“Then what did you do?” Ben asked.
“I trapped, traveled around, married.” He said the last evenly as if it was of no consequence, but it was—and, of course, Gavin caught it.
“You are married?”
“I was.” Jack glanced over to the cabinet with the whisky decanter and moved toward it. He needed a drink. He could be calm, reasoned... until he let himself remember. He poured himself a healthy amount and took a swallow, letting the smoke of very good whisky ease a hated memory.
“Childbed fever took her.” Jack drained his glass in one gulp. “It was a difficult birth. My son was stillborn.”
For a moment there was silence, and then Ben said, “I am sorry.”
“As am I,” Gavin agreed.
A hard lump formed in Jack’s throat the way it always did when he let himself remember too much. “She has been gone seven years.”
“What was her name?” Gavin asked.
“Hope.”
“What was your son’s name?”
Jack paused a long moment and then said, “Daniel, after her father.”
“I’m sorry,” Ben said.
Gavin picked up his own glass and swallowed before saying, “As I am as well.”
Jack set his glass on the cabinet. He now turned it thoughtfully as he finished his tale. “I had a farm at the time. There was nothing left for me there so I sold it and decided, ironically, to return to school. I attended Harvard College, studied law, and apprenticed under a man I admire, Caleb Strong. I started my practice in Boston. After so much time in the wilderness, the city suits me.” He took a step away from the cabinet. “So there is my story. That is where I’ve been. And now I’m here because our two countries are dangerously close to going to war.”
Gavin made a restless movement as if the change of subject to Jack’s purpose annoyed him. “And this is why you have finally returned? To persuade us to do what? Give you Canada?”
“There is a list of grievances I wish to share with you—”
“Bah!” Gavin said, rising and moving out from behind his desk on the side away from Jack. “I don’t want to prattle about that nonsense now.”
“Then when?”
Before Gavin could answer, the door opened. A lovely dark-headed woman came in holding the
seemingly frail arm of their mother. Marcella, the dowager duchess, wore a dressing robe,
and the pins had been removed from her hair so that it fell in silver locks around her shoulders.
Gavin was by her side immediately. “Mother, I thought Mr.Higley suggested you rest?”
She waved him away while she moved toward Jack. She stopped in front of him and placed her hands on his arms above the elbows. Tears formed in her eyes. “I had to see him again, to feel him. I needed to be certain I wasn’t dreaming.” She leaned close and Jack felt his arms go around her in the same manner that she had once hugged him when he was half his size.
His mother seemed impossibly small in his arms.
She drew in a deep breath. “Yes, you are my Jack. You have the scent I always remembered about you.”
“What? Flowers and roses?” Gavin suggested.
“Dirty potatoes,” their mother said, straightening and smiling up at Jack. “Welcome home, my son. Welcome.”
Jack hugged her tighter then, the sting of his own tears in his eyes. He blinked them back. Men did not cry. He’d cried over Hope and the son he’d lost. He’d mourned for them for years. However, now he had heavy responsibilities. He could not let sentimentality cloud his vision.
His mother stepped back and urged the young woman to come forward. “Here, do you remember Elin?”
