Drops of Gold(44)

“Forgive me, Marion.” The next moment, he stood beside her, taking the half-finished dress from her clenched hands and laying it carefully along an arm of the nearest chair. He looked at her, his embarrassment obvious. “I didn’t realize . . . I hadn’t intended to be unfeeling.”

Now what had brought on the tears? Marion turned away from him, blinking furiously in an attempt to keep her emotions hidden.

“This is a recent loss, then?” Layton asked gently.

Marion nodded and brushed a fingertip across her cheek. She hadn’t actually cried over her father’s death in several months. What wretched timing!

“Did he leave you nothing, my dear?” She felt his light touch on her arms, just below the shoulder, as he spoke behind her. “Nothing for you to live on? Some kind of dowry?”

“He was a good man.” Marion fought the urge to lean back against him, to share the burden of all she’d lost in the past twelvemonth. He seemed to care about her, seemed genuinely concerned for her. Would he object if she sought support? If she laid her head on his shoulder and sobbed out all the pain she’d buried inside herself during those, the worst three months of her life and the nearly nine that had followed since? She sighed at the uncertainty of it all and felt his fingers close a little more tightly around her arms. “My father was not one for planning ahead, I am afraid. He most likely assumed there would be ample time to provide for my future.”

“I can be a procrastinator, Marion.” Layton’s breath ruffled the hair on the back of her head. “But I have already seen to Caroline’s affairs, should something happen to me. It was arranged before she was born, signed the day of her birth. As her father, I could do no less. It would have been inexcusable.”

Marion turned to face him, careful to step back a little to put some much-needed distance between them. Her heart hadn’t stopped pounding since he’d interrupted her sewing some several minutes earlier. “Tell me, Layton. If you’d been faced with adjusting your will and arranging for future guardians and trustees for Caroline shortly after your late wife had died, could you have done it?”

She saw his face pale significantly and wondered if she’d erred in bringing up such a difficult subject. He seemed to struggle with an answer but finally managed.

“I would like to say I could have, would have done so somehow. Perhaps after a little time had passed.” He shifted awkwardly. “I suppose I’m not entirely certain I would have been up to it. Her passing . . . weighed on me. Everything was hard after that, overwhelming.”

“Exactly,” Marion answered knowingly, her own thoughts filled with an “overwhelming” period in her own family’s life. “After my mother died”—a break in her voice gave away her uncharacteristically raw emotions—“my father felt that same way. His melancholy grew over the months and years. He began neglecting things no gentleman would—even his children. It was as if his entire world had collapsed when Mother died, and he hadn’t had the will to repair it. I believe he had always intended to make provisions for me when I was a little older, not wanting to think about death any sooner than he must. He hadn’t anticipated—”

She couldn’t finish. What a watering pot she had turned into! She offered a wet smile and a shrug of her shoulders at her own tumultuous emotions. He smiled a little shakily at her as well.

“What of your siblings?”

“A brother, three years older than myself. Robert. His future was written into Father’s will when he left for Harrow. Mother died only a few months after he began there.”

“Yes, you told me your father had gone to fetch him back when . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. He seemed to recover himself. “Robert couldn’t take you in? Provide for you from his inheritance?”

Marion shook her head.

“He would be only twenty-three,” Layton said. “Certainly he cannot have a large family to support already. Was his inheritance so paltry?”

She took a breath before forcing her answer. “Robert was buried the same day as Father.” She simply let the tears flow. “They were buried beside Mother. My entire family lies in the frozen ground in Derbyshire now. And I am here.”

She took a breath that came out as a sob.

“Oh, Marion.” There was no pity in his tone, only heartfelt understanding. This man who had lost so much as well. That made the tears fall faster.

Layton remained beside her, brushing back a strand of hair as he handed her a handkerchief.

“I hope Caroline really did scrape all her junk off,” Marion said with a tear-stained laugh.