“Sophia and Dev know you are here, then? Did Dev plan this?” It would be just like her nephew to do something so wonderfully considerate. And on Christmas, no less.
But Harold was shaking his head. “Findlay, Lady Kensington’s father. Tracked me down and demanded I come make an accounting to my mother.” Harold continued talking, telling her how Thomas Findlay had located him at the special lodging house near the docks. How he’d recognized him from a portrait he’d seen, and then remembered, but Loretta only half listened to the details.
Thomas Findlay had done this? For her?
After she’d sent him away. After she’d told him he was beneath her.
He’d brought to her the only Christmas gift that could have possibly given her any joy whatsoever. And in doing so, he’d opened up her heart to love again.
How had he known?
Oh, Thomas.
Dear, dear Thomas.
She and Harold took tea, talked of his new life, of how he and Stewart and some of their friends who suffered the same affliction would eventually travel to an island they’d learned of. But they were waiting for spring to come. And some of them had other arrangements to tend to first.
But eventually they would leave. Although they remained rather hidden and protected in their disguises and community, they were not safe.
He would eventually leave.
But for now, he was here. She even asked him how he and Stewart were getting along.
Harold blushed, causing Loretta to reach out and grasp his hand. “It is fine. I am happy you discovered somebody so very special, somebody who makes you happy.” And then a short knock sounded at the door.
“Come in!”
The blustering wind carried a few snowflakes inside as the door swung open to allow Thomas and a familiar looking young man with him to enter.
“Stewart.” Loretta stood and embraced the young man who made her son feel alive. Something she was just beginning to understand. The last time she’d been in the young man’s company had been the day of Harold’s memorial. He’d looked tormented then. Of course, he would have been worried. “I cannot thank you both enough for coming here tonight.”
And then she looked over at Thomas. She thanked him with her eyes. She could not speak to him in front of others. Her emotions seemed too fresh, too raw to do so. And he might turn her away after all.
But she would take a chance. She would risk her pride.
The four of them shared more of the food and tea until at last everything that could be said that night had been said.
Stewart rose with a look in Harold’s direction. “I think we had best take our leave.” Thinking of the two of them together, as romantic partners, had seemed so very odd and wrong to Loretta, but tonight, hearing the tenderness and caring in his voice for her son, it seemed perfectly natural.
Harold rose as did Thomas and then Loretta. “Your grace.” Stewart bowed over her hand, and then Harold stepped forward.
“Don’t worry for me, Mother. I’ll write to Findlay, here, so that he can pass my correspondence along.” And then he embraced her. “I want you to be happy, Mama.” He choked slightly on his whispered sentiment. “For me.”
Loretta swallowed hard. “I will. I promise. And then she clasped his hand one last time. She did not want to release him. It might be years, or perhaps another lifetime before she saw him again. “I love you.” She said the words aloud before even thinking to catch them. “Be safe. Be happy. Both of you.”
She knew more tears would come, but she would hold them back until after they’d left. She did not want his last sight of her to be an unhappy one.
She and Thomas followed them out the door and watched them climb onto the two mounts that waited nearby.
She smiled with as much courage as she could muster. “Happy Christmas!”
“Happy Christmas!” They both wished her back, almost as though in one voice, and then in the blink of an eye, they rode away down the narrow lane. She stood watching, not even aware that she was without her wrap, until they disappeared.
“Come inside, Duchess.” Thomas touched her arm tentatively. “You’ll catch your death out here.”
“Oh, Thomas,” she cried out, and then threw herself at him. He swept her into his arms and carried her back inside. Into the warmth cast by the fire, where only moments ago she’d sat with her son.
She wept.
