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“I say this so that you might take it under advisement yourself,” she continued, trying to hide her discomfort, “with your own children.”
Martina turned then, and Louise followed her gaze to Gio and Rosa. They were clustered around Frederick, who was ostensibly sweeping the floor but really twirling the broom like a parade baton. She had a fleeting thought that he was likely the one who had taught Gio how to fold the paper airplane.
“But still, your father must have loved you.”
The gentle words offered an invitation to remember, and Louise tried. She could picture her father complimenting her brother’s trumpet playing, his formal questions at the dinner table, the afternoon he’d taught them how to identify different types of flowers.
“Oh, I’m sure he did, in his way. He wasn’t cruel or wasteful or lazy. But after Mother died ... he simply wasn’t suited for the task before him.” She removed the books from the cabinet to count them for the letter to her New York antique contact. How much had Father originally spent on them? “I soon learned that it’s possible to be a good person and a poor parent.”
There. That wasn’t so hard, once you framed it objectively and told it more as moral advice than your own past.
“That might be what you learned from your father,” Martina said quietly, looking again to where her children played with Frederick. “But what I learned from my mother is that giving and receiving love is the greatest risk and the greatest joy. Sometimes at the same time.”
“That is a matter of perspective. I do my best to minimize risks, wherever possible.” She replaced each book one at a time on the cabinet’s narrow shelf.
One of the titles caused Martina to let out a small gasp. “You have a first edition ofPride and Prejudice?”
Ah.She’d forgotten about that one. “Unfortunately, no. That’s the only one of the lotnota first edition. I’d initially thought it was valuable because Father left it to me by name in his will. However, my assessor assured me it was from an early but broad printing, worth perhaps thirty dollars at most.”
She shook her head, setting the book aside from the rest and locking the cabinet. “Really, I should donate it to the library’s circulation. Either Father was misled about its value or, more likely, he was merely trying to trick me into reading it.”
“You’ve never read Jane Austen?” Martina’s expression seemed more fitting for some declaration of treason than a simple statement of preference.
“Certainly not. And I don’t plan to. Romance is a foolish delusion,” Louise said firmly, ignoring the soft but insistent thought that lingered long after she left the library.You didn’t always feel that way.
———
AUGUST 1913
She hadn’t asked him to do it. Oliver had volunteered, pressing a kiss to her brow. “Never fear, my sweet flower. We’ll work it out, man to man. I’ll ask your father for your hand, and with luck on our side, he’ll give me his blessing.”
For once, Oliver’s devil-may-care attitude was more irritating than endearing. As if it could possibly be so simple: Father allowing his only daughter, the one he’d tasked Aunt Eleanor for years now with betrothing to a suitable gentleman, to wed his manservant, the son of a local barkeep. She couldn’t imagine it.
Which was why Louise was now stepping carefully over the creaky hallway boards, heeled leather boots clutched in her hands. She should go back to her room, not lurk here outsideFather’s study where the maid or, God forbid, Delphine might catch her eavesdropping.
Yet how could she, with her fate being decided just past those thick oak doors?
Even when she pressed her ear to the crack, the voices were mostly inaudible, until she heard Father exclaim, “What!” sharp and angry.
She squeezed her eyes shut until she heard a fragment of Oliver’s voice. “Please, sir...”
“What do you want? Money?”
When Oliver spoke again, his voice had lost some of its brash confidence. “...difficult ... never intended ... I promise you...”
Then nothing audible for some time, even when Louise edged closer. Whether Oliver or Father was speaking in tones too low to hear, or they had reached a point of decision, Louise couldn’t say.
She held her breath, started to pray ... and remembered that God would surely not listen to her, not anymore.
“Now leave us!” That phrase came through clearly, and Louise sprang away from the door and down the stairs in stocking feet before either could spot her, hearing the study door fling open just behind her.
Oliver strode down the stairs into the main hall seconds later, face impassive, and drew up short when he saw her. After a quick look around, she rushed to his side. “What’s wrong? Did he—?”
“Your father was madder than even you thought.” Tension kept his jaw tight as he looked over her shoulder to the study upstairs. “Fired me and threatened to report me to the authorities.”
No.He couldn’t—he wouldn’t. She hadn’t heard those words through the door, but then, she hadn’t heard much.
She sank to the floor, replacing her boots and strugglingto tie the laces, if only to give her hands something to do. “I don’t understand. You . . . you said you could persuade him of anything, that he’d be sure to give his blessing to our marriage.”
