When you are my widow, you will accept all rights and properties that come to you in accordance with the terms of my last will and testament, in which you will be named as my sole heir with the exception of provisions for Mrs. Harrison and the staff in their old age. You can be sure of two things: the testament will be rock-solid and unbreakable, and one or more of my aunts or cousins will attempt to break it anyway, in order to deny you your inheritance. To protect your interests I will make arrangements for the very best legal counsel to represent you before the courts in this and any other matter. Uncle Conrad will be the executor of my will, and he will coordinate all aspects of my estate working with the other attorney I have engaged, but your word will be final.
What you do with the estate once it is released to you will be entirely and exclusively up to you. If you choose to build a hospital, to donate it all to a school, or simply to live in comfort for the rest of your life, no one will be able to interfere with you. I know you, Sophie, and you are thinking just now that you don’t care about money or property. But I do care. This is what I want, and in this point I will not be denied.
Before I fell ill you told me again and again that you loved me but could not marry me. You imagined that in time I would come to resent you. Somehow you convinced yourself I would miss taking tea with old aunts and regret the lost opportunity to guide debutantes around the dance floor, that gossip and fashion and interminable talk of bloodlines would become more important to me over time. You were wrong. You are wrong, but none of that matters once we are married and away from this city. Distance and death will put an end to whatever disapproval my Aunt Eugenie or Mrs. Astor and her ilk can bestow. And you will be mine, and I will be yours, and that is all that matters to me. In the days and hours of my life, you are all and everything.
It is a fine thing for me to ask for mercy where I showed none, but please do not make me wait long for your answer.
I am ever yours.
Cap
12
SOPHIE STARTED OUT of sleep at the first crow of Lia’s beloved rooster and realized that she was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. She had drifted off rereading Cap’s letter, which she still held pressed to herself. Cap, who loved her and wanted her for his widow.
She needed to talk to Anna before she sat down to write a single word. With a sudden burst of energy she went about getting ready for the day, washing without looking at her face in the mirror for fear of what she might see there. No more than fifteen minutes later she slipped into Anna’s room.
“An early morning visit.” Anna stretched luxuriously, arms extended over her head. “I thought it might be Lia; she has been coming in quite often recently to tell me her stories.” Then she looked at Sophie more closely and sat up, fully awake.
Sophie found that she couldn’t say anything at all, and so she held up the letter.
Anna smiled broadly, both dimples popping into view. “Finally.”
“Read it.”
She frowned. “Sophie, it’s too personal.”
“Please. I wouldn’t know where to start to put it in my own words. And I need your advice.”
That made Anna laugh out loud. “When is the last time you took my advice?” But she accepted the letter and began to read.
? ? ?
ANNA WAS A slow reader, and always had been. It was the judge in her, Aunt Quinlan always said. She had to weigh every word before she could go on to the next. When she put the letter down, finally, she looked up at Sophie with tears in her eyes.
“What are you going to do?”
Sophie came forward and sat beside her cousin, folded her hands in her lap, and felt the relief and joy blossom inside her. She would say the words now and make it true.
“I’m going to marry him. Of course.” And then, because she needed to be honest with herself, “I’m going to marry him and then be with him when he dies.”
Anna put her arms around Sophie’s shoulders and pulled her close.
“Are you happy?”
“It seems wrong, but I am.”
Anna stroked Sophie’s hair. “You’re marrying Cap because you love him and you want to be with him for what time he has left.”
There was something in Anna’s tone that struck Sophie as odd. She studied her cousin’s face, and was not comforted by what she saw there.
“Tell me,” Sophie said.
Anna didn’t pretend to be confused. Instead she picked up the letter and ran her eyes over it until she found a specific phrase. She cleared her throat and read out loud. “‘You want me to go to Switzerland and put myself in Dr. Z?ngerle’s care at the Rosenau clinic.’”
A small tingle began at the bottom of Sophie’s spine. Something was off, but her thoughts were racing so frantically she couldn’t catch the one she needed.
Very gently Anna said, “How did Cap know the name of the village? It wasn’t mentioned in any of the materials, as far as I remember. Was it?”
Sophie knew Dr. Z?ngerle’s letters almost word by word, and she didn’t recall any mention of a village called Rosenau. For ten seconds she held herself completely still, and then she let out a barking laugh.
“This is too much, even for Cap.” But even as she said it, Sophie knew that it was not. Cap was more than capable of planning complex, long-reaching schemes; he took huge satisfaction in them. She had refused him, but he had never given up, not really.
“This is an insane idea. Are we really thinking that Cap cut himself off from me as a—” She reached for a word that would not come.
“Strategy,” Anna supplied. “Yes, I think maybe he did.”