“Your mama knows what's best for you,” Zachary murmured, smiling faintly though he was dying inside. “You be a good girl and do as she says.”
“I am a good girl always,” Rose said, and began to sniffle again. “Oh, Mr. Bronson…what will happen to my toys?”
“I'll send every last one to you at the Taylors'.”
“They won't all fit.” She used a chubby hand to smear a teardrop across her cheek. “Their house is much, much littler than yours.”
“Rose…” He sighed and pressed her head against his shoulder, his huge hand engulfing the entire top of her skull. She stayed against him and snuggled close, patting his scratchy jaw. After a while, she wriggled away. “You're squashing Miss Crumpet!”
“Sorry,” he said contritely, reaching out to straighten the doll's little blue bonnet.
“Will I ever see you and Lizzie again?” Rose asked woefully.
Zachary couldn't bring himself to lie to her. “Not very often, I'm afraid.”
“You'll miss me awfully,” she said, heaving a sigh, and she began to fumble for something in the pocket of her pinafore.
Something went wrong with Zachary's eyes, some odd blurring and stinging that he couldn't seem to blink away. “Every day, princess.”
Rose extracted a small object from the pocket and handed it to him. “This is for you,” she said. “It's my perfume button. When you get sad, you can smell it, and you'll feel better. It always works for me.”
“Princess,” Zachary said, making his voice soft to keep it from cracking, “I can't take your favorite button.” He tried to give it back to her, but she pushed his hand away.
“You need it,” she said stubbornly. “You keep it, Mr. Bronson. And don't lose it.”
“All right.” Zachary closed his fist over the button and bowed his head over it, struggling with his unruly emotions. He had done this to himself, he thought. He had schemed and manipulated until he had gotten Lady Holland Taylor to live in his home. But he had never anticipated the consequences. If he had only known…
“Are you going to cry, Mr. Bronson?” the child asked in concern, coming to stand beside his knees, staring into his downturned face.
He managed to smile at her. “Just a little on the inside,” he said raspily. He felt her little hand on his cheek, and he held utterly still as she kissed him on the nose.
“Good-bye, Mr. Bronson,” she whispered, and she left with her button string trailing dolefully behind her.
It was still morning when his carriage was finally prepared for his departure, and there was nothing keeping him at the estate. Nothing but his own tormented heart. Pondering all that had been said between he and Holly, he realized that there was nothing to be gained by further conversation. The choices had been set out, and Holly would either go or stay according to her own desires, with no interference from him.
However, there was one bit of unfinished business remaining. Ascertaining that Holly had taken Rose out to the garden, Zachary went up to her bedroom. The blond maid, Maude was there, her arms stacked high with folded garments as she walked from the armoire to the bed. She jumped a little as she saw him standing at the entrance to the room. “S-sir?” she questioned warily, setting the folded clothes in the corner of a trunk.
“I have something to ask of you,” he said curtly.
Clearly puzzled as to what he wanted, Maude turned to face him. He sensed her discomfort at being alone in the same room with him. This room, particularly, with Holly's clothes and possessions spread everywhere. There was a pile of objects on the bed: a hairbrush, a set of combs, an ivory box, a small frame covered in a leather case. He would have thought nothing of the frame, except that Maude discreetly tried to nudge it out of sight as she approached him. “Is there a chore I might do for ye, sir?” the maid asked uneasily. “Something I can fetch or mend or—”
“No, nothing like that.” His gaze strayed to the frame case. “What is that?”
“Oh, it's…well, something personal to Lady Holly, and…sir, she wouldn't like it if ye—” Maude spluttered with dismayed protests as Zachary reached over and plucked the frame case from the pile.
“A miniature?” he asked, deftly shaking the object from its leather casing.
“Yes, sir, but…you shouldn't, really…oh, dear.” Maude's pudgy cheeks reddened, and she sighed in patent discomfort as he stared at the little portrait.
“George,” Zachary said quietly. He had never seen a likeness of the man, had never wanted to before. It was only to be expected that Holly should carry a portrait of her late husband, for Rose's benefit as well as her own. However, Zachary had never asked to view a likeness of George Taylor, and Holly had certainly never volunteered to show him. Perhaps Zachary had expected that he would feel a pang of animosity at the sight of Taylor's face, but as he stared at the miniature, he was conscious only of a surprising feeling of pity.
He had always thought of George as a contemporary, but this face was impossibly young, adorned with sideburns that amounted to a bit of peach fuzz on either side of his cheeks. Zachary was startled by the realization that Taylor couldn't have been more than twenty-four when he died, almost a full ten years younger than Zachary was now. Holly had been wooed and loved by this handsome boy, with his golden blond hair and untroubled blue eyes, and a smile that hinted of mischief. George had died before he'd barely tasted of life, widowing a girl who had been even more innocent than he.
Try as he might, Zachary couldn't blame George Taylor for trying to protect Holly, arrange things for her, ensure that his infant daughter was taken care of. No doubt George would have been anguished at the thought of his wife being seduced and made miserable by the Zachary Bronsons of the world. “Dammit,” Zachary whispered, shoving the miniature back into its leather sheath. Scowling, he set the object on the bed.
Maude stared at him warily. “Is there aught I can do for ye, sir?”
He gave a single nod and reached inside his coat. “I want you to have this,” he muttered, extracting a small bag weighted with gold coins. To a servant of Maude's station, it amounted to a fortune. “Take it, and promise me that if there is ever anything Lady Holland needs, you'll send for me.”