She snatched the bundle. The papers were ragged and of irregular size. Frowning bewilderment, she ripped away the ribbon and unfolded the top document. She recognized Roberta’s round girlish hand. All the messages were simple. And listed increasingly large sums of money owed to J. Merrick above Roberta’s signature.
Her sister had lied to her.
Back at Barstowe Hall, the amount she claimed to have lost to Jonas had been appalling. The total of these promissory notes was astronomical. Beyond anything her sister could hope to repay. Beyond the value of everything William owned, even if he honored his wife’s reckless gambling.
“Oh, Roberta…”
Then like a hammer striking, the full significance of the packet became clear.
Jonas had set Sidonie free.
Chapter Thirteen
Sidonie had always claimed she stayed only to retrieve Roberta’s vowels. Jonas, with a magnanimity that should surprise her but didn’t, returned the vowels unconditionally.
Go. Run. Flee.
Her practical self insisted she seize this chance. She’d got what she came for. She was free. More to the point, Roberta was free. Sidonie could return to her real life, set plans in train for Roberta’s rescue and a new independent life for both Forsythe sisters. An independent life that unaccountably began to sound like bleak loneliness.
Nothing held Sidonie at Castle Craven. Nothing except the fleeting expression in a man’s eyes when he believed himself unobserved. Nothing except shared laughter, the sizzle of a man’s touch, and surcease from solitude that she only now realized had burdened her heart like shackles.
Nothing…
Perhaps nothing was what Jonas felt now.
Stubbornly she refused to accept that was true.
After a long, frustrating day, she feared she must accept it was true. By late afternoon, she recognized Jonas had no wish to be found. At least not by his houseguest.
Sidonie finally returned utterly discouraged to the comfortless great hall, wondering whether she’d neglected somewhere obvious in her search. In a shadowy corner, Mrs. Bevan swung a broom. Flying motes of dust caught the light through the narrow windows high above.
“ ’Ee may as well be gone,” Mrs. Bevan said with what Sidonie interpreted as satisfaction.
“No,” Sidonie said, even as she was tempted to preserve what remained of her pride and leave. After all, Jonas’s absence made his rejection clear, didn’t it? A sensible woman would read the writing on the wall and return to safety and the comforts of the familiar.
But she didn’t want the comforts of the familiar. The tragic fact was that she wanted Jonas. She wanted Jonas with every beat of her heart. By returning Roberta’s vowels, he’d changed everything between them.
She’d spent her life swearing that she’d never place herself in a man’s power. After witnessing the way masculine dominance destroyed both her mother and sister, she’d vowed never to surrender body or will to male tyranny. But somewhere in the last days, she’d recognized Jonas as the one man in a million who wasn’t a tyrant. She’d teetered on the brink of yielding for the last couple of days. His care and remorse last night had shifted the balance forever. And now that he’d granted her freedom by returning Roberta’s vowels, she was impatient to rip away all barriers between them.
Native caution derided her as just another fool woman, telling herself this time, this place, this man were different from other times, places, men. She ignored native caution. For once she intended to follow her heart rather than her head. She meant to become Jonas Merrick’s mistress with a wholehearted joy that would have astonished the girl who arrived at Castle Craven.
She might be too late to tell Jonas what she wanted.
Or for him to muster a shred of interest in her confession.
“If ’ee wants to reach Sidmouth afore dark, ’ee must leave soon.”
“I’m sleeping here,” Sidonie responded with an obstinacy that didn’t reflect the nerves bouncing around her belly.
“Please ’eeself. But maister said the young miss’d be away first thing.”
“Maister doesn’t know everything,” Sidonie snapped, perching on one of the oak chairs lining the walls.
“Maister be riding. Set off afore cock crow. Oft he be away days.” Mrs. Bevan delivered the overdue information, then paused in her housewifery to rake Sidonie with a disapproving scrutiny. “ ’Ee could sit till doomsday and he woan show to do eer bidding.”
“I don’t care,” Sidonie said, her heart sinking. What if Jonas was gone for days? She couldn’t linger as an interloper forever.
She’d worry about that when she had to.