He Brought His Lover Home, So I Left Him to His Regret novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Hated the Wrong Woman

My father sent for Kendrick himself.

He came to the east parlor at noon, in his uniform coat, and he stopped inside the door when he saw the iron box open on the table.

"Sit down, Commander," my father said.

Kendrick sat.

My father put the sixteen sealed envelopes in front of him one at a time. Then he laid down the reply, and Kendrick read it twice.

He knew the handwriting. I watched him know it.

"The stamp is your mother's," I said. "It lives in the second drawer of the hall desk. She wrote that I was buried the day she told me I would be yours."

Kendrick looked up.

His face had gone white.

"The northern pass goes to whoever mates me," I said. "She said so to my face yesterday."

"She admitted it?"

"She also said you'd never believe me."

He put the letter down very carefully.

"I thought you asked for it," he said. His voice cracked in the middle. "She told me you came to her at twelve and asked to be my wife. That you cried in the kitchen until she agreed."

"I was twelve. I asked if I could keep my room."

"I know that now."

"You didn't ask me. Not once."

He stood up too fast, and the chair scraped.

"Rowena, the year you turned twenty, I rearranged my whole leave so I'd be home when you got out of the library. I always loved you." He pushed a hand through his hair. "I just thought you were scheming."

My birth mother, by the window, made a small sound.

I waited to feel something. I had waited three years for these exact words.

"You thought I was scheming," I said, "so you left me at a table in my wedding dress."

"I was angry."

"You had three years. You could have asked me one question."

"I know."

"You never thought about me at all, Kendrick. You thought about what your mother told you I was."

He had no answer. He stood there with his hands open.

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