Page 31 of Secrets of the Heart

Rachel wasn’t sure what she would do. She just knew that she had to see her. Had to talk to her. She could not rest easy until she did.

Rachel was still pondering the problem the next afternoon, trying to think of the perfect young man to approach, when the butler stepped into the upstairs sitting room, where she was, and announced that she had a visitor.

“It is a Mr. Birkshaw, madam,” Stinson said.

Rachel stared at the butler. His words were so unexpected that it took her a moment to understand what he had said. “Anthony Birkshaw?”

“Yes, my lady. I told him I would see if you were receiving, as I did not recognize the gentleman. He bade me tell you that it was an urgent matter.”

What could Anthony be doing, calling on her after all these years? She had not seen him since the night of their elopement, something that had been made easier by the fact that he married an heiress less than a year after Rachel and Michael were married and moved to her home in York. They had lived there ever since, rarely coming to London. Rachel could not imagine why Anthony would be seeking her out now.

“Well, um, tell him I will be down in a moment.”

“Very well, my lady.” Stinson bowed out the door.

Rachel stood for a moment, her hands clasped to her stomach, wondering if she had done the right thing. She had promised Michael never to speak to Anthony, but it seemed so odd that he would come here after all this time, and she was curious about the reason. She was even more curious to see what he looked like after so many years and what she would feel when she saw him.

She would go down and explain to him that he must not call on her again. That seemed only polite and, while it might be breaking the letter of the vow she had made Michael, it would not violate the spirit of it. And, of course, Michael had apparently not had any compunctions over breaking his marital vows! It seemed decidedly unfair of him to expect her never to even see or speak to Anthony again, while he conducted a years-long affair with another woman.

Rachel glanced at her image in the mirror, smoothing back her hair and pinching a little color into her cheeks. She hated to think that Anthony would look at her and think how old she had grown. It was vanity, she knew, but she could not help it. She started down the stairs, her heart picking up its beat. She found when she tried to summon up a picture of his face that she could not remember him clearly.

She remembered how at first her heart had felt as if it would break and she had cried herself to sleep every night. She could not remember exactly when the pain had begun to ease or when it had finally slipped away, leaving behind only the bitter memory of her impetuous mistake and the ruination of her marriage.

Anthony was waiting in the formal drawing room, standing before the mantel, his back turned to her. She paused for a moment in the doorway, looking at him. He was dressed in stark black, his coat well cut and of an expensive material. He was shorter and stockier than she remembered; she supposed that she had grown used to Michael’s long, lanky frame. His hair was dark and thick, though, as she remembered, curling over his collar.

“Mr. Birkshaw?” Rachel stepped into the room, leaving the door open. She wanted to make sure that there could be no hint of impropriety in their meeting.

He turned at her words. “Hello, Rachel—Lady Westhampton, I should say.”

Rachel simply nodded, carefully not offering him the use of her given name. She gestured toward the sofa. “Won’t you sit down?”

She crossed to a chair that stood facing the sofa, a few feet away from it, and sat down. For a long moment they looked at each other. He looked much the same, she thought. Perhaps he had filled out a little, but the soulful dark eyes and dimpled chin, the dark hair casually falling across his forehead—all these were the same. Rachel noticed with some surprise that none of these things affected her at all anymore. He was a handsome man; she could see that. But her heart made no leap within her chest, nor did it ache with remembered love. What she felt when she looked at him, she realized, was almost nothing at all except a sense of awkwardness. How odd, she thought, that she could have loved him so and yet now feel nothing but a faint embarrassment.

He looked away from her, scowling down at the floor for a moment, then said, “I am sure you are wondering why I am here.”

“I was a trifle surprised,” Rachel admitted. He looked troubled, she thought.

“I am somewhat surprised, too. It is just—Well, I could think of nowhere else to turn.”

“I am afraid I don’t understand.”

“I—well, I assume you know that I married several years ago.”

“Yes.”

“I have not been in Society much since then. Doreen preferred York. London was too large and noisy for her, and she was not well accepted by the ladies of the Ton. Her family was of the merchant class, you see. I have grown rather out of touch.” He paused, looking down at the floor, then drew a deep breath and continued, “Doreen passed away a few months ago.”

“Oh! I am so sorry,” Rachel said sincerely, her sympathetic heart touched by the notion of his sorrow. She understood now the reason for the troubled look on his face.

“Thank you.”

“I know it must seem terribly hard now,” she went on, remembering Richard’s grief after Caroline’s death. “But it will get better someday. It will no longer hurt so much.”

He looked up at her, a faint surprise in his face. “Oh. No. That is not why I am here. Ours was a marriage of convenience. We both entered into it with our eyes open. We had grown fond enough of one another over the years, and I was sorry that she died, but I was not grief-stricken.”

“Oh. I see.” Rachel was rather taken aback at his cool words. Hers was a marriage of convenience, too, she supposed, but somehow she did not think that she would be so calm and dispassionate about it if Michael died. Even the thought of his death made her feel a trifle lost. And why was Anthony here? Did he think to take up with her again now that his wife had died? Indignation rose in her at the idea.

“The reason I am here—I am troubled because…well, this will no doubt sound very dramatic, but…I have come to believe that Doreen was murdered.”