He’s literally old enough to be your father—well, he’s nearly a year older than me—and that’s not what I want for you.”
“It’s not what I want for me, either,” she assured him. She studied his face, then tightened her grip on his arm. “Please believe that I’m content to live as I am, as we do. I have a good life here, and I lack for nothing—there’s nothing more I need in life.”
Need, not want; prevarication rather than an outright lie.
Her father patted her hand. “You say that, my dear, but you won’t know what you might have until a gentleman—the right gentleman—arrives and lays a different future at your feet.” He caught her eye. “All I ask is that if that happens, you won’t allow considerations of me, Harry, and Maggie, or of this household, to hold you back from seizing happiness. If it offers, take it. I did with your mother, and despite all, I have never regretted that decision.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Papa. I’ll remember that—just as long as you remember that I, too, have no regrets over any of my decisions to date.”
Her father softly humphed and shook his head at her. “You’re worse than me—always the last word.”
She grinned.
“Papa? Ellie?”
They looked across to see Maggie hovering in the doorway.
“I thought I might take one or two of the newspapers up to Mr. Cavanaugh.” She widened her eyes. “He must want a break from the old letters by now and might like to know what’s happening in London.”
Her father nodded. “An excellent idea, my dear. Ask Mike to come and push me to the library, and we’ll choose a few papers for you to take upstairs.”
Ellie rose. “And I had better consult with Mrs. Kemp and see what stocks we need to replenish once Johnson can drive the cart into Ripon.”
Maggie summoned Mike, and together, they all quit the breakfast parlor.
Ellie paused in the front hall, watching as, with Maggie all but skipping alongside, Mike pushed her father’s chair down the corridor to the library.
This was normally the time she went upstairs to check on Godfrey. The previous evening, she, Mrs. Kemp, and Cook had agreed that he should be allowed to get dressed and sit by the fire in his room today; she ought to check whether his cough had been aggravated by the change in position.
But Maggie would take the newspapers up, and that should keep him amused for at least an hour, which would allow her to finish her necessary planning with Mrs. Kemp.
Besides, while discussing Masterton’s and Morris’s proposals—and even more, while listening to her father’s advice—her mind had insisted on bombarding her with images of Godfrey Cavanaugh.
Plainly, it would behoove her to shore up her inner defenses before she once again confronted him in the flesh.
Reasoning thus, she headed for the servants’ hall.
Dressed in his striped pajamas and swathed in his dressing gown, yet groomed as befitted a gentleman—at last—and thus feeling considerably more like his fashionable self, Godfrey was sitting in one of the wing chairs, both of which were now angled before the hearth in which a cheery fire blazed, when a light tap fell on the door.
“Not Ellie” was his immediate and faintly disappointed thought. “Come in.”
The door opened, and Maggie appeared. She looked around, spotted him, and smiled delightedly. “They’ve let you up!”
“Yes!” Lowering the magnifying glass he’d been wielding, he returned her smile. Then he saw the newspapers in her hands. “What have you brought me?”
She crossed the room and showed him. “The Times and the Manchester Gazette. There are other London newspapers downstairs, but Mr. Morris and Mr. Pyne got to them first. Papa said he’d send them up later.”
“Oh, The Times will do excellently to start with.” He gathered the letters he’d been examining and carefully set them on a side table away from the fire. He laid the glass atop the pile, and Maggie handed him The Times.
She set the Gazette down by his chair, then crossed to the other chair and sat, curling her legs beneath her as was her wont. “Those are the letters Ellie found for you and the gallery, aren’t they?”
He nodded. “They’re quite remarkable—the gallery will be very pleased.”
“What are you doing with them?”
He looked at her and realized she wasn’t just asking to be polite; she truly wanted to know. “Believe it or not, the first thing I need to do is verify that the documents are genuine. Sometimes, in situations such as this, people have been