“I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”
“Lucy, it is not romantic. Not at all.” She slowly raised her head and met Lucy’s gaze. The words rose from her throat without her permission. “I knew him before,” she whispered, leaning closer. “I knew him long ago. That is all you see. A remembered friendship.”
“Oh, Kate.” Lucy’s eyes filled with tears.
“Hush,” Kate said, before she raised her gaze to the sky to stop her own tears. “It’s only memory you’re seeing on his face. Nothing more.”
“And what about yours?”
That stopped her cold. Did she love him? She watched a single white cloud float across the desolate sky. Her heart was calm.
Did she love him?
Hadn’t she always?
She lowered her chin and met Lucy’s wet eyes. “Did you ask your father about English newspapers from Ceylon?”
Lucy’s face crumpled in confusion. “Yes . . . I . . . He’s found some already.”
“Wonderful. Perhaps I can retrieve them after our walk.”
“Oh, certainly. I’ll have them wrapped up for you.”
“Thank you.”
Lucy nodded, and though her eyes were dark with disappointment, she changed the subject and began discussing the newest details in the saga of Gulliver Wilson’s debt-ridden brother.
Kate fought the urge to race back to Lucy’s house and steal away with the papers. But only just. Because she could not move forward with her life until she found out what she’d left behind. And suddenly, the future seemed so much brighter.
Chapter 19
Aidan stared intently out the window of his old bedchamber, Penrose’s voice a gnat’s buzz in his ear. This section of the York gardens had been his view for so many years of his childhood that he didn’t notice the beauty anymore. All he could see was Kate as she’d lain sleeping the morning he’d left. She’d never been to his family home. He wondered if she would like it.
He’d been gone from her for two weeks. Two horrid, maddening weeks.
He wanted nothing more than to return to Hull, but this morning’s train had brought him to the family home and all the people who loved him. Yet at the train station, he’d stared dolefully at the signs pointing in another direction.
Normally, business would be his escape from his restlessness, but now it seemed there could be nothing more mind-numbing than importing problems, and he couldn’t focus enough on new proposals to make any real decisions.
Opening a drawer in Penrose’s portable desk, Aidan rifled through it until he found his personal stationery, not noticing when Penrose’s words slowed to a halt.
“Mr. York, is there a letter you wish me to write?”
Aidan grunted a negative as his hand closed around a pen.
“Sir—”
“You’ll go to Hull tonight.”
“I will?”
“Continue your search for respectable lodgings. Make sure of adequate space for my study.”
“Yes. Of course. But . . . Mr. Ferris requested an answer—”
“Fine. You can send an answer just as easily from Hull. Tell him I’ll meet with him in London in five days.”
“Yes, sir.”