Secret Letters (23 page)

“But you don’t believe it?”

“Not for a moment. They’re alive, I’m absolutely certain of that.”

“I can’t imagine how awful that must be,” I said, “living with the knowledge that they were walking free. Especially right after it happened.”

“Believe it or not, Dora, the knowledge that they
hadn’t
been caught actually supported me at first,” he replied. “It’s ironic, but it was the thought that those murderers were still alive that helped me survive those first few months.”

“How do you mean?”

He didn’t answer me right away; he was gazing off into the distance as if he was seeing the memory playing out in front of him. “It was something to hope for, to look forward to,” he told me finally. “At the time there didn’t seem to be anything else to live for. It wasn’t until quite a while later that I grasped the fact that they would never actually be caught. It seemed impossible to me then. If Mr. Holmes hadn’t admitted to me that he’d finally come to a dead end, I would never have believed it.”

He smiled wryly and shook his head. “When Sherlock Holmes tells you that he’s exhausted every option, you have no choice but to accept it. But he promised me that he would never give up until we’d found them. That was exactly how he phrased it, too. Until
we’d
captured them, he said. As if he was including me in the investigation. You may smile if you like, but that one statement helped me more than all the sympathetic nonsense that I’d heard until then.”

“No, I can understand that, actually; I think I would have felt the same,” I said. “Mr. Holmes appreciated how guilty and powerless you felt, and so he helped you direct your anger toward a purpose. It gave you a reason to go on.”

He nodded thoughtfully. His voice softened, and the tension in his face relaxed a little. “I don’t think that he ever imagined I would take it this far, though. But when he saw that I’d become interested in his line of work he encouraged me—in his own way. He would call on me when he needed a young assistant or a messenger boy. It was an unusual sort of kindness, I suppose, but it meant everything to me then.”

“You must have been disappointed that he wasn’t looking for a permanent assistant,” I observed. “I imagine I would have been.”

“I was sorry about that, certainly,” he replied. “But I was hardly surprised. You didn’t know him, Dora, or you wouldn’t have expected any different.”

“I didn’t know him, it is true,” I said. “But I wish I had—even if in the end he wouldn’t have wanted to know me.”

He smiled kindly and shook his head. “I wouldn’t think of it like that. I know I told you that he loved his independence. And he could be cold sometimes, especially when he was focused on a case and had forgotten everyone else around him. But that doesn’t mean that he was cruel. It rather depended on his mood, I think. Still, even during his warmest moments, he was not what anybody would ever call affectionate—”

“Oh, I know that!” I interjected with a laugh. “I’ve read the stories, after all.”

“Of course you have. So you know what I am talking about, then. Still, I’ll never forget that I have him to thank for setting me on this path. I don’t know what would have become of me if I hadn’t met him. I certainly wouldn’t be here now.”

“Aren’t you forgetting Mr. Porter?” I smiled. “He was the one who took you on. Although I still don’t understand why you ever agreed to work for him.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, honestly, Dora, you needn’t look so baffled. That is the least mysterious portion of the tale. Simply put, I could not establish my own practice. I was too young, without experience, without a name. Mr. Porter was a distant relative with a modest practice, some expensive habits, and no capital. I had a small inheritance. So we struck a bargain. I have not had reason to regret my choice.”

“Really? Well, I suppose that you know best.”

He shrugged. “He is a decent investigator, with some good qualities. And he was my only option at the time. Ah, but if I had known that a budding young detective was soon to descend on London and take the Underworld by storm—”

“Oh, stop it, please. I am hardly a detective, sir. I am hardly much of anything anymore. Tomorrow morning Adelaide and I return to Newheath, and then it’s over for me. At least I can look forward to following
your
career—in the papers. I don’t suppose our paths will cross again.”

“Indeed? No more trips to London? Don’t tell me that your aunt intends for you to ‘come out’ in your little town!”

I rose and walked over to the path. “Well, naturally, Mr. Cartwright, I will be in London for some portion of next Season. But what has that to do with you?”

He got up off the bench and followed me. “Oh, so I’m ‘Mr. Cartwright’ once again? Very well,
Miss
Joyce, I will not argue with you. Good-bye, then.”

“Farewell, sir,” I told him simply and extended my hand to him. I was determined to be sensible now. The evening had begun in grim confessions; at least in parting, I hoped to be composed. There would be plenty of time to mourn after he had gone.

He smiled wearily, and swept his cap off. With a respectful, casual bow, he touched his lips briefly to my fingertips, then paused thoughtfully, turned my hand over, and gazed at it as if he meant to read my fortune through my glove. His fingers were barely touching mine but I could feel their warmth as surely as if he held me. And now he was leaning down again, his mouth just inches from my hand, his shallow breathing cool against my skin. I was suddenly conscious of every fiber in the cloth over my palm, every crease across his knuckles, every skip and tremble of my baffled pulse. With a rapid movement, at once careless and deliberate, he pushed the ruffle of my glove aside and pressed his lips against my wrist.

“Promise me,” he murmured, his head still bowed over my hand.

I could not answer at that moment; my throat had gone completely dry, and I was afraid that I would squeak if I attempted to reply. A nod was all that I could manage, and even that was stiff and ragged, like a tiny shudder.

How much can race across one’s mind in just an instant! Before he spoke again, a hundred questions had already flashed and faded, a hundred hopes had pitched their waves inside of me. What did he want from me? I wondered. What was he about to ask? Would it be something unoriginal and bland like
Promise that you won’t forget me?
—a question begging for a declaration while pledging nothing in return? Or, worse yet:
Promise that you will keep our friendship secret.
He did not need to tell me that. And besides, secret friendships did not stop the heart. Or maybe this would be a true confession, a final note of passion that I could carry home with me, which I could then relive each night.
Promise me that you will wait for me.…Promise me that one day…someday in the future…

I do not know if I gave myself away. I truly hope not. The only comfort that I have when I recall the evening was that he could not have known what I was thinking, what I was wishing for. Indeed, I was struggling so desperately to assume a calm expression that I may have overdone it slightly. I might possibly have scowled at him. He looked up at me before he spoke, and his eyes were quiet, searching, and undecided. I realized suddenly that my hands were shaking, that he would certainly feel my right hand trembling in his own. So I balled my fingers into fists.

He dropped my wrist and stepped away from me, his features smooth, amused.

“Promise me, Miss Joyce?” There was a dangerous lilt behind his smile.

“Yes?”

“Promise me that you’ll stop telling the entire world that we’re in love? It is
destroying
my reputation.”

If there were any words to answer that, I certainly could not find them at that moment.

“But—I never—I
never—
” The rest was lost in gasping sounds.

“Porter nearly sacked me when I got home. Then, after he’d remembered that my departure might actually be bad for business, he settled on a lengthy lecture about propriety.
Propriety!
He said some unfortunate things about your honor, I’m afraid. If he wasn’t so much older than me, I might have knocked him down.”

I had found my voice by now and a decent store of injured pride. “Mr. Porter’s opinions are
not
my concern, sir. I said nothing to support his wild ideas.”

“Oh, and I suppose your servant friend at Hartfield—what was her name—Agatha? She came upon the two of us outside the cemetery and
naturally
assumed that you had come out to a graveyard to accept my
marriage proposal
?”

“Well, not naturally, no. I may have led her to believe that we were, that I was—that my
character
was—rather—”

“Overcome with passion?”

“No!”

“Not even a little?” He was grinning wickedly at me through gritted teeth.

“Oh, very well. My character, my
servant
character was hopelessly in love with your rude, impossible, conceited character. That is all.”

“I see. And the intrepid Dora Joyce? Untouched and undisturbed, of course?”

I frowned and looked away. “Of course. What did you expect?”

“Very little, I’m afraid.”

There was a brief silence, and then far away a distant cry, a voice I knew, shouting out my name. “Ah, that would be your cousin,” he said. “I suppose you can always tell her that you got lost. She will be close to frantic. It is very late.”

His voice had grown softer as he spoke, and when I turned to face him, I saw that he had begun to walk away from me.

“Farewell, Dora.”

The two sounds echoed off each other, Adelaide’s urgent tone, and Peter’s last good-bye, one growing nearer while the other faded.

“Peter—”

But he had already gone. Around the corner I could see my cousin’s black-plumed hat shivering its way toward me, the rustle of her petticoat whispering her hurry and her concern. I called out to her and heard her gasped relief; the tapping heels ticked closer.

“Here I am!” I shouted. “Adelaide, I’ve been searching everywhere—”

O
UR TRIP HOME
was even quieter than our journey to the cemetery. Both of us stared out of our respective windows. Adelaide did not ask me where I’d disappeared to, and I did not ask her why her eyes were dark and swollen or why she had ash stains on her gloves. We had come to a silent understanding. I was happy to feign ignorance if she returned the favor. So when we entered the house we headed in opposite directions, Adelaide to the parlor and me to my bedroom to pretend to pack.

Before I’d left for Highgate, I had emptied all my dresser drawers and my wardrobe. The pile of skirts and petticoats upon my bed had reached quite an impressive height. I parted the mountain in the middle and burrowed a little den beneath the heap, then crawled into the hole and closed the gap. There was something very comforting about my chintz cocoon; it was so warm and dark and intensely floral, the perfect place to dream about the past and draw back from the future.

I had barely settled on my bed when a faint knock roused me from my thoughts.

“Miss Dora? May I come in?”

“Yes, Mary, I’m awake.”

The door creaked open and our housemaid entered, holding a letter on a silver tray.

“I am sorry that I didn’t give this to you sooner, miss, but I thought—I thought perhaps you might want to read this on your own. A young man delivered it, you see—”

I smiled and held my hand out. “And you guessed that I might not want anyone to know that I’d received a letter from a gentleman?”

She grinned at me and handed me the envelope. “Was I wrong, miss?”

“No, Mary, you have the best of instincts. Thank you.”

I tore it open and a slip of paper fell into my lap.

“Mary,” I inquired as she moved to leave the room, “When did this letter come?”

“Oh, hours ago, miss. Before you left for Highgate. There simply wasn’t time to give it to you sooner. No private time, I mean.”

“I see. Well, thank you, Mary.”

“Good day, miss,” she replied and shut the door.

I held the letter to the light; the paper shivering in my fingers, the words dancing before my eyes. The message was unsigned and read:

I would have said good-bye, my friend, but then I realized: It is not over yet. This work, this life, it calls to you.

You must come back
.

You will come back
.

And I will wait until you do
.

I am so thankful for the encouragement and support of my family and friends throughout this process.

I want to thank Irene Kraas, my amazing agent, whose faith in me and my first novel never faltered. My wonderful editors at Hyperion: Lisa Yoskowitz and Catherine Onder, who took my raw first draft and helped me shape it and realize its potential. Thank you so much for your hard work and insight.

To my wonderful parents, Irina Elashvili, my first reader and biggest fan, and Ilya Elashvili, whose amazing stories made me want to tell my own; and to my sisters: Anna, Dinah, Sarah, and Tammy.

To my beta readers: It’s terrifying to show your work to your friends and family for the first time. Thank you for making it so easy and for giving me the confidence that I needed to continue writing. Clara Chen, Kelly Canale, Yael Levy, Donna Scheier, Rachel Scheier Kaplan, Neil Scheier, and Rhonda Woods, I can’t thank you enough.

To Shana Gros, for patiently listening to me kvetch about the ups and downs of this process, thank you my dear friend.

For my daughters, Aviva, Miriam, and Talia, my greatest joys. And for Eric, my husband, I love you.