Faithfully yours,
Aubrey
Vanessa closed her eyes, trying to shut out the unsettling image of Damien lying wounded. She’d endured nightmares over it, even after receiving Aubrey’s second note saying that Sinclair was indeed convalescing better than anticipated.
She couldn’t recover so easily from her own hidden wounds. Her love for Damien was a pain she couldn’t seem to conquer. Leaving him was the hardest step she had ever taken.
She would never again look at a rose without thinking of him, without her heart aching from a haunting sense of loss-
“The post has come,” her sister Charlotte said, interrupting her misery.
A maidservant entered the morning room a moment later and curtsied before Vanessa. “A letter for you, milady.”
“Thank you.”
Her heart twisted when she saw the Sinclair frank, but she recognized Olivia’s hand. With trepidation Vanessa broke the seal. The message was hastily written, with ink blotches and exclamation points and crossed lines that were difficult to decipher.
Dear, dear Vanessa,
You will never credit it! Damien has relented! He has given his permission for us to wed!! He says he only wants my happiness, and oh, I am the happiest of creatures!!! I will now be able to call you sister. Perhaps you can guess at my state of agitation and exhilaration. I can scarcely hold the pen, my hand is shaking so. It was you, my dearest Vanessa, who brought about my brother’s remarkable change of mind, I have no doubt. Damien has always put great store in whatever you say.
The details are still to be settled upon-where and when the wedding will be held, and where we are to reside-but I hope it will be before winter, and that I might be welcome at Rutherford Hall. Will your mother be put out by becoming the Dowager Viscountess, do you think? I cannot wait!! I cannot begin to express my joy at the prospect of becoming Aubrey’s wife!! I must thank you, dearest Vanessa, for helping to bring it all about-
“What is it, Vanessa?” Charlotte asked with a perceptiveness that was lacking in their younger sister or mother. “Not bad news, I hope.”
Still a little stunned, Vanessa looked up. She had never expected Damien to relent, certainly not so quickly… “No… not bad, indeed it is excellent news. Aubrey is to marry Olivia Sinclair.”
“Oh, famous!” Fanny exclaimed.
Their mother, Grace, sat up from her reclining position on the couch. “Aubrey to be married? I was not aware he even knew the girl. Why was I not told he was courting her?”
“I’m certain he didn’t wish to worry you, Mama,” Charlotte answered soothingly, “or raise our hopes unnecessarily. But it would be a most splendid match for him. You remember Miss Sinclair. Vanessa told us all about her in her letters…”
Vanessa was grateful to her sister for taking responsibility for the conversation and putting their mother’s mind at ease. At the moment, she could not have managed it.
It was some time before she could escape her family for the privacy of her own bedchamber, and even then her emotions were in a state of turmoil. She couldn’t help but feel Olivia’s joy. Nor could she help but wonder what had caused Damien’s radical about-face. Had she truly been instrumental in persuading him to allow the marriage? Had he actually taken any of her admonitions to heart?
No, it was foolish to read too much into his singular actions. Fiercely Vanessa steeled herself against the surge of hope welling inside her. Simply because Damien had relented over the issue of his sister’s marriage to Aubrey didn’t mean anything had changed between them. He didn’t love her; that was the bitter truth.
Leaving him had been her only course. Even a life without him was preferable to the anguish she would have endured had she agreed to a loveless union.
Her throat constricted as despair returned to deaden her heart.
For the next several weeks Vanessa managed to go through the motions of living, but she showed so little enthusiasm, even her mother wondered if she was coming down with an ailment.
In the interval she had regular reports from Olivia regarding plans for the wedding. The banns had been read for the first time in church. The ceremony would take place in Alcester in early November. Meanwhile, in September Damien planned to take her to London to choose wedding clothes. And Olivia was ecstatically happy.
It was Aubrey’s next letter that startled and astonished Vanessa as much as Olivia’s first missive had.
My dearest sister, you will never credit what Sinclair has done. You will not be surprised, of course, that he restored the vowels I lost to him at cards. Relinquishing his claim to our family estates was only fitting, since you earned them fairly with your services to his sister.
And naturally he would not wish Olivia to live as a pauper.
But he has gone far beyond the dictates of a brother-in-law’s duties. He asked for an accounting of my outstanding gambling debts and tradesmen’s bills and paid them in total. I intend to reimburse every penny out of my secretary’s salary, but I don’t see how I can repay his further generosity. Incredibly, he has dowered our sisters! And with no small sum, either.
You cannot know how greatly that relieves my mind, to have Charlotte and Fanny well provided for. As I’m certain it relieves yours. Imagine, Vanessa, with ten thousand pounds each they can now marry whomever they choose.
I take back every ill word I ever spoke about Lord Sinclair. He has given me a second chance to prove myself, and I vow to do my utmost to live up to his expectations.
Frankly, his behavior is a marvel I cannot explain. Not even by a word did he threaten me regarding Olivia’s welfare this time (although he would doubtless put a bullet through me if I harmed another single hair on her head). Pride makes me reluctant to accept his charity, but I feel I cannot refuse for our sisters’ sake, and for Olivia’s as well. I love her so much, Vanessa…
Vanessa could only stare at the letter in wonder and amazement. Ten thousand pounds each for her sisters? Aubrey’s debts wiped clean? Whatever was Damien thinking? He had settled her brother’s gambling debts and provided for her family’s financial security-and eased the burden that had weighed so heavily on her shoulders ever since her father’s passing.
Once more the fledgling spark of hope kindled in Vanessa’s heart, but this time it was harder to repress.
In the following days there was more happy news coming from Warwickshire. Olivia had begun to make breakthrough progress in her recovery, regaining a great deal of sensation in her lower limbs. And while she could not yet walk, the doctor believed that with continued treatments of therapeutic massages and baths, she might be able to stand on her own two feet for her wedding.
Each day I grow a little stronger, and I may accept your invitation to visit sooner than you think. If I suffer no ill effects from the journey to London next week, Aubrey has promised to bring me to Rutherford Hall the following month, so that I may meet your mother and sisters before the wedding. I cannot wait, dearest Vanessa…
By all reports the shopping excursion to London was a grand success. Olivia’s letters were almost effervescent in their joy. The Little Season had begun, and with Aubrey escorting her to an occasional ball or evening party, she was finding her introduction to society far more agreeable than anticipated, possibly, she admitted, because she was very much in love with the most wonderful man in the world.
Each time Olivia made mention of her brother, though, Vanessa felt her heart wrench. She could not fathom the change that apparently had come over Damien. He no longer even seemed the same man she knew, an aimless rakehell whose only goal in life was the search for pleasure. Olivia’s last letter from London held the biggest surprise of all.