“She has more sense than you credit, I think.” After tossing on a larger piece of wood, he returned to her side. “Still, your care for your sister is a noble endeavor.”
“There is nothing noble about it. I made a vow to my father to look out for her and the house.” A sigh deflated her, and she hunched farther into the blanket. “Though it seems I am failing miserably.”
“None of it! Penny is well tended, and once those antiquities sell, you shall have your tax money and then some. Inman Manor will be restored to its former glory beneath your hand.”
She peered over at him. “Do you really think so?”
“I know so.” He bopped her on the nose with one finger.
She stared into the fire, doubting every word he’d spoken.
“You carry the weight of the world.” His words were a soft rumble. “Why is that?”
Hah. As if she’d tell him all her deep, dark secrets. She fixed her gaze on the flames, ignoring the question.
“I know you may think otherwise, but you can trust me, Eva. I am a good listening ear. Besides”—he nudged her with his shoulder—“we have a history, you and me. We are friends, are we not?”
Slowly, she nodded. Despite his childhood pranks, he always had been there when she’d needed him most.
Until he wasn’t.
Sorrow welled. As a girl she hadn’t understood what she had done to make him abandon her without a single good-bye or even a note of explanation. “We were friends at one time.”
“And we still are. I have not changed my mind on that matter—and I never will. So tell me what troubles you. I promiseanything said here tonight will not be repeated. Now is your chance to unload your secret burdens and be free of them—at least for one evening.”
Mesmerized by the flames, for the briefest of moments, she allowed herself to believe that could be true. “How lovely that would be.”
“Then do so. It is a magical night. A storm like none other. Why, the winds that rattle these walls could blow your troubles all away.”
Would that were true! Longing for just such a relief, she studied his face. The flames reflected sincerity in his grey eyes. Not a hint of jesting twitched his lips. All in all, he appeared to be deadly serious. “Do you vow you will not breathe a word of my secrets to anyone?”
Solemnly he nodded, one hand pressed flat against his heart. “I do.”
She turned back to the fire. If she was going to do this—wasshe going to do this?—then she’d do so without making eye contact. Sucking in a breath for courage, she willed a confession she’d kept locked deep in her soul to rise to her tongue. “I...” She swallowed against the swelling in her throat. “I am to blame for my parents’ deaths, my sister’s blindness, and the dismal state of Inman Manor.”
There. She’d said it. All of it. Aloud. Something she’d not dared to do since her father’s accident. And just as she’d feared, hearing it come from her own lips opened up a fresh ache in her soul.
Bram was quiet for a while, then finally spoke. “I am at a loss to think how you could have possibly accomplished all of that.”
Her chin dropped to her chest, shame a sickening weight. “My mother died about six months after you disappeared. I left open a window I had been told to close.”
He turned her face to his. “A window?”
She tossed back her head, unwilling to give in to his tendertouch. She didn’t deserve such a kindness. “My mother was terribly ill during her confinement, though admittedly, she was never of prime health. Mother had weak lungs, you see, and during her pregnancy had suffered a terrible rash and fever. I simply wished to spare her any further torment. Dixon always forced me to take air whenever I felt ill, so I assumed such a measure could only be beneficial. My mother was too weak to leave her bed, so I opened her window. Father had bid me close it before I left her room, but I did not. I left the room with it open, and I forgot to go back and do as I was told.” Eva scrunched her eyes closed, trapping hot tears. “Would that I had, for that one act of disobedience caused her to leave me forever.”
“What happened?” Bram asked softly.
“Mother went into labour the next day. She died shortly after delivery. A month or so later, the wet nurse declared Penny to be blind. My father never recovered from such low blows, and I suspect it was his melancholy that affected his business sense. Though I did not realize it at the time, he simply could not manage anymore.” She pressed her fists to her eyes. “Last year, I quarreled with him over a gown. A silly little gown! He had refused me, but I pushed and pushed until he stormed off for a ride—one that took him from me as well.” Eva forced her eyes open and looked full in Bram’s face. Better to bear his disgusted expression head-on than hear it in his voice. “So you see, it was all my fault, and now I am abandoned by them both.”
“Rubbish. I hate that you believe such awful lies.” Shooting to his feet, he threw a piece of wood at the fire, kicking up red sparks. “It is God alone who numbers our days, not a twelve-year-old girl doing what she thought best for her mother or a young woman who knew nothing about the state of her father’s affairs. The strain of labour no doubt took its toll on your mother’s lungs, and the horse hurt your father, not you. You had nothing to do with any of it.”
“Maybe so, but had my mother not been so terribly ill, Penny wouldn’t have been born blind. And if I had not been so insistent on my way, my father would not have gone out riding in such a frame of mind.”
“Perhaps, and yet I repeat you are not God. He is sovereign. You are not. And the same goes for your father’s melancholy. He made the choice to go riding when obviously he should not have been. You are not responsible for anyone’s emotional state or choices made, save for your own.”
Her heart squeezed, a fresh hope straining to be born. What if ... this was truth? Dare she believe it? How freeing that would be, and yet also fearful, for to admit such a thing meant she wasn’t in control ... and she desperately needed to be in control. She didn’t know any other way to live, for how else could she stop anyone else from abandoning her? “It seems you are determined to see the best in me.”
“Oh, Eva.” Face softening, Bram dropped to his knees in front of her and collected both her hands in his. “What I see is a woman who has blamed herself far too long for things she ought not.”
