“Please do. I don’t want anything to happen to you. The whole kidnapping debacle with Rose was more than enough.”
“It all ended fine,” Rose insisted.
Lisbeth supposed. The situation had been frightening, with Rose being kidnapped by thieves seeking to make a quick profit. It also had strange ties to the British Secret Service. She shivered. Not once had she thought the letters could be as serious as Rose’s kidnapping. Lisbeth needed to talk with Thomas about this.
She stood. “I’m going to depart for the day. I need to prepare for Rose and Sinclair’s ball.”
Rose shook her head. “We can all be honest. It isn’t my event. I adore Augustus’s mother, but the ball is her masterpiece, not mine.
All the ladies laughed.
*
Thomas walked intohis mother’s drawing room, happy to see her. She was sewing the hem of a dress. He frowned. “Can’t you hire someone to do that for you?”
She looked up and smiled. “I could, but I can also do it myself, and I enjoy sewing. It is one of the few tasks I miss about being a housekeeper.”
He sat in the wingback chair across from his mother, who was seated on the sofa. “What else do you miss?”
She smiled softly. “Taking care of a family. The Adnins were good to us. Even after you and Lisbeth left, they made sure I had a good reference.”
Thomas often wondered how his and Lisbeth’s choice to run off when they were young impacted his mother. He knew she’d found new employment. “They fired you?”
His mother shrugged. “My son ran off with the Earl’s daughter. I didn’t find it unreasonable.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes we have no control over what happens to us. Life and other people’s choices make it that way. We can only make the best of those situations.”
Guilt coursed through him. His mother loved her job at the Earl of Adnin’s townhouse. “I’m sorry.”
She put her dress aside and dramatically said, “An apology after all these years.”
He flushed. A smile filled his mother’s face. “My point is sometimes all we can do is survive what fate hands us.”
He nodded.
“It seems fate has given you and Lisbeth another chance.”
Thomas sighed. “I may have messed that up. I blew up on her.”
She frowned, concerned. “What happened?”
“I bought a piece of property right outside of the city and proposed that we move there. She was hesitant, and then it became about everything that happened between us.”
His mother gave him a stern look. “The two of you need to be open and honest with each other. Thomas, you can’t keep things bottled up, or that will continue to happen.”
“I know.”
“You two will find your way,” she said, smiling encouragingly.
“How do you know? I forced her to marry me.”
His mother shook her head. “I don’t believe you could have made Lisbeth marry you. It may have felt forced, but a part of her has always loved you. She and her husband were good friends, but there were no romantic feelings between them. To be honest, I think they both felt fortunate when Lisbeth became pregnant with Jeremy so quickly.”
The thought of Lisbeth in bed with any other man made jealousy flare in him. His mother reached over and squeezed hishand reassuringly. “My point is that you have always been the only one for her.”
“I’ve not been a saint.”
