Sean never made time for anything other than his work, something that Gordon hadn’t truly understood until he went to London. He’d been accused of the same thing and had tried to tell people that he enjoyed what he did. His goal of amassing a fortune had entertained him. Maybe Sean’s gardens were the same for him.
He ducked his head as he entered the cottage once more. The girl standing at the kitchen sink turned and looked at him.
“You’ll be Gordon, I’m thinking,” she said.
“And you’re Moira.”
“Aye, that I am.”
She jerked her head in the direction of Sean’s bedroom. “Himself has had his dinner. He’s still awake, although it’s time for his pain medicine.”
“The laudanum?”
She nodded. “It’s the only thing that gives him peace, but even so he rarely sleeps the night.”
He’d been involved in his own life in London and hadn’t given much thought to his father. He certainly hadn’t considered that Sean’s descent into death would be an agonizing one.
He nodded, excused himself, and went to Sean’s door, knocking softly on it. He entered to find his father sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a cane in his right hand. He used it to laboriously stand and face Gordon.
“I’m tired of my bed. I’ll be sleeping forever soon enough.”
Gordon didn’t even try to hide his smile at this proof of Sean’s stubbornness. It was so much like the man he knew that he was thrust back into his childhood.
“Do you give your nurses this type of grief?”
“Nurses? Bah! Both those girls are younger than some of my shirts. Silly lasses they are, too. Always laughing and telling stories, leading the footmen and the stable boys on as well. My lads are smarter than that.”
That sounded like Sean, too.
“They seem to care for you, Da. Would it be so hard to be a little grateful?”
“Like you? Aye, I felt your gratitude all these years.”
Now was not the time to fight with his father. Nor was he going to offer excuses for himself. He was no longer the gardener’s boy, but Sean would never see him differently.
Going to his father’s side, Gordon gave him his arm. Sean refused to take it. Instead, he made one shuffling step and then another toward the door. Before he got there, however, he started to sink toward the floor. Gordon picked him up, startled at how frail this strong and vibrant man had become. Gently, he helped him sit on the chair beside the bed.
“So, you’ve made something of yourself, then.”
He glanced at Sean. “Yes, I have.”
Sean didn’t respond, merely looked toward the open door.
“You’ve given up any fool idea of her?”
They both knew who the her was in his question. The same woman who’d been in his thoughts and dreams for decades. The woman who’d barely spoken to him since he arrived.
Sean had said something similar many times, telling him that he was not of Lady Jennifer’s station. He would be more sensible baying at the moon. In other words, he wasn’t good enough. He’d never be good enough for Jennifer.
For the past five years he’d had one goal: to prove Sean wrong. Perhaps to prove them all wrong. Yet, maybe it wasn’t Sean’s approval that mattered. The one person he wanted to impress was Jennifer.
He wanted to offer Jennifer the world and anything she wanted within it.
“I don’t have any fool ideas anymore, Da. Just good ones.”
“Then you’ve gotten some sense about you, finally.”
Sean began to cough, then he grabbed his midsection. As he bent over, the cough turned into a moan. Gordon went to his side, picked him up, and placed his father in the middle of the bed. Once he was settled, Gordon went to the door and called for Moira.
“It’s the excitement,” she said, bustling into the room with a brown bottle in her left hand and a spoon in her right. “Whenever he gets excited the pain is worse.”
She looked up at him. “If you’ll help me sit him up, it will go a little easier.”
He did as she asked, his arm supporting Sean’s back. He could feel his father’s spine through the thin nightshirt. He had the impression that the cancer was eating him from the inside out, feasting on his flesh the way a carnivore would.
After Sean took two spoonfuls of the laudanum, Gordon sat beside his bed and waited for it to take effect. From what he knew of the opium-based tincture, it eased chronic