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I know that I previously recounted my theater experience to you, and although you have chosen not to respond, I felt compelled to share further. I am fully aware that no deep bond exists between us and that our union was merely a strategic arrangement to preserve your family lands. I remain steadfast in my commitment to salvaging your inheritance, yet I desired to provide you with the opportunity to understand my character, as we were never afforded such an acquaintance before our marriage.

When I watched Miranda upon that stage, I felt I was looking into a mirror. I have lived my entire life in the smoke of Barnsley, knowing little of the world beyond my father and the looms. But when she looked at the prince who had washed upon her shores and told him, “I would not wish any companion in the world but you,” I finally understood what it meant to look at a stranger and suddenly see a future.

After that experience, I could not stop living, eating, and dreaming of the wonder of the stage. I did not wish to be an actor, no, I was fascinated by the power of Mr. Shakespeare, the ability to spin words across a page, words that still rang true hundreds of years later. It made me consider what we create and what we leave behind in the world. Unfortunately the world does not expect much from me. I am a woman. I am Irish. My father is in trade. Yet…how could I feel such power and beauty so deeply in my soul and do nothing about it? Life is hard in Barnsley, even growing up at Bailey Hall, you must have seen. How could I reconcile such beauty with the ugliness of life I had seen? In truth, I do not have a complete answer to that question, but that experience lit something in me, a need to create, to be heard.

“Oh, God,” James breathed. “Mariah, dear, Mariah. I would not wish for any companion in the world but you.” And he meant it. He laid the faded vellum beside Barrymore’s crisp letter on the floor before him. For years, he had treated his family’s lands as an entitlement to fund his escape. Now, looking at the figure written in Barrymore’s bold scrawl, the choice seemed simple. And yet something held him back. Instead of making a decision about Bedford Grange, he unfolded another letter.

Dear husband,

I still have not yet heard from you. I understand you do not know me well, and perhaps what I write of is rather scandalous for a wife of a peer. Yet I have crossed no lines of propriety that I know of. I have never shared my work in any way. It sits locked away in my escritoire. But, since you are tied to me, I will share with you the subject of my work.

After my experience at the theater, I could not stop thinking of what it would be to write, to create something that lasts long beyond you. I read other Shakespeare plays, much to the dismay of my governess, who wished me to read of matters of deportment and elocution. A sudden inspiration struck me then. From my earliest youth, Papa would recount the legend of the Pirate Queen, Grace O’Malley. My late mother shared her Christian name and her spirited devotion to her homeland, and the tale remained my most treasured comfort during those rare evenings when my father could linger before I drifted to sleep.

Although Grace married for strategy, much like we did, and she cast one of her husbands out after the agreed upon year, I liked to imagine that she had some love in her life beyond political marriage. That someone so fierce and passionate could also be loving and be loved. I think we all long for that opportunity, in truth.

“I think we all long for that opportunity, in truth.” Mariah’s written words seemed to echo in the quiet room. He remembered her dismissing him to London, but asking one thing for himself: Make peace with your brother. Rising, James drew a fresh sheet of paper from his escritoire in the corner of his chambers. His hands hesitated over the inkstand before he gave up and finished the words she had written years earlier:

And so you see, I am stuck. I cannot decide if I should write romantic love into her life, or if that is merely wishful thinking on my part, a faint hope that marriage can be something more than a business transaction.…

James’s heart beat so rapidly in his chest, he was surprised he could draw breath. Though the ink on these pages had long since dried, the essence of her spirit was so palpable it was as if she stood before him. He yearned to seek her out at that very moment, to tell her that her fragile hope had not been in vain. But her last letter stopped him dead.

I have not received any response or correspondence to my letters, leaving me to conclude that my shared contemplations were perhaps ill-judged. It is likely that you regard my aspirations with a measure of disdain. The fancies of an Irish daughter of trade who dares to dream of the stage. I beseech you to strike my former utterances from your memory, for I shall trouble you with such matters no further.

The final words smudged under his thumb. She had offered him her soul, and he had let her believe he held it in disdain. He realized that his own tears were blurring both the vision of his eyes and the ink on the page.

He didn't just need to clear Barrymore’s loan. He needed enough capital to fund the sappers, buy the timber, and pay off the tenement materials completely. He pulled forward his property deeds, selected two unentailed townhouse leases in London he had kept for his own pleasure, and marked them for immediate auction.

Rising from his escritoire, he sank down to his knees before the fire in his chambers, but this time he did not wish for the pain to burn away. Instead he let himself feel it, he allowed himself to acknowledge what he had lost in his own vanity, his own selfishness. He’d had the opportunity to win her heart all those years ago, and a few careless words he had muttered while deep in his cups had stopped, had effectively shuttered this opportunity.

The letters did not contain her heart, even in writing, she was too guarded for that, but they did contain her soul. A soul he now knew he loved more than his own. A soul whose dreams he would do anything to protect.

A different letter jostled loose from his pocket, falling to the floor beneath him.

Barrymore.

If he did nothing, he would lose Bedford Grange.

But if he acted, without a doubt he would lose Mariah forever.

Staring at the fire, the truth of what he wanted became clearer and clearer, as the fire burned away the hazy memory of lost dreams.

Wiping his face, he rose and rang the bell pull. Hopefully Tipton would have Griggs prepared.

For once in his life, he was going to be something more than a carefree aristocrat. And he hoped like hell it was enough to help Mariah.

8

That evening, James concluded that he required the assistance of someone with significantly more political knowledge than he did.

That meant paying a visit to one Viscount Wolfridge.

His jaw ticked as he stood before the man’s whimsical blue door. If he had been searching for signs that Wolf was a secret romantic, the door should have been his first clue.

Instead of a butler, a diminutive woman in a warm rose day gown opened the door while speaking over her shoulder. “Don’t bother Escher, I love to see who is calling. Oh!” Her large doe eyes flew wide open. “You’re Lord St. George. Do come in!”

He now recognized the woman as the former Lady Petra Newkirk. She must now be Lady Wolfridge. She was lovely, he supposed, but he had not noticed other women since he had married Mariah. No, that couldn’t be correct. Since he had truly seen Mariah. And yet, there had always been something there, had there not? Otherwise why had he always honored his marriage vows? He had told himself that it was so that he would not disrespect Mariah, but that was a pretty lie wasn’t it? He’d had enough of his own pretty lies that he had spun for his own benefit.

Lady Wolfridge flitted down the hallway with a light grace, and now that James could read a scene through Mariah’s eyes, he noted that she had a bit of what Mariah likely would have called the fair folk about her.