to work hard.”
“Of course. I can earn my place.”
Henry gave a loud humph. “You’d better. You’ll leave before the month’s out. In the meantime, you do what you can to make your mother happy.” Sally would not like seeing her son take to sea. But what else was there to do?
Tom’s lips parted, as if he couldn’t believe his good fortune. Well, and if this was what the boy wanted, why shouldn’t he have it?
Springing from his chair, Tom crossed the distance to his father, then hesitated, swinging his empty hands. His face was bright, flushed with pleasure. “I won’t disappoint you father,” he promised.
Henry smiled, and took his son’s hand. “Of course not. You should tell your mother.”
Long after Tom raced from the room Henry sat there. He had known for a long time that Tom would be good in the business. He’d also known that no matter how Tom succeeded in the world of commerce, he could not help but be disappointed. It was not the life he wanted for his only son.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Seasons
Up in Cordell’s nursery, Sophy spent a sleepless night, agonizing over the loss of her mother’s sketches and the consequences of angering Lord Fairchild. She could not afford to offend her only protector. In the morning, she trembled as the new nursemaid conducted her to the library. Though Lord Fairchild accepted her wooden apology, she seemed to have killed any interest he had in her. She glimpsed him only once in the following fortnight.
The nursery was lonely and dark at night; she often woke, cold and terrified, too afraid to leave her room and with no one to call. Awake or asleep, she dreaded being sent away from Cordell Hall.
Escaping in her free hours to the park, it didn’t take Sophy long to find the ruin her mother had painted. How she longed for those pictures! Surely she would not be so troubled in that great empty nursery, if only she had them with her. After her angry outburst she was too afraid of Lord Fairchild to ask for the pictures back. The more time passed without speaking to him, the more timid she became. It hurt, knowing he had taken a share of her mother’s love, but she locked pain and resentment away.
Lord Fairchild did not guess she was lonely, or he would have gone to her again. After her rebuff, he told himself he must wait until she was willing to know him. He watched carefully, but she never gave any sign. Always, she subdued herself in his presence, retreating as soon as possible. Only when he watched her unobserved did he see her come to life: running back to the house, red-cheeked, from the gardens; rollicking with Henrietta in an empty salon; flitting away from the kitchen with a ginger biscuit in her hand. He waited, increasingly impatient, but the sign never came.
Despite his own repeated counsel—she was young, she knew nothing of him, she was grieving—he was wounded by her cool dislike. She lived in his house, yet he felt almost as removed from his love-begotten child as he had the past ten years.
Sophy spent most of her time in the schoolroom with Henrietta and the adenoidal Miss Frensham. From the beginning, Henrietta had been eager to embrace her half-sister. Illicit novels were her lifeblood. She viewed Sophy as a tragic heroine, becoming quite disappointed when she learned Sophy had not been rescued from the workhouse. But she was an eager listener and Sophy’s stories turned out to be better than the one she had imagined. She liked few things better than hearing Sophy’s caricatures of Mr. Lynchem and the worthy ladies of Bottom End, or her retellings of Fanny Prescott’s fairy tales. Sunny natured, there were truthfully very few people Henrietta disliked; even dour Miss Frensham was not wholly despised.
It didn’t take long before the girls began swapping schoolwork. Henrietta might have made a mathematical genius, had her mother allowed it, but she had almost no facility with French. Sophy spoke with a
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