Kitty put her hands on her mother’s shoulders. “What is it this time?”
She was extremely aware of the promise she’d made to her sister, that she wouldn’t let her parents manipulate her or extract more money out of her. Kitty had twenty years of experience dealing with her mother and the rest of her family. After rescuing them so many times, there was little they could say to surprise her.
Which only made the next words that came out of her mother’s mouth that much more shocking.
“Your father is dead.”
Kitty stumbled back, knocking over a hat rack. Her father, who had always been a pillar of strength, an immovable figure in her life. She’d know he would die eventually, of course, but not so soon. Not already. Not before she’d proven her business could be successful. Now she would never get the chance to hear how proud he was of her.
God, wasn’t that selfish, thinking only about herself?
She pulled her sobbing mother into an embrace.
“H-He was well l-last night,” Mrs. Carter sobbed.
Kitty’s throat grew thick as she imagined her father going to his bedchamber with a newspaper tucked beneath his arm. He’d always had the odd habit of reading the newspaper before he went to sleep instead of in the morning. Something he’d never do again.
Kitty rubbed her mother’s back until she’d stopped sobbing, then pushed away, handed her mother a handkerchief, andlooked into her face. “Do you know what happened? Was it…?” She swallowed heavily, unsure of how to suggest that it was her father’s vices that had finally caught up with him.
Her mother dabbed her eyes with a corner of the handkerchief. “No, it wasn’t his drinking.” Her shoulders slumped. “They said it was his heart. It simply gave out.”
Her stomach clenched. At least her father had died without pain. The same could not be said of Cordon’s future demise.
Cordon.
He would be upset, but she couldn’t deny her mother now. Not after such a tragedy.
“You must come home at once,” Mrs. Carter said. “There are…payments to be made.”
Of course there were. Even in death, her father had left a mess for her to clean up. She would never be free of them.
Mrs. Carter tilted her head to her chin. “If I had known what your father had done, I would have tried to stop him.” She sniffed. “There is also the matter of the funeral…”
Kitty could practically feel all the cash she’d made in the past month floating out of her pockets. But what was she supposed to say in the face of such devastation? This was a family emergency. An exception.
“Come home,” Mrs. Carter said.
There was only one response she could give. And as her mother departed, in possession of a purse that contained enough money to pay several months’ rent on Kitty’s shop, Kitty slammed her fist on her worktable. Once again, she’d folded like a piece of wet vellum beneath her mother’s tears.
Then Cordon appeared, wearing one of the black jackets from her trunk, his hair tucked beneath a black felt hat. He touched the brim. “Do you like it?” He grinned. “When you feel well again, I thought we might complete another item on my list and go to a funeral.”
A funeral. Her father’s funeral.
“I always avoided them,” Cordon continued. “But I think it’s time to see what all the fuss is about.” His smile faltered. “Then I’ll know what mine might be like. Perhaps I could get some ideas for what…Kitty? What’s wrong?”
Tears flowed down her face. “My father is dead.”
“I am so sorry.” He swept her into his arms and cupped the back of her neck. “We will leave at once.”
She sniffed. “You would come?”
He kissed the top of her head. “I would not let you face them alone.”
She sniffed. How could she tell him it was too late, that her mother had already left with a significant amount of Kitty’s money?
“What is the matter?” He rubbed her cheek with his thumbs. “Do you not want me to accompany you?”
She shook her head. “It’s not that. I…” The words would not come out of her throat. The tears that she had forced back earlier threatened to surface again. She breathed in and out several times, then said, in a steady voice, “I’m sorry. My father left a mess behind and I—”
