“There wasn’t really one grand gesture with us that I can recall.” Minerva’s expression was reflective. “It was more gradual, but I suppose if I were to analyze exactly what it was that made me realize that Hugh was worth it, it was his compassion and kindness that convinced me that he was the one. He’s a knight in tarnished armor to his core, no matter how hard he works to hide that side of himself from the world.”
“Men are exasperating creatures, mostly because they are obsessed with behaving like men. Which inevitably means they get everything wrong, but it is always those unconscious and instinctive reactions and interactions that show a man’s true mettle.” Olivia’s word felt prophetic. “The most fraught and charged moments when you see who they truly are.” Like how you react when your watch is stolen, perhaps? Or when you’ve been pecked by pigeons? Or when you give an unloved child a chance to shine? Exactly what sort of proof did Vee need to trust that she was reading Galahad right most of the time? “The princesneverrun away from a crisis. And speaking of crises… Christmas isn’t going to prepare itself.” She pinned Vee with a narrowed glare. “If you are not back by five to help, too, young lady, I shall not be accountable for my actions.”
The three sisters watched Olivia leave. When she was far enough away, Minerva groaned. “I love her to pieces, but when Olivia has a bee in her bonnet, she is impossible. If you hadn’t arrived, Diana, I would have taken a leaf out of the rest of the family’s book and disappeared for the day.”
“I’m hardly skiving,” said Vee, privately glad that she had an excuse. “Unlike Hugh and Jeremiah.”
“The selfish wretches!” Minerva fumed. “As if we don’t know that theirurgent businessinvolves reading a newspaper in the sanctuary of White’s undisturbed while Christmas is prepared without them! Not that they would ever admit to it. Men do like to guard their little secrets.”
Talking of men and their secrets…
“Diana…” In the absence of an alternate avenue to pursue, desperate times called for desperate measures. “… what do you know about Galahad’s past?” The moment that burning question escaped, Vee bitterly regretted asking it because her sisters simultaneously gave each other a look over the rims of their teacups. One stating that she had somehow confirmed all their suspicions about her feelings for Galahad just by opening her big mouth.
But it was out now, and as she was at her wit’s end trying to puzzle together that mystery, she decided to be brazen about it. “If anybody readsanything into that beyond polite curiosity while we are all lamenting the men in the family, or dares utter one syllable of teasing, I swear I shall never confide in either of you again!”
Two pairs of eyes widened behind their teacups rather than glance at each other, now more convinced than ever that something beyond lifelong dislike was afoot. As Minerva almost burned off her lips trying to sip her scalding tea rather than make a pithy comment about the question, Diana frowned, pondering. “I am not sure I know that much at all, now that you come to mention it. Galahad is… has always been… a very private person.”
“But he must have told Giles something of his background, and Giles would have told you because he tells you everything.”
It was clear her middle sister was searching through the vast archive of her mind, because her forehead and then her nose wrinkled as she considered it. “I know he hails from New York on the eastern seaboard.”
“Don’t we all know that?”
Diana nodded. “I also know that his grandfather owned an inn of some sort there and his mother died when he was young because it came up in conversation one day, briefly, before he changed the subject.” Something he was so adept at, you barely noticed it. All by design and all beyond frustrating. “Perhaps he was not as young as you were, Vee, when ours passed, but I seem to recall it was somewhere around the age of thirteen.”
Vee hadn’t realized that.
She had assumed his mother had died shortly before he had come here with Gervais. That he had had to look after her before that because of her lung condition. Be the breadwinner after his grandfather was killed and his absent father was goodness knew where. “I presume he was stuck with Gervais for all of his formative years.”
“Gervais abandoned his mother before Galahad was born.” Vee’s forehead was similarly wrinkled now as she pieced it all together. “He turned up again just before Galahad reached his majority. Galahad toldme he was after his inheritance… but I have no idea what that inheritance was.”
“I do remember that!” Diana seemed relieved to know something; being a journalist, she always prided herself on knowing everything. “He’d been left some share certificates! For some American shipping company, I believe. Galahad sold them and used the money to buy himself The Den.”
“Jeremiah assisted.” Minerva added another layer to the tale. “He used his business contacts back in Boston to broker the deal. They were sold in the end for five hundred pounds.”
“I always assumed Giles lent him that money.” Vee was suddenly annoyed that she hadn’t inquired before today.
“Believe me, Giles wanted to. He wanted to set him up in an easier sort of business, but Gal wouldn’t hear of it.” Diana shrugged. “His grandpa had taught him the innkeeping trade and always instilled in him the importance of self-reliance.Never a lender or a borrower be, were Gal’s exact words, and he’s always stuck to those principles and never taken a penny.”
“I think that’s admirable. Thank goodness Galahad got all his good morals from his grandfather, rather than his odious father.” Minerva scooped little Gethin from Vee’s arms and rocked him, cooing, giving Vee nothing to distract her from contemplating those good morals. Would a man who was apparently so noble in every other aspect of his life really be so careless with a woman’s feelings? Would he kiss her as if he meant it with every fiber of his being if he didn’t? Glance at her with longing still if he didn’t feel it? “Gervais abandoning him actually did him a favor on that score, didn’t he, little man?” Minerva pulled a face. “Can you imagine what he could have turned out like if Gervais had brought him up during his formative years?”
While Diana shuddered at the prospect, it brought Vee up short.
“Except his grandpa also died at around the same time. He was killed during a bar fight when Galahad was twelve. Right in front of him.” Suddenly Vee was sick to her stomach. Not just because of thesenseless murder that he had been forced to witness, but because so many of the gaps he had omitted telling anyone were starting to fill. All the hardship the Merriwell sisters had had to face in their past seemed a mere drop in the ocean now compared with his.
The cogs of Diana’s mind were turning, too. “But if his motherandhis grandfather died while he was a boy and Gervais had absconded, yet again, from doing the right thing, then that means poor Gal was…”
“Basically an orphan from a very young age.” Which explained why he had such a soft spot for all of hers. “He must have been on his own for almost a decade.” Eking out a living doing whatever it took to survive, exactly like Billy Tubbs. That unpalatable fact choked her. Horrified her. Forced her to reevaluate him yet again.
Now it made sense why he was so forgiving of that boy’s thievery and suspicious nature! Why he hadn’t wanted the boy punished by the law. Why he held his cards so close to his chest. Why he was so ambitious and driven and determined to succeed. Why he kept the world, including his adopted family, at arm’s length and never confided anything to anyone.
Ever.
It was his hard life that had taught him to keep the truth about himself hidden. Which begged the question as to why he had chosen to share some of that truth with her.
And more important, what did that mean?
Chapter Twenty-Four
