Page 37 of The Charming Words of a Common Scoundrel
Clara smiled. “I like it. I think I’ll purchase it.”
Mercy nodded approvingly. “It’s for the orphanage. What they are doing for these children at the Devroe Orphanage goes above and beyond anything I have seen before.”
Annie snorted. “Have you been to an orphanage?”
Mercy flushed. Sophia frowned at Annie and said, “Your tongue is so sharp. Luckily for you,
Mercy knows deep down you are a good person.”
Annie was in the orphanage with Sam. Clara had forgotten about that. “What was Sam like when he was younger?”
The Kincaides and Addie seemed startled by her unexpected question. Clara blushed.
Annie said nothing for a moment, but then said with a soft smile, “He was a legend. There wasn’t a person he couldn’t charm and an item he couldn’t steal.”
Clara imagined a young Sam Kincaide in her mind and her lips tilted up in amusement, but her amusement quickly disappeared as she thought of him being so alone.
“Did he grow up there his whole life?” Clara asked.
Annie shook her head. “No, he spent some time on the streets with his mother until she couldn’t care for him any longer.”
“Did he ever talk about her?”
A shadow passed over Annie’s face. “She wasn’t well. Sam used to say that coming to the orphanage felt like a step up from where he began.”
A sadness fell over Clara, thinking about Sam and what he must have endured.
“He doesn’t blame her. That isn’t Sam’s way. He is the most forgiving soul I have ever known,” Annie explained.
“That doesn’t surprise me. What happened to her?” Clara asked, thinking about her husband’s kindness.
Annie and Sophia looked at each other before Sophia turned back to her and said, “She died when Sam was a young man. He spent a great deal of time looking for her, but by the time he found her, she couldn’t really remember him. She was—”
“Sophia,” Annie warned.
Sophia flushed and said, “Well, I mean I would ask Sam. It’s his story.”
Clara nodded, embarrassed that she was learning these details from his siblings not Sam himself. A giggle to her left startled Clara, distracting her from her thoughts. She noticed a gaggle of married ladies, whispering and looking in her direction. She yanked her gaze away embarrassed. They were the exact type of ladies who, only last season, she would have been laughing along with before her scandal. “Such arrogance, to attend and with her husband gallivanting all over Liverpool,” one of them whispered loudly.
Clara sat up straighter, knowing they all now considered her the fallen Ice Princess. They giggled and Mercy turned to them, staring them down until they scampered off. She turned back to Clara with a scowl and said, “None of those ladies can judge your marriage with Sam. Half of them only see their own husbands once or twice a year.”
Clara flushed and smiled at her in thanks before grimacing. “Perhaps someday I will not be the topic of every lady’s conversation.”
“Well, I think it is all very romantic that you and Sam married in a whirlwind,” Sophia said dramatically.
Clara fidgeted and did her best to look anywhere but at her sisters-in-law. For some reason, they had decided her marriage stemmed from something more than necessity. She shook her head and darted a glance at Addie, who actually knew Sam in a way she never had, wondering if the situation was uncomfortable for her.
Clara turned back to Sophia and said, “It isn’t quite what you are imagining.”
Mercy’s brows drew together in confusion and Sophia just grinned at her as if Clara was the confused one. Annie raised a skeptical brow and said, “I can assure you Sam would not have married you if he didn’t want to.”
Yes, he married her but then disappeared to Liverpool. That didn’t sound to anyone, least of all her, like a man who was enamored with the idea of marriage.
“Sam would have found a way to save you besides marrying you if he didn’t want to,” Mercy added.
Clara rolled her eyes. Her old self would have ended the conversation with a short remark that left no room for more questions, but she refrained herself from doing so.
“You all are imagining something that isn’t there.”
