Beauty for Ashes Page 0,106
streamed down the older man’s face. “Can you forgive a stubborn, arrogant old fool for getting it all wrong?”
The door opened and Philip came in. “Father? Dr. Pettigrew is here.”
Their father frowned and waved one hand. “What for? We all know I’m dying. Tell him to go away. What little time I have left I want to spend with my family. Is that clear?”
“But—”
Griff saw the genuine panic in Philip’s eyes. His father was right. Philip would be completely lost when it came to running things. At least Susan would be there to steady him in the days ahead.
“Go on now,” their father told his younger son. “If you want . . . to be useful, tell Susan to bring me up some tea. I’m feeling quite a chill.”
Griff took his seat beside the bed. His father fell into sleep, his breathing slow and shallow. In the shadowed room, Griff studied the old man’s hollowed cheeks and wrinkled brow and felt a sob catch in his throat. He had completely misjudged everything. Roamed the world in search of what he needed and returned home to find it. He reached down to clasp a gnarled hand. “I forgive you, and I hope you forgive me.”
Susan came into the room balancing the ornate silver tea tray Griff remembered from his boyhood, a wedding gift to his mother handed down through generations of Venables. She set it on the table beside the fireplace and turned to Griff, her fingers braided tightly. She looked precisely the way he remembered. Solemn gray eyes, hair coiled into ringlets held away from her face with silver combs. She was tastefully dressed in a simple gray wool gown. A small diamond pin on her shoulder winked in the light.
Griff rose and took both her hands in his. “Dear Susan. How are you?”
“All right.” Her eyes filled. “I never expected to see you again.”
“I’m a little surprised to be here myself.” He squeezed her hands. “You’re looking well.”
“I’m worried about Philip. He hasn’t your strength, Griff. Losing his father, being responsible for the Rutledge holdings—I fear he isn’t up to it.” She sighed. “Even if you and I hadn’t wed, if you and your father had reconciled, at least Philip would have you to rely upon now.”
Griff glanced at his sleeping father. “We’ve made our peace. I only regret it didn’t happen sooner.”
“Then you’ll come home? Help Phillip?”
“I’ll help in whatever way I can, but I won’t be coming back here. Not permanently anyway. I’ve made plans back in Hickory Ridge. Exciting plans. I hope you and Philip will visit next year and take a look.”
She spun away. “You’re going to throw your life away in some Appalachian backwater? Why, Philip says it’s hardly more than a logging camp.”
Griff smiled. “Philip wasn’t there long enough to appreciate everything it has to offer. It’s a small town, true enough, but I can’t praise it highly enough.”
She searched his face. “A woman deserves the credit for your good opinion of the place, I imagine. I hope she isn’t expecting too much from you.”
He had no idea what Carrie expected of him, but he intended to find out as soon as possible. Assuming she would still speak to him after his abrupt departure.
Another carriage rattled past. The fire popped and hissed. He glanced out the window.
“I see,” Susan said quietly. “You really are in love with her.”
The words both surprised and terrified him. But it was true that being around Carrie had softened the hard edges in his heart and given him hope that his life might still be redeemed. That even a man with his past, his passions, could be transformed into the kind of man she deserved.
A slow smile rippled across his face. “I never fully realized it before today. But yes, I believe I am.”
THIRTY-ONE
Holding tightly to Iris’s bridle, Carrie led the mare from the barn and backed her between the wagon shafts. She struggled with the harness, her fingers stiff in the damp chill of the early March morning. Plumes of gray smoke rose from the adjacent fields where farmers were burning off last winter’s stubble in preparation for spring planting. The acrid cloud mixed with the fog still hovering in the valleys and along the mountain ridges. Soon she would have to figure out how to ready her own fields, but that was a problem for another day.
She tightened the martingale and checked the bellyband before returning to the house for the six loaves of bread she’d