But it wasn’t the money. It had never been the money.
The trust had always been a symbol. Proof that her father loved her. Proof that he remembered her, thought about her. Proof that he was waiting for her.
And it had always been a lie.
“You knew,” she accused her grandmother, voice bleak. “You knew and you didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t want to break your heart.” Her grandmother’s gaze was tortured. “You had just lost your mother. Who knew if your father would ever return? If you needed to believe in a fairy-tale to get through each day, I wasn’t going to rip that from you, too.”
Priscilla’s heart skipped. “But you told me—”
“I told you, Get married.” Grandmother’s eyes flashed. “It was your only chance for a better life. A chance for happiness. There was no trust, no dowry. Just an old townhouse with an old woman inside.” She suddenly seemed small and frail. “One bitter old lady is enough. I didn’t want that for you.”
“Don’t be bitter.” Priscilla wrapped her in a fierce hug. “I told you. I’ll never abandon you. I’m yours forever. You’re my grandmother, and I love you.”
“You made the right decision by choosing love,” Grandmother whispered into her hair. “That’s the man who deserves you. You didn’t give up anything at all.”
Priscilla pulled away in horror. She’d closed the door on the man who loved her. He’d come for an answer, and that had been her response. She would not blame him if he no longer trusted her love, no longer was interested in risking his future on a woman who would shut the door against him when all he ever wanted from her was her love.
“Go,” Grandmother said as if reading her thoughts. “Get him.”
Priscilla nodded and ran from the parlor without even sparing a glance at her father. He was her past.
Thaddeus was her future.
Chapter 15
Thad scanned his bedchamber bookshelves, determined to pretend everything was fine. He armed himself with his favorite biographies and nestled in his usual chair located in the same corner of his iron balcony. Life would go on as normal.
Except it didn’t feel normal. It felt like the ague and influenza and the morning after a long night of far too much whisky.
Thunder crashed overhead and the first wave of mottled clouds spit cold drops of rain onto Thad’s shoulders. Fitting.
He could let himself be sad that Priscilla preferred a life of surprises and excitement and adventure, but he could not be surprised.
She had told him she didn’t want a husband. She had told him their bluebirds-singing, rainbows-soaring, fireworks-exploding liaison could only be temporary.
She had told him he might have his answer in the morning.
He opened a book at random, uncaring which end was up. Nothing else was going the right way, so why should this biography on Jean-Jacques Rousseau be any different? Its lengthy paragraphs slowly came into focus. Not Rousseau. Africa. In Thad’s distracted state, he’d chosen books that reminded him of Priscilla.
“Damn it.” He flung them inside the room, heedless of where or how they might land.
Normally, when he wanted to escape from the world into something that brought him joy and peace, Thad picked up a pencil and his journal and got lost in his manuscript.
He didn’t have his manuscript. He’d given it to Priscilla along with his heart.
Not that he felt like working on it. Thad didn’t feel like anything at all. He propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his face into his palms.
He would simply have to keep his distance, he decided dully. An effortless proposition, given Priscilla’s father was here to whisk her to exotic locales on the other side of the globe.
Thad would simply continue on as usual. The same tavern. The same chair. The same routine, the same routs, the same smile plastered on his face as he invited the same people to the same dances.
No matter how splintered his heart might feel inside.
He might have passed the entire day like that—head in hands, elbows digging into knees, spine slumped, heart heavy—were it not for a commotion on the street below.
Worried a carriage accident might be unfolding right outside his door, he leapt to his feet at once.
