Page 95 of A Curse of Hope and Shadows: Part I
She was glad of Dimitri’s chatter, his distraction. She half wanted to ask him to come with her, or at least walk her to the door. But he wasn’t supposed to go anywhere by himself, and she knew she couldn’t ask him to stay.
But she didn’t want him to go, either, and hovered by the gate. “I’ll be back tonight,” she told him. “In case you need me then.”
“I won’t call for you,” he promised.
Adeline half wished he would. Already she was dreading the night, where she’d have no choice but to be alone with her thoughts. “If you need me, call for me,” she said.
“Likewise,” he insisted, and held the gate open for her.
She had no choice but to walk through it. No choice but to bid him goodbye. No choice but to face the day, like she’d been forced to face the future without her mother.
I want a choice,she realised.Whatever direction my life goes in, I want to have some choice in it.
Even this job, which she loved, barely seemed like she had a choice in. They needed the money for Leonie’s school. This was the nearest that paid well. And even though she’d choose it now in a heartbeat, it hadn’t been hers to begin with.
One day. One day I will have a choice.
She reached home sooner than she expected, and her little brothers raced out to greet her.
“Adie, Adie, come quick!”
“What is it?”
“Someone sent us a hamper! Elliott said we can’t open it until you’re inside.”
“A hamper?”
They had a couple of obscure relatives that might have been able to afford such a gift, an aunt of their father’s, a well-off grandparent in the south they barely knew. Neither had ever sent them much before.
Elliott met her in the kitchen with a smug look on his face, holding up a card with the Von Mortimer crest on it. She recognised the perfect scrawl from Dimitri’s letters.
“Dear family Elsing,”he read, eyes bright, “enclosed are a few toys previously doing little but gathering dust in the disused Von Mortimer nursery. I hope Miss Edie will make use of them. For the rest of you I include what I hope is a sufficient birthday lunch, so you all may celebrate this day in style. Your friend, Dimitri Von Mortimer, etc and so on.”
Adeline’s cheeks felt scarlet. No wonder he’d been so cheerful.
Elliott stared at her.“Friend,” he repeated, grinning ear to ear.
“I need to get myself more friends!” Leonie exclaimed, rifling through the collection of toys. There was a rattle, tin soldiers, building blocks, a toy drum, and a rather lovely porcelain doll with shining brown hair. “Oh!” Leonie exclaimed, holding it up to the light.
Elliott groaned. “You are way, way too smart to be interested indolls.”
“I’m smart enough to ignore that comment, because I can be smart and still like dolls.”
“That’s not ignoring that comment.”
“Oh—shut up! I can see you eyeing those soldiers.”
“For the boys! Only for them!”
Adeline snorted, and turned her attention to the hamper. In all her life, she wasn’t sure she’d seen so much fresh food in one place. A pheasant, a rabbit, three types of wrapped cheese, jars of jam and lemon curd, tarts and pastries, thick, dense bread, a hunk of smoked ham, potted pate, fruit and preserves...
Eliott stared at the contents over her shoulder. “I told you; he’s besotted.”
“It’s not like that,” Adeline insisted. “A crush. Nothing more.”
Elliott held up a pheasant. “Your little lovesick lord just fed us for a month.”
“Don’t call him that! And there’s not a month’s food in here. Maybe a week, two if we use the grain from...”
