“Very well, where is the tea?”
Hilde retrieved a bottle from the floor next to her. Finding a cup for herself, Piper pulled up a woven-topped footstool and joined her. She held out her cup and Hilde filled it generously.
“In need of a drink, are you?” the cook asked.
In many ways, Piper thought. It had been a day of wildly divergent emotions. Anxiety, devastating passion, amusement, intrigue, and a growing respect for Connor. In the end, what she’d been left with was sadness.
Sadness that this was going to come to an end all too soon. She wasn’t prepared to give any of it up. Including him.
Unless he were to accompany her, as he’d said.
A bright spot in her future. Unfortunately, it, like everything else, would fade in time.
“I overheard some of your conversation. It was a joy to see you as engaged and vivacious as you used to be,” Hilde remarked after a moment. “I’m surprised that you’d take such a chance.”
“I trust him. Do you think that’s foolish of me?”
“He’s proven himself a kind man. A gentleman. The crofters have nothing but good things to say about him.” The older woman paused, looking away from the dancing flames to glance at Piper. “Have you told him everything then?”
Their evening had been filled with such entertaining conversation, she hadn’t found an appropriate moment to tell him the whole truth. Even when her familiarity with the manor and its people filled his eyes with questions, she hadn’t been able to confess it all. It was too late in the evening to launch intothattalk.
“Not yet. I will, though. I want to,” Piper added quietly, staring down into the amber swirls of her cup as if it would hold some assurance of the days ahead. “He thinks I should leave here. For good.”
Hilde said nothing, nudging her chair into motion with one toe as she sipped her brandy.
Piper also took a swallow of hers, enjoying the slow burn down her throat. It had a way of calming one’s nerves and tumultuous thoughts. “What do you think?”
“You know what I think, child.”
Yes. Hilde thought she should reveal herself and renew her faith in her brother. Moreover, she thought Piper should feel guilty for not telling Harry where she was. Or rather share the guilt Hilde herself harbored for not doing the same. Should she, though? After all, she had begged her brother to come and he never had. To her mind, the guilt should be his.
Not hers.
Though she’d rejected the idea when she first learned of her brother’s return, it blossomed into a more and more alluring possibility. One which grew more feasible with each day creeping closer to his return. Maybe she should give him a chance. Hear him out before making a decision.
Connor encouraged her to leave. An uninformed opinion as he didn’t know the whole truth as yet about who she or her undependable guardian were. If he knew—once he knew—would his opinion change? She’d like to find out. She would find a way to tell him the truth.
“I should hate to lose moments like these, you know?” Hilde said after a long stretch of silence.
Piper didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Sliding off her stool, she sat at Hilde’s feet and laid her head in the older woman’s lap. “Me, too. You’ve been the mother I never had, Hilde.” It needed to be said before she didn’t have another chance.
A trembling hand smoothed over her hair, and the cook inhaled a shaky breath that had tears stinging at Piper’s eyes. “And you have always been my precious child.”
A hot tear splashed on her cheek. Losing all she had when she thought she had nothing left at all would break her heart.
“I only want good things for you,” Hilde whispered with a sniff. “Mr. MacKintosh might be one of them.”
Piper liked to think so, too. Regrettably, she had learned good things didn’t last forever.
“You should get to bed. It’s late.”
With a nod, Piper swiped at her eyes before she climbed to her feet and held out at hand to the older woman. “As should you. Mr. MacKintosh will be wanting his breakfast bright and early, I’d wager.”
“Up with the sun, that one,” Hilde agreed, and let Piper help her out of the chair with a mumbled complaint about old bones. “Let me ring for Albert.”
“No, don’t bother him. I’ll stay here tonight.”
The cook’s brows rose, though she made no comment. Banking the fire, Hilde departed for the room that had been set aside for her near Mrs. Davies’s in the service hall. The three flights of stairs to the servants’ quarters above were too great an obstacle for her to surmount on a regular basis these days.
