“He’s in India,” Papa said with a chuckle. “I doubt I’ll ever get him out of there. The beautiful weather, the gorgeous food, so many delightful… charms. It’s heaven on earth.”
Grandmother no longer seemed solid. As though she’d been burnt into a hollow husk of herself, a grandmother-shaped curl of ash that would disintegrate in the next puff of wind and scatter into nothing.
That was why she hadn’t asked, Priscilla realized. He wasn’t here. He hadn’t come. There was nothing else Grandmother needed to know.
“I can’t stay long,” Papa said.
Priscilla turned to him in shock. “Surely, a few weeks—”
“I must present myself at port this afternoon, or the boat will leave without me,” he said, as if it was all a simple matter of practicality.
“But you just got here,” she protested.
Grandmother’s sad eyes met hers, and Priscilla tried not to crumble. Papa had only just arrived here, in their drawing room, at their town house, but his boat had docked at port who knew how many days or weeks before. They were an afterthought, at best.
But he had come.
“Well, daughter.” Oblivious, Papa turned his jovial gaze to Priscilla. “Care to accompany an old man off to adventure? Can you have a trunk packed by two o’clock?”
She’d kept a trunk packed since she was nine. It could be downstairs within minutes.
Her throat was dry, her palms sweaty. The moment was finally here. Fate, knocking at her door, as Thaddeus might say.
She closed her eyes.
In all her imaginings of sailing off to adventure with her father, never once had the vision entailed leaving the man she loved behind.
Worse. Priscilla opened her eyes. Whether she went or stayed, she would be saying goodbye to someone she loved.
She’d told Thaddeus from the beginning that she didn’t want a husband and never would. That what they had was temporary. She’d fallen in love with him, made love with him, but hadn’t made any promises or indicated it would be for more than one night.
Thaddeus wanted far more than one night. He wanted love. He wanted forever. He wanted a wife and a family and a home here in London. He wanted Priscilla.
Her chest pounded in misery and panic.
Papa wouldn’t be back for another decade or two, if then. Priscilla could set out as soon as she had her inheritance, but she wouldn’t have the least idea where to find him. Perhaps he’d be in India or Brazil. Perhaps he wouldn’t.
If she was ever going to join her father and grandfather on their journeys, this was her one and only chance.
She turned to her grandmother.
Grandmother’s eyes were open and focused, glassy and fierce. Her chin held high, her spine impossibly straight, her mouth a thin line. She’d known how this conversation would go even before Priscilla walked in the door.
Her stomach churned. Priscilla didn’t want to be like her grandmother, refused to be anything at all like Mama, but did she truly wish to be cut from the same cloth as her father and grandfather?
They chose adventure over love. Themselves over family. Self-indulgence over true connection.
They were happy, Priscilla had no doubt. But following them wouldn’t be forging her own way. Sailing off with her father and grandfather wouldn’t be realizing her dreams, but theirs. It was time she picked her own.
Love was scarier than adventure. Marriage was positively terrifying. Risking her heart, risking her happiness, risking her future, was what she had meticulously avoided doing all these lonely years.
She couldn’t leave Thaddeus behind, like her father and grandfather had done to her. Not just because she knew how awful that felt, but because Thaddeus was un-leave-behind-able. Marriage wasn’t a prison sentence, but a partnership.
Priscilla’s worst fear was being abandoned. Forgotten. Her goal had never been to live on ships and horses the rest of her life, but rather not to be left behind.
That was exactly what Thaddeus had been offering her. He wanted to take her with him for the rest of their lives, into a future they determined together. He was what made thoughts of the future joyful.
A temporary liaison wasn’t good enough. One night of love could never suffice. She wanted forever.
