Page 73 of A Secret Correspondence
Samuel already did. He watched Mrs. Farrow storm from the room, dragging her daughter away. Miss Farrow glanced back at him, her gaze distraught, and his heart reached out to her. But he could do nothing to put her mind at ease, not with her mother in this state.
Mother followed them from the room, ostensibly to be assured they found their way outside. When she returned, her face was made of angry stone. “You have ruined our chance at security.”
“That was unfair.” Samuel inhaled, searching for patience. “Mrs. Farrow would not see reason, Mother. I did not speak falsehoods. Marguerite and I have not been carrying on an illicit relationship. She has—” He paused, shaking his head. What could he say? It was not his secret to tell.
Mother waited.
“It is not my place to say.” He could tell her broadly, he reasoned. “Marguerite has been in danger, and I have not been her only friend who has been helping her these last few weeks. Oliver and Jacob Ridley have done so as well, and neither of them are being threatened by their wives.”
A look of disbelief passed over Mother’s face.
Samuel continued. “In fact, Ruth was with us for a good portion of the evening last night.”
She let out an empty laugh. “If that is the truth, why did you not say so to Mrs. Farrow?”
“Do you believe she would have listened?” Samuel refrained from adding that after being shouted at, he had lost all desire to have Mrs. Farrow for a mother-in-law—debtor’s prison or no.He had been granted the gift of a release from his engagement, and he had taken it.
“Perhaps not.” Mother moved to the low-backed chair and sat. “Now, what shall we do? Your modiste does not have a splendid dowry, does she?”
“I’m afraid not.” He moved toward his mother and took to his knees slowly until he had the entirety of her attention. His voice was calm, his words sure. Taking one of his mother’s hands in both of his, he looked her in the eye. “I love her, Mother, but I have not so much as kissed her. She will hardly look at me since I have become engaged. She is too honorable to disrespect Miss Farrow. But I love her, fully and deeply.”
The fire crackled behind them in the hearth as Samuel waited for a response.
She sighed heavily, closing her eyes. “I love you, Samuel. I do notwishfor you to be tied to a joyless marriage.”
He smiled softly.
Her hand squeezed his. “But there is no happiness found in an insecure marriage, either. Of that, you can trust me. How am I meant to rejoice in this when the woman you love will not bring you anything but ruination and financial instability?”
Samuel’s heart thudded to the floor. He rose to his feet, releasing her hand. “You need not rejoice, Mother. I only ask for your blessing to be happy. I am certain I will land on my feet.”
“You might. But what of your father and I?”
Samuel drew in a heavy breath. “I do not know. Perhaps it is time we cease trying to save Father from his own poor choices.”
“We would lose this house,” Mother said through her teeth. “Your inheritance.”
Pain cut through Samuel’s chest. Herubbed at the spot absently. Was there anything left to inherit? He was tired of feeling the weight of burden they were forcing upon him. He could no longer accept responsibility for his father’s choices—choices he did not agree with. “If we dig Father from this hole, what will stop him from digging another one? I cannot be responsible for his poor management.” He glanced over the room, the house he had lived his entire life. “We have family. People love and support us. We will not go without, Mother. We would have support?—”
“I will not become a beggar.”
“You will never need to. I shall find a way to support us. There must be a way.” He glanced at the long-case clock, noting how late it had become. “But presently I have a commitment, so I must leave for Boone Park.”
He said no more as he walked from the house, but he felt simultaneously a concern for the evening ahead and a lightness to his step for unburdening his thoughts. He had been honest, and his mother had accepted it.
There was a liberation to speaking the truth: he loved Marguerite.
Now to tell the woman herself.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The churchyard was cold as Friday afternoon bled into the darkness of evening, then as evening shifted into morning. Marguerite had left the bundle of pebbles meant to look like jewels within the stone hands on the appointed grave, nestled beneath the oak tree and situated well out of sight from most vantage points. It had taken a great deal of time to locate a place to wait and watch the grave for Leclair, but Oliver had done so. He found a perfect shadowed sliver of alleyway that gave a direct view of the grave from across the road, beside the inn. It was further away than he would have liked, but well-hidden.
The men took to the alley in shifts, never leaving the grave unwatched for any length of time. From the moment Marguerite had left the bundle, they had stood sentinel, waiting for the perpetrator to descend.
Now, though the clock on the Locksley Inn mantel read quarter-past three in the morning hours, Ruth and Marguerite sat together on the sofa, biting their nails and waiting in concerned silence in the rented parlor.
Samuel rested along the other sofa, his breathing heavy and slow.
