“Well,” Clara said. “Thank you for looking. It’s probably silly of me. I just hoped to find something written in his hand. We lost everything when they took the estate.”
“You know,” Issandrian said, “Palliako hasn’t named a new baron for Osterling Fells. I’ve heard tell that he’s only waiting until he can give the title back to Jorey. If he does, there may be things you only thought were lost.”
“I can hope,” Clara said.
“It’s been a bad few years, hasn’t it?”
“It has,” Clara said. A brief pang of guilt touched her. Curtin Issandrian was an unlucky man, but he wasn’t a cruel one. If anything, his errors in judgment spoke of too much compassion. To exploit him seemed … not monstrous, but rude. It wasn’t a thing that a well-bred lady would do. She rose to her feet, smoothing the fabric of her skirt, and Issandrian stood as well.
“Thank you again,” she said.
They walked back toward the main halls more quietly. Issandrian’s expression was turned inward, and his hands clasped behind his back. Without the long, flowing hair he’d once affected, he seemed older. More worn. Clara waited until they’d almost reached the main hall, then stopped.
“Oh dear,” she said. “I seem to have forgotten my shawl.”
“I’ll have it fetched for you.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said, turning back. “I’m still spry enough to walk. Wait for me here, I’ll just be a moment.”
She walked with a brisk rolling gait until he turned the first corner. After that, she ran. When she reached his study, it was the work of a moment to yank her shawl back. She plucked the box from its shelf, muttering to herself as she opened it. Her fingers flew through the bundles. Alan Klin. Mirkus Shoat. Two old-looking bundles from Sesil Veren. And there. Four thin letters on cream-colored paper bound with a white ribbon. Lord Mecilli. She wrapped her shawl around them and shoved the box back into place, then hurried out of the study. Issandrian met her halfway back to the hall, and she raised her shawl in triumph.
“It fell behind the divan,” she said. “I was near to giving up when I found it.”
“I’m glad the hunt succeeded without the need for dogs.”
“That would be embarrassing. Setting out the hounds to help poor Lady Kalliam find her things. Too plausible, I suppose.”
“Not at all.”
At the door to the street, she turned to him, placing her hand on his arm as she might with an old friend. Issandrian put his own hand over hers. There was no sense of flirtation, but rather a kind of shared sorrow. For a moment they stood there, old enemies from a conflict that no longer mattered. His stolen letters were in her other hand, and she felt the urge to apologize, not for what she’d done, but on behalf of the world. That they, who should somehow have been friends were not, and would not be. The moment passed, and Clara walked out into the street and turned south for her rooms, Vincen Coe at her side.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” she said.
Back at the boarding house, Clara untied the white ribbon and laid the letters out on her bed while Vincen retrieved two more lamps from unused rooms. Clara read over each of the letters, searching for particular words and phrases, the personal idioms that would mark a letter as coming from the man himself. There were several. He was quite fond of the phrase in the unfortunate event that and the word abysmal. Then she took note of the specifics of his hand and the way he formed his letters. She needn’t match it perfectly, of course. The note she intended to write in his name was something written quickly and in a state of agitation. Even if Lord Ternigan were to have letters from the true Mecilli, it would be natural to expect some departures from the usual form.
Vincen came in behind her, a plate of stewed apples and bottle of wine in his hands. They made the room smell like a kitchen in the middle of baking sweets. Clara composed the rough draft of her letter, writing the words in her own neat hand. Then she read it to Vincen, taking breaks when he fed bits of apple between her lips and also to feed him. The wine was dry and a little harsh, and the fumes went to her head. Soon she was laughing, and