Page 42 of One Day for a Valet

“When my sister and I would cry over silly things, my mother used to chase us around the house, giggling and trying to scoop up our tears with this spoon. I honestly don’t know the point of it to this day, but it made me laugh and usually stopped the tears … I suppose that was the point.”

“She sounds like a lovely mama.”

“My seven-year-old heart thought her incapable of causing anyone the slightest hurt … our whole family believed that. I’m not sure which of the three of us adored her most. My papa was the sort who could never hold back any part of his heart. Never wanted to.”

His smile drifted away from his voice like a passing cloud, an almost unbearable silence taking its place for the space of several heartbeats. “And then he caught her in the woods with another man. And when my papa confronted her, asked her to choose, she left him. Left us all. Walked out as if our life here was nothing … as if we were nothing. She wrote after, but I could never bring myself to open the letters. Eventually they stopped.” Sofia tightened her grip though her arms felt insignificant compared to the magnitude of his hurt. His hand slid to rest atop one of hers, and the rightness of it struck her squarely in the chest.

“My father nearly lost his mind from the grief. Broke things, sobbed. We moved into the servants’ quarters that very night, and, stricken by heartache, he wouldn’t allow my sister or I to take a thing. Not a stray sock nor favourite toy. Everything we owned carried too much of her, and he could not survive the slightest reminder. The following week, with a clearer head, he encouraged Charlotte and I to fetch our things, but we didn’t wish to cause him further pain. My papa was a selfless man and a devoted papa. Crossing through the doorway would have felt like a betrayal of him, and he had already lost too much. That may have been the worst part. Despite everything, I still loved her. Missed her.”

He let out a long breath. “I miss her still. For years, I wondered if there was something I could have done to make her stay. I’d seen them in the woods, my mama and her lover, the week before. But I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing.”

Christopher turned in Sofia’s arms and looked down at her. His eyes were wet, but he made no move to wipe his tears away. Only stood there, letting himself feel what his heart needed to feel. Wrapping her fingers around the spoon still in his hand, she lifted it to his cheek and pretended to scoop away a tear with the splintering wood. Before she could wither away from embarrassment at her impulsive action, laughter rumbled in his chest. Then he kissed her soundly on the mouth.

Every time their lips met, it felt like exploring another side of Christopher Keene, and she already liked far too much of him as it was. He pulled away before either of them could become swept away, but he held her gaze with those puddle-grey eyes.

“Thank you.” Christopher slid the spoon from her hand, then crossed the room and placed it beside his mother’s shawl.

He paused on the way back, studying a half-finished needlepoint sampler, a crooked grin tipped about the corners of his mouth. “Charlotte always did hate needlepoint. I should leave this one out for Oliver to destroy.” Despite the declaration, he tucked the shabby childhood memorabilia away with the other relics from his past and continued sorting odds and ends.

Occasionally, he interrupted their work with a story about his childhood or a light-hearted comment, but for the most part, they worked silently, side by side. Within a few hours, anything worth keeping had been packed snuggly into the chest or moved to the carriage house, and the cabin was reasonably clean.

When Christopher was twelve years old, he had stood outside that cabin door on his mother’s birthday with his fingers wrapped around the handle for what felt like an age. That morning, he’d woken up and thought about her, and to his despair, he couldn’t recall the details of her face. He could feel the calluses on her hands when she whirled him around the kitchen humming a made-up tune. He could hear the sound of her laughter. But when he’d looked into his mind’s eye, the shape of her mouth, the exact shade of her eyes, the expression on her face when she kissed him goodnight … it had all felt just out of reach, stolen by time.

He had known that if he stepped through that door, walked in for even a moment, it would come back. But a face and expression he could still recall perfectly—his Papa and the torment in his eyes when he’d realised she was leaving—bludgeoned into his thoughts. Christopher’s hand had slid from the handle and he’d walked away.

When he was eighteen, riding onto the estate for the first time in years, he and Gabriel had passed the cabin. Christopher had slowed his horse, staring at the lush overgrowth of grass where the gardens had once thrived, then nudged his horse into a trot and forced his gaze forward.

He was a man now, he’d told himself. He wouldn’t indulge in the melodramatic fiction that anything he did or didn’t do had caused his mother to walk away. Yes, he had seen her with her lover the week before and said nothing to her or Papa. Perhaps if he had spoken to her, the rest of his life might have looked different, but it was not the responsibility of a child to mend the broken marriage of his parents.

He had suffered enough for his momentary inaction. His childhood fears and his feelings of inadequacy because he couldn’t make her stay had shaped the man he’d become. There was always that jangle in the back of his mind, that compulsion to make himself indispensable so the people he loved would not walk away.

He knew how painful it would be to rip open those memories. But then Sofia had needed a safe space for her brother, and he had one at his disposal. Nothing else mattered in that moment. She who relied upon no one and asked for nothing, had reached for him.

He had done a poor job hiding his shock upon walking through the door, but as he held each of his boyhood treasures up to the light, expecting to topple beneath the onslaught of loss, what struck him most was how very young he had been when his mother left. He hadn’t felt small at the time, with his ambitious plans for the future and the fearlessness of childhood, but the fingers that had covered those tiny whistle holes had been so very small.

And when his tears had come, they had been caused by relief as much as by melancholy. He had experienced a great unspooling of guilt upon holding tangible evidence of his childhood smallness. It didn’t matter how clever or capable or determined he had been, his parents’ failing marriage was far beyond the scope of what he could prevent. Even his most effective interventions would have been the equivalent of holding his hand above his papa’s head to protect him from the rain.

Now, with the shadows that had long loomed over his heart wafting from view and Sofia’s arms wrapped around him, the life he wanted felt blissfully possible. He was a grown man now, and when rain had threatened Sofia, he had provided a roof.

“I’ll fetch some sheets to make up the bed after luncheon, and then we can figure out how to get your brother relocated. I want to stop by and speak with Hamish McKenna. He’s a great hulking Scotsman and is generally good natured enough to be talked into lending a hand.”

“A servant I haven’t met?”

“No. He is Violet’s closest friend. They were childhood chums with her late husband, Nathan. Hamish is a tenant farmer on the duke’s land. Has quite a few sheep. Between Hamish, Jeremy, and me, we should be able to keep your brother safe and out of trouble.”

Reaching down, he laced his fingers through hers like they’d done it a thousand times before. “But first,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers, “I would very much like to pass a few leisurely moments kissing you.”

She lifted up to her toes and pressed her lips against his.

Sixteen

Oliver responded with a grunt when Sofia knocked, but some of his rancour dissipated at the sight of her.

“Finally! Every time the door opened, I thought it would be you, but alas, a different maid every time. Have they hired every woman in the country to dust their parlours? I don’t think I’ve seen the same one twice.” He lapsed into their native tongue. “It’s good to see you, little flea. Come here.” He held up an arm, then waggled his fingers when she didn’t immediately move in his direction.

“You stole the duke’s liquor. I smelled it on you this morning when I came by to make sure you were still breathing. The bottle was behind the potted plant.”

“I was stabbed! It was medicinal!”