Keith lunged again, jerking them both forward. Flame seared Stephen’s shoulder, and he felt his stitches tear and pain knife deep. He fell to the floor.
“Stephen!”
He opened his eyes to find his mother and sister kneeling beside him.
“I’m all right.” He grimaced and sat up, his shoulder screaming and his vision dotted.
Wesley wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and scowled at Keith. “You are welcome to Angela, CK. Not that she’d have a one-armed drunkard like you. Sophie is the woman I want. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a coach to catch.”
“The devil you do,” Stephen called after him, trying to lunge to his feet. But his father kept hold of him, his grip surprisingly tight.
“Hush, Stephen,” his mother commanded. She pulled back his coat. “Oh no. You’re bleeding.”
Stephen protested, “If anyone goes to Sophie, it will be me.”
“You’re not going anywhere, my boy,” his father insisted. “At least not until Dr. Matthews takes another look at your shoulder.”
“Yes, my dear. Send for him, quickly.”
His father drew himself up. “Mine is the fastest horse. I will go for Dr. Matthews myself.”
“No, not all that way. Think of your chest—”
“My chest is fine, woman. I am through thinking of it. I am thinking of Stephen now. You are not the only one who needs to feel useful.”
She blinked in surprise, clearly taken aback. “Very well, my love,” she said gently. “If you think it best.”
“I do.”
It was the first time in years Stephen had heard his father stand up to her. Perhaps it had been what she was waiting for.
Stephen acquiesced, cursing every minute the physician took in reaching Overtree Hall, and his tedious examination. The stitches in his left shoulder had reopened during the skirmish, and his parents insisted he wait until the doctor restitched, redressed, and bound the wound. The doctor prescribed a day or two of bed rest, but Stephen refused. Thankfully the tear was superficial, and the physician concluded that the muscle beneath was intact and mending nicely.
“Papa, I have to go. I love her. And who knows what Wesley might say to try to persuade her otherwise.”
“If she could be so easily swayed, she isn’t worthy of you,” his mother said.
“I happen to agree with poor Miss Blake in this instance,” his father said. “Sophie possesses great strength of character. She will not be persuaded to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
Stephen prayed that was true.
He was willing to accept God’s will. Or hers. But not Wesley’s.
chapter 34
Nearly six weeks after Mary’s birth, Mrs. Thrupton finally relinquished her protective watch-care and allowed Sophie to go for a walk alone. She had been cooped up indoors too long and longed to enjoy the remaining autumn sunsets before winter’s chill returned.
She did not bother with easel and paints. She only wanted to walk, to see, to absorb, to breathe. Reaching Castle Rock, she simply stood there on the precipice, cape flapping around her, hair whipping in her face, watching the sun lowering on the horizon over the sea. She had done the same dozens of times over the years, but now she stood there with a new stillness. A new gratitude. A new appreciation for the one who had created this spot, and that sun, and her, and her daughter. Everything. He had created the whole vast, astoundingly beautiful world and yet knew ordinary little her personally. Loved her. Sent His Son for her. Sent Captain Overtree too.
“Thank you,” she breathed. “Thank you for Mary Katherine. For Stephen. For allowing me to reflect just a tiny bit of your creative power in the talents you have given me. Whatever happens with Captain Overtree, please help me to raise my daughter and live my life in a way that pleases you—that adds a little stroke of glory to your vast display.”
It rained hard that night, but the next day broke sunny and beautiful.
Her father walked up to Mavis’s and delivered the welcome news that he had sold her landscape painting, and for a very good price.
Sophie beamed in pleasure. She and Mary Katherine would be all right on their own for a time, if need be.
Late that afternoon, leaving her baby with trusted and doting Mavis for the second time, Sophie struck out along the cliff path, her legs a little stiff from her first long walk the day before, after so many weeks of idleness.
