Captain Jones's Temptation - Audrey Harrison Page 0,52

was making a good match. Neither had a fortune, so they would probably struggle, but he was actually jealous of them.

Matthew and Lydia had been open about their feelings, and the result would be a happy union. He could not understand his own feelings, let alone speak about them openly. As he had tried to express to Miles, he ranged from fear to confusion to frustration to besottedness when spending five minutes with Esther. How could that lead to happiness? Add to that their troubled pasts, and the whole situation was a disaster. For Matthew and Lydia it was straightforward, and he envied that.

He couldn’t envisage a happy ending for himself, and it made him ache inside. Although that would not prevent him from responding to her needs, and if she needed company, he would find her. St John’s church it was.

*

Esther had enjoyed her time shopping with Lydia. She was becoming more relaxed about being in Exeter and had wandered around the busy town without feeling the need to look over her shoulder every five minutes. Perhaps Sophie had been right. She would not recognise him, and she was much changed.

Climbing out of the carriage outside St John’s church, she waved away Lydia’s offer of accompaniment. “I need a little quiet,” she said.

After watching the carriage drive away, she entered the church yard. It was a large church, set in the centre of a graveyard that was peaceful and quiet after the bustling streets. Esther knew exactly where the grave was but took her time. She should have visited sooner, but Sophie was right; there was a lot of guilt attached to the memory of her mother. Esther doubted that any passage of time would ease it.

Eventually reaching the grave, positioned near a tree, she laid the flowers she had bought on the ground in front of the slab, moving the half-dead ones that were already there. She was pleased that Sophie obviously looked after the grave. As she touched the stone briefly, her eyes filled with tears, which she dabbed quickly away.

Hearing a sound behind her, she swung around in alarm. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Samuel. “Do you normally creep around graveyards looking to scare people, or is it just for my benefit?”

“Definitely just for yours,” Samuel replied.

“I suppose that is somewhat reassuring.”

“A little bird suggested that you would not ask for company, but perhaps needed it.”

Esther raised her eyebrows. “Sophie.”

“Does she regularly interfere?”

“Yes. It seems so. I’ve only begun to realise that since my return. She means well, I suppose.”

Samuel read the headstone. “Aren’t families difficult and complicated?”

“Yes. But you miss them so much when they are gone,” Esther said.

Samuel took her hand and pulled it gently through the crook of his arm. “Tell me about her.”

Knowing that deep down he would not be truly interested, Esther smiled at him in gratitude. “We were very close. All I remember is being with her. I have no recollection of my father. It was always my mother and I, and Sophie to a lesser extent. We lived above a business in which they both worked. I was never allowed down there when it was open. When it was closed I would join them downstairs. I remember there being lots of tables, but nothing so that I could say what the business was. It must have been profitable, because somehow Mother managed to afford to send me to school. I have no idea how she raised the funds, but she gave me the best start in life that she could.”

“She would be proud of you. There is no doubt you are a capable business woman, the way the estate and school are run.”

“Thank you.”

“She died young.”

“Yes. Too young. Would you mind if we returned to the house now?” Esther asked. She could not face talking over the death of her mother. She still felt battered from the prospect of losing her school and the return to Exeter. Unable to say out loud what had happened, or what still haunted her, she had to divert them both.

“Of course not.” Samuel was completely aware she had withdrawn from him. She was a complicated woman, but he could not condemn her. He was guilty of using humour and cutting comments to deflect from the situations he wanted to avoid, so he would be harsh if he criticised her for doing the exact same thing.

They walked arm in arm up the hill and returned to the crescent in which