AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It does.” Cara turned in her chair, looking up at Ella. “He’s Alec’s best friend, and one of my good friends—”
“That’s good,” Ella interrupted. “That’s great. I’m not asking you to pick sides. There’s no need for that. I’m not close with him, but that’s okay. He’s Alec and your friend. He doesn’t need to be mine.”
Chapter Five
Late the nextmorning Mrs. Booth had one of the younger staff set up tables in the green room, one at one end and the other off to the side of the fireplace. At the small table closer to the fireplace Uncle Frederick and Emma were playing cards, and Dorothy was at the game table at the far end of the room working on a jigsaw puzzle. Ella wandered through the room noting a few small packages had appeared beneath the Christmas tree and listened to Frederick and Emma laugh over a point won, before continuing to Dorothy at her puzzle table.
Dorothy looked up as Ella approached. “Mrs. Booth found a box of puzzles in one of the closets. This is a puzzle I gave to William years ago. Hoping there are no missing pieces. It only takes one missing piece to ruin a puzzle.”
Ella leaned over the table to take a look at the picture on the box as Dorothy was only just beginning the puzzle and the pieces on the table were mostly green and reddish brown. The photo on the box was of two shaggy cow heads poking over a limestone wall.
“Highland cattle,” Dorothy said. “My late husband and I inherited my grandmother’s property outside Edinburgh. It was a lovely little farm and when we could, we’d spend holidays there. I became very attached to the cows. They’re huge but really the most lovely creatures.”
“Was your grandmother Scottish?” Ella asked, sitting down and sorting pieces into different color piles.
“So, you and Emma aren’t sisters? Or are you half-sisters?”
“We’re sisters-in-law. My husband and her husband were brothers.” Dorothy leaned across the table her voice dropping. “I’ll tell you a secret. When I first married Cedric, Emma and I did not get on. She can be a bit bossy, and having been raised as Lady Emma, she used to act as if she was better than me.”
“But you’re so close now.”
“Time and loss brought us together. We lost our husbands within four years of each other. My Cedric went first, and then her George.” Dorothy picked up a piece, turning it in her fingers. “We still weren’t close, but we began making an effort to see each other more often, at Christmas and Easter and such. It was when I lost my Michael—” Dorothy broke off, her voice quavering, and for a long moment she didn’t speak, and then she carefully set the puzzle piece down.
“She came to stay with me then,” Dorothy. “She arrived with a suitcase and didn’t leave for months. Instead, she moved in, and she grieved with me. She’d always been jealous that I had a child when she didn’t, but once Michael was gone, she apologized and we cried together. His death broke both of our hearts.”
Ella blinked, her eyes burning with tears. “How old was your son when he died?”
“Twenty-seven. I had him late. Like Emma, I had trouble conceiving. And then at forty-one, I discovered I was pregnant, and it was a miracle. Cedric and I had given up, and just when I thought it would never happen, Michael arrived.”
Dorothy let out a little cry as she found a place for a puzzle edge. She pressed it into place and then looked up at Ella and smiled. “I do love a good puzzle.”
Ella smiled back, hiding how much her chest ached with bittersweet emotion. “I do, too.”
*
Baird entered thegreen salon, his gaze sweeping the room. There she was, at a card table with Dorothy. Except for coffee this morning, Baird had seen little of Ella and he missed her. He wasn’t interested in analyzing the emotion, he just wanted it the nagging empty feeling inside of him to go away.
Baird crossed the room and pulled out a chair at the puzzle table and sat down. “Need help?”
Ella lifted her head, her blue-green gaze meeting his. “I wouldn’t have thought you a puzzle fan,” she said to him.
“We did a lot of puzzles in my family,” he answered. “My dad wasn’t a big fan of the telly, and limited it to a few hours a week, saying too much would ruin our brains. So, on Saturday nights we’d have family game night. Puzzles, cards, charades, board games. We still have game nights when we get together over the holidays.”
“Are they together now?”
“Yes, but in Australia. Allison, my oldest sister, lives in Melbourne and in October she had a new baby and they’ve all gone over to meet him.”
“Why didn’t you go?” Ella asked.
“Alec had asked me to be here for the party.”
Ella’s expression turned incredulous. “You turned down a trip to Australia for a party here?”
He shrugged. “You came all the way from the Pacific Northwest for the party.”
Her lips twitched as she fought a smile. “That’s different.”
“How so?”
