Page 39 of The Baron Takes a Wife

“I can’t pet you, old son. I’m sorry.” Goliath just laid his head on the man’s knee and looked up at him. “I tell you, he would have been good in the war.”

“Goliath?”

“He’s got a whole soldier’s constitution.” McDaniel’s mouth quirked slightly, and David noted that despite his skepticism earlier, they should always bring Goliath with them.

“Well, if we ever go back, we can take him.”

David’s words hung in the air, as the two of them would likely never go back. Probably for the best, David thought, and besides, the war was over. He didn’t quite know how to ask what he wanted to ask next, but he tried anyway.

“Do you think if you had something to do, you might think on it less? When I first met my wife, right after I had been injured, she said that to keep herself from sorrow, she always found something to do. I tried at the clinic where I went after the war to give myself small goals and tasks every day so that I didn’t lose my mind. Maybe if you had something or someone?”

McDaniel twisted his mouth. “My family?”

“I know not all families are loving, supportive units.” He thought of Michael and Henry, who had both been distant from their fathers. “But surely, someone in your family would support you. Help you find something to occupy your time? If I didn’t have Elena and my sister and my aunt to think of, I don’t know what I would have done.”

McDaniel’s mouth was a straight line, his jaw tight. But his eyes told a different story. David could see the yearning in his pale blue irises.

“If you dictated something today, I could frank it for you next week, and then they probably wouldn’t receive your post immediately and come see you right away, perhaps not even until your wrist was better. That would give you some time to prepare yourself.”

McDaniel looked at Goliath as if they were in some silent communication.

“The Laughing Lass,” McDaniel muttered.

“Pardon?”

“I said, you can write my sister for me. She and her husband run a pub in Glasgow. The Laughing Lass. When we go back inside, I’ll dictate something for you.”

David tried not to smile, so he looked up at the sky and leaned back on the bench. Suddenly, the park felt greener and warmer, and the sun shined clearer. Sometimes, he realized, he was rather the incurable optimist his friends often accused him of being.

****

Elena had hoped she was not being presumptuous in assuming that Sophie would automatically take on Annamaria. She also did not want to crowd the poor woman, so she ensured it was just her and Sophie approaching the ward.

“Now, last time I saw her,” Elena began, “she had sustained an injury, so she might not want to talk about that—”

“Elena, I will ask her all that I need to know. You may calm down.”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie.” Elena sighed.

However, when she reached the part of the ward where she had met Annamaria, her bed was empty, and she wasn’t there. Elena felt the same panic she had seen cross David’s face when his friend wasn’t where he had been before. But Annamaria did not walk back into the room with a sling on her arm. Elena tried to quell her anxiety until she found a nurse on duty, Sister Mary Ellen, a small, bespectacled woman, and inquired after Annamaria.

“She was discharged a day after her arm was treated. She had no reason to stay here longer.”

Of course, Annamaria had been discharged, Elena scolded herself. If she had a daughter at home, she could not have stayed at the hospital for a long period of time.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Sophie, I feel like a fool. I hope this wasn’t a waste of your time.”

“Not a waste, never a waste. Why don’t you ask for a forwarding address?”

The thought had not occurred to Elena, but when she asked Sister Mary Ellen, Annamaria had left her address for when Elena returned. Her heart felt a little lighter.

“I’ll send her a note to see if we can call on her sometime this week, yes?”

“That would be acceptable.” Sophie’s face was placid, giving away nothing of her thoughts on this turn of events.

Elena was eager to see how her husband fared now that she had done all she could do for Annamaria that day. They resumed their tour with Mrs. Raeburn, who appeared to fascinate Sophie. Elena had never seen her so complementary with anyone. Maggie did look at Goliath’s leg and put on a much better splint than what Elena had fashioned. She agreed with Elena’s assessment that he would compensate with the other three legs until it healed and that he needed rest and time to lie down.

David was quiet as they rode home, but Elena decided not to push him. He could come to her in time. Later that evening, he knocked on her door as she braided her hair at her vanity, and she called for him to enter. He wore a deep blue robe that looked crisp and clean on his broad shoulders. With a small jolt, she realized it was the robe she had been wearing in his bedchamber.