Page 48 of The Dangerous Love of a Rogue
He folded the letter and slipped it into his chest pocket, his heart beating hard, a smile pulling at one corner of his lips.
A pile of bills lay on the cabinet beside his hat. They would be paid soon. There would be no more dodging the duns. He would have money and he would have Mary, and he could help Caro.
13
Mary hugged her father as they stood in the hall, tears filling her eyes. ‘I love you, Papa.’
‘We will only be gone two days, sweetheart.’
The luggage was loaded on to the four carriages that stood outside the house. One for John and Kate, their son and her eldest sisters. Mama and Papa were to travel in the second, with the boys and her youngest sisters. The senior servants were to travel in the third.
The fourth was the hackney carriage Drew sent.
When she released her father, he reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. She accepted it and dabbed at her tears.
‘Are you upset over Lord Farquhar? There will be another man who is right for you.’
She shook her head.
She’d not told them they were wrong about Lord Farquhar because it was easier to let them think her odd behaviour was linked to that. ‘I am being silly, Papa, I know. I’ll miss you, that is all. Robbie and Harry spend months at a time away at college and here I am crying over two days.’
He hugged her firmly again. She pressed her cheek to his shoulder.
What if he despises me when he finds out I lied?
She kissed his cheek as he kissed hers and they separated.
She turned to her mother.
Her mother’s eyes shimmered with tears too. ‘I know you are sad about Lord Farquhar but time will ease the pain, you will see, be patient.’
‘I know.’ Mary blew her nose into her father’s handkerchief.
Her mother’s palms framed Mary’s face. Mary looked down, unable to look her mother in the eye.
‘Sweetheart, one day you will be settled with your own family to care for and you will think this all nonsense.’
Noise came from the stairs, the voices of Mary’s excited younger siblings. Her mother’s hands fell.
The children’s governess appeared at the top of the stairs with a nursery maid who carried Jemima, Mary’s youngest sister.
‘I’m sorry you’re not joining us, Mary.’
Mary turned. John had joined them in the hall.
John had been her hero from her birth, despite his starchiness.
He will be disgusted with me.
Mary embraced him briefly. ‘I’m sure you don’t care a jot whether I am there or not, you have Kate.’
He laughed. ‘But Katherine does not chastise me as much as you do. You keep me grounded.’ A sound lifted his gaze to the top of the stairs and his eyes glowed with admiration. Kate stood there.
Mary prayed Drew would look at her with love like that.
When Kate reached the hall, Mary said goodbye to her and John. Then in a daze she said farewell to her brothers and sisters before they were herded into the street to climb into the carriages. She wished her eldest brothers Robbie and Harry were not boarding at their college so she could say goodbye, especially to Robbie, the next in age to her. Robbie would never forgive her for keeping him in the dark.
Her father offered his arm. She took it, her heartbeat racing.
