Nine years old. Eleanor should have been able to release her breath then, for she’d guessed correctly. Cam’s father hadn’t left. He’d died.
But the breath wouldn’t come. “How?” She choked out.
“Fever. It was that quick.” Mrs. Mullins tapped the table once with her finger. “He didn’t recognize his wife and son at the last.”
A green-eyed, tousled headed boy, nine years old, rescuing kittens and pilfering sweets one day, and the next . . .
She released the breath on a shudder. The next, his father was dead.
“After that, well, Sarah West was never right again.”
“No. She wouldn’t be.”
Had Sarah West been more fortunate than Ellie’s mother, or less so? She’d known love. She’d had that much, at least, but oh, so briefly, and at the end she’d been left with nothing, because once you gave your heart, you never got it back.
Eleanor took a sip of her warm milk, but the lump in her throat remained. “Reginald West moved his family to Lindenhurst after Cam’s father’s death?”
Mrs. Mullins nodded. “There’s no telling what might have become of Mr. Camden if his cousin hadn’t come to live here.”
Eleanor tried to smile. “To save kittens, and steal sweets?”
“Oh, much more than that. He saved Mr. Camden, too.” Memories drifted over Mrs. Mullins’ face. “I’ve never known a boy with a more affectionate heart than Julian West. Pure gold, his heart, just like his mother’s.”
It was a wonder a man like Reginald West hadn’t tarnished her heart—hers, and his son’s. That he hadn’t crushed their every decent impulse. Ellie had seen it happen before, seen a man squeeze until the people around him became unrecognizable . . .
“Some here don’t think of it as so,” Mrs. Mullins said, “but I’ve always thought it was a blessing they came, despite what happened afterwards.”
Eleanor gripped her mug, her knuckles white.
Amelia. She’d happened afterwards.
She didn’t dare ask Mrs. Mullins if Sarah West had remarried. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. “You mean Cam and his mother being forced to leave Lindenhurst?”
Mrs. Mullins’ lips went tight. “They removed to the gamekeeper’s cottage, at Mr. West’s insistence. Those of us who’d known the first Mr. West were heartbroken over it. No matter what Sarah West had done, Lindenhurst was her home, and she was a widow with a young child.”
Cam’s mother had done something, then . . .
Something. Eleanor could hardly be at a loss to imagine what. The secret she’d been chasing, the secret she’d been so eager to discover—it wasn’t Cam’s secret at all.
It was Amelia’s.
She wrapped her fingers around her mug to stop their trembling. “Cam and his mother lived with the Wests at first? For nearly four years, until . . .”
Until Reginald West had learned of Sarah West’s disgrace.
Mrs. Mullins leaned toward her across the table. “Yes, and things might still have been well, but for—”
“Lady Eleanor,” a low voice drawled from the door. “I find you at last.”
Eleanor whirled around, half-rising from her seat. Cam leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. He’d shed his coat, and the white cambric of his shirt stretched tight over his powerful shoulders.
Dear God. He looked . . . huge. Huge, and furious.
He eased away from the door and sauntered into the room. “I’ve been all over the house, searching for you. Odd, but I hadn’t thought to look in the kitchens.”
His green eyes glittered with anger as they settled on her face.
Mrs. Mullins rose from her place at the table. “Why, good evening, Mr. Camden. What brings you to the kitchens?”
