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“Excellent. I need to see to some business today, but I will provide further guidance shortly.”

His temper peaked as he grabbed an envelope with Barrymore’s familiar scrawl on it from the salver. He stalked from the chamber, roughly shoving the parchment into his pocket to be reckoned with once he dealt with his valet.

He found Pickett in his shirtsleeves, his trousers protected by a leather apron, polishing James’s boots. Hell, he had been a good valet. Though James had seldom concerned himself with the day's fashion, he was aware that he possessed a certain careless aristocratic elegance that was enhanced by Pickett’s keen eye. Yet, despite the man’s skill as a valet, the time had come to reckon with the man.

“My lord?” Pickett caught sight of James as he finished one boot, setting it down carefully.

“Pickett. Have you been intercepting letters from my wife?”

Wiping his hands on the apron, Pickett rose. “She has not written beyond one or two lines in several years.”

James’s heart twisted. “Before that. Did you intercept my correspondence?”

The man remained still, his frame coiled with a defiant intensity that put James in mind of a pugilist prepared for a bout. “You asked me to, my lord.”

“I asked you to?”

Picket crossed his arms before him, his stance still radiating a calm recalcitrance James could not help but admire. “After your wedding, you fled to London. One night you overindulged and the next morning I brought you a letter from Lady St. George. You told me that you did not wish to hear her name.”

James put his head in his hands, his long hair spilling over his forehead. That must have been when he was in the pits of despair, a time when the loss of his dreams had blinded him to all else. To his jaded vision, Mariah had become the physical manifestation of that void where his wanderlust once resided. He cursed his own folly, yet a spark of indignation remained. Surely Pickett ought to have discerned the difference between his drunken command and his true intent.

“And you did not think to tell me this when I was so—when I had not overindulged?”

“She was beneath you.” Pickett said simply, again as if he were arguing the color of the sky. “It was a simple enough request.”

“And this correspondence?” James asked, his pulse suddenly picking up. “What became of it?”

“I…I kept it, my lord.” Ah, so Pickett had to realize the letters were of some importance, even if he could not deign to give them to James.

“Do you have it now?”

The valet gave a stiff nod, his features frozen in a mask that wavered between vacancy and a flicker of remorse. He vanished toward what James surmised were his private quarters, only to reappear a moment later clutching a modest bundle of vellum.

Wordlessly, he held the stack out to James.

James drew a steadying breath before he accepted the parchment. He initially made a move to settle himself into the task of reading, yet he paused mid-gesture, struck by a sudden second thought.

“I know you believe you did the right thing, but I cannot have someone who thinks so little of my wife remain in my employ. You will have a reference.”

Pickett’s face hardened but he still said, “Thank you, my lord.”

Clutching the papers in his hand tightly, but not so tightly he would damage them, James could not look at him. “Do not thank me. Thank Lady St. George. I believe it is what she would have me do. And always remember that the reason you have a reference is by her grace.”

The man gave another stiff nod, then exited like a ghost, leaving James with the letters meant for a younger version of himself.

My lord,

You did not have the opportunity to know me before we wed, so it is my hope that these letters offer some insight into the woman you married. I am not particularly gregarious or loquacious, and in truth, both my speech and your charm made me quite nervous in our interactions.

About ten years ago, my father took me to the theater in London. I do not know what the name of the theater was, but it was the only time I had ever been. I know now that the theater is often a social realm of the haute ton, but I was not the kind of girl to have a London Season, and I went into the building with stars behind my eyes, for I had never seen anything as beautiful or grand in my entire lifetime. Despite the flapping of tongues around me, I can never forget the hush that spread through the crowd like wildfire as the curtain rose, nor the moment the young Miranda first laid eyes upon the shipwrecked prince.

“I might call him a thing divine,” the actress breathed into the silence of the hall, “for nothing natural I ever saw so noble.”

Sitting in that velvet chair, my lord, I was Miranda. She had lived her entire life isolated on her island, knowing only the rough storytelling magic of her father. Suddenly, a breathtaking world was thrust before her. The power of those words, spinning across a stage hundreds of years after they were written, settled deep in my bones.

The next letter had a similar tone.

Dear James,