“You never disappointed me. At least not until the very end.”
If she truly knew his reasons for leaving would she still be disappointed? Would she think he’d been a coward?
“I had my reasons. And you found a man who loved you and probably took better care of you than I ever could have.”
“Patrick and I had a good marriage,” she sighed. “But he wasn’t you, Cass. You were always the one I dreamt of spending my life with.”
He jammed the hat over his ears. “Then you were just as foolish as I was. We were never going to work - my father made sure of it.”
“Explain yourself!” She called after him.
He ignored her and stepped into the street. Cass was determined to do the best he could to persuade his father he’d grown up. Not because he wanted any part of the business - he already knew he wasn’t suited for running a brokerage or investing other people’s money. Unless he could make the ethical changes that he believed in.
He just wanted vindication. Some kind of recognition that he wasn’t a failure.
Chapter Four
Deirdre
“Ooh!” Deirdre fumed as she stamped her foot. “That man!”
He was just as infuriating and enigmatic as he’d always been.
“Look what he made me, mam,” Mary Kate interrupted with a tug on her apron.
Her daughter was holding up a piece of burled oak. Cass had carved it into a fairy, with a piquant little face, dainty feet and wings that looked like a butterfly’s. It was so lovely it made her heart ache.
And that made her resent his sudden intrusion into her life again even more. She’d been over him - had only thought of him on fleeting occasions. She’d made peace with his absence and the wounds he’d left behind. Wounds she’d convinced herself were scarred over.
“She’s lovely,” Deirdre admitted.
“Can she sleep under my pillow? Mr. Cashus said she’d keep the monsters away.”
Deirdre crouched in front of her daughter and folded her into a hug. “There aren’t any monsters, remember Poppet?”
“There are, Mam. The fire monsters took Da away from us. And there are lions and bears.”
“Your Da died in a mining accident, not because of monsters. And lions and bears are wild animals - not monsters.”
“I want her to protect me.”
“You can sleep with her under your pillow, but there’s no such thing as monsters.” She scooped her daughter into her arms. “Are you ready for bed?”
Mary Kate yawned and rubbed her eyes before laying her head on Deirdre’s shoulder. “Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled.
“Let’s set out the apple tarts for Mr. Edmonds and Mr. Gilchrist and then I’ll sing you to sleep.”
She perched her daughter on her hip and made her way to the kitchen to retrieve dessert.
After scooping the tarts into a basket she set them between the two men. “Help yourselves, gentlemen. I must see that this one finds her bed.”
Mr. Edmonds leaned back, so his chair was tilted on two legs. He groaned and rubbed his stomach. “The roast chicken and potatoes was excellent, Mrs. O’Shaugnessy. I don’t know if there’s any space left for dessert.”
“I’m full as a stuffed turkey,” Gilchrist chimed in.
“I’ll leave this here. Whatever you decide you can’t eat will keep until tomorrow. I bid you good night.”
After two bedtime stories, both about fairies at Mary Kate’s insistence, Deirdre descended the stairs again to clean up the supper table and put away any leftover tarts.
