Read Online Today's Embrace by Linda Lee Chaikin - Free Book Online Page A

careful, now.”
    She might have protested a bit about personal “news” getting out and about the village. After all, what of her spinal injury? Her health and treatment were freely known by all in Grimston Way. In fairness to Dr. Tisdale, however, he was not the physician who handled her injury. Rogan had searched and found Dr. Jackson, a specialist on Harley Street in London.
    Evy left the doctor’s cottage on Rook Lane and walked slowly, thoughtfully, to Main Street. She was thinking of doing a little personal shopping at Mildred’s Haberdashery, when she saw Mrs. Tisdale coming her way with her normal rolling gate. Mrs. Tisdale saw her and called cheerily.
    Evy sighed.
    â€œOh, Mrs. Tisdale, hello.” She smiled brightly as the woman walked up.
    â€œHello, my dear. Doing some shopping, are you? And where’s that charming husband of yours hiding? My, I should think you would shop in London now … oh, did I see you leaving Alfred’s office?” she asked of her husband, Dr. Tisdale.
    â€œUh—no, I—was just walking. Such a lovely afternoon, isn’t it?”
    Evy’s conscience smote her. She saw the interest in Mrs. Tisdale’s eyes sharpen.
    â€œRather a blanching afternoon, I thought. You do look chilled, dear. Your cheeks are pink … Well, ta ta, I’ve got to run. Take care, Evy.” She started off down the walk. “Oh …” She stopped and looked back, calling, “Isn’t that Lady Elosia’s coach?”
    Evy looked down the street. It
was
. Mr. Bixby was coming out of the apothecary shop with a small package. He handed it inside to Rogan’s aunt.
    â€œAh,” Mrs. Tisdale said, satisfied. “She’s just the woman I need to see. Martha Osgood mentioned using some of Rookswood’s chrysanthemums for the fall fete …” She stopped short again and looked at Evy with apology. “Oh. I could just as easily have asked you now that you’re Mrs. Rogan Chantry, couldn’t I? So difficult, you know. Thinking of you as the wife of our future squire. One just automatically thinks of Elosia.” And she hurried off down the street, hailing Bixby before he could drive away.
    Evy entered the haberdashery, not wishing to talk to Lady Elosia until she could gather her emotions and wits together. Had Mrs. Tisdale suspected she wasn’t telling the truth?
    Evy stood tiredly in front of a row of buttons and pins but hardly saw them. She placed her palm to her aching head and momentarily closed her eyes.
Oh, Father, forgive me for lying like that to Mrs. Tisdale. It was wrong
.
    She didn’t know what was coming over her lately. She seemed to be lax in her devotions, too.
I’m doing things I’d never do at the rectory when Uncle Edmund and Aunt Grace were alive
.
    A sudden longing for Aunt Grace poured over her. But what would she and Uncle Edmund say if they were alive to see how she was compromising?
    Suddenly, Aunt Grace’s concerned face came out of the past, as though from the rectory when Evy was a girl. “You worry me,” she often said. “You can be so careless in your behavior at times.” Evy had wondered back then what Grace alluded to, and when she grew older, Grace commented on her propensity for willfulness. “You must have gotten itfrom your mother.” At the time, Evy naturally thought she spoke of Junia, Grace’s sister.
    Willful? Am I?
    Evy had never thought so until more recently. With time and marriage and no ties to the rectory, there were moments when she felt a stubborn streak emerging from the shadows of her personality and coming to the forefront. Even Rogan had made casual reference to it. He had jested that he was to blame for bringing it out in her. “
I’m afraid I’ve taught you some habits Mrs. Havering would speak to me about if she were alive
,” he had said in Paris on their honeymoon.
    Where had it