Page 60 of My Gentleman Spy
Will watched in fascination as she did her odd little dance a half dozentimes.
* * *
Across the blackand white checkered marble floor Hattie stood and stared at her brother and hiswife.
Edgar and Miranda Wright cut a stylish couple in the milling throng. With her father having made his fortune in the mills of the English Midlands, Miranda had come to her marriage with a substantialdowry.
Theirs had been an unexpected love match. While their respective fathers had been haggling over dowries and social connections, Edgar had fallen head over heels in love with the merchant’sdaughter.
In the good times, as Hattie now called them, she and Miranda had been close. Miranda had viewed Hattie as the little sister she had never had. Hattie and her mother did all they could to help Miranda become an accepted member of theton.
Tears welled in her eyes. She swallowed before taking another faltering step forward. They were so close and yet it felt like the floor of St. Paul’s was several mileswide.
She clenched her fists. Trying and failing again to find hercourage.
“Oh, come now. You jumped over the side of a ship. You can walk across the floor and speak to your brother,” she chidedherself.
The previous afternoon she had spent making a long list of all the provisions she would need to purchase for the coming winter. The situation was more precarious than her initial estimates had been. The money from the family bits and pieces she had thus far sold; coupled with any funds from the other pieces currently earmarked for sale would not last much into thewinter.
She had discovered the true cost of living in London. Fire wood was expensive and so was food. With crop failures throughout England that summer, grain was in shortsupply.
Before setting out from her family home, Hattie had prepared a long and well thought out speech as to why her brother should assist her financially. It made sense for him to come to her aid in her hour of need. It was the right thing to do. She was his only sister. They had been close most of theirlives.
And that was the point where her braveryfailed.
In the days before the ship sailed for Africa, she had become increasingly desperate in her attempts to avoid the journey. She had written several letters to Edgar, but her father had intercepted them. As he threw the letters one by one into the fire, he scoldedher.
“Your brother is wicked and does not care for our work. You have a duty to come to Sierra Leone and be Reverend Brown’s wife. Now stop thisnonsense.”
That night Peter Brown had been allowed to stay at the Wright’s house and he had visited Hattie in her bed. After that she had barely been leftalone.
Only a single letter had made it successfully out of the house and to her brother. Mrs. Little at great risk of being dismissed from her employment, had ventured to the kitchens at Edgar’s house and personally delivered the note to a footman. Hattie had waited all day and the next for a response, but nothingcame.
The morning she had left with her parents and Peter for the ship, she had looked out the window of the carriage as they passed Edgar’s house, desperate for any sign that he would come to save her. Even as she walked up the gangplank onto theBlade of Orionshe had been praying for the sight of her brother’s carriage. For him to fly up the gangplank, forgive her for all her past transgressions and snatch her from herfate.
Yet as the boat pulled away from the dockside, she saw only dock workers and sailors on the shore. Edgar had made his stance clear, he had washed his hands of his tiresome self-righteoussister.
The sound of the cathedral organ in St. Paul’s began to fill the nave and choir chambers with music. Soon the service would begin and she would be unable to speak withthem.
Hattie straightened her back and began to walk toward them. One final time, and she would doit.
At the same time Miranda shifted in her seat and Hattie caught sight of a small bundle in her sister in law’s arms. Edgar looked down at the baby andsmiled.
Hattie halted in herprogress.
Edgar and Miranda had been married for just over six years. Six childless years. Yet here was a new born child. Her brother and sister in law had thought so little of Hattie and her parents that they had kept Miranda’s pregnancy a secret. Even the birth of a precious child could not bring them to forgive Edgar’sfamily.
Hattie slowly backedaway.
The chasm between her and her brother was wider than she had ever imagined. She had turned her back on him until the moment she was in dire need. He in turn had firmly closed the door on the life he had once known with hisfamily.
She turned and walked from the cathedral, all hope for a reconciliationgone.
* * *
The thrillof the chase coursed through Will's body, but rather than dampen it down, he fed theflames.
By the time Hattie had made her hurried exit through the doors of the west front, the flames had built to a roaring inferno. Sensing he was on the edge of losing control, he slowed his breathing. Iron willed self-control tookcommand.
