A Valentine from Harlequin

he killed himself, and I have spent hours and hours thinking over all that I said and did in the days before, wondering if there was something I could have done to prevent it, but I saw no signs that he was so despondent. I thought he was happy we were to be married.”
    “Then you, madam, are either the most coldhearted, calculating woman…or the most accomplished liar…I have ever met.” James rose and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out an old, creased piece of paper. “Read John’s own words, and find yourself condemned as a scheming fortune hunter who never loved him. Hear from John himself how that discovery humiliated and destroyed him until he could not bear to live.”
    He thrust the paper at her. “You may keep this. I will never forget what he says in this letter if I live a hundred years. And to think that once I—”
    He fell silent, then turned on his heel and marched from the room.

Chapter Five
    A few minutes later, Charlotte dashed into the street. She could see the carriage with the ducal crest rounding the corner and took off after it like a Bow Street Runner pursuing a thief, John’s plaintive letter clutched in her hand.
    Mercifully, the carriage had to wait to let another, even finer, vehicle pass before turning into the next street. Regardless of the startled coachman, or anyone else who could observe her, Charlotte ran up to the carriage and pounded on the door. “James, you must let me explain!”
    The window of the carriage came down with a crash, and James’s angry face appeared. “If you have read the letter, there is nothing to explain.”
    “Yes, there is,” she insisted, “and I shall scream if you don’t let me in!”
    For a moment it looked as if James was going to refuse, but then he said, “Stand out of the way.” He opened the door and kicked out the folding steps for her to climb inside.
    “You’ll catch your death running about London without a wrap,” he noted as she scrambled onto the seat opposite him in a decidedly unladylike fashion.
    “I don’t care.”
    After closing the door, James knocked on the roof of the carriage. “Drive on, Charles,” he ordered, and the carriage lurched into motion. “Well, Charlotte, this will certainly set the tongues to wagging, even more than our embrace. Is that your intention?”
    “I had no idea John had found my diary. He should not have read it.”
    James frowned. “Oh, so my brother’s curiosity excuses your behavior?”
    “He read my private thoughts, which he had no right to do. Even so, I would have explained if he had asked me.”
    “What possible explanation could there be but the obvious. John was very clear about what he found in your diary—your obvious passion for another man, your desire to be with him, your dismay that you could not. Surely you cannot fault him for believing you did not love him, the man you had pledged to marry? What else was he, or any wealthy, titled man of reason to think but that you were marrying him for those things, and not himself?”
    “That’s not it.” Now that the time had come to tell the whole truth, Charlotte hardly knew where to begin. Or if she should even try. And yet she could not forget what he had implied only moments ago, something that had made her heart race even as she read John’s letter. If she did not tell James everything now, she might regret it for the rest of her lonely life.
    “The diary John found was not a recent one. I haven’t kept one for three years, well before I became engaged to your brother. I did love another man then, passionately. But nothing came of it. I thought he didn’t care for me, for he never paid me much attention. When he went away, I thought that was the end of it. I believed it was the end of it, and still believing it, conceived an affection for John. I did care for him, truly, and it breaks my heart anew to realize that he died because he didn’t believe that.”
    “Maybe your passion for this unknown lover was not as dead as you claimed,” James replied. “The diary alone would not have been enough to cause John such despair. There must have been something else.”
    “You have been away a long time, James. John was not the lad you left when he took his life. He was jealous of any man who glanced at me, and nothing I said seemed to alleviate his fears. He would rage at me, and for no reason. Any little thing would set him off. Even if he had never found the diary, he might have despaired of my love