The Burlington Manor Affair

“And what if I say different? What if I think we can do this?” The look in his eyes begged her to trust him.

“Do you really believe it?” It was still too hard for her, the impossible dream that she’d tutored herself to dismiss.

“I do.” He drew away, went for his back pocket. “There’s something I need to show you.” From his wallet, he pulled a folded page and opened it. “I found it, well, Mrs. Amery did, and she gave it to me.” He handed it to her. “It’s written by my dad, maybe a year or two ago. It was after you left, for sure. He never sent it, but it’s an apology of sorts. To us both.”

Carmen stared down at the page. The handwriting was instantly familiar because she’d often exchanged letters with Charles Carruthers. Once she moved out, it was how they stayed in touch. He was old-fashioned and didn’t own a computer or do email or texts.

In fact, the familiarity made her smile.

Once she began to read, the tone of the note stripped that smile away, fast. It was a familiar voice, but it was so sad and filled with regret that it killed her to read it. When she got to the end, Carmen dropped the letter in her lap and covered her eyes with her hands.

She tried not to let it happen, but a sob broke loose.

“Hey.” Rex reached out for her.

She shook her hair back, trying to get a grip. “I’m sorry. He just sounds so lonely here.” It was hard to witness Charles’s words, because she’d felt that way, too. Rex did this to people. “He wanted you back.”

“That wasn’t going to happen.”

She understood why, but it sounded so harsh. She blubbed again.

“Carmen, please don’t cry, love.” He wiped her cheek. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe it would have happened if he’d actually sent it. But he didn’t send it. However, he did do something—he gave us this time together to make amends. He led us back to each other.”

Carmen looked at him, wiping her eyes as she did so, trying to understand.

“Do you see? He brought us together, by the terms of his will. I figured that, for him, it was the only way he could really apologize.”

Carmen listened, and read the letter again. “I suppose it could be true.” It was a grand gesture, all right, if it were true. She looked at him. “Did it change the way you felt about our situation?”

“About you? No. I already wanted more than what we’d agreed.”

She stared at him, afraid to say anything, afraid to acknowledge what he seemed to be saying in case she was wrong.

When she didn’t respond, he scrubbed his hair with his hand. “I guess it made me feel a bit differently about the old man.”

She was going to say that was good, but he looked so disconcerted she just let it float. How strange it was. Minutes earlier she’d been laughing, and now she felt like an emotional wreck. This week of all weeks, this emotional roller coaster had to happen.

It was the anniversary of her mother’s death the next day, and that was preying on her mind, too. Weary and vulnerable, she glanced away, suddenly wanting to be alone. “I was going to take a bath tonight, to chill out.”

“We can do that.”

“Not we. Me.”

He stood up and lifted her in his arms, carrying her again. “I’m not going to let you run away and hide. I know you, you’ll go off and brood and make up some daft reason why we can’t be together.”

Was that true? Is that what I would do? She fought it for a moment, then the feeling of being held in his arms won her over. She clung to him, looped her arms around the back of his neck and meshed her fingers together there.

He carried her into the bathroom, carefully easing her through the doorway. He stood her on the bath mat and undressed her. Within moments the bath tap was running and he poured bubble bath liberally into the tub. With consummate care he lifted her and eased her into the warm water, keeping his arms around her.

Carmen dissolved.

Lowering to his knees beside the bath, he began to lap the warm water over her upper body.

She got dangerously near tears again, but he smiled her way and it touched her. “I feel pampered.”

“Good.” He cleared the bubbles here and there with his hand as if to see her better, then he reached for a sponge and soaped it.

He moved the sudsy sponge over her skin, taking his time to wash her.