by Delia Parr
The door creaked open, revealing a rather tall, elderly woman with snow-white hair hanging down her back, country style, leaning heavily on an old gnarled branch she was using for a cane. She greeted Annabelle with a warm smile that revealed a missing front tooth and urged her inside. “I’m not taking guests at the moment, but do come in out of this dreadful cold. I’ve got water heating on the stove. I hope you’ll stay and at least share a pot of tea with me.”
Deeply disappointed that she would not be able to take a room here, Annabelle stepped into the front parlor, where sheets covered all of the furniture, and closed the door behind her. “I’m sorry to bother you, but Aunt Irene told me I might find accommodations here. She actually brought me here, but she had to leave on an errand. She should be back in a bit.”
“Oh! You must be Annabelle. I’ve been expecting you,” the woman gushed as she led her through the parlor. “I may not be taking boarders, but I always have room for someone as special as you are,” she insisted as they walked into a small dining room where the furniture had likewise been covered.
“Don’t mind all this,” the widow said between labored breaths. “I’ve been feeling so poorly these past few months that I haven’t been up to doing much housekeeping. Fortunately, my boarders were able to find other accommodations.” She tapped a door open with the tip of her cane and led Annabelle into a very warm kitchen.
The room was larger than Annabelle expected, but she stared at the narrow cot hugging the back wall where Widow Plum apparently had been sleeping. “I’m here by myself, so I haven’t bothered to waste precious firewood trying to keep any of the other rooms warm. Now that you’re here and I’m feeling up to taking the stairs once or twice a day, maybe I can sleep in my own bed tonight.”
Annabelle’s cheeks grew hot. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to stare.”
When the woman laughed, her clouded blue eyes almost twinkled. “I don’t blame you for being more than a little curious about that old cot,” she said and pulled a chair out from beneath a scarred wooden worktable. Once she plopped down, she rested her cane across her lap and sighed. “I’d tell you not to bother getting old, but you probably wouldn’t listen,” she teased before a coughing spell interrupted her.
When she finally caught her breath, she smiled at Annabelle. “I guess I’m not as recovered as I thought. A cup of tea right about now would really help, and the water should be hot enough by now. If I could bother you to get some tea out of a canister in that corner cupboard over there and add it to the teapot sitting next to the stove, I’d be grateful. I’ll get another cup and saucer ready for you.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Annabelle suggested. She slipped out of her cape and gloves and stored them on a peg by the back door. Following the woman’s directions, it did not take more than a few minutes to get a strong cup of tea ready for them, and she sat down to join her hostess at the table.
“You’re as dear as I thought you’d be,” Widow Plum crooned. “Then again, anyone related to Irene couldn’t be anything else. I know you’re only able to stay with me for a few weeks, but that suits me fine, too,” she said, then added four generous helpings of sugar to her tea and a dollop of cream.
Annabelle took a sip of tea, which she preferred without either sugar or cream. “I would very much like to stay, but I really should ask you how much you charge for a room. I don’t need a very large one.” She couldn’t help finding it a bit odd to be worrying about money again after having given it no thought for the past few months.
The widow set her teacup down. “I can’t charge you anything at all. Since I can’t pay you much for helping me set this old place back to rights again until I’m able to take in boarders again, your room and board are included. Didn’t Irene tell you that?”
“No. No, she didn’t,” Annabelle replied.
“If you save up your earnings instead of spending it, you should have enough to tide you over a short while. Hopefully you’ll be able to find a more permanent position before your funds run out. I’ll be glad to let you stay here without charge if it takes a bit longer than you expect.”
Annabelle dropped her gaze. “You’re very generous.”
“I can hardly be anything less. Not when people like Mr. Graymoor have been so good to me.”
Annabelle’s heart skipped a beat and her head snapped up. “Did you say Mr. Graymoor? Do you know him?”
“Only through Irene. I’ve never actually met the man, but you can rest assured that I was flabbergasted when he sent his driver to see me and gave me enough funds to make sure I could see a doctor and keep the boardinghouse, too. Without his help, I would have lost it for sure. I even sent him a note to thank him and to reassure him that I would repay him once I was up to taking in boarders again, but he wrote back to tell me the only way I could repay him would be to help someone else when they needed it. It may as well be you.”
Stunned to learn what Harrison had done for the widow, Annabelle wondered how generous he would be if he ever found out this woman was helping her.
They spent the next hour talking about Annabelle’s duties before Widow Plum gave her a tour of the house. Another hour passed before they returned to the kitchen, in part because the elderly woman had to walk so slowly. At this point, Annabelle was growing anxious for Irene to return.
When she finally heard a knock at the front door, she leaped to her feet. “That must be my aunt. I’ll let her in,” she insisted and rushed out of the kitchen, through the dining room, and into the parlor.
“I was getting worried about you,” she said once she opened the door, but she took one look at the man standing behind Irene and lost every thought in her head.
Irene stepped into the house but left the man standing outside. “Quick. Grab your cape. You have to leave right now. I’ll stay here with Prudence. If you don’t get back before Graham returns with the coach, I’ll have to leave, and you’ll have to find your own way back to Graymoor Gardens. Now scoot!”
Too shocked to do more than follow Irene’s order, she was terrified that Harrison might have gone into her room and discovered her missing. She raced back to the kitchen and grabbed her cape, not bothering to pick up the gloves that had fallen out of the pocket while she rushed back to the front door.
Philip was still waiting for her on the steps, and he had her inside a rented hack before she had her wits about her. She collapsed into her seat as the coach started off.
Poor Philip. Even in the dimness that enveloped both of them, he appeared to be very worried about her. Upset at Irene for involving him, she sighed. The last thing she wanted was to come between the two men, and she hoped Harrison would find a way to reconcile with his cousin.
“Before you leap to conclusions or get annoyed with Irene for coming to speak to me about your situation, let me reassure you that she’s very loyal to you as well as to my cousin. Don’t worry. I’m sure he has no idea you left Graymoor Gardens and came into the city.”
She resisted the urge to pull back the curtain on the window next to her to see if Harrison was following them or to tell Philip how disappointed she was that Irene had brought him to the boardinghouse. “H-how can you be so certain?”
“If my cousin had any idea you were gone, he’d be turning this city upside down to find you. He’d create such a ruckus in the process, we both would have heard him by now,” he teased.
“Perhaps,” she admitted.
“He’d make an even bigger ruckus if he found out you were sitting here all alone with me.”
She narrowed her gaze, but she still could not see his features clear enough to suit her. “You’re his cousin. Why would he care?”
He reached over and took her hand. “Because my cousin knows that I have very deep feelings for you. My first loyalty is to Harrison, but now that Irene has told me he’s foolishly set you aside, I no longer feel compelled to deny my feelings. I care for you, Annabelle, and I don’t want you to leave Philadelphia. Not alone.”
&n
bsp; Horrified that Irene had betrayed her trust and confided in him, she was more alarmed by his tenderly spoken words and eased her hand free. She was also very confused by his declaration and shook her head. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
He took her hand again and held it clasped between his own. “I know it’s too soon for you right now, but I want you to know that I’m prepared to wait as long as it takes.”
Even more confused, she asked, “Wait for what?”
He cleared his throat. “Even if you don’t have feelings for me now, I can only hope and pray that one day, when you’re no longer bound to my cousin, that you’ll consider . . . that you might agree to become my wife.”
She yanked her hand away. “Y-you want me to marry you?”
“Someday. When you’re free,” he explained. “Over the past year or so, I helped to raise enough funds to build a very different kind of facility for orphaned children that will be built about twenty miles from Boston in a very rural area. Right before I left to come here, the directors asked me to operate the facility, although I’d still need to leave to raise donations now and then. At the time, I wasn’t interested, but I don’t have to give them my final answer until March,” he said. “Come with me. There’s so much good we could do together. You could teach at the orphanage, at least for a while, and perhaps with time, you might find your feelings for me—”
“I already have very strong feelings for you, Philip, but . . . but not in the way you might hope. I . . . I care for you as I would for a brother, not as . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she dropped her gaze, deeply troubled that she had not been able to see that his feelings for her went beyond friendship, which is exactly what both Irene and Harrison had been able to see, not to mention Eric. “If I misled you in any way, please forgive me.”
He let out a long breath and held silent for a very long time as the coach creaked up and down the city streets. The silence grew until it was nearly unbearable, but finally, he let out another long sigh. “No, you never misled me,” he reassured her and shook his head. “Irene was right. She told me I’d be making a mistake to propose to you. I should have known better than to hope a woman like you could ever love someone like me. If I’ve offended you in any way, I hope you can forgive me.”
Moved to tears, Annabelle took his hand. “You’re an amazingly kind and generous man. I’m honored by your proposal, but you deserve someone far better than I am to be your wife. Be patient, Philip. You’ll find her one day. I know you will,” she promised.
“And what about you, dear Annabelle? What’s going to happen to you?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I really don’t know, but I have to believe in God’s plan for me and trust Him to provide for me.”
He edged forward in his seat and stared at her long and hard before he sat back again. “You still love Harrison. Despite the fact that he is setting you aside, you still love him.” His voice was filled with disbelief.
Annabelle wanted to deny what he said, but she didn’t have the courage to lie to him or to anyone else anymore. Instead, she simply let his words hang in the air between them as the coach carried them through the city streets she would soon leave behind, along with her heart.
But she would not leave until she had a long, hard talk with Irene to find out why she had broken the trust Annabelle had placed with her and told Philip that her marriage to Harrison was over.
“I’ll take you back to the boardinghouse now,” he offered.
“No. I need to go back to Graymoor Gardens.”
“I think it might be best if you didn’t go back there at all, and Irene agrees with me. If you’re worried about collecting your things, she said to tell you she’ll bring them to the boardinghouse.”
“Please. I just need to go back home,” she insisted. “Will you help me and take me there, or will I have to get there on my own?”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Philip grumbled and groused all the way back to the countryside, and he continued to complain as he helped her out of the coach. “It doesn’t make any sense to leave you here. It’s a good mile walk to the main house,” he whispered, keeping one eye on the driver.
“If you leave me off any closer, someone at the house might see the coach, even if Harrison doesn’t. Besides, I like to walk. And don’t forget to go back to the boardinghouse to see if Irene’s still there so you can tell her where I am. Ask her to bring my gloves, too.” At midafternoon, the sun had disappeared behind a gray blanket of clouds, and the wind was growing stronger by the minute. She really wished she had picked up her gloves so she could wear them now.
When she turned to leave, Philip grabbed her hand. “It’s not too late to change your mind and come with me.”
She slid her hand free and cupped his cheek. “You’re a dear, dear man. Please don’t settle for anything less than a woman who can love you with her whole heart,” she whispered, then turned and walked away, directly into the wind.
She trudged back to the house along the rutted roadway through melting ice and snow that was starting to refreeze. The bottom of her cape and skirts were caked with mud and snow, and her feet were numb long before she reached the circular driveway. Her hands fared no better, and she had to squint to protect her eyes from the biting wind. She did not have to stretch her imagination very far to envision her nose and cheeks as cherry red, but she did try to press her lips together to keep them from freezing.
Still, by the time she neared the house, she had a good sense of what she had to do and how she had to do it in order to leave and return to the boardinghouse with a clear conscience. She let herself in the front door of the house.
Annabelle lost any hope she might get up to her room without being noticed when Harrison appeared at the top of the stairs before she even reached the middle steps.
“You’ve been outside?”
She hesitated for half a heartbeat before she continued climbing up the staircase. “I w-went for a w-walk,” she offered, and she was disappointed when he did not step aside to let her pass at the top of the stairs.
When he studied her from head to toe and frowned, she clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering.
“Unless you plan to spend a few days in bed to recover from being so chilled, you might want to consider dressing more appropriately for the cold. I haven’t seen that dreadful cape before, but it’s not heavy enough for this weather, and you’re not even wearing your gloves.”
She glanced down at her cape and cringed. She had completely forgotten she was wearing the one she had bought at the used clothing shop. “I-I’m afraid I m-managed to lose m-my gloves.”
He stepped aside rather abruptly. “I was hoping you’d agree to sit down and talk to me, but you’re in no condition to do that now. You need to warm up first. While you change into dry clothes, I’ll get Lotte to fix something hot for you to drink. May I join you in your room later so we can talk?”
She barely managed to nod before he turned and headed for the servants’ staircase. Although she was tingling all over as her body started to thaw, she managed to get to her room and change fairly quickly. She shoved the cape under the bed, hoping he would forget all about it if he did not see it again, and moved his chair back to where it belonged. She even had a few minutes to sit down in front of the fire to gather her thoughts.
When he returned a few minutes later carrying a tray with two mugs on it, she was not surprised he had brought it instead of Lotte. He set the tray onto the serving table that still separated the two chairs and handed her a mug. “The cider shouldn’t be too hot to drink at this point.”
She took a tentative sip before she risked a longer one, but the brush of his hand sent warm sensations coursing through her body long before she felt the effects of the cider.
He put an envelope on top of the serving table as he sat down, but left the second mug on the tray untouched. “Before I say anything else, I need to apologize. I had no right to treat you so . . . so po
orly,” he admitted, and his gaze was truly as sincere as his words. “The settlement funds are rightfully yours to keep and to spend however and whenever you wish.”
Heartened by his apology, she offered him one of her own. “I’m sorry I acted so poorly myself. Putting a lock on my door was childish.”
He smiled and relaxed back in his chair. “Now that we have our mutual apologies out of the way, I hope we can talk to one another like we used to do. I’d like you to consider something.”
She took a cinnamon stick from the serving tray and stirred her cider without giving him any indication she was willing to consider anything at all.
When she did not object, he continued. “Eric Bradley is still a threat to both of us, and he’ll remain a threat until I talk to him next week. In the meantime, I’d feel much better if you stayed here with me where I know you’ll be safe. He wouldn’t even be a threat to you if you hadn’t been married to me, and I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”
She met his gaze and her heart began to race. Since they were quite alone, there was no need for Harrison to feign any affection for her now, and the love she saw in his eyes was as real as the love she had hidden from him, too. Her heart swelled with both joy and hope. “He would not be a threat to you at all if you weren’t my husband and had the wealth that you do. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to you, either,” she said.
For several very long, very precious heartbeats, she could actually feel the miracle of truly loving a man and being fully loved in return. Love that brought out the best of each of them and promised a lifetime of happiness. Love that would sustain them and keep them strong in faith as well as hope. Love that was such a blessing to be treasured, she did not need to record it in her diary because it was indelibly imprinted on her heart.