writer too, of course. He knew how to turn a pretty phrase. She wanted that. She admired eloquence; she’d nearly fallen over when she’d met Bedwyr.
Even if he were free of his responsibility to the widow, Elle would never accept him.
“That so?” he snarled. “How d’you suppose I should go about it, then?”
The earl’s eyes widened. “Do you know,” he said, “I have never—not once, not when Westfall was bleeding into the sand and you were beside yourself with grief, not when your damn brother tried to contest your great-aunt’s will and steal Maitland Manor away from you, not even when Seraphina told you the truth about her marriage—I have never seen you so distraught. I never even imagined it was in your nature to be so.”
“It ain’t.” Isn’t. He dragged air into his lungs, but they would not fill.
Cam sat forward. “Anthony, you broke through French blockades. And for your entire life you have destroyed even greater obstacles than that. You must devise a solution to this problem that does not require you to marry the widow, one that will satisfy both your honor and Mrs. Park’s future. The unlucky past must not command you now.”
The unlucky past.
Unlucky.
The past…
The past.
A memory came to him then in a flash, like Saint Elmo’s Light in a squall: Standing beside John Park on the quarterdeck, looking out across a placid sea, John chuckling, telling the story of how he had met his wife through a midshipman he’d met in port. “The fellow shipped out the day he’d planned to propose to her. He said he and Jane were childhood sweethearts, and he sent me to tell her to wait for him. She couldn’t, of course. She hadn’t a shilling, her parents had died, and she had no friends in port. Only him.” John grinned. “His delay was my win. He had waited too long, unlucky bastard.”
Tony leaped from his chair and flew out of the room.
“Uncle Anthony!” Margaret called as he descended the stairs three at a time. “Why are you running?”
“Nurse says we mustn’t run in the house, Captain,” Letty said.
Scooping them from the bannister where they were hanging like monkeys, he hauled them up in his arms and kissed the top of each little head. They giggled and he set them down, and grabbed his hat from the footman. Donning it at a scoundrelly angle, he bowed to the mites.
“Ladies, I’m off to Newcastle.”
“Bring presents for us!” Margaret squealed.
“Of course.” But he intended to bring much more than presents. He would bring a miracle.
~o0o~
Elle did not tell her grandmother about losing her position at the shop, or anything about the captain. Instead she gathered up several of the smallest pieces of the bishop’s type from the kitchen table, laid them upon her grandmother’s palm, and curled her fingers around them. A ghost of a smile fluttered over the pale lips.
“Dear . . . girl.”
Elle tucked the coverlet around Gram’s frail body, kissed her on the brow, and whispered her love.
“I like him.” The words came so softly from her grandmother’s mouth, Elle barely heard them.
“I do too.” Despite herself. “Good night, darling.” Elle left her grandmother to sleep, passing beneath the painted trellis of roses that she had not really seen in years, not until he reminded her of them, and went to bed.
The following morning when she tried to rouse her grandmother to take breakfast, Gram would not wake.
The morning after that was the same.
Two mornings later, she was gone.
~o0o~
The funeral was modest, held in a sunny corner of the foundling home’s cemetery. Before falling ill, Elle’s grandmother had often visited the children to tell them stories. She had been beloved in their little community, Mr. and Mrs. Curtis said, but Elle suspected they did this to spare her the expense of a burial elsewhere.
As she stood beside the hole in the ground, with dry eyes she watched the gravedigger pile dirt onto the plain wooden box and wondered how Captain Masinter had felt watching his lieutenant buried. She knew he must have watched; his sense of responsibility for others was acute.
Minnie and Esme were waiting for her at the gate.
“Come have a cuppa, Elle,” Minnie said. “I will treat for biscuits.”
“Thank you. But I must look about for a new position today.”
“Elle, no.” Esme said. “Not today.”
But biscuits today would not transform into dinner tomorrow, or rent at the end of the month.
“Madame Couture will hire you until you can find another post,” Minnie said. “All the society