Page 54 of For Your Arms Only

“How long have you been in love with her?” Cressida asked in the same matter-of-fact tone. For a moment Tom didn’t react, and then he turned on his heel and walked out of the house. Cressida followed. “I saw how you looked at her just now. I’m a fool not to have guessed earlier. Does she know?”

Tom’s face twisted but he made no effort to deny it. “Ah Lord, I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” He looked miserable, but Cressida pressed on. “Why haven’t you told her? What if she returns your feelings?”

He jerked so hard she thought he would fall to his knees. “She couldn’t. Feel the same, I mean. You won’t— I beg you⁠—”

“I think you might be wrong,” she told him softly. “I think Callie cares for you very much. But after the way Mr. Phillips. . . After being married to him⁠—”

“He was a devil,” growled Tom. “I knew it from the moment I met him, but your father wanted⁠—”

He stopped so suddenly Cressida blinked. Her father had approved the match, even though he hardly knew Julian Phillips. In fact, none of them really knew Mr. Phillips before he offered for Callie, but he was a well-to-do local merchant, a very eligible match for a soldier's daughter. “What, Tom?”

He turned away. “Nothing.”

Cressida picked up her skirts and ran after him as he walked into the stables. “What did you start to say? Tom!”

Tom stopped but didn’t face her. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. “Phillips offered him three hundred pounds for her hand,” he said, his voice echoing in the carriage bay. “The sergeant needed the money. And if—if she married Phillips, then she could never. . . ” His voice quivered a moment. “Never marry someone like me.”

Cressida closed her eyes and exhaled, as if part of her spirit had deserted her. Oh, Papa. . .

“That’s what the sergeant didn’t want,” Tom added. “Not ever. Not even after Phillips got his rightful reward.”

“That’s why you stayed with us,” she whispered. Not because of Papa; because of Callie. “Oh, Tom. . . ”

“I don’t want pity,” he cut across her words. “It’s not her fault. I tried to go, Cressida. I just. . . ” His shoulders slumped. “I just can’t.”

She didn’t know what to do, or say, or even think. Her heart quailed from believing her father would so callously manipulate her sister. Callie’s marriage to Mr. Phillips had been disastrous and wretched, but Cressida had always thought Papa believed he acted in Callie’s best interest, securing her a prosperous husband with a secure home. He had encouraged her to receive Mr. Phillips, pointed out how advantageous a match it would be, and given Phillips permission to marry Callie in barely a month’s time. Had he done that for money—and to deny Tom?

With a sinking heart, she suspected he had. She recalled all the times Papa had made sport of Tom, laughing at his steady temper and humble dreams. Papa’s dreams had never been humble. Tom had always absorbed it with a halfhearted smile or a shrug. But Tom—steadfast, devoted Tom—had put up with it all and stayed because he couldn’t bear to leave Callie.

“I’ve got to clean the tack,” Tom mumbled as she stood there, aghast. “Need to make myself useful around this fancy house. Good night.” He disappeared into the back of the stable, leaving Cressida reeling.

She couldn't go back to the drawing room, where the rest of the company was chatting and laughing. She sat on a bench in the garden, trying to reconcile this new view of her father with her long-held affection for him.

It wasn’t easy to accept that the father she loved could have been so cold-hearted—but as she’d realized in London, she didn't know him as well as she thought. Granny adored him and taught his two daughters to do the same. Now that Papa was gone, though, she was learning ever more unsavory things about him. Cressida had been working on his journal and made little progress. Perhaps that was for the best. She hated to leave a puzzle unsolved, but she was growing more and more uneasily certain that Tom was right when he warned her it wouldn’t bring her peace.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know more about her father.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Alec reached Penford deliberately late.

His Aunt Hayes and cousin Emily had arrived. John had told him they wanted to come and express their own delight that he was alive and well. Alec thought they wanted to see for themselves that it was really him, and not some imposter come to defraud John.

He felt guilty for that thought, when his aunt and cousin had never been anything other than kind to him, but after Angus Lucey’s stark accusation, Alec was seeing suspicion and doubt in every glance his way. To avoid being ungenerous, he’d made sure he missed dinner, even though his mother asked him to attend. As he let himself back into the house, laughter drifted from the drawing room. It sounded like Emily and Julia, which gave him a pang in the heart. Julia hadn’t spoken to him since the day he went mad and ripped off his shirt.

As he was handing his hat and cloak to the footman, Cressida Turner walked into the hall from the garden door. “Cressida,” he said without thinking, because just the sight of her lifted his spirits.

She turned with a start and smiled, like the sun bursting from behind the clouds. "Yes?" she said, a little breathlessly.

He also hadn’t spoken to her since the library. It had only been four days, but he hadn’t known until she smiled at him that he’d been gravely worried. It was a more promising beginning than he’d hoped for—or deserved. “Did you enjoy the evening?” he asked.

She nodded, but her smile dimmed.

"Excellent. Might I. . . Might I have a moment to speak to you?"

“Of course.”