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“Quite possibly, given the timing. It isn’t hard to imagine the why if one traces back from the date we were both born to the eight months before that when he disappeared from service.”
“But my mother arrived in Belize alone. That was what Mama June always said. What happened to him?”
He shrugged. “I imagine their story is lost to time.”
She exhaled, sudden defeat looming in her chest. “What does all that mean?”
“Captain Willington was stationed for a short time in Bedfordshire—recruiting midshipmen—before his disappearance. And I presume you recall how my mother always said your mother was a fine lady? The dresses of hers that my mother kept for you—the quality of them?”
Pen nodded.
“So, I looked into the moneyed families that have residences in the Bedfordshire area. Families that would have had eligible daughters the right age to catch the eye of a captain in that time frame.”
She leaned forward slightly, her forearms resting on her knees. “Tell me you found some.”
“One family in particular. The ‘Jac’ part of the name matches, though it’s not a surname. BaronJacobsonhad eight daughters, no sons, though not for lack of trying. The second eldest daughter married the cousin set to inherit the title and now has a slew of boys. The other daughters married off over time, except for several of the youngest ones that haven’t been mentioned or acknowledged in the last twenty years. Most just assumed the family couldn’t afford to send the last four daughters into the marriage mart. The dowries and many seasons of the older ones had run the coffers dry.”
“You think my mother was one of those four?”
“It would make the most sense. Even if these are not your mother’s people, someone in the family could possibly remember something of that year that could give us a new clue. The family is quite respected in Bedfordshire.”
Pen nodded, her shoulders pulling back, and she resumed her stick-straight posture. Her gaze moved to the window as her hands clasped together, her fingers curling into each other—her right palm facing upward, her left facing downward, until the fingertips of her gloves disappeared. Hidden away, her right middle finger started rubbing, scratching, at her left palm.
Unsettling, the whole of it. But it was hope. Hope she hadn’t had in a long time.
She glanced back to him. She had to hear it again. “The four girls—they are never talked about?”
His shoulders lifted. “They all could have died for all I know, Pen. Or they’re spinsters. Don’t set your hopes too high.”
She nodded slowly, the nail of her middle finger rubbing harder on her palm through her glove.
She was getting too excited. Too hopeful.
Hope had never turned out well for her.
But she couldn’t quite quell it.
It was easier to hope when she was sitting across from Strider.
And that was the most disconcerting thought of all.
{ Chapter 6 }
“You’ve never drunk anything stronger than tea, have you, Pen?” Strider’s eyebrows lifted high—so high they almost disappeared behind the rogue strands of his dark hair that dusted his forehead.
The pious scold on his face was comical. Almost like Mr. Flagton had come back to life and invaded Strider’s body to admonish her.
Her stare shifted down to the glass sitting in front of her and then back up to his furrowed brow. She hadn’t sipped away all of it. There was still a sliver of red at the bottom of the glass.
Strider had ordered it for her when they sat down at the secluded table in the back of the tavern that anchored the coaching inn they had stopped at. Her room had not been ready for her—there had been a lot of harsh whispered tones between Strider and the innkeeper about the rooms. Then Strider had turned to her and ushered her into the tavern. The innkeeper had scurried off like a demon was on his back.
Her focus went back down to the sliver of red in the glass just waiting to wet her tongue. How long did politeness dictate she pause between sips? What had Strider called it?Ratafia.Funny name, that.
But she knew full well what it really was.
The devil’s drink.
That’s what Mr. Flagton would have called it—called anything that even had a whiff of alcohol in it. The devil’s drink.
