The Countess by Catherine Coulter

shivering. I don’t know why I happened to be looking at the armoire?I had

searched it thoroughly?but I did, and there was this slight seam in the

beautiful ivory Chinese wallpaper just beside it. If your eye didn’t land

directly on it, you wouldn’t see it.

Once I did look directly at it, I realized quickly enough that it was a narrow

door, built into the wall. There was only a small curved spring just behind the

armoire. I could reach it. I fiddled with it until it snapped down suddenly. The

door opened smoothly inward.

I stepped into a very small room that had only one narrow window. There was no

fireplace. It was perfectly square, so small, so very small. It looked like a

monk’s cell, stark, nearly empty, the desk very old and simple, not a single

ornamental swag or carving on it. The chair behind it was stiff and looked very

uncomfortable. There was nothing else in the room. Even the wooden floor was

bare. My shoes click-clicked as I walked toward that desk. I realized that at

this point I was invading his privacy past the point of no return. I also

realized that I had no choice.

This was indeed a private place, a place where I should not be. I wondered what

Lawrence was like when he was in this room. Surely he would resemble more the

fanatic grand inquisitor Torquemada of Spain rather than a peer of our modern

Regency. I walked to the desk and sat down in the stiff hard chair. There were

three small drawers in the desk, and I hesitated only a moment, knowing well

that this was the ultimate invasion. I opened the top drawer. It slid out easily.

It was filled with neat stacks of letters, each stack tied separately. All the

letters seemed to be personal correspondence, many of them yellowing with age. I

picked up each stack and thumbed quickly through the letters. There were letters

from Lady Pontefract, Lord Holliston, Lady Smithson-Blake?all people whose names

I had heard, but had never known. They were names my grandfather would mention,

prominent figures of my grandfather’s time?and of my husband’s.

It was at that moment, sitting in that austere, narrow room, holding letters of

love, of intrigue, of politics, that I finally saw clearly, deeply inside myself.

Those fading, yellowing letters were symbols of the mistake I had made. I had

married a man who belonged to the century before?to the French Revolution, to

the rise of Napoleon, to the great naval victories of Lord Nelson. I adored that

world, for it held limitless fascination, but it was not real; it was not a part

of my world.

Peter had been right. I had tried to escape my time, my world, by marrying a man

who was too old to touch my heart, or my fears. I had chosen a man I believed

would keep me free of fear, a man who would protect me just as my grandfather

had protected me. Freedom and protection?now those were two things that hadn’t

applied since my first night in this house. I thought again of the irony of all

this, but I couldn’t accept it. I was a fool. All I could feel was despair at my

own folly. I had seen John, but I had not seen beyond him, until now.

I looked down at my hands. I had crumpled the edges of some of the letters from

gripping them so tightly. Not good. I tried to smooth them back out. They looked

well enough, I thought, then placed them neatly and carefully back into the

drawer. I gently closed it.

The second drawer contained only writing materials and elegant stationery. I

tugged at the third drawer. It was locked. I felt my heart begin to pound.

Perhaps, just perhaps, at last I would find some answers. I pulled a pin from my

hair, carefully inserted it into the lock, and twisted the pin gently. I slowly

worked it back and forth. Nothing happened. I moved it more vigorously. The next

instant the lock sprang lose, and a long narrow drawer slid open.

I’d done it. I sat there a moment just staring at that drawer. The drawer was

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