Page 72 of Reforming Lord Ragsdale
What can he mean?she thought as the traffic claimed his attention.I have no hidden relatives waiting to give me a fortune so I can travel to Australia.
“I took the mail coach for the return trip to Cork,” he continued when the traffic abated.
He looked at her, and she found the expression unsettling.There is such tenderness in your face, she thought.There can be no more bad news, so it must be good news.“I wish you would tell me,” she urged.
“I thought I would stop in Diggtown. I remember you said that was where you left Tim.”
She nodded, afraid to speak, allowing herself the tiniest glimmer of hope after years of none.
“I thought to find his grave, so I could give you a complete report, but, Emma, there was no grave for Timothy Costello. I tried all three cemeteries.”
She took his arm. “That’s all right,” she soothed, worrying at the emotion coming into his voice. “It really isn’t necessary for you to absorb all my troubles, my lord.”
“Oh, Emma.” He shook his head. “Well, I tried the better part of the day to remember the name of that family you said you had left him with.”
“Holladay,” she said automatically.
“Yes. I remembered it just when I was about to climb aboard another mail coach.” He chuckled to himself. “I think the other passengers thought me daft when I leaped off that thing and ran back into town.”
“Please tell me,” she pleaded. “Surely they did not toss him into a common grave with no marker. I could not bear such news.”
“Emma, you can bear anything,” he murmured. “That isthe wonder of you. I found the house—a nice one, by the way—and knocked on the door.” He paused, then covered her hand with his. “Emma, the young lad who answered the door looked a great deal like you.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. “Tim is alive.”
Tim is alive, she repeated in her mind as she clutched Lord Ragsdale’s hand. She closed her eyes to let the words sink into her brain.Tim is alive.She had carried him ten miles through a driving rainstorm, and him burning with fever. She shuddered, remembering all over again the death rattle in his throat, reverberating so close to her ear as she staggered along, one shoe on, the other lost in the mud, her clothes plastered to her, and soldiers everywhere to prod and poke if she slowed down with her burden.
“It cannot be,” she whispered.
“Then I can’t imagine who it was there at the Holladays who held open the door and asked would I like to come in,” Lord Ragsdale said mildly as he pulled up in front of his house. “He has charming freckles, marvelous green eyes, and an appealing way of cocking his head to one side when he listens.”
“Tim,” she agreed. She folded her hands in her lap, wondering why it was so difficult to absorb such news. “Then I must return to Ireland.”
Lord Ragsdale smiled and shook his head as he took her hands in his again. “I wouldn’t, Emma. When I told him who I was, and what had happened to his family, he wouldn’t settle for less than coming with me.”
She looked up at him and swallowed, wishing for words but unable to think of any.
“My dear, he’s inside.” He tightened his grip on her hands. “I just wanted to break it to you out here before you did something silly like faint or succumb to hysterics.” He smiled into her eyes. “Tim said he doesn’t like girls to make a scene, and I assured him you would not.”
She sat in silence, her senses reeling.How do I put intowords my gratitude, she thought as she looked at Lord Ragsdale.I hated you at first because you are English, and now I have such profound regard for you. I will never be ignorant of your faults, but you have borne mine with uncommon grace. I wonder if I will ever be out of your debt, even if you release me from my indenture and I travel thousands of miles.
“Emma, I am not handsome enough to stare at for such a length. Is my patch over the wrong eye? Spinach between my teeth?” he teased. “Come, come. You have some reacquaintance to make, and I do believe he is looking out the window right now, wondering about his sister.”
She leaped from the curricle, even as he tried to help her down, gathered up her skirts, and ran into the house. Tim stood in the hallway.How tall you are, she thought as she just stood there, taking in the sight of him, hugging him in her mind and heart even before she held out her arms.
He walked toward her slowly, as if checking her out with every footstep, looking for the sister he remembered when he was five.
“Emmy?” he asked finally.
Without a word, she grabbed him fiercely into her arms. In a second his arms tightened about her, and she felt his tears on her neck.
“I waited and waited for you to come for me,” he sobbed, even as she kissed his neck and clung to him. “I kept hoping.”
“Such watering pots,” Lord Ragsdale commented as he handed each of them a handkerchief, then pressed a third to his eye. “See here, you have set me a bad example.” He grinned at Tim. “But I will practice economy and cry out of only one eye.”
Tim laughed and blew his nose, then allowed Lord Ragsdale to give him a hug of his own.
“Good lad,” Lord Ragsdale said as he put his arms around both of them and steered them toward the book room. “Do you know, Emma, he does not get seasick.” He ruffled Tim’s hair with a familiarity that made Emma smile. “He assuredme that I would not die and ignored me when I threatened to throw myself overboard and end it all.”
