She pressed her hand to her eye this time and wiped a stray tear. The pain of a mother for her lost daughter was palpable. Edwin had witnessed more than enough of it in his own mother.
“You can rest assured, Mrs. Livingstone, that this letter will not leave my hands,” he assured her, “unless you wish to take it back with you.”
“Goodness no!” she cried out, shaking her head fervently, looking at the letter as if it were something unholy, something to be afraid of. “I do not want it. I have been keeping it on my person this entire time, fearing that my husband will find it. I cannot live under that strain any longer. I cannot keep it in my own home. Please, you hold onto it.”
“Why didn’t you destroy it?” he inquired although he knew the answer to that question.
“I tried to,” she admitted. “I almost did. I almost tore it up. I almost burned it. But every time, something prevented me from doing so, almost as if Geraldine was beckoning me not to do it.”
“It is good that you didn’t,” he told her. “Because now I know that the man who wrote to my sister, calling himself her secret admirer, was the same man who wrote to Geraldine.”
Her lips parted. Her eyes became watery with tears, with the horrible images only the heart of a mother could imagine. He knew that his own mother must have been a victim of those same torturous thoughts.
“Do you think he did something to them?” she asked, drowning under the weight of her own words.
“No,” he replied quickly. This was more wishful thinking than knowledge based on fact, but she needed to hear it. He also needed to hear it. They both were desperate for reassurance that their loved ones were all right, that they were simply waiting to be found, waiting to come home.
“Will we ever find them?”
That final question almost broke him. It tugged at his heartstrings. He wanted to hug this woman, as if she were his own mother, and hold her in his embrace until she cried herself out. He wanted to thank her for the letter, for her bravery, for her defiance. He could not muster a single word of it.
“We will,” he said instead. “Never lose hope. Geraldine is waiting for you to find her. It will simply take a little longer than we’re all hoping.”
She smiled gratefully. She straightened her posture a little. Up until this moment, she was bent forward as if she were too heavy for herself. Now, she seemed to find new strength, new hope.
“You coming here was not a mistake,” he reminded her. “It was the best thing you could have done, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise. I shall keep Geraldine’s secret, Mrs. Livingstone. I promise.”
She raised her hand suddenly and caressed his cheek. Her hand was cold and clammy.
“I know you will,” she whispered. “I could see that same pain mirrored in your eyes. You feel it every day, just like me.”
“I do,” he nodded.
She pulled her hand away and turned to the door. “No need to see me out. I have already taken too much of your time.”
Before he could say anything to that, she disappeared through the door, leaving him alone with the letter that proved he and Lydia were on the right track.
He read the letter again and realized that not only was the handwriting the same but also most of the words and the sentence structure. The villain did not even have the decency to write a different letter to every young lady, but he simply wrote the same things over and over again. For some reason, this made Edwin even more enraged. He knew that if he ever crossed paths with this poor excuse of a human being, he would knock the man’s teeth in and then continue to punch him until the man had no more teeth left.
He had to share this with Lydia, immediately. After all, that was where he was headed before Mrs. Livingstone’s visit interrupted him.
He grabbed his coat and put it on hastily then he rushed out and jumped into his carriage. He listened to the sound of the horses trotting, realizing how grateful he felt that he had someone to share this newfound knowledge with. After all, it was Lydia who found the first clue and started all of this. Without her, he would still be searching in one place, lost and confused, unable to move.
He was grateful, yes. But he was so much more than just that. The more time they spent together, the more he knew that he was starting to develop feelings for her. The smell of her hair evoked something inside of him, something he never even knew existed. The way she laughed when he teased her had become his favorite sound in the whole world. To be quite honest, he could not imagine sharing this experience with anyone else.
Something assured him that together, they would stop at nothing to find Rachel.
CHAPTER14
Fortunately, her sisters were gone for the morning, and Lydia could speak with Edwin uninterrupted in the drawing room. As soon as she saw him, she could tell that he had important news to share. The moment she closed the door to the drawing room, he rushed over to her, showing her a letter.
“You would not believe what happened to me this morning,” he told her excitedly.
“Really?” she asked, sharing in his enthusiasm.
“Mrs. Livingstone came to see me,” he clarified.
Her eyes widened in shock. “Wait… Geraldine’s mother?”