Page 28 of Dear Friend

“Yes, sir. They kept coming, and there was still nowhere to send them.”

“You made no further enquiry?”

“I asked again, sir, but none of the men knew where the family had gone. I supposed Mr. Harding might send his direction to your agent once they were settled. When your servants arrived last month and told me you meant to come to Willowbrook yourself, I thought the matter might best be put before you.”

Darcy glanced over the letters. “You have heard nothing about the Hardings since they left?”

“No, sir. Nothing.”

“And the postage?”

“Paid by the sender, sir. Every one of them.”

That, at least, explained why Turner had continued accepting them. No charge had been demanded of him, and without a forwarding direction there had been nowhere for the letters to go.

Darcy leaned back in his chair. “You might have written to Mr. Humphrey, my attorney, rather than allow them to accumulate. No matter. I shall write to him myself and discover whether Harding left any forwarding direction with him.”

Turner inclined his head. “Very good, sir.”

“You may go.”

The man hurried away, plainly relieved that his questionable judgement had earned him no greater reprimand. Once the door had closed behind him, Darcy remained at the table, his attention returning to the seventeen letters. This was no forgotten invitation or stray piece of correspondence sent by someone unaware that an acquaintance had removed. Whoever had written these had done so repeatedly and faithfully for months, apparently without knowing that the woman to whom they wrote was no longer there.

He picked up the most recent letter.

There was nothing upon the outside to identify its author. Only Julia Harding’s name, the familiar direction, the postal markings, and the unbroken seal.

Darcy turned it over once in his hand.

He had no right to open it.

He placed the letter back amongst the others. Whatever curiosity seventeen letters might reasonably inspire, they remained the private correspondence of another person. If Harding had left a forwarding direction with his attorney, the entire collection could be sent on.

That was as it should be.

Darcy rose and crossed towards the small room which had been arranged as his study. He would write to his attorney immediately. With any fortune, the matter would prove no more mysterious than a forwarding direction neglected by one man and never requested by another.

Yet as he sat down and drew a sheet of paper towards him, his thoughts returned once more to the seventeen sealed letters in the adjoining room.

Someone had been writing to Julia Harding for nearly five months without knowing that not one of those letters had reached her.

Chapter Nine

22nd August 1811

Willowbrook Somerset

Darcy

Darcy finished the letter from Mr. Humphrey and laid it upon the desk with a dissatisfaction its contents scarcely warranted.

His attorney confirmed that Mr. Harding had left no forwarding direction upon quitting Willowbrook. His final communication had concerned the termination of the tenancy, and Mr. Humphrey had received nothing from him since. He would make further enquiries, the letter concluded, and would inform Darcy should anything useful be discovered.

It was not much, but neither was it entirely unexpected.

Darcy folded the letter and set it aside. His attention almost immediately strayed to the small collection of correspondence occupying the opposite corner of the desk.

Five days had passed since he first discovered the letters, and in that time they had acquired an irritating ability to draw his eye whenever he entered the room. Willowbrook had provided all the solitude he had desired and rather more than he knew what to do with. He had ridden over the surrounding country, walked the boundaries of the timberland, read several books brought from London, and spent one particularly uninteresting morning examining accounts which required no immediate attention.