the night, but not now, especially in view of Jennifer’s distress. She could feel Jennifer trembling and wanted to hug her, but instead led her to the sofa.
“When we got older, Mr. McBain began to object to my seeing so much of Gordon, so it was just easier to slip away to meet him. Harrison always tried to remind me that he was the gardener’s boy, never realizing that Gordon would always be more than that for me.”
Jennifer had left her rooms barefoot. Now Ellen draped a throw over her goddaughter’s feet.
“I knew he would eventually leave Adaire Hall, but not the way he did.”
Ellen wanted to hurry her goddaughter along, to ask her what had gone so bad between them, but she had the feeling that the story had to be told in Jennifer’s way, not hers.
She grabbed one of Jennifer’s hands, disturbed at how cold it felt.
“And then he went away. For two years, I didn’t know anything. Harrison kept telling me that Gordon had left because he was tired of me, that he was bored. That I had misinterpreted everything, that I’d been played for a fool. I never believed Harrison, but I still wondered, simply because there was no word from Gordon. Then, when his mother died, I got his address from the bank and wrote him.”
Two tears fell down her face. Ellen wondered at the power of those tears. They had the ability to etch a path through her heart.
“I wrote him every Christmas and on his birthday, but he never wrote me back.” Jennifer looked over at her. “He said he didn’t get those letters.”
Ellen kept silent.
“I wanted him to come back. I was desperate for him to come back, but he didn’t.”
“Is that why you never wanted to meet any young men when you came to visit?”
Jennifer nodded. “I was waiting for Gordon.”
“But he never returned to the Hall.”
She shook her head. “Not until recently. I wrote him again and told him about Sean, who was dying.” She glanced at Ellen again. “He wanted to be a success when he returned to Adaire Hall. He wanted to prove that he could make something of himself to Sean and maybe Harrison.”
“But never to you?”
She shook her head again. “He never had to prove anything to me. He never had to be anyone other than who he was, Ellen. He was Gordon. That was enough.”
Ellen’s attention was on their joined hands. “That’s a very romantic notion, but it isn’t real, Jennifer. Gordon knew that. In order to offer you something, he had to have something to offer. I admire him for knowing that and putting actions to ideas.”
“I know that,” Jennifer said. “I knew that Gordon always had plans for his life—for our life—but I never thought that he would stay away so long. Or that it would be so painful.”
“But he came back. He returned to you. So what is wrong?”
Jennifer squeezed her hand, released it, then stood and walked to the other side of the room. The drapes had already been closed, but she pushed one side open and stood there, looking out at the night.
“I love him.” A few minutes later she spoke again. “But I can’t love him. It’s wrong. It’s a sin.”
Ellen kept silent only because she had a feeling that if she spoke, Jennifer would burst into tears.
“I don’t think I can tell you,” Jennifer said, her voice faint. “The words won’t come.”
That didn’t sound like her goddaughter at all. She’d always faced every situation directly and with determination, from Mary’s illness and subsequent death to managing Adaire Hall and handling Harrison.
“You can always tell me anything, Jennifer.”
Slowly, Jennifer closed the drapes again and turned, facing Ellen.
“I love him. I love him with all my heart, but it’s wrong to feel that way.”
“When is love ever wrong?” Ellen asked. “Because he doesn’t have a title? That seems unlike you.”
“No, because he’s my brother.”
Ellen blinked a few times, but the words were still there, almost floating in the air between them.
“Your brother?”
Jennifer nodded.
“Gordon is your brother?”
“Yes.”
For the next several minutes, Ellen heard the most outrageous story about a woman named Betty McDonnell, who’d done something hideous. Perhaps she’d even label it evil. She’d taken Mary’s child and replaced him with her own.
When Jennifer was done speaking, Ellen stared at her wordlessly. Not one comment came to mind. In a world of words, she had nothing reassuring or comforting to say. Now, at this one particular point in time, she should