about time.’ Justin swirled the last sip of his Scotch before downing it. ‘She’s too serious for a girl her age.’
Philip strode to the table and plucked up a glass. ‘I’m to blame.’
‘Hardly. Seriousness is a family trait. Your mother was the only one who could enjoy a good joke.’
‘She tempered my father.’ He removed the crystal stopper from the decanter and rolled it in his palm. ‘I worry how my nature might affect Thomas.’
Thomas’s happy squeal carried in from outside. Philip set the glass and stopper down and went to the French doors leading to the garden. He opened them and inhaled the pungent scent of roses and earth fighting with the thicker stench of horses and smoke from the streets beyond. ‘Arabella should have had time with Thomas. She should have seen him grow.’
‘But that’s not the way it happened,’ Justin gently reminded him.
No, it wasn’t. The finality of it was too much like standing at Arabella’s grave again, the sun too bright off the green grass surrounding the dim hole in the earth.
Thomas toddled around a square half-pillar supporting an urn. He peeked out from one side of it, and then the other, squealing with laughter as Mrs Marston met him with a playful boo. The sun caught his light hair, making the subtle orange strands shine the way Arabella’s used to whenever she’d strolled here.
Philip had used to look up from his accounts to watch her, wanting to join her, but he’d dismissed the urge in favour of the many other things commanding his attention. If he’d known their days together were limited, he would have tossed aside his work and rushed to be with her. If he’d known their love would kill her, he never would have opened his heart to her in Dr Hale’s sitting room.
A dull ache settled in behind his eyes, heightened by the bright day. There’d never been a choice between loving or not loving Arabella. He’d loved her from the first moment she’d entered his office looking as unsure as Laura had today. During the first days of their courtship there’d been an unspoken accord between them, as if they understood one another without ever having to speak.
When Laura had reached out to him last night, and when he’d touched her today, something of the understanding and comfort that had so long been missing had passed between them and shaken him to the core.
‘Miss Townsend’s presence will benefit Thomas,’ Philip observed, pulling himself off the unsettling road his thoughts were travelling. His relationship with Laura was nothing like his relationship with Arabella.
‘Her presence will benefit you, too.’ Justin came to his side and cocked a knowing eyebrow at him. ‘Often and quite pleasurably.’
If he wasn’t Philip’s greatest friend, he would have dismissed him. ‘Your experience with women has muddled your impression of relationships.’
‘Actually, it’s heightened them, which is why I can see matters with Miss Townsend so clearly and you cannot.’ He dropped a comforting hand on Philip’s shoulder. ‘If you let her, Miss Townsend will temper you and more. Just don’t resist her when she tries.’
With a hard squeeze, he left.
Philip stepped outside into the shadows of the eaves, watching Thomas without the boy noticing. Thomas hurried around the fountain on unsteady legs, clapping and laughing whenever Mrs Marston surprised him. It touched him to see his son so happy. Philip had forgotten what joy was like.
He looked in the direction of Laura’s room, but the portico roof obscured the view. Justin was right, Philip needed Laura to temper him and she possessed the will to do it. He might have misjudged her strength today, but he didn’t doubt its existence. When she felt safe, when her life settled into a steady rhythm, she’d find her feet again and he was sure to witness more moments of strength. He looked forward to them.
What he didn’t look forward to were the deeper implications of her presence.
In the past year, he’d closed his heart to almost everyone except Thomas and Jane. He wasn’t about to open it again and allow anyone to see the hardness which had grown there, or to leave himself vulnerable to having it crushed again. It would be a difficult thing to manage, but he had no choice. There could be no relationship between them without friendship or the most basic of understandings, but he couldn’t allow Laura’s sweetness to lull him into forgetting the wrenching torment that caring too much for someone could cause. Laura demanded his respect and affection and he would give it, but he would not surrender his heart. He couldn’t.
* * *
Mother handed Laura her old threadbare handkerchief.
‘I’m surprised you still have this old thing, what with Mr Rathbone providing us with all our needs.’ Laura rubbed her wet cheeks, widening the hole in the centre of the ragged linen.
‘My dear, Mr Rathbone is an excellent organiser, but even he is not capable of remembering everything, much less such a small detail like a new handkerchief.’ She smoothed Laura’s hair off her face, then caressed her damp cheek.
‘At least this isn’t his like everything else, like I will be.’ Laura leaned back against the wall, worn out from crying. ‘It’s like being with Uncle Robert again and us helpless to do anything.’
‘Mr Rathbone is nothing like Robert,’ Mother gently corrected. ‘He’s willing to share what he has with us and to make you a partner in his life. It speaks to his generosity. And you aren’t helpless.’
‘Aren’t I?’ She was a woman with no money, no prospects and almost no family. A proposal from a moneylender was the best she could hope for, even if it made her feel like a purchased bolt of silk. Laura crumpled the damp handkerchief, then threw it to the floor, ashamed again of her foolishness. Better to be a man’s wife than to sink to becoming a whore. ‘I’m sorry I lost my head.’
‘I’m surprised you haven’t done it sooner.’ She slid her arm around Laura’s waist and drew her up from the bed. ‘No one can keep their chin up all the time, not even you.’
Her mother guided her to one of the two stuffed chairs in front of the window, Laura leaning as much for support on her mother as her mother leaned on her. Outside, Thomas’s happy laughter carried up from the garden. Through the window, Laura caught sight of his cranberry-coloured skeleton suit darting back and forth between the boxwoods as Mrs Marston chased him.
‘Now rest.’ Mother pressed her down into the chair. ‘I think you need it more than me.’
Laura gladly sank against the well-padded back with a sigh, so weary from everything. ‘I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I can go through with the wedding.’
Yesterday, when standing in the middle of the mouldering room in her worn-out gown, it’d been too easy to accept Philip and the life he offered. Today, it seemed too hard. She wasn’t certain she could spend her life without love. It seemed a silly, girlish thing to hold on to when everything else was being laid at her feet, but she couldn’t let it go. However, if she rejected Philip, she’d be giving up the comfort and safety of his home, along with her mother’s health. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be so selfish. Only, I never thought it would all turn out like this. I thought we could save the shop, I believed it until the end. I was wrong.’
‘You’re not selfish, Laura. You’ve taken on so much over the past year, things you never should have had to deal with. Now you’ve taken on this. It’s unfair and I wish I could have done more to help you realise some of the dreams you believe are ending with this betrothal. But, Laura, I never would have allowed you to accept Mr Rathbone’s proposal if I didn’t believe he was a good man.’
‘Why? What did he tell you yesterday?’ Everyone seemed to believe in him. Why couldn’t she?
‘He was very honest with me and told me of losing his wife and his hopes for Jane and Thomas. It was like hearing myself speak of you and how it felt to lose your father. Look at him,’