she stood at her desk, the top cleared, the drawers emptied, she took a deep breath and said goodbye.
It was a strange thing, for a heart to ache with loss and yet at the same time, feel near to bursting with happiness. Over the last week, whenever she thought of Philip, the odd sensation had coursed through her. She’d waited for his promised letter all year, and its arrival, and its contents, had allowed Audrey to finally close a door she’d been holding open.
It had also allowed her to see that she had, in some ways, been standing still all year in anticipation, while everyone around her—Michael, Genie, Cassie, Tobias—had all been moving forward, grieving and healing andliving.
It was time for Audrey to catch up.
She’d committed the letter to memory, put the paper to her lips for a long moment, and then let it fall into the grate in her bedchamber. She’d wept as the flames quickly consumed it. That someone would one day find it wasn’t her primary concern.She’d burned the letter because it was her last link to Philip. And she needed to let go.
