“I’m your mother, Leo. I see you in ways you cannot fathom. And I am trying to see if you harbor feelings for Mrs. Cabot. She’s a good woman. And I like her.” It was a ringing endorsement for marriage, coming from her.
“I’m shocked,” Leo said. “I thought there was no woman on earth who you would encourage me to pursue.” Because that’s what this had been. A pursuit without point. The leaden feeling in his limbs worsened. What a fool he had been. Why had he continued to write her, begging her to see him, when she never wrote him back?
His mother leveled a warning look at him. But then the footman interrupted dinner. Jeffrey bent to whisper in his ear: “Your father is here to see you.”
“We are at dinner!” Leo whispered back.
“He begs his forgiveness. Something about the cold?” The young man’s face creased with apprehension.
Leo threw his napkin on the table. “We have a guest, apparently. And not a welcome one.”
His father stood in the foyer, this time with Granson. In all the days before, Granson had not entered the house. This evening, as the young man doffed his cap, Leo saw how he’d lost a great deal of his bulk. He was no longer wide, likely the result of hard labor found in the village.
“What are doing here?” Leo asked, his voice cold, but he didn’t care. He was sick of his father’s games.
“Can a man not drop in on his son for a chat whenever he wishes?” Reggie asked.
“We’ve chatted already today. And I believe I gave you two pounds sterling while I was at it.”
“Which I was very grateful for, you are a good boy,” Reggie said.
“We’re freezin’,” Granson said, his country accent wide and broad, sounding nothing like Reggie.
“Does your boarding house not supply you with enough coal?” Leo asked. Fine, he’d give him a coal allowance too.
“There’s been a development of sorts there,” Reggie said, gesturing with his good hand, the other one tightly fisted and almost bone white.
Granson turned his face and Leo caught sight of his swollen and bruised face. “They took our money and turned us out.”
“Good heavens!” came his mother’s voice behind him. “Jeffrey, have Cook fill some water bottles for the Mr. Morgans, and have Daisy stoke the fire in the drawing room and ready two beds in the guest room.”
Leo rounded on her. “What?” If Reggie slept here, he would embed like a tick. They would never be free of his wheedling, weaseling schemes.
His mother gave him a firm look. “I’ll not allow them to freeze to death in the streets.”
“He would have done me!” Leo protested.
His mother looked over at Reggie, who had the temerity to look ashamed of himself. “Yes well, we aren’t him, are we? Compassion is a worthy trait. While we are at it, send for a physician to look over Granson. Make sure there’s nothing worse than a blackened eye.”
Granson, yes, he was willing to help the man who was his half-nephew, who he’d known since he was small. They were near in age, Granson being only a handful of years younger than Leo. He had nowhere to go than to be with Reggie. But Reggie? Leo couldn’t hide his disdain.
His mother gripped his arm, leaning on him instead of her cane. “Look at him, Leo. Really look. He isn’t the man you knew.This one is old, lame, and has no use of his left arm. What would you have me do?”
“Find a better hotel,” Leo spat.
But his mother kept her level gaze on him, using that old trick every mother had likely performed on their child since the beginning of time. The silent command. She was not asking, she was telling. And Leo had no choice in the matter.
Leo pulled his coat and hat out of the closet where Jeffrey stored them. “I’ll fetch a healer of some sort.”
*
IT TOOKPRUDENCEsome time before she mustered the courage to knock on Leo’s door. Indeed, the last time she’d been here, it had been a warm day. Now, the snow crunched under her boots as she descended from the hired hack. When the door swung open, she was informed Leo wasn’t at home. He was out with hisfamily—his father, his mother, and his nephew.
She left her calling card, but it smarted somehow. There had been drives in the park with Lord Grabe, training with the Ladies’ Alpine Society, and then Lord Berringbone invited them all out to the country for the holidays. They’d stay the month, and Ophelia said that the family suspected he would announce his engagement to Lady Emily.
All the while, she had expected Leo to be there for her, waiting. It was the height of selfishness. And shame consumed her as she dismissed the hack, choosing instead to walk back to the Strawbridge. Leo had a family now. A bigger one, strained as it was. And she had her own busy life.
The cold seeped through her boots. More fashion than comfort for these ones. If she were being honest with herself, she’d dressed well today, to see Leo. Not sure what she wanted to have happen. Admittedly, she missed him. Every time Justinegave another wild outburst, she wanted to be able to share her friend’s antics with Leo, and let him shake his head in fondness for her.
