I hope this finds you well and apologize for the manner of my leave-taking earlier this day. There is no pleasant way to part from one’s dear spouse, regardless that the whole sorry business is my doing. Forgive me, though, as I am blundering close to another apology, which you’ve told me I must not do as long as I will not also explain.

I miss you, Wife, and require your assurances you need nothing from me but perhaps a little silence. Tell me how you go on, or I shall fret unbecomingly.

Nicholas,

Bellefonte

Nicholas had an odd way of going about an estrangement, but then, he was kind, and perhaps he was merely easing her into it, using the little courtesy of a note to reinforce his willingness to remain cordial.

The next evening, however, there was another late-night epistle, hurried out from Town on a lathered horse.

Lovey Mine,

You will be surprised to learn my papa left a contribution to your dower estate sizeable enough to make my untimely demise loom before you with some appeal. The details will be forwarded by the weasels swarming over the will, no doubt in language it will take an Oxford don to decipher. Della has threatened to disown me for our estrangement, and I cut my visit to her short lest she hurt herself boxing my ears.

Tomorrow I call upon the late lamented Frommer’s oldest brother, who had the great misfortune to have inherited the marquessate two years ago. Because I’ve recently inherited my own father’s title, he and I can perhaps commiserate. Hazlit claims the man acted as Aaron’s second, and from him, I am hoping to learn who seconded Wilton. Valentine has managed the domestics here in my absence, and while he sympathizes with my loss, he is playing rather a lot of finger exercises when I’m underfoot. He claims I try his patience, if you can imagine such a thing.

I slept badly last night, tired though I was. Perhaps you are faring better?

Yours,

Nicholas,

Bellefonte

When Leah also received an epistle on Wednesday night, she considered that maybe Nick was not going to be quite as successful at being estranged as he might have initially hoped.

Most Stubborn Lovey and Dear Wife,

You are demonstrating a hint of the anger at me to which you are entitled. Either that, or you have broken your hand, for I have no word from you to indicate you yet breathe. You will please provide same, post haste. Lady Della is no ally to me, as she is not speaking to the “henwitted, clodpated embarrassment of a grandson of whom she used to be so proud.” I am lucky I am still quick enough to keep my backside from her reach—mostly. I didn’t see the first hefty swat coming.

I was astonished to learn from Frommer the Eldest that Hellerington seconded your father. Somebody fired too early, but as our man was tossing his accounts into the bushes at the precise moment when bullets flew, only Hellerington can attest for a certainty to the identity of the bad sport—or murderer—who fired early. Bad business, my dear, and I am sorry, because either way, somebody close to you behaved poorly.

I am pining for want of you, of course, and doing an abysmal job of keeping my temper. Beck and Ethan are leaving tomorrow in disgust. I’ve drunk all the good liquor, and my staff is too piqued with me to set much of a table. My horse is not speaking to me either, and her conversation is a real loss.

Valentine has condemned me to prancing little Haydn sonatas until I, in his words, “Come to my feeble senses.” So you really must write to me, love, truly you must.

Your Nicholas,

Bellefonte

What to write in response to that blather cum love letter, cum letter from school? Leah pared the tip of a pen and stared at the foolscap before her. She stared for a full fifteen minutes before deciding that “Dear Nicholas,” would do as a place to start. To reach that brilliant conclusion, she’d discarded a list of possibilities… Dearest Nicholas, Nicholas, Spouse, Errant Spouse, Henwitted Clodpate, Bellefonte, Dearest Clodpate…

“There you are.” Ethan’s voice sounded from the doorway, and Leah looked up to find him and Beckman smiling at her tentatively, two men who looked a good deal like Nick without quite matching him for handsomeness, charm, or—she was angry with the man—clodpatedness either.

“Gentlemen.” Leah rose, her own smile tentative as well. They looked so like Nick and they’d just been with him and they were so dear to call on her and her eyes were stinging.

“Oh, ye gods.” Beckman stepped around Ethan and enveloped Leah in a hug. He wasn’t as large as his oldest brother, but he was big enough and had the same muscular, masculine feel to his embrace, and he knew enough to carry a handkerchief into battle.

Though his scent was all wrong. Bergamot, like a cup of doctored tea.

“Now we’ve done it,” Ethan muttered, closing the door. “Nick won’t like this one bit, making his countess cry.”

“As if,” Beck said over the top of Leah’s head, “himself didn’t see to that first. She’s entitled to cry, after all, if not for lack of Nick, then for his lack of sense.”

Ethan nattered on in agreement, probably to give Leah time to compose herself. “Shall I ring for tea?” Leah suggested as she stepped out of Beck’s arms. “Or a late luncheon, perhaps?”

“Both,” Ethan said. “Beck wants to push south before nightfall, and I must hie back to London. Some sustenance and company would be appreciated. Now that Beckman has surrendered his white flag, how fare you?”

“Miserably,” Leah said, sensing honesty was the norm among Nick’s family. “I miss him, I don’t know why he does what he does, and though I am hurt and angry, I still worry that he is…”

“He’s what?”

“He’s doing what he must,” Leah said. “He can’t see another option. But tell me, did Nick put you up to this spying?”

“He’s too clever for that,” Ethan said. “Della put us up to spying, and Nick will interrogate me when I get back to Town. The sisters will no doubt question Beck by letter, but about you, Nick, Della, and myself.”

“Poor Beck,” Leah said. “Shall we sit?”

Her brothers-in-law charmed, entertained, and consumed great quantities of food, leaving Leah feeling a little breathless but pleased at the distraction they offered. When they rose to go, Ethan wandered around the room far enough to see the paper still on the escritoire by the window.

“Did we interrupt your effort to pen some remonstrance to Nick?” Ethan asked, eyeing the two words on the page.

“I was just getting started, but I doubt anything will come of it,” Leah said. “I seem to have too much to say, and nothing to say of merit.”

“Nonsense,” Beck corrected her gently. “Your dim-witted spouse wants merely to see your hand, Leah. Describe which rose looks like it will bloom first, and he’ll be pleased—assuming you want to please him?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Why don’t we see to our horses,” Ethan said, “and you can jot a few choice imprecations in the meanwhile. I’ll be happy to deliver your epistle, and this way, I can report to Della you and Nick are at least corresponding.”

Leah shifted her gaze from one brother to the other. They would be terribly disappointed if she did not write at least a few words.

Disappointed and worried. “I think kindness runs in the Haddonfield family.”

“Kindness.” Beck rolled his eyes. “I’m guessing you’d rather have us rife with some more practical emotion right about now.”

“Let her write her epistle while we saddle up.”

So they left, and Leah was faced again with the challenge of communicating in writing to her spouse.

Dear Nicholas,

You are a devoted correspondent for an estranged husband, but I will bow to your greater wisdom regarding the particulars of our situation, for I myself am quite at sea. I have kept busy, riding out on Casper when the weather permits, devising some changes to the cutting gardens—I’ve pulled up the bed of forget-me-nots, for example—and replying to the many letters coming at me from your sisters at Belle Maison. Then too, your solicitors forwarded a description of my bequest from your father, and that has, indeed, taken a lexicon and a quizzing glass to decipher. Rest assured, I am not at this point inspired by financial considerations to hasten your demise. Not yet.