She slipped her arm from his but kept hold of his hand. “Seeing her relief eased a great deal of my own pain. It will still be difficult to let her go, but I at least will know she passed in peace.”
He squeezed her fingers. “Do not hesitate to send for me tonight if I can help you at all.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
Gillian managed not to cry until after Mrs. Brownlow was soundly sleeping, some thirty minutes after Scott left the room. Dr. Lowry, the physician, had stepped out as well, meaning to rest for a time after days in the sickroom. Alone, Gillian allowed her tears to flow, acknowledging at last the fear she’d had of arriving too late, the grief she felt at the impending loss of this lady she loved so much, the exhaustion she felt to her very core.
She had already lost her mother, in many ways her father, and now she was losing what little family she had left. What was she going to do? She wouldn’t be entirely alone; she had the Huntresses, but that wasn’t the same. Would her father remain here at Houghton Manor? If she asked him to live with her wherever she was able to obtain a place of her own, would he?
Gillian wiped at the moisture on her cheek. Though she’d done her best not to admit it to herself, she couldn’t help feeling that her father’s true reason for coldness had to beher. He could have spent time with her in ways that wouldn’t risk revealing their connection. He could have managed something. But he didn’t. For years, she’d tried not to admit to herself that he didn’t want to.
Her next breath was shaky, broken. The past years had torn her down in so many ways. But Mrs. Brownlow had always helped piece her together again. She’d said again and again how welcome and wanted Gillian was, how worthy she was of being loved. She had given Gillian hope.
And now she was slipping away.
Gillian pulled open the drawer in Mrs. Brownlow’s bedside table where she knew she could find a handkerchief. If she wasgoing to spend the entire night in tears, which seemed likely, she would do well to be prepared.
“You do notalwayshave to be practical,” Mrs. Brownlow had said mere months after Gillian had come to live at Houghton Manor. “A fourteen-year-old girl ought to be a bit impetuous now and then.”
Family finances had been so meager and their situation so dire for years that, by the time Gillian had become Mrs. Brownlow’s ward, practicality was ingrained in her as a matter of survival. Mrs. Brownlow had given her reason to smile again. To breathe.
Footsteps sounded behind her. Gillian turned and saw her father standing in the doorway. She held her breath, waiting to hear what he would say, to see whom he would choose to be in that moment. Oh, how she needed her father and not Mr. Walker.
“Who is Mr. Sarvol?” He asked the question as if he were deeply concerned about the answer. The way a father would be?
“He was at the house party.” She watched him as she spoke. “Upon hearing that I needed to return to Houghton Manor quickly, Mr. Sarvol kindly offered to accompany me here. He is a good friend to the Jonquil family. The dowager countess, in fact, looks on him as something of a son.”
“But who is he toyou?” he pressed.
Thiswasa personal concern, then. Hope began to bubble, but caution warred against it. “Why is it important for you to know?”
There were so many possible answers, so many she wanted to hear. So many things sheneededto hear.
“Mrs. Brownlow would ask these questions if she were able,” was his impersonal reply. “I am inquiring in her stead.”
With less than graceful movements, Gillian poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the bureau, giving herself a moment to rally her strength and the courage to ask the questionheaviest on her mind. “Why could you not ask on your own behalf?”
“I am the butler, Miss Phelps.” He spoke as stiffly as ever. “It would be inappropriate.”
I am the butler. How she’d come to dread those four words these past years.
She turned to face him once more. “Only the three of us are present just now. Must you be the butler in this moment?”
He held himself proudly. “I promised Mrs. Brownlow I’d never do anything while holding this position that would bring disgrace.”
Pain pierced her heart. She tried to breathe through it. “Talking to your daughteras her fatherwould not be a source of disgrace,” she whispered.
“Having it known that your father is the butler would disgraceyou.” He spoke just as quietly as she had. “All I can be is the butler.”
She knew the consequences of their connection being known. She understood. She’d lived in fear of this secret for years, knowing of the many lives it would destroy, the pain it would leave in its wake. But in that moment, with Mrs. Brownlow teetering on the edge of death, caution offered no comfort. She desperately needed her father.
Gillian set her still-full glass on the bureau. “Mrs. Brownlow is the only person in this world who currently acknowledges me as family,” she whispered. “And I am losing her.” She stepped closer to her father. “Please.” Her voice broke a little on the word. “Be more than the butler right now. Please.”
“I can’t,” he said.
But what Gillian heard, what she always heard, was “Iwon’t.” Always “Iwon’t.”
Into the heavy silence, Mrs. Brownlow spoke, weak and frail. “Where . . . is . . . Mr. Sarvol?”