"You'd better get some sleep, or you'll look like death in the morning-no reference to the card intended."
"I know. Can you find your way back to your room?"
"Easily. I'll see you in the morning."
Amelia retired, but couldn't sleep. Close to midnight, she left her bedroom and headed toward the south wing, and the tower room.
She'd never been afraid of the room, even given its rather grisly history. John had converted it into a small library, where he indulged his passion for tracing the Lindsey family history. He was the archivist, he'd told her when she first arrived. It mattered to him, to know where he came from-and what had happened to all the Lindseys throughout time.
Now, knowing exactly what she wanted to find in the tower room, Amelia sped swiftly along the hallway, her slippered feet making no sound.
Inside the small, circular room, she went to its center, to a massive teak table with a wooden box on the right side. Opening it, she stared at the packet of letters. Letters that had belonged to Jane Stanton, and the man who had loved her, Jonathan Lindsey.
That last letter. She'd read them all, feeling there was one letter missing, the one in which Jane should have explained why she hung herself. Impossible, that she should take her own life, cause so much pain, and not even offer a reason why.
She'd never given Jonathan any explanation, but from the letters he continued to write to her after her death, it was clear he knew. Yet he never alluded to it directly.
The last letter Jonathan wrote, in which he laid bare his soul to the woman he loved, a woman dead two years, was the one that had finally broken her. She'd been moved to tears.
The elderly John Lindsey had watched her reaction as she'd sat with the letters for the first time, and had smiled as she'd looked across the room at him through her tears.
"Quite a man, wasn't he?" he'd said. "Like my Hugh."
She'd nodded, overcome with emotion. Even now, before taking that final letter out of the wooden box, she knew its contents, had read it so many, many times that it was committed to memory. The words had been burned into her soul.
My dearest Poppet,
I find that I cannot go on without you. Though I've never considered myself a weak man, life no longer has any meaning without you to share it with me. I'm tired, and I want to go home. To you. I'd thought I would come home to you each evening, but instead the nights at Lindsey House are not to be borne. You are everywhere, my darling, yet nowhere.
God will forgive me for what I am about to do. It is said He never sends us more than we can bear, but I find I have reached my limit. I want nothing more than to be with you, and the thought of you waiting for me beyond death is the only thing than enables me to even contemplate such an act.
Soon, my darling. Soon.
Your devoted servant, in this life and the next,
Jonathan
What could it be like, to love like that?
Amelia traced her fingers over the fine writing, wondering at the state Jonathan Lindsey had to have been in to even contemplate such an act. According to the family legend, he'd recreated Jane's suicide, hanging himself in the tower room. His manservant had found him and cut him down. The family had mourned for weeks, and that particular Lindsey line had died out.
Hugh had told her more about it, as she'd continued to work with the letters. She'd helped his grandfather preserve some of the older letters, which were crumbling with age. Jonathan and Jane's letters had been remarkably well-preserved in their small wooden box. She'd read them all in one sitting, had recognized Jonathan's passion, Jane's reluctance. Somewhere along the line, she felt the girl had either seen a marriage go bad, or been ill-used. She was not a woman who had planned on going to the marriage bed quietly.
Jane had led Jonathan on a merry chase, but he'd loved her, had tried to show her how deeply countless times. Then there had been an oblique reference to another man; then after Jane's suicide, countless letters Jonathan had written, trying to understand how he might have prevented the tragedy.
She'd read them all, many times. She'd called the museum, telling her superior that there was a lot more material here than they'd first suspected. Three months later, she'd had almost all of it cataloged.
Three months later, she'd been engaged to Hugh.
She'd never gone back to London.
Amelia ran her fingers over the packet of letters, then gently plucked the last one from the box. She closed it, then sat down in John's large leather chair. It smelled like him, leather and sandalwood, dogs and horses. He was a generous old man, and she felt he'd recognized a kindred spirit when she'd gotten off the train in the village.
He'd come to pick her up himself in an ancient, battered old Range Rover. She'd recognized his determination immediately, and been comfortable with it. Here was a man who really did want to get to the bottom of various family documents.
There had been other passengers that day, as well. An ancient Alsatian, a spaniel with only three legs, and a tiny Jack Russell terrier who sat in the front seat with the two of them the entire drive home.
"Arthritis?" she'd guessed, looking at the little dog. Though his dark canine eyes danced with mischief, his movements were stiff and painful.
John had nodded, never taking his eyes off the road. He drove fairly fast for a man his age. "Charlie's having a bad day. The vet says I'll have to be making my mind up about him soon."
Then there was nothing more to say until they reached the house.
It had astounded her, Lindsey House. Though her parents came from a certain amount of money, she hadn't dreamed such places existed. Her first glimpse of the estate had been in the late afternoon, close to dusk. The mist had been rolling in, and as they'd turned into the huge circular drive, she'd been overcome with emotion.
"You like it?" John had asked her.
"Very much."
"We'll get you settled in. No use looking at the letters until tomorrow-"
"Oh, I'd like to start right away, if I could."
She'd seen the delight in his face. They understood each other, after all.
Dinner had been in the kitchen, near the warmth of the Aga. She'd insisted on no fussing; she wanted him to maintain his usual routine. That first dinner was incredible. Homemade soup and freshly baked bread, thick with butter from the nearby dairy. A salad made with herbs and greens from the garden.
"Kind of a wreck these days," John had confided over the split-pea soup. "The deer get in and eat everything. What they don't eat, they trample. Hugh sent me the money for a brick wall, but I like to see them in the morning."
She nodded. This was the house of her dreams. A large, marmalade-colored cat lay dozing by the fire, and John's damaged dogs were everywhere.
"You live in a village where they know you have a soft spot for dogs, and you end up with the ones the others don't want."
She'd nodded, leaning down to scratch Charlie behind his ears. The little terrier was fiercely protective of John, but he'd decided to accept her. Knowing the temperament of most Jack Russells, Amelia was grateful.
The menagerie of animals living outside was quiet now, as night had fallen, but she could hardly wait for the morning, when she would come to know them all.
The kettle sang, and Mrs. Edwards, the cook, made them tea.
"We can take it up to the tower room," John informed her. She agreed. One of the handymen had already put her bags in one of the many bedrooms, and now all her attention was focused on the letters and what they might contain.
Several hours later, over yet more tea, she'd been moved to tears by Jonathan Lindsey's life.
"What happened after he died?" she asked John.
"He left the entire estate and all its holdings to several distant cousins. That's where my side of the family comes in. We took over Lindsey House, and quite a state it was in, let me tell you."