Page 33 of Miss Delightful
A lot of shame.
“You are going out?” Papa asked as Dorcas wrapped Mr. MacKay’s scarf about her neck. “Too fine a day to spend inside, I suppose.”
“I’m paying a call on the household where Melanie’s son bides.” Dorcas offered that admission, prepared to defend it if need be. She had given up rebelling out of sheer contrariness, but she would not allow Papa to stop her from calling on Major MacKay.
Papa removed his glasses and used a handkerchief to polish them. “The lad is healthy?”
“At present, yes. Melanie took good care of him, as best she was able.”
He held up his spectacles to the light. “I recognized her handwriting, you know.”
Papa was the beloved, unchanging lodestar of Dorcas’s existence. Not the cleverest of men, too concerned with the opinions of those who hadn’t earned his respect, but he was good-hearted and hardworking. He was her papa, and she would do anything to protect him.
She could not, however, protect him against the slight stoop that had crept into his posture, or the fact that he now needed spectacles throughout the day, rather than only for reading by candlelight.
“You recognized Melanie’s handwriting?”
“She started writing to you last year. I assumed you wrote back and probably sent along a bank note or two. Half hoped you would, sparing me the conundrum. She has—had—a way of flourishing her capital letters that some governess or other told her was pretty.”
“You knew we were corresponding, and you said nothing?”
Papa put his spectacles on and tucked his handkerchief away. “You think I am too much the sermonizing old windbag, Dorcas. Too cerebral in my calling, too rigid in my morals. I am inclined to spend half a morning looking for all the biblical references to donkeys when instead I ought to be calling on our poorer parishioners. I know I am something of a cross for you to bear.”
Never that. Never, ever that. “Your sermon on Balaam’s ass was quite thought-provoking.” Though Papa had given it only the once, thank heavens. That a donkey could see an avenging angel before its rider did and thus save the rider’s life had inspired Papa to draw all manner of peculiar analogies.
Though Dorcas had enjoyed that sermon more than most of Papa’s learned exegeses.
“I cared very much for your cousin,” Papa said, “but I care for you more. You are my only daughter, the best of what I have left of your mother. Association between you and Melanie was a risk to you, but I chose to turn a blind eye because I trust your discretion.”
He could trust Dorcas’s discretion now, though that, unfortunately, hadn’t always been the case. “I’m sorry I deceived you, Papa. I did not want to choose between my duty to Melanie and my respect for you.”
“So you took the whole matter upon yourself, as you so often do, and shielded me from difficult choices.”
He looked away, and the winter sunshine streaming through the window aged him. His eyes, usually such a genial blue, were troubled and sad.
“I can’t help but feel,” he went on, “that I have failed you and Michael as a parent, just as I’ve failed to distinguish myself in my calling. I want to see you happily settled, Dorcas, not tiptoeing around your old papa’s delicate sensibilities and church politics. I will leave you with a competence, and you will always have a home under Michael’s roof, but that’s not…” He rubbed a hand across his brow. “I digress. I digress with alarming frequency these days.”
“You have much on your plate.” Was he growing more vague? More easily preoccupied?
“Not so much that I missed your strategy with Mornebeth last night. You played the part of the demure mouse, but I doubt your ruse was effective. He’s a clever chap, Dorcas, and his star is on the rise.”
Not this again. “Mr. Mornebeth was a pleasant guest, and I’m glad you enjoyed his company.” She pulled on her gloves and gathered up a parasol that she carried mostly for self-defense. Another lesson learned in jail.
“Mornebeth enjoyedyourcompany,” Papa said. “He always has. He saw past that dreadful gray frock and your governess coiffure to the intelligence and integrity that shine so brightly through your disguises. Isaiah is poised to soar, Dorcas, and you could soar with him.”
“No.” She’d spoken more harshly than the moment called for. “I mean, did you notice how he had to mention the name of every viscountess and bishop in Yorkshire? How the names of his grandmother’s titled friends found a way into a conversation about Lenten traditions?”
Papa smiled, a hint of his usual good cheer back in evidence. “He did lay it on a bit thick, didn’t he? A puerile tactic for impressing a lady. A wife would gently correct that tendency.”
Alasdhair MacKay had impressed Dorcas by staying up all night with a colicky baby, by pressing for answers regarding Melanie’s disappearance, by sitting with Dorcas quietly in a frigid garden. He would never attempt to aggrandize himself by trumpeting the names of illustrious associates. He’d admitted to being in line for some sort of title only when Dorcas had questioned him about his calling card.
“I will not marry a man that much in need of correction, Papa. Isaiah Mornebeth should aspire to humility, not claim he’s but a humble parson while wedging mention of peers and heiresses into every other sentence.”
Papa’s smile was wistful. “You are as smart as your mama, and she would be proud of you, Dorcas.”
Are you proud of me?She did not dare ask, and she did not deserve his praise in any case. “I intend to keep a fond eye on young John, Papa. My conscience must have it so. He’s family, and he’s a mere baby, in the care of people who are no relation to him at all.”
“Good people?” Papa asked, gaze on the plaid scarf about Dorcas’s neck.
