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Drops of Gold(56)

By:Sarah M. Eden


So many things like that.

Philip and Jason continued discussing the case. Layton rose slowly, thinking.

“Layton?” Philip asked.

Layton waved him off and wandered to the door. He debated with himself all the way down the corridor, out the front doors, and onto the front lawn of the Park.

Had Bridget really been mad? No one in her family had ever suffered with madness. Not that Layton knew of, at least. If she had truly lost her faculties, what had brought it on? Certainly not old age or poor health.

He couldn’t entirely convince himself. It seemed so drastic a diagnosis. And yet, it fit almost perfectly.

“Papa!”

The sound snapped Layton from his thoughts, and he realized, with a great deal of surprise, that he’d wandered all the way to the edge of the Meadows property. Caroline was running toward him, braids bouncing behind her, cheeks pink from the chill.

How would he explain any of this to Caroline? When would he? He didn’t completely understand it himself.

Layton bent down mechanically to pick Caroline up, a movement he’d made so many times it didn’t require thought. The debate continued in his mind without reaching any real conclusion.

“Are you sad today too, Papa?” Caroline asked as she ran her fingers up and down across his cheek the way she did when checking for stubble.

“‘Too,’ poppet?” he asked, finally managing to concentrate on his daughter.

“Mary is sad,” Caroline said, a little pout on her lips.

“How do you know she’s sad, dear?” Layton thought uncomfortably of the unintentional encounter of a few mornings earlier when Marion’s unhappiness had been readily apparent. She’d borne it off well but hadn’t been able to entirely disguise the telltale quivering of her chin. The pain in her eyes was so raw Layton had nearly thrown away Caroline’s entire future and begged Marion to forget everything he’d said and stay with him, to accept social ostracism and be his wife, to trust him enough to put her fate in the hands of a man who was such a dismal husband that his first wife actually took her own life.

“She doesn’t smile as much,” Caroline answered. “And she isn’t as silly.”

Smile as much. Isn’t as silly. Marion, that wonder of optimism and eternal hope, still smiled and enjoyed Caroline despite her unhappiness. So different from Bridget.

“She isn’t going to leave me, is she?” A mountain of worry sat in Caroline’s words. “All the others did.”

The other nursemaids, she likely meant. They had gone through quite a few. If memory served, they’d all seemed remarkably unhappy before they’d left. He’d never kissed any of them, so that could hardly be his fault. Could it?

“Have you asked your Mary if she is planning to leave?” Layton’s heart constricted painfully at the thought of Marion leaving the Meadows—though, in all honesty, he’d given her very little reason to remain and quite a good reason to go.

Caroline shook her head. “I don’t want her to go, Papa.” She leaned her head against his shoulder and played with the top button of his waistcoat.

Approaching footsteps saved him from needing to answer, which would have been tricky. Caroline was apt to repeat the things she was told. Layton looked in the direction of the footsteps.

Marion.

The air caught painfully in his lungs at the sight of her. That red hair he’d come to love so well. The pert mouth so often turned up in a smile. A few steps closer, and he’d be able to smell cinnamon. But she stopped, her eyes averted like a proper servant.

She was paler than she had been, and her eyes seemed a little puffy and red rimmed. She’d been crying, though she held herself perfectly calm and still at the moment.

“Miss Wood,” he managed to get out while thinking, Oh, Marion, quite hopelessly in his mind.

“Mr. Jonquil.” She curtsied.

“Your daily exercise?” Layton asked her.

Still, no color returned to her cheeks. “Yes, sir. We were nearly ready to turn back when Caroline spotted you.”

“I am glad she did.” He felt Caroline wrap her arms more tightly around his neck. “I will walk back with you two.”

“No,” Marion answered a little too quickly and far too forcefully. She quickly corrected herself and continued more demurely. “Caroline, I am certain, would appreciate your escort back. I will return more quickly. There is a lot to do before the wedding, sir.”

“Miss—”

But she had already gone. Fled would be a good description.

“Come back,” Layton silently pleaded, though he knew he had no right to. “Don’t you leave me too.”

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