Chapter23
Drew was happy again. Aurora had come back to him, albeit with a little help from a mutual friend.
His patience had borne fruit. He had a second chance to be with her. To love her, now she finally had admitted to loving him in return.
Drew slid his hands down Aurora’s back slowly. But soon he realized there was a stiffness in the way she held herself to him.
Concern gripped him and he slowly let her go, trying to catch a glimpse of her face. Aurora quickly stepped back and turned away walking toward the fire. She perched on the edge of the settee, but wrapped her arms about her chest as if she was chilled through. She seemed so small and frail sitting there all alone when her presence had always been larger than life before.
He went to her quickly. “What’s wrong, my love? Are you unwell?”
“No.”
Despite her claim, he pressed a hand to her brow to check for fever. He found her comfortably warm but no sign of illness. Her hands, when he grasped them, were ice cold though. “Let me fetch a blanket to warm you.”
“I’m not unwell. But I have something difficult to say.”
Drew sank into the space by her side, his heart sinking with a certainty that something was terribly wrong still. Had she come back to stay or was this only a casual affair? “Are you going to leave me again?”
“No,” she sighed. “But you might want me to go.”
“I never would wish for that. These last weeks have been miserable for me, and for you too, I suspect. I missed you so very much,” he promised, smiling despite her tears as he kissed her brow. Her return had been so emotional for him. He’d experienced such profound joy at seeing Aurora once more standing in their home. Her return had given him renewed hope that whatever doubts she had about him could be resolved to her satisfaction in time.
He wouldn’t ever push for a marriage. Not unless she wanted that as well. He didn’t care who they offended if they never married. His father could go to hell, too, for making demands that had convinced her to leave him. He would never let that happen again.
“How about we stay here all day and all night then and watch the sun rise over the city together tomorrow from the attic windows?”
“Sunrise is a long time away,” she whispered.
“I suppose it must be?” Drew checked his pocket watch to look at the time. “It’s a quarter to one o’clock,” he told her, turning back.
“I’ve been thinking,” she whispered.
He settled back at her side. “About me and our future together?” he murmured, offering up a smile that he didn’t quite feel.
“Yes, about you, and a lot of other things I don’t like to think about.”
“Such as?” he asked gently.
He didn’t want to pry, scare her, and he’d been reluctant until now about asking too many questions. She kept a great deal bottled up. Especially about her life before coming to London with her cousins. That period in her past remained a complete mystery to him. He wanted to know what had caused her sudden sadness today, and if he could help her overcome whatever had caused it.
She stared at her fingers for a long time, and he shook his head. She would only tell him what he needed to know, when she wanted him to know it, and he would have to accept that if he wanted to be with her at all.
He was on the point of rising to leave her to her private thoughts, when she whispered, “My father disappeared from my life when I was very young.”
Drew held very still. Aurora had never once mentioned anything about her father. He’d assumed she had no living parents, given how close she was to her older cousins.
“We were poor, and he left us behind when he traveled to find work. We were without him a great deal. His work involved stables and horses, but also tricks with coins and gambling for money in low places, I think. My mother came from a wealthy family, though. Better than his, I know now. But I never remember meeting anyone from her family. Sylvia said that we met once, but I cannot remember. We lived a quiet life in a small village. One day, my father kissed me goodbye as he always did before leaving, and he never came back.”
Drew exhaled the breath he’d held while she’d been speaking. “He died?”
“I don’t know, but my mother wished he had.”
Drew winced. “Your parents were not happy together?”
“They used to fight. Terrible squabbles that sent me to hide behind doors, under my cot, so I couldn’t see their angry faces. Mother once threw a dish at his back, and when it fell it shattered upon the floor in so many pieces, it couldn’t be saved. It is the worst rows I remember most. About money. There never was enough to please my mother.”
“Money tends to make even the best families fight if it is in short supply. Even more when there is an excess, too.” He reached for her hand and found her fingers even colder now, and clammy. “That must have been terrible for a child to see. Frightening.”