Page 109 of Romancing Daphne

“Do you really think so?”

“Do you really doubt it?”Persephone’s half-scolding, half-empathetic look remained fresh in her memory even a week later as the countryside passed outside the carriage windows.

Persephone was likely correct—James would have written if not for the dim view Society would take on such a thing. It had been quite some time since she’d truly questioned his sincerity. Their past was not without difficulties. For the present, his dedication to her was real. But what did the future hold?

If her family noticed her preoccupation during their journey, they did not speak of it. Persephone still felt and looked a bit green about the gills. Adam fussed over her comfort and well-being. Artemis kept up a constantstream of chatter they only vaguely attended to until Adam commandedher to immerse herself in a“lousy novel” and“cease abusing our ears.” Shetook it in stride and promptly produced a gothic offering from her overlarge reticule.

A flood of conflicting emotions washed over Daphne as the carriage turned up the gravel drive that led to their home. Happy memories mixed with painful ones. Her father’s repeated dismissive gestures fought for precedence in her thoughts with her siblings’ cheerful laughter during rare outings to their favorite picnicking spot. And mingled amidst all of it were thoughts of James. He was there somewhere.

The butler greeted them upon their arrival. He informed Adam in an aside Daphne strained to overhear that Lord Tilburn was with a tenant that morning, seeing to an urgent bit of business, and wished them to know he regretted not being on hand to greet them.

Daphne could not say which she felt more: grateful for the reprieve or disappointed at not seeing him.

Everyone made their way to their various bedchambers with the casualnessborne of familiarity.

Which of the tenants had James been called upon to see to? She knewall of them. Her heart ached at the thought of any of those hardworking families struggling. Was it a minor crisis or something more pressing? Sheshook off the worry. James was more than capable of seeing to the businessof an estate, and he would do so with unwavering dedication.

Daphne untied the ribbons of her bonnet as she reached her bedchamber, her thoughts flying in hundreds of directions at once. Only after she stepped fully inside did her surroundings at all register. She stood, mouthslightly agape, bonnet dangling on its ribbons held distractedly in her hand.

Her bedchamber had been entirely transformed. Poverty had rendered most of their home austere and practical over the years they’d lived there. Though she’d had the means and the permission to change it since Adam and Persephone’s marriage, Daphne had never done so. Her rooms at Falstone Castle in Northumberland and Falstone House in London were all that was comfortable and pleasing, yet she hadn’t personalized those spaces overly much either.

This bedchamber, though, the only one she had ever truly felt washers, did not look at all the way it once had. Gone were the drab and wornwindow hangings, replaced by sheer white draperies billowing in a light breeze slipping in through the open window. The quilt made from discarded scraps no longer lay stretched across the bed, a coverlet of vibrant greens and browns in its place, gorgeous pillows complementing its splendor. Fresh flowers sat in a vase on the bedside table, alongside a miniatureDaphne did not immediately recognize.

She picked up the tiny portrait. Tears started to her eyes. Though she had never seen that particular miniature, she knew its subject instantly: her mother. How she wished she’d known her, that she had any memories of her that had not come secondhand.

Her eyes lighted next on an armchair, faded and nicked, set comfortably close to the small fireplace across the room. She pushed back the lump of emotion that instantly rose at the sight of the very chair in which she had spent her earliest remembered days on her father’s lap, listening to his stories. Her only happy memories with him were tied to that battered bit of furniture. But who had placed it there? Who could possibly have realized the connection?

She ran her fingers over the still-familiar contours of its back and arms,desperately searching her memory for the sound of her father’s voice, thelaughter and happiness she’d once heard in it. She hoped that in a day or two she would find the courage to sit in it and think back on the man her fatherhad once been and the carefree child she could almost remember being.

She pulled herself away, returning her mother’s miniature to its place on the bedside table, then crossed to a tall chest she’d never before seen though knew precisely its function. From her countless visits to the local apothecary, she’d learned to recognize an apothecary cabinet; she’d wished for one ever since.

The two dozen drawers, beautifully inlaid and charmingly worn, still bore their labels. Fennel. Catnip. Feverfew. So many herbs she’d scrimped and saved to purchase as a child and learned to use out of a desperate worry that something would happen to her family and she would lose them all.

One particular drawer captured her attention: myrrh. Other young girls likely dreamed of dolls or beautiful dresses. She used to promise herself that if she ever came into a fortune, she’d buy myrrh. She never had.

Daphne pulled the drawer open only to gasp aloud at what she saw. Myrrh. She had myrrh. Every other drawer also held the items its labelsindicated. Here before her was what would have amounted to a vast treasureduring her years of struggle.

On the very top of the cabinet, she could see the corner of a book and reached up to pull it down. An apothecary’s guide to herbs and medicines. She thumbed through the pages, not stopping to read any of the entries. Asshe did so, a folded piece of parchment fell out and drifted to the floor.

She picked it up and unfolded the paper. It proved to be a short note written in an unfamiliar hand, addressed to her.

Miss Lancaster,

I understand from Lord Tilburn that you have an interest in and an aptitude for herbal healing. I have reached an age where continuing my practice is no longer practical. Knowing this cabinet and its contents will be in worthy hands sets my mind considerably at ease.

The missive was signed “M. Hapstead,” a name she had never before heard, though she guessed him to be an apothecary of advancing years. She could not imagine he would simply give her the cabinet, not to mention all its contents—the collection was far too valuable. Someone must have purchased it. James had been mentioned, but Daphne knew him to be entirely without funds. Adam, though he cared for her just as he would his own sister, had he one, would not have understood how much such a thing would mean to her.

She turned around, examining again the change in her room. To herknowledge, her family members seldom came in there. She did not venture into the others’ chambers either. They were private domains. No one wouldhave thought to engineer such a change, nor realize one was long overdue.

The housekeeper would not have undertaken a redecoration; such did not fall under her jurisdiction.

Daphne sat, dazed, on her nearly unrecognizable bed. As the shockbegan to wear off, she came to the indisputable realization that she loved her new bedchamber—adored it. The room felt so serene. Even the colors wereprecisely what she would wish for, earthy and calming. And though she’dnever seen so many decorative pillows on a bed in her life, the touch was charming rather than excessive. One even had tiny embroidered decorations:delicate flowers and—she leaned closer—birds. Her heart hammered. Notmerely birds; they were sparrows.

James. Only he would think to add that.

Her eyes stole around the room once more. No. She could not imagine a gentleman ever thinking to alter the appearance of a room. Yet somehow it seemed almost possible.

Daphne pulled the sparrow-adorned pillow into her arms, clinging to it as her brain struggled to make sense of everything. She realized then thatshe had missed a letter partially hidden beneath the pillow she now held.

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