The Beast's Bluestocking (The Bluestocking War), Eva Devon [e textbook reader .TXT] 📗

her troubles with such care. The loss of that? It was agonizing.

She’d never thought to find such a friend, but she had and truth be told, the entire reason why she'd agreed to come visit her friend, Clara, in Cornwall was in the hopes that she might see Anthony.

The foolishness of it echoed loudly. For Anthony had made no appearance. And she felt hollow, going from room to room of his castle, desperately hoping that he might suddenly make an appearance.

Good lord, she was a fool.

Clara claimed he had returned but he would disappear for days and weeks at a time. After he’d recovered from his wounds.

His wounds.

She’d had to read about the fact that he’d been injured and from what Clara said, she’d had no real understanding of how badly he’d been hurt.

Her heart ached for what he’d been through. It hurt too for the way he had seemingly so easily cut her from his life.

Clara claimed that Anthony was impossible these days. That war had changed him, that being a duke had changed him.

And that was why Phillipa had not heard from him in months.

She supposed she just needed to be glad that he was alive, but it was impossible not to miss the man she’d believed to be her dearest friend.

All of the changes that had taken place in his life? She’d learned them from newssheets or Clara.

It felt. . . Well, it made her feel quite low.

Duke of Grey.

He was so powerful and important now.

Perhaps that was it.

Perhaps now, because he was a duke, he did not wish to have anything to do with her. He knew the extent of her father’s shame and thus her own, and the fact that connection to Blacktower was the only thing that had kept them from the abyss.

It was painful that. The fact that he might consider her beneath him now.

She opened her eyes and pretended it was the wind causing her eyes to burn.

It was also painful and rather exhausting knowing that she had come all this way, hoping to stay with her friend in the vain possibility that she might see him. She'd never seen him before in her life and had no idea what he looked like. There wasn’t even a portrait of him in the castle.

It was shocking, but it seemed as if the ducal family were only interested in images of the direct heirs and dukes, which Anthony had only just become. And he seemed to have no inclination for portrait sitting, from what Clara had indicated.

Would she ever know his likeness?

Their entire relationship had been one of correspondence, but that correspondence had been intimate and unique, and it had filled her up with so much joy and confidence.

She’d felt as if she’d known him truly and he her. She’d held nothing back.

As a matter of fact, it had been much of his advice which had led her to make the choices that she had in the last year. It had been with his aid she’d decided to no longer live in the shadow of her father. With Anthony’s affirmations, she’d made a bold choice to live with ambition and think grandly for herself and her sisters.

But now? His support? That seemed to be done.

A tear slipped down her cheek and she dashed it away. The dratted salty wind was the very devil, or at least so she convinced herself.

She'd always had such a plucky attitude about this life. In all her life, she’d never let herself succumb to sorrow. After all, she had much to celebrate, did she not?

Augusta was a triumph, a duchess! And Felicity? Though heartbroken, at least free now from their father and free from a dangerous marriage. She was independent in Prussia, living her life and growing strong again.

Or at least, so Philippa had to believe.

And here she was in Cornwall, away from London, the city she rather despised. For though London was full of history and art, it did not reflect Phillipa's nature.

Phillipa enjoyed fun and the outdoors and the sea air, none of which London had.

So, really, what was there to complain of?

Nothing.

Except, well, her dratted heart refused to listen to her brain.

She'd come all this way for nothing.

She was a romantic idiot. That's what she was. She turned away from the rugged cliff and began striding back towards the great castle that belonged to the Duke of Grey.

It was an immense affair and she had begun to wonder if perhaps Anthony could be hiding in one of the many towers. It was so large that such a thing was possible. He might of have found some secret rooms to keep himself locked away, and she’d never find him, but why ever would he?

Why would he need to hide himself away?

She laughed at herself. Such a thought was lunacy. What need did a duke have of hiding away like a brooding hero in one of Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels.

True, he was in none of the society papers and he’d made no appearance in London. No one had seen him, as far as she could tell, since the Battle of Trafalgar, where he had won high honors.

Even Clara had only glimpsed him a few times, or so she said. She’d appeared rather pale when she’d confessed it.

Phillipa scowled into the growing, dark could. She loathed her thoughts returning again and again to him and how he had vanished.

She could not explain it to anyone, not even her sisters. Clara had an idea, but even she did not know the fullness of their exchanges.

After all, she’d become close to someone through paper and ink. It barely bore consideration. Perhaps to Anthony, at any rate.

She kicked a rock on the path. They had written to each other at least every week for months, sometimes daily. And for a short time, she had been certain that they were, well, soul mates.

How foolish that sounded now.

Surely, a soul mate would never abandon one so quickly and so easily.

And she'd begun to truly wonder