Drops of Gold(69)

“Mary said she is sad sometimes because her mama is dead.” Caroline looked up at him, her brow puckered in thought. “Sometimes I feel sad because my mama is dead. Mary said I can love Mama even if I don’t remember her.”

Layton reached down, scooped Caroline into his arms, and held her tight. The miracles Marion had worked in their lives continued to pile up. She had touched a lonely place in Caroline’s heart that he, the girl’s own father, had been too intent on his own suffering to even see.

“Of course you can love your mama, poppet. I’ll tell you all about her as you grow up so you can know her for yourself.”

She rubbed her hand against the bristles on his cheek and chin. “Was her hair yellow like mine?”

“It was brown, but it curled like yours does.”

“Oh.” Her eyes grew wide a moment. “What did you call her? Did you call her Mama?”

He felt a smile tip his mouth. “I called her Bridget. That was her name, like your name is Caroline.”

“Did she name me Caroline?”

Layton nodded. They had chosen to name the baby for Bridget’s mother if it was a girl and Layton’s father if it was a boy. “Caroline was her mama’s name.”

They continued to talk as they walked slowly around the grounds. She wanted to know the oddest things about her mother. They spoke of which foods she had particularly liked, whether she had enjoyed snow or preferred sunshine. Caroline asked if her mother rode horses and if she could run fast. On and on the questions went, and she never seemed to tire of hearing the answers.

Though he’d avoided even thinking of Bridget more than necessary in the years since her passing, Layton had discussed her with two different people that day alone. The experience was, in many ways, freeing. Yet, a weight remained on his heart.

Layton still felt uneasy thinking back over the year and a half he’d spent as a husband. He didn’t feel like he’d done the job very well and didn’t want to disappoint someone else. And there yet remained the question of the truth he’d kept hidden. He was beginning to hope that in laying Bridget to rest in the churchyard, he hadn’t done anything wrong. But he never intended to tell anyone beyond those who already knew, and someday, he’d tell Caroline the true nature of her mother’s illness.

So he’d go on being a liar of sorts. He hadn’t yet decided where that put him, whether he ought to feel guilty or justified. That was one of the things he wanted to ask Marion. Her opinion had come to matter to him even if her view of him was rather bleak.

* * *

“I won’t! I won’t!” A petulant child’s voice echoed loudly off the walls of Lampton Park a few hours before dinner on Saturday. Layton instantly recognized it as Caroline’s, though he’d never heard her sound so uncontrollably angry.

“What is going on?” he asked, stepping into Mater’s sitting area and finding Caroline red faced, teary, and stomping her feet. He’d never seen her like that. “Car—”

“Layton.” Mater stopped him. “No coddling. She has done something entirely unacceptable, and I have insisted she apologize. She has refused.”

“And that is the reason for this . . . ?” How did he describe what he was watching? Pouting, stomping. Gads, Caroline even sounded like she was growling.

“Tantrum,” Mater finished for him. “I am perfectly content to wait for her to change her mind.”

“But I—”

“You’re too soft a touch, my dear,” Mater said gently but firmly. “Allow me to address this issue.”

Layton knew that look in Mater’s eye, the one they learned at an early age never to argue with. “May I at least ask what she did?” He couldn’t imagine.

“Caroline? Would you like to tell your papa what you have done?”

“No!” Caroline nearly shouted.

Layton stared. She had never acted like this before.

“Leave us, Layton,” Mater said to him under her breath. “She will come around faster if you leave her be.”

Bowing to Mater’s vast experience—she’d raised seven children, after all—Layton quietly, confusedly, left the room.

What had happened? Caroline was always a well-behaved child, quiet and obedient. Layton passed the open door to the east sitting room and heard a sniffle. Convinced pandemonium had descended on the Park, Layton peeked inside. Marion stood at the window, her back to him.

He hadn’t seen Marion in days. She had clearly been avoiding him. Layton wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Something in him wanted to see her again and talk to her one more time. He’d heard from Mater that she and her cousin, the new Marquess of Grenton, were leaving the Park on Sunday to return to Derbyshire. Layton couldn’t allow things to end the way they were.