She stood still for a moment in guilty indecision before walking slowly to the fireplace. Teetering on her toes, she reached for the key, finding Trick had placed it too high for her reach. She dragged the desk chair close, climbed atop it, and nudged the key from its hiding place.
Jumping down, she rushed to the window. Moonlight illuminated the grounds. Trick was nowhere in sight. Seconds later she had the bottom drawer open and was pawing through its contents.
On top were the notes he’d just dropped off and those he’d concealed there earlier today. Not to keep them from her, obviously—he’d made no secret of the drawer. Surely he wouldn’t care if she looked.
Or so she told herself.
She swept the candle off the mantel to examine more pages of descriptions like the one she’d helped Trick make of the Puritan today. She smiled at his writing: very bold, the letters scrawled, clearly written in haste.
Carefully she set the candlestick on the desktop, then put the papers back in the drawer and peeked beneath them. An accounting of some sort. A record of his takings? Quite detailed, including descriptions of individual coins. Today hadn’t been the first time he’d run across counterfeits. Underneath that…
She pulled out another stack of papers, some of them older and yellowed. Written by the same hand, but more carefully, the words painstakingly formed, neat and even. They reminded Kendra of the papers she used to write for her tutors, papers written and rewritten before a final, perfect draft was carefully copied.
Choosing one at random, she read.
Pain and sorrow forevermore dwell
Inside the deepest bowels of hell.
Betrayal has yet took from me
What love and trust had once set free.
Poetry. Kendra sat abruptly on the edge of the desk. Trick, a poet? She never would have thought it; in fact, had someone suggested such, she would have laughed herself silly.
She didn’t know her husband at all.
He’d been hurt by someone, terribly. Her heart clenched as she suddenly understood his words: I don’t believe in love at all. Love between people is an illusion.
Who had done what to him to make him feel this way? Was he never happy? The paper seemed brittle when she set it down—as brittle as the words upon it. But the words on the sheet underneath did nothing to soothe her sympathetic ache.
Twixt fathers and tyrants
a difference is known:
Fathers seek their sons’ good,
tyrants their own.
With a sinking heart, she riffled through the pages, pausing to read here and there. The touching verses hinted at events in Trick’s life that had shaped him into the young man she saw today. Pain, anger, disillusionment…ah, there it was. Love, happiness. His hand was lighter here; the words fairly leapt off the page in their exuberance.
Sweet day, happy, calm and bright
Love has brought me to this light
The sun that sits in yonder sky
Today can shine not more than I
And if tomorrow it should rain
Her smile will make sun shine again
She bit her lip. Was this written of the same love that had later turned to betrayal? Could this carefree Trick live somewhere inside the cynical man who shared her home? If trust had been shattered by one lady, could another restore it?
Hoofbeats. Oh, heavens, he was on his way back. She stuffed the poems beneath the other papers and locked the drawer, then jumped to the chair to replace the key. She was just pushing the chair back to the desk when the door flew open and Trick sauntered inside with the bundle of hats under one arm, the pipes under the other.
He dropped it all in a corner. “Ready to go?”
His crooked grin made her heart leap; he was so unsuspecting. She flushed, unbearably guilty just looking at him after reading his private compositions.
“I suppose,” she said. “Though I was hoping we could talk.”
“Now? About what?”
“Life. Yours.” She met his gaze, willing him to share some of his past. “And mine, of course. All the years that led to now. The people who loved us—”
“None.”
“—and hurt us.”
He only shrugged. “None worth talking about.”
“And what we like…for instance, do you like to write? I keep a journal, and sometimes I’ve written poems.”
“Poems?” His gaze flickered down to the drawer. “No, I don’t like to write.” He leaned past her to blow out the candle. “Come along, will you?” he said, going to the door. “I’ve much to do still before I can leave.”
Crushed that he refused to even consider confiding in her, Kendra pushed by him and outside. Before she could mount Pandora, he caught her by the arm.
“I know you mean well,” he said softly.
Silent, she searched his eyes, gray in the darkness.
They went darker still. “I’m sorry you’re so unhappy,” he said.
“I’m not unhappy. Just confused. I’m worried for your life, and I don’t like keeping the truth from my brothers about what it is you’re doing. There are parts of you I admire—your compassion for the children. And more parts I don’t understand—parts I think you’ve locked away. And now you’re leaving.”
“I’ll be back.” The words were a gruff promise. “Maybe you’ll miss me while I’m gone.” His hand slid down her arm until his fingers were laced with hers, and he leaned to press a soft kiss to her mouth.
When he pulled back, she stared at him helplessly. Her lips tingled. She heard his low chuckle before he turned away to lock the cottage, and it drove her to a decision.
Once, in jest, she had promised he’d find love, and a Chase promise was never given lightly. She would bring back to life what another girl had killed; she would make
