hand through his hair, an image of Rae formed in his mind. “If you must know, I have—” He closed his mouth with a pop.
“If I must know, what?” Seth goaded.
“You’re awfully chatty for a lad of twelve,” Simon said. He looked over his shoulder. “Say, where is your mama?”
“At the lending library. She said I could come for a walk.” He crossed his arms. “Now, what was it you were saying?”
“My interest in your mama is that of a friend only,” Simon assured the boy. “I merely found it curious that you’ve already started using your new name for me, but don’t seem to have the same ease when speaking of Giles.” He roughed up the boy’s hair. “He will be your papa, after all.”
“I know that.” Seth shifted uncomfortably on the bench.
“But?”
“That’s what I meant earlier. I don’t know how he feels about it.”
“I don’t think he’d have asked your mama to marry him if he didn’t want to be your papa.” Another pang of sympathy for Giles rooted itself in Simon’s chest. Though Mother had never spoken of Giles before, he’d heard enough since his arrival to know that Giles had been banned to an orphanage to grow up without a mother or a father.
“I know that much,” Seth said. He bit his lip. “I just don’t know if I should call him Papa.”
That brought Simon up short. Again. Seth was full of surprises today, it seemed. “Well, nephew,” he drawled, stretching his legs out in front of himself and crossing his ankles. “You’ll never know if you don’t ask.” He couldn’t speak for Giles, but his jaw would hit the floor if the man told the boy to call him Giles forevermore.
“Can we go get an ice?”
Simon blinked. “Pardon?”
“You just said I’d never know if I don’t ask,” the boy said with a mischievous smile.
“Indeed,” Simon agreed before pushing to his feet and taking the boy for a well-deserved ice.
19
Rae had thought the initial sting from learning of Simon’s leaving would ease after a short while.
It did not.
Not that afternoon.
Not the next day.
And certainly not the next day…and not the day after that…
She’d never tell her sister as much, but Simon’s sudden vanishment had flayed her deeper than the hurt Mr. Fisher had caused her, and that cad had stolen her virtue!
Clenching her feather pillow as tightly as she could between her hands, she pressed her face into it and let out the loudest muffled scream she could.
“I see you’re still heartbroken, but very much alive,” Juliet commented, coming into her room. Without asking, her sister took a seat next to Rae on her bed and tried to pull the pillow from her tight grip. Tried. “Give it here.”
Rae held on tighter. The last thing she wanted to do was explain this to her sister.
Juliet released the pillow and placed a gentle hand on Rae’s back. “It’s all right to cry,” she said softly, using her free hand to pull free a lock of Rae’s hair that had been caught between her face and the feather pillow.
“I’m not crying,” Rae said between clenched teeth.
“All right, let me clarify. It is all right to scream like a madwoman into a pillow.”
“That’s better,” Rae said against the pillow.
Juliet gave her a little shake. “It’s been three days now. Time to talk.”
Rae wanted to groan. Rae did groan.
“Would you like to know a secret?” She kicked her slippers off with a sigh of relief. “It’s about me…and Patrick.”
Rae shook her head. “If it involves the two of you, I’d rather not hear the details.”
“Well, I shall give them to you anyway.”
Rae wondered if it were possible to shove her face further into the pillow and suffocate herself. Likely not. Deciding it was high time she sit up and act like the proper young lady she’d once so badly desired to be, she straightened her spine. “Do tell.”
“I knew you’d come around.”
“Well…given that I’d be wasting my breath praying for a fire-breathing dragon to appear in the room and end my torment, I didn’t think I had much choice.”
“No. None.” Juliet turned her head to the side. “I do believe that’s what snared him.”
Rae didn’t bother to ask exactly what Juliet thought snared anyone. “Shall I remind you that I didn’t snare him.” She sent her sister a self-deprecating smile. “I tormented him at the thought.”
“Poppycock. Gentlemen are…” Juliet worried her bottom lip and softly tapped her fingertips against her knee. “Delicate.”
Rae snorted. She didn’t think any man—gentle or not—would