Eight
Sitting in one of the armchairs by the large window, Rachel had stared at a tattered edge of the oriental rug for most of the afternoon. Each time she had turned the page of that morning’s newspaper the rug had caught her eye to whisper remembrances of what it hid away, as well as the memories that wanted to be revealed to the day. Now, the hour for dinner approaching ever closer, Rachel allowed herself to lift the corner, pushing aside a loose floorboard to reveal the small box within. Her eyes stung and her chest tightened, but she kept the acknowledgment of tears carefully away as she pulled out the box. Upon opening it, she revealed the pendant, picture, and chipped cameo brooch.
Rachel retrieved the picture to blankly stare down at it; her mother. The pendent and cameo had also been hers, until she’d bestowed them to Rachel as a gift on her thirteenth birthday. Rachel, fearing she would lose them if she kept them with her other trinkets, had hidden them away in the safest place she knew. Her “treasure chest” under the floorboard in her mother’s favorite room.
Now, Rachel stared down at the photograph and caressed the smiling face with a single finger. Remembering the soft, soothing touch of her mother’s hand upon her head. The whispered words of encouragement and love that would follow. The memory of how her mother had showed her the perfect example of what it meant to be a woman.
There sounded a soft knock on the doorframe and Rachel shifted her blank focus to the doorway.
Robert Trent offered her a somewhat hesitant smile and a softly stated, “Good evening, Miss Samson.”
Tucking the photograph back within the box and setting it away, Rachel inclined her head. “It is.” Then she motioned across from her to the vacant chair. “Dinner is yet an hour hence. Will you have a seat?”
“While I thank you for the offer, I’m afraid I have a previous engagement that won’t be rescheduled. So, I’ve come early to make a nuisance of myself and inquire if you would care for a turn around your gardens.” He held her gaze as he rocked back onto the heels of his leather shoes in a boyish display of waiting, his hands in the pockets of his beige trousers. “Would you be interested?”
“That would be lovely,” she said in what was likely a too-calm voice. “Thank you.”
She stood, Robert stepping forward to offer his arm. She accepted, and though he covered her hand with his, the cool numbness would not shift nor move.
“Did you have a pleasant afternoon?” he inquired.
“I did. Thank you.” Rachel sent him a sidelong glance, arching an eyebrow at the sudden tensing within. She was unable to determine whether or not it could be classified as negative.
Robert led her down the back hall toward the garden as Rachel continued the task of examining him, challenging herself to the naming of each emotion seen upon his face. After eight years of meeting shallow men and women who said one truth, expressed another, and acted yet a third, Robert presented an intriguing change.
Once they entered the gardens, Robert sent her a sidelong glance and led her down one of the garden’s side-trails. Upon meeting her continued examination, he smirked and motioned toward her with his free hand. “What do you watch so intently, Miss Samson?”
Robert's motion of hand stirred a surprisingly pleasant aroma of musk. “Nothing in particular.”
His lips twitched upward. “Hm. I find the fact highly unlikely. You do not seem the type interested in nothing. However, I will refrain from nagging.”
Amusement brushed aside a portion of the numbness.
“Speaking of interests….” Robert pulled a small book from his inner coat pocket and thumbed the pages. “I am considering buying several of these for the children.” He looked to her and offered forward the book. “A collection of short stories.”
Instead of the book, Rachel focused on the word “Children?”
“Oh yes. I have scads, didn’t I tell you? At least two for every day of the week.”
Rachel surrendered to a slight smile. “I’m quite certain you do, for I seem to recall a comment of family and their importance. Of course, I also remember a comment regarding a mentor relationship to a small orphanage here in Boston.”
“Someone went and confessed my secret.” Robert retrieved another book from his inner pocket. “Would you like to see them, my ‘previous engagement’? I have pictures.” Halting beside a patch of lush green grass, Robert gestured downward. “Here. Let’s have a look and see what you say.”
Rachel regarded the patch of green with an arched eyebrow. Then she gave a delicate shrug and accepted his steadying hold to kneel. Robert immediately sat close beside her.
He presented the small collection of pictures held within a somewhat functional album roughly the size of his hand. Rachel accepted the offered album and gave a slight twitch of surprise when Robert reached across her to tap a specific picture.
“That’s Bobby. He lost his father to a railroad accident near the base of Mt. Hood in Oregon. His mother, living here in Boston, died soon after of influenza. He’s a joy to be around, though. He makes a point of seeing the positive in each harsh situation.”
Robert turned the page of the album and chuckled, the sound and reaction to the photo not allowing Rachel’s eyes to leave his profile nor the collection of emotions displayed.
“April. She’s a shy little thing, but she certainly loves telling tragic stories.” Robert briefly met Rachel’s gaze. “I’ve given her express orders to begin writing these down.”
As Rachel turned the pages of the album Robert touched another face, and another, and yet another. Rachel found the idea intriguing, a man trained in business-law taking an interest in orphans? Yet something beyond the interest could be seen in his countenance.
Robert shifted closer as he tapped the far picture, chuckling within an amusing tale of one of the children. Rachel drew in a slow breath of his closeness and watched him, examining the… interest and intrigue. The… attraction? An interest beyond the numbness and chill of suspicion.
Robert continued to smile at the last picture within the album. “And that would be everyone, save the new arrivals whom I haven’t had the opportunity to--" He intercepted her intense scrutiny.
Once again Rachel felt the odd warmth within. An actual emotion beyond the protective numbness. She didn’t know– No, she didn’t understand what pressed her. Urging her to… to do something. Yet her years of training pulled her back, ridiculing her weakness and the woman that was forever an obstacle to overcome.
Robert cupped her cheek, caressing the skin with his thumb and ushering something she couldn’t classify a little further and yet closer. There was no panic. Only his touch drawing her toward a question her schooling had convinced her didn’t matter. A question whose answer she couldn’t feel herself believing.
Yet neither could she move away. Though her business persona wouldn’t accept his tenderness, her determination wouldn’t allow her to escape it. It forced her to stay and allow an action of tenderness that intensely terrified her, fighting against the emotion until the struggle became a vicious circle.
Robert lowered his hand from its gentle hold of her cheek, but his dark brown eyes wouldn’t release her gaze. “The thought of your father venturing out at just the moment I kiss you prevents it.” His gently gruff tone battered at Rachel’s tenacious hold of the calm. “I am willing to wager I would have found a new climax to his temper.”
A desire of a kiss and yet more thought to her reputation. An admittance of want and yet the restraint required to kindle trust…
His gaze lowered as his hands gathered hers into a gentle hold. “You would have found yourself with the duty of marrying a stranger,” he said, “and no longer having the choice I wish for you.”
Rachel arched an eyebrow as she regarded his handsome face and twinkling eyes that always seemed to show… welcome and… acceptance. “Stranger.” The word chipped loose the silence that held her tongue. “You ceased being a stranger on the train; in the common sense of the word,” she confessed, drawing his attention. “No, I haven’t an intimate knowledge of your past or what you wish to do with your future, and in that respect I suppose you remain a stranger, but….” Rachel thoughtfully regarded his face and eyes and very persona yet again. “No. You are no longer a stranger. Not when I continually find myself… trusting you.”
Robert did his own scrutiny of her expressions as he gave her hands a gentle pressure before releasing them. Then he leaned onto his side in the grass, his right elbow and arm propping his torso upright as he absently picked at the green blades with his fingers. Rachel accepted the open and honest inspection with a wave of relief, for she knew it wasn’t to gauge a weakness.
“We seem to click in that respect, don’t we?” he finally asked.
“Yes.” This time Rachel’s eyes retreated from his, but she knew he continued to watch her, making the part of her behind the wall begin to force it back up again. To protect something that she knew could be entrusted to him even though past experience wouldn’t allow.
“Rachel, would you rather I go now?” he voiced quietly.
Again, the question set to motion a battle as a part of her wanted her self to be left very much alone, while the other portion wanted so much to relinquish her entire history to his keeping. But suspicion, once given so much power for so long, was a tenacious adversary to usher away. Rachel pressed her lips together, keeping her eyes carefully away from his that seemed to see what she tried to keep silent.
“Rachel.”
She tightly clasped her hands in her lap moments before forcing her eyes to meet his. Again, they held understanding and…. Her chest tightened but she didn’t look away.
“Rachel, don’t chastise yourself for wanting time to yourself. I understand that you are trying to transition to your place here, and I don’t wish to intrude into that.” His brown eyes twinkled. “More than I already have.”
“But you are attempting to court,” she reminded, her voice tight with irritation that something which seemed so easy for other ladies to accept would be such a challenge for her.
“Yes,” he agreed with a slight nod. “Yes, I am, which means I need to be sensitive to what you want. If that means vanishing when I’ve intruded onto your personal space, then that is what I will do.”
Rachel pressed her lips together, confused beyond measure as to whether she wanted him to go or stay. She scoffed and crossed her arms as she looked away.
“I will assume the scoff wasn’t directed toward my person.”
Rachel’s emerald gaze sparked as she once more focused on his brown eyes. “What am I to do when I am constantly torn between ordering you out of my sight so that I can have a moment’s peace from the confusion, or bombarding you with personal questions that I likely wouldn’t want to answer myself?”
The silence that followed the question rang different than any she’d heard before. Then he cleared his throat and asked “What do you want to know?” as he lowered his eyes from her hold and retrieved his pipe from the inner pocket of his coat.
“What?” Rachel asked, surprise coloring her expression.
Robert’s lips twitched but he didn’t meet her gaze. “Considering you know practically nothing about me, I don’t blame you your curiosity. Anything told could be viewed as a small step forward.”
Suspicion and an intensity of caution reared as she regarded him. “It certainly seems harmless enough.”
Again his lips were caressed with the tease of a smile that tweaked Rachel’s curiosity. “What say you to a simple exchange of information?” he asked, finally lifting his gaze from his pipe. “You ask a question and I answer as honestly as possible. In return, I ask a question of you.”
“Allow me a refusal on certain questions and you have an agreement.”
Robert chuckled. “Allow me the same, then.”
This time Rachel released a reluctant smirk. “As if you have anything to hide.”
“You’d be surprised,” he quipped, his attention shifting back to his pipe.
Rachel arched an eyebrow as she absently retrieved the fan dangling at her wrist and slowly opened it to caress the air near her neck and face. “Then might I ask the first question?”
Robert slowly nodded as his scrutiny of the pipe intensified. “Of course.”
Caution could clearly be heard in his tone; the one emotion she understood. It gave rise to an understanding that pressed itself past the numbness and urged her to ask a somewhat harmless question. “What caused you to partner with the administration of the orphanage?”
“A simple letter, really.” Robert spared her a glance. “Father urged me to look into the pros and cons of donating to charitable establishments. Part of my studies you understand. I was given a letter written by a child from the orphanage here in Boston. One of the smaller establishments, at any rate.”
“Bobby?”
Robert briefly smiled. “No. One of the older girls now since adopted. The letter had been forwarded by the administration. I don’t remember now why. I suppose they were requesting a donation of some kind. It seems to me that the letter arrived around Christmas.” Robert rubbed at a smudge on the pipe chamber. “I’ve felt a responsibility toward them ever since. I believe it has been… seven years. Yes. Since my eighteenth birthday.”
Eighteen…. Rachel lowered her eyes to a scrutiny of her fan. Her mother had died the year of her eighteenth birthday.
Robert examined her down-turned face. “May I ask my question?”
She nodded and cautiously raised her eyes. “By all means.”
“What is your favorite color?”
Arching an eyebrow, Rachel found it hard to believe he would ask a question with such a safe answer. “Cornflower blue.”
“Ah. Lovely color, that.” Then, regarding her with his usual boyish smile, he reached out to tease a curl at her temple. “I imagine you to look radiant in cornflower blue with your curls of blonde.”
If possible, Rachel’s eyebrow arched higher still. If not at the commentary, certainly at the tumble it caused behind the wall of numbness.
Robert chuckled and then gestured toward her. “I believe it’s your turn.”
Tenaciously shoving the rippling emotions beneath the calm, she reached out to take the pipe from his fingers. He voiced a slight protest but Rachel ignored him as she examined it closely, touching the nicks on the chamber with her fingertips. Rachel met his gaze that so closely watched her reaction to the object. “You never light it,” she observed simply, “you but chew and worry the end. Why do you keep this with you if you don’t intend to use it?”
Robert smirked. “It was a gift from my father.”
“But certainly he knew you didn’t smoke at the time of the giving?” she asked incredulously.
“He knew. The pipe served as more a symbol than anything. Of manhood. Responsibility. In my father’s eyes, at any rate. I needed to be reminded of a duty yet to be fulfilled.”
Rachel focused briefly on the pipe before again meeting Robert’s gaze. “A duty such as what, pray?”
Robert looked down to the pipe in her hold before reaching forward to take it, caressing her fingers as he did so. “Marriage.”
“What?”
Glancing in her direction, Robert began tapping the chamber of the pipe against his hand. “I’ve been trained for the family business since before I can remember. Everything involved would somehow benefit it. The schools I attended. The friends I made. The church I was baptized at and later became a member of….” Robert cleared his throat as he twisted the pipe within his hands. “Even the woman I was to marry.”
“Who is she?” Rachel heard herself asking, never before considering that he would have had a previous obligation before vocalizing his commitment to her. Neither could she decide if breaking a trust to another woman so as to uphold a trust with her was a positive or negative facet of his character.
Robert cleared his throat and looked away from his pipe to a lilac bush across the way. “A lovely lady with a large purse and an important family. Important enough to be deemed worthy of deepening the Trent’s pockets and expanding our family line.”
Rachel regarded his profile while noticing his red ears, face and neck. “Does your father know you don’t intend to marry her?” And why would he risk his father’s wrath to stand as a more pleasant option for me: a stranger met on a train? Yet a remembered confession of being “highly attracted” caused a deeper scrutiny of his expression.
Again Robert cleared his throat, but this time he sent her a sidelong glance. “I haven’t informed him of my intentions yet, no.”
“And the woman?”
“She wishes the match as little as I, as the arrangement signifies a lack of trust in our training. She agrees with my point of view that this decision should have been confessed freely, thereby giving us the opportunity to accept it as our duty.” He cleared his throat. “I remember I reacted much as you did when I came to understand exactly what he asked, or rather expected, of me. I believe I was the same sturdy twelve as the lad who had come to visit my grandparents. I ranted and raved, making an awful ruckus for months. Rebelled against anything my father asked of me.”
Rachel lowered her gaze briefly to the fan. “It doesn’t seem fair, does it? To have our lives controlled even though they have supposedly trained us to handle our lives as well as those of others.”
“No. It doesn’t.” Then Robert met her gaze. “Yet who am I to question God’s plan for my life?”
Rachel arched an eyebrow. “God’s plan?”
Smiling, he nodded. “It sounds rather lofty, doesn’t it? Here. Let me have a go at explaining….”
Then he absently tapped the chamber of the pipe against his hand as he pursed his lips, apparently scrutinizing the grass around them. Giving another nod, he finally once more met her gaze. She slightly smirked at the intensity within it.
“Even though I knew of my betrothal, I still roamed from romantic fantasy to romantic fantasy like a sick and lovelorn poet. I hungered for love. I hungered for acceptance I didn’t completely feel. Where else could I find it but in the arms of the overly eager ladies seeking the wealth and station my name held?”
Robert looked away to his hands and the pipe, embarrassment coloring his expression. “Thank the Lord my fantasy never became a reality. They tried, I grant them that, but I was too restless. Too easily disappointed. The Lord used that. He used it to draw me closer to Him because I couldn’t find the satisfaction anywhere else.” He glanced up at her. “Everything was too superficial. Too transparent and easily prone to disappearance. Jesus was stability and acceptance. I needed that.”
Rachel regarded him, meeting his occasional glances with thoughtfulness and inner quiet. Then she turned her focus to the pipe. A desire for acceptance. A hunger for love. It sounded so hauntingly familiar. Yet for one difference: He had found it in a relationship with a God that seemed so distant. A relationship with a God that had allowed her father to send her away. One that had taken her mother. One that had–
“Might I ask my question now?” Robert’s quiet voice drew her gaze and attention back from a bristling beneath the numbness.
“Certainly.”
Clearing his throat, Robert began another absent tapping of his pipe into his palm. “This one is more than likely inappropriate, but… well….” Again he cleared his throat, this time even giving a tug at his collar.
Rachel’s entire self hesitated before she slowly prompted, “Ask.”
“How many children do you want as part of your family?”
Rachel paled. “P-Pardon?”
His gaze lowered to his fingers, which seemed to shake as he fiddled with his pipe. Only occasionally did he dare a glance toward her. “Mother was unable to have children after I was born; such must have been the reason I spent so much time with the staff’s children.”
Rachel felt a muted bit of surprise at the confession. She’d suffered the same longing for companionship. The same deep desire for family.
“Being lonely in such circumstances should have been impossible,” he admitted, looking up, “but it’s true nonetheless. Perhaps that is why I’ve always wished to have a large family?”
“I’ve never given thought to children,” she admitted as she lowered her eyes. “My focus has been only of how soon I might head my father’s business.” She moved her focus to watch the birds play in a nearby lilac tree. “I haven’t the motherly instinct of other women.”
The thought caused a painful shift within. A reminder of the difference between past dreams and present goals. A… failing in something that she had long since considered irrelevant. Yet now, when destined to become wife, mother, and lover it could no longer be considered that. Her performance would reflect on her person. Her ability would reflect on her ability in other areas of life and leadership.
Rachel’s throat tightened, but she swallowed it away as she brought a hand up to rub at a throbbing at her temple with suddenly cold fingers. A heavy silence had descended; one so familiar that it gave rise to the numbness, filling it with more power than before. Then she heard and noticed Robert’s motion of sitting up.
“Rachel?”
Rachel said nothing, nor did she meet his gaze. A part of her dreaded seeing the softness in his eyes that she heard in his voice. Each time she saw it she felt drawn even further from the safety of distance; drawn to a thirst and hunger for something that had never been a subject of study–
Robert enfolded her hand. “I’m listening if you need to talk.”
Talk? Again voice a weakness and– Rachel focused on him with a hard gaze, her lips pressed together as a flare of something surpassed the calm and numbness. “Let go of me.”
Robert slightly smiled while doing as ordered. “Anger sparkles within emerald, Rachel. Why?”
“I do not know.” She focused her glare onto the lilac tree across the path from them as she rubbed the warmth of his touch from her hand. It remained.
Watching her face, Robert’s smile slowly disappeared before he quietly asked, “Rachel, are you certain you don’t wish for me to go? You’ve but to say the word.”
Rachel pressed her lips together again. Do I? What is there but more of the same? More memories. More tenderness. Yet what waited in the silence but more reminders of her training and how it so differed from the future intent that her father had hidden from her? More reminders of her independence in something that needed more than one?
Her head throbbed and she twitched. “Six.”
Robert raised an eyebrow. “Six? Six what?”
“Children. I want six. Three girls and three boys.” The statement served as the admittance to a dream that she had long thought dead and forgotten so many years before….
Robert stared at her in amazement before a smile spread slowly across his features. That smile had Rachel refusing to meet his gaze. “All right. We’ll have six. Although you’ll need to take up the specific point of ‘three girls and three boys’ with God.”
Rachel only inclined her head.
“I’m quite sure I’ll get slapped,” Robert confessed suddenly, “but I must say that you’re the loveliest when flustered. Your cheeks flush an entrancing shade of rose.”
Rachel briefly pressed her lips together to limit the response she felt within at his observance. Instead, she clenched her hands as she continued to examine the lilac bush. The silence continued, prickles rising upon her skin as Robert continued to regard her with his highly attractive expression of boyish mischief, the occasional breeze serving only to heighten the presence of his aroma around her. Then he reached with his right hand to lightly touch the skin beneath her chin with a finger, oh so gently turning her head toward him. His lips danced with the whisper of a smile as his finger continued to softly caress her skin. “Have you always been this lovely?”
Something escaped the numbness to enhance the touch and cause a tingle. “Come, come,” Rachel scolded, surprised at the softness of her tone. “Certainly you aren’t attempting to take my question, Mr. Trent?”
One side of Robert’s lips twitched as he moved to caress her left cheek with the back of the same finger. “Yes,” he countered in a gentle tone. He teased a loose curl near her ear as he leaned closer. “And now that you’ve voiced your question, to which I have answered, am I allowed to ask another?”
Fear blossomed, but Rachel fought it away in her determination to not cower, hands gripping the fan as her eyes remained focused on his. “Yes,” she said quietly, not truly certain that she gave permission for the question or the fear that became so addicting. So many questions and emotions raged just within the wall of numbness that she lost the identity of them all in the confusion as well as in the murky determination to not be confused.
Robert’s hand enfolded hers and its grip of the fan, causing Rachel a twitch. Then his brown eyes lowered, releasing her breath and her gaze as he looked down to the hand and the fan within it. His touch retreated from her cheek to retrieve and gently open the fan, the thumb of his other hand caressing her inner wrist.
He smiled slightly down at the watercolor picture upon it before lifting his gaze to again meet hers. “I find your use of this fan intriguing,” he began in a low voice, “for it shows so many of your moods. Yet I find myself doubting you learned the art within your studies in Paris. Who encouraged your learning of it? It’s so genuinely feminine.”
‘…genuinely feminine…’ The statement burned its way through the numbness to the struggling warmth beyond. “Lucy,” she confessed, her voice sounding oddly distant and breathless. “A friend with whom I studied in Paris. We learned together.”
Robert looked again to the fan. “It seems to have its very own language, and oftentimes I have found myself looking to it for hints as to your mood. I truly believe it will save me the lash of your tongue if I pay it great importance.”
Rachel watched his soft expression, feeling his caress on her wrist much further down than just her skin. The cold and hardness seemed to melt, much as her business-mind fought against it. Then he lifted those brown eyes and she again felt the shift within.
Robert presented her the fan. “Could you show me?”
She accepted it, retreating from his gaze and his touch to focus on the greenery of the fan’s painted landscape. “Show you?”
“Speak with it.”
Intrigue fluttered as she adjusted her hold on the fan, lifting it to shield a great portion of her face. She gently caressed the air with very slight movements as she peeked at him from behind it.
“And where has this coy young woman been?” Robert’s smile widened. “Perhaps I’ve lured her out with my personal questions?”
Then Rachel looked away as she lowered and closed the fan, unable to retrieve the specter from a past that was best laid to rest forever and a day. Nothing but pain had ever come from it.
“Ah. There she hides yet again,” Robert observed softly. He enfolded her hand to give it a brief squeeze, drawing Rachel’s gaze. “Next time I won’t tease.”
Rachel briefly and slightly smiled, hiding the action with yet another smooth opening of the fan as she moved her gaze away. “Tease how you will. One day you will get your own back.” And her fan dipped slightly to reveal the sidelong glance as well as the hint of a smirk.
Robert chuckled. “I will welcome that. My father has long said that my flippancy will cause no end of frustration in the business world. I disagree. If a man, or woman, has no sense of humor how can they possibly make light of a bad situation? Keeping one’s sense of humor ready and the mood light is always preferable to mumbling and grumbling on how fickle the populace has been.”
Rachel regarded him as she absently and rhythmically pumped the fan, her lips still tickled with a smile as slight as that of the twinkle in her green eyes. Robert held her gaze, his fingers occasionally teasing the material at the hem of her skirt.
“I believe the time has come for your next question, Miss Samson,” he reminded.
Yet another question wouldn’t be had. Rachel could only regard him. Still studying him, and herself, and the responses to his reactions and the reactions she herself made to his responses. She had become her own research project.
Brown eyes still held her regard as fingers continued to tease the hem of her dress. “Unless you would allow me another?” he inquired, his voice as soft as she had ever heard it.
Rachel inclined her head, intrigue and curiosity overpowering the horror and the rigid determination to be suspicious of any and all questions.
“Would you recite one of your poems?”
That caused a blink and a retreat, from the research as well as the intrigue. Instead, she looked away as she deftly closed her fan. “I don’t recite any longer.”
Robert’s fingers ceased their teasing of the material of her skirt to withdraw a moment later. After another moment of silent regard, he softly said, “I see.”
Rachel made a move to stand. “I should return to the house. Dinner will likely be served soon and Father will be expecting me.”
Robert stood to his feet and helped her to hers before she could even gather her skirts. She accepted his hand for the briefest necessary moment before pulling away with a tight smile his direction. Again, he regarded her as she shook the bits of grass from her skirt.
Then he motioned toward the house, the action drawing her gaze. “I had best go now, otherwise I am liable to be late. Please excuse me?”
Rachel inclined her head and looked away. “Of course.”
He watched her profile a moment longer before offering a slight bow and a softly stated, “Have a good evening,” and then stepping toward the house.
Rachel watched him go, her fingers deftly repeating the action of opening and closing her fan as she tenaciously revisited the conversations before and after a surprising shift and consideration. Gauging moods and temperament. Processing reactions and what was said as it compared to what was displayed and seen in the expression of his eyes. Then doing her best to determine which had the greatest bit of power within herself; which had caused the greatest change. Reaction. Response. She didn’t know how to face these new and unexpected emotions.
Pressing her lips together, Rachel absently tapped her fan against her hand. She had never felt this way about a gentleman. Not even, if she took the moment to admit it to herself, for Todd. Yet after so many years of strict control and being unable to trust anyone, what she felt could only be the needs and wants finally breaking free. The desire to trust overpowering everything, especially in combination with his kind brown eyes and handsome face.
His smirk. His laughter. His intelligence and wit. His uncanny ability to know when to stand… and when to retreat.
Maggie stepped around the furthest corner of the side-trail then, drawing Rachel’s attention and focus back from the inner scrutiny. “There you are.” Maggie motioned back toward the house. “Dinner is about to be served, Rach, and the Mister is waiting. Is Mr. Trent returning to dine with you?”
Rachel’s thoughts and control faltered, but she hid the very slight flinch with her step forward. “I do not believe so.” She needed time to consider. To plan. To organize. To decide if she should–
“Oh. That’s a shame.” Maggie’s tone sounded disappointed and caused a slip behind Rachel’s control.
At Maggie’s side, Rachel met her friend’s gaze. “Why?”
Looping her arm with Rachel’s, Maggie fell into step beside her. “Why’s it a shame?”
Rachel inclined her head. “I, for one, have plenty to fill my time, and I’m certain he has other duties at the orphanage pressing for his attention. Hence the reason he couldn’t attend.”
Maggie smiled. “I wondered about that. I thought I saw him by the gate last night while Toddy was leaving, but when he didn’t come in I thought maybe it was my imagination. Then I didn’t have wits enough this morning to ask if he’d been by the orphanage or if he but went to his property he told of. I’ve wondered after it ever since Oliver said he’s seen men and whatnot head over.”
Rachel arched an eyebrow, vocalized an absent, “Hm,” and then returned her forward focus.
Her father met her just outside the dining room dressed in charcoal slacks and shirt-sleeves with a vest. He seldom wore a suit coat, claimed they cut him off at the shoulders, and only gave in to propriety when he left the house. Mostly due to society’s views of their family.
Rachel pressed her lips together. That mentality had likely been the reason he hadn’t attended dinner the night before, though he had still been away to the supposed appointment from that morning. Todd had noticed her father’s absence and mentioned it. “He never did like me, Rach girl,” he had reminded. “I put too many thoughts of adventure into your head.”
Now, Henry Samson briefly clenched his jaw before speaking. “What was Todd Richards doing here last night?”
Rachel deftly gathered her temper into a firm hold as she adjusted her hold on her skirt. “As my friend, it would have been an unnecessary slight to not have him for dinner.”
“See that it lessens to an acquaintance and nothing more,” he advised gruffly, his brows lowered in a frown. “It’s bad enough to have you entertaining the advances of Robert Trent when you know you’re betrothed. Mind the gossip-mongers should they get whiff of your past frolics with that lad.”
“I wouldn’t have any beaus save one if you hadn’t forced the first upon me,” Rachel reminded coolly. “I could have been entrusted with the knowledge, Father, and likely would have done my best to make the very most of the expectation.”
“Don’t make the snap judgment that I didn’t trust you with this decision, Rachel,” Henry chided, his face slightly flushed.
“Be that as it may, I refuse to marry a man who doesn’t show spine enough to stand against you, or against my refusal for that matter.” Rachel absently straightened her skirts, missing her father’s reluctant smirk. “If he is such a spineless milk-toast, how can he be firm enough to handle the day-to-day business? Mr. Trent–”
“Bah. Robert Trent.” Her father’s motion toward her drew her focus. “You know nothing about him, girl, so be wary the trust and faith you place in the rogue.”
Rachel scoffed.
Henry gave a brusque nod. “You scoff now, but mark my words: every one of us makes an ass of ourselves and the trust we’ve cultivated, be it for the person’s best interest or our own selfish pride. Take care that your pride doesn’t force you the determination to trust someone like Robert Trent of Virginia with more than he deserves.”
With that, he strode toward the door, snatching his hat and coat from the side-closet. At the door he turned. “See that you and the fool are done with your ‘courting’ by the date set aside for the ceremony. Plans have been made and they will stand, by God, regardless of what you decide one way or the other!” He slammed from the house. Rachel stared after him in mild surprise, her eyebrow arched and her emerald gaze thoughtful.