I was astonished to learn from Frommer the Eldest that Hellerington seconded your father. Somebody fired too early, but as our man was tossing his accounts into the bushes at the precise moment when bullets flew, only Hellerington can attest for a certainty to the identity of the bad sport—or murderer—who fired early. Bad business, my dear, and I am sorry, because either way, somebody close to you behaved poorly.

I am pining for want of you, of course, and doing an abysmal job of keeping my temper. Beck and Ethan are leaving tomorrow in disgust. I’ve drunk all the good liquor, and my staff is too piqued with me to set much of a table. My horse is not speaking to me either, and her conversation is a real loss.

Valentine has condemned me to prancing little Haydn sonatas until I, in his words, “Come to my feeble senses.” So you really must write to me, love, truly you must.

Your Nicholas,

Bellefonte

What to write in response to that blather cum love letter, cum letter from school? Leah pared the tip of a pen and stared at the foolscap before her. She stared for a full fifteen minutes before deciding that “Dear Nicholas,” would do as a place to start. To reach that brilliant conclusion, she’d discarded a list of possibilities… Dearest Nicholas, Nicholas, Spouse, Errant Spouse, Henwitted Clodpate, Bellefonte, Dearest Clodpate…

“There you are.” Ethan’s voice sounded from the doorway, and Leah looked up to find him and Beckman smiling at her tentatively, two men who looked a good deal like Nick without quite matching him for handsomeness, charm, or—she was angry with the man—clodpatedness either.

“Gentlemen.” Leah rose, her own smile tentative as well. They looked so like Nick and they’d just been with him and they were so dear to call on her and her eyes were stinging.

“Oh, ye gods.” Beckman stepped around Ethan and enveloped Leah in a hug. He wasn’t as large as his oldest brother, but he was big enough and had the same muscular, masculine feel to his embrace, and he knew enough to carry a handkerchief into battle.

Though his scent was all wrong. Bergamot, like a cup of doctored tea.

“Now we’ve done it,” Ethan muttered, closing the door. “Nick won’t like this one bit, making his countess cry.”

“As if,” Beck said over the top of Leah’s head, “himself didn’t see to that first. She’s entitled to cry, after all, if not for lack of Nick, then for his lack of sense.”

Ethan nattered on in agreement, probably to give Leah time to compose herself. “Shall I ring for tea?” Leah suggested as she stepped out of Beck’s arms. “Or a late luncheon, perhaps?”

“Both,” Ethan said. “Beck wants to push south before nightfall, and I must hie back to London. Some sustenance and company would be appreciated. Now that Beckman has surrendered his white flag, how fare you?”

“Miserably,” Leah said, sensing honesty was the norm among Nick’s family. “I miss him, I don’t know why he does what he does, and though I am hurt and angry, I still worry that he is…”

“He’s what?”

“He’s doing what he must,” Leah said. “He can’t see another option. But tell me, did Nick put you up to this spying?”

“He’s too clever for that,” Ethan said. “Della put us up to spying, and Nick will interrogate me when I get back to Town. The sisters will no doubt question Beck by letter, but about you, Nick, Della, and myself.”

“Poor Beck,” Leah said. “Shall we sit?”

Her brothers-in-law charmed, entertained, and consumed great quantities of food, leaving Leah feeling a little breathless but pleased at the distraction they offered. When they rose to go, Ethan wandered around the room far enough to see the paper still on the escritoire by the window.

“Did we interrupt your effort to pen some remonstrance to Nick?” Ethan asked, eyeing the two words on the page.

“I was just getting started, but I doubt anything will come of it,” Leah said. “I seem to have too much to say, and nothing to say of merit.”

“Nonsense,” Beck corrected her gently. “Your dim-witted spouse wants merely to see your hand, Leah. Describe which rose looks like it will bloom first, and he’ll be pleased—assuming you want to please him?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Why don’t we see to our horses,” Ethan said, “and you can jot a few choice imprecations in the meanwhile. I’ll be happy to deliver your epistle, and this way, I can report to Della you and Nick are at least corresponding.”

Leah shifted her gaze from one brother to the other. They would be terribly disappointed if she did not write at least a few words.

Disappointed and worried. “I think kindness runs in the Haddonfield family.”

“Kindness.” Beck rolled his eyes. “I’m guessing you’d rather have us rife with some more practical emotion right about now.”

“Let her write her epistle while we saddle up.”

So they left, and Leah was faced again with the challenge of communicating in writing to her spouse.

Dear Nicholas,

You are a devoted correspondent for an estranged husband, but I will bow to your greater wisdom regarding the particulars of our situation, for I myself am quite at sea. I have kept busy, riding out on Casper when the weather permits, devising some changes to the cutting gardens—I’ve pulled up the bed of forget-me-nots, for example—and replying to the many letters coming at me from your sisters at Belle Maison. Then too, your solicitors forwarded a description of my bequest from your father, and that has, indeed, taken a lexicon and a quizzing glass to decipher. Rest assured, I am not at this point inspired by financial considerations to hasten your demise. Not yet.

Please give my very best to your grandmother, a woman whose sense and wisdom impressed me almost as much as her swift right hand no doubt impressed your fundament. Your brothers have promised to spread all manner of gossip regarding the goings on here at Clover Down, though their account of your life in Town is suspiciously dull and devoid of fraternal barbs. You must commend them for their loyalty when next you interrogate them.

I hope you fare well, dear Husband, though I hesitate to further burden you with excessive correspondence when I know how great your distaste for same can be.

Your wife,

Leah Haddonfield

She read and reread the note, not sure what she wanted it to say or not say. In the end, she added a four-word postscript in the spirit of gracious honesty Nick had set in his own epistles. She didn’t know if the addition was a kindness or not, didn’t know if Nick would appreciate or resent it. She just knew that what she wrote was the truth.

* * *

Ethan watched as Nick tore Leah’s note open and scanned its contents. His expression was fierce, then interrupted by a bark of laughter, then fierce again. Before he folded up the note, his brows rose in surprise, then his face took on a pained, thoughtful expression as he refolded the note.

“She says she misses me.” Nick wore a puzzled expression as he regarded the epistle. “In a postscript. She didn’t mean to be anything save honest, Ethan, but those four words—I do miss you—make me feel like an ass.”

“You are not an ass, exactly.” Ethan crossed Nick’s study to the decanter and lifted the stopper with a questioning gesture. “You are navigating uncharted waters and doing the best you can, with questionable results.”

“Help yourself,” Nick said. “None for me. I am off to grovel before Della.”

“Groveling won’t help,” Ethan said, pouring himself a single finger of liquor. “She doesn’t understand what you’re about Nick, separating from your wife not a month after the wedding, especially when it’s clear you and Leah adore each other.”

“But that’s the problem, Ethan.” Nick’s eyes were bleak. “I do adore her, with all the love and lust in me, which is considerable. Sooner or later…”

“Sooner or later you would have children,” Ethan finished for him softly. “And like any other pair of loving parents, you would cope, Nick. You would.”

“We would, for as long as the Lord granted us breath and sense to cope, but then what, Ethan?”

“You don’t think the family would help? Little Della is fifteen years your junior, and she’d be aunt to any offspring of yours. You need to rethink this, Nick, and before Leah gives up on you.”

Nick merely shook his head, a determined man whose commitment to a particular course would not falter because that course was difficult, lonely, and costly.

“Go see Nana,” Ethan said gently. “Maybe she can talk some sense into you.”

* * *

Lady Della was not home to Nick, which hurt more than it should. She was given to her fits and starts, but not cruel, so Nick decided to test her resolve by going around back to the kitchen and invading by stealth. He found his quarry enjoying a cup of tea with old Magda.

“You!” Della snorted at him from her perch at the worktable. “You are not welcome until you behave as a proper earl to your countess.”

“Della…” Magda’s voice bore the reproach of somebody who’d known Della in girlhood.

Della turned her glower on the older woman. “Don’t you take up for this scamp, Magda Spencer. I held my tongue while he swived the indecent half of London for years on end, and I held my tongue when his misguided papa let him hare off to Sussex, and I held my tongue when he married that poor girl as if he were some knight on a white charger, and I held my tongue—”

“So hold your tongue now,” Magda interrupted her, rising and gesturing for Nick to sit. “The boy needs understanding now, and you are the only one who can provide it. Who else will he talk to? Those brothers of his? His sisters? His married friends are all over the Home Counties, and their wives likely to skewer them for taking his part. Pour the boy some tea, and let him say his piece. And you”—Magda jerked her chin at Nick—“I told you to sit and let your grandmother pour you some tea.”