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