Harlequin Historical January 2020--Box Set 1 of 2 by Marguerite Kaye

Author:Marguerite Kaye
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Silas led Mary into his old bedroom, ready for the night. Jasper had joined them for dinner as promised, but they had yet to see Millie and her illustrious husband. Silas was glad the Marquess hadn’t been there. After their long travels and the reunion that had been both joyous and discomforting, Silas was in no mood to charm a man. It was a rare occasion when he sought solitude instead of company, especially as he set his lamp down on the top of the old dresser. It had once held his model soldier collection until he’d replaced it with small replicas of steam engines. The toys had been sold ages ago for their lead to help pay for necessities after his father had died.

Silas breathed in the slight mustiness from the damp old wood, the faint smoke from a chimney that sometimes didn’t clear, and felt the lumpiness of the knotted rug under his feet. Little about the room had changed in the past ten years and the part of him that enjoyed a well-appointed room in Baltimore rebelled at the puritan simplicity, especially as Mary searched through her leather and wood trunk. She deserved more, Silas had worked for more and yet this was home.

‘Are you all right, Silas?’ Mary faced him, her fine night things draped over one arm.

‘I always imagined I’d return, but it’s hard to believe I’m here. There are so many memories. Not all of them are good.’ Comfort hung in the air along with the recollection of reading about the latest in steam innovation, dreaming of the railroads and attending to his studies with his father standing over him. It was kneeling beside the turned wood bed praying that his father would live so that he could make peace with him that made it hard to be here. His father hadn’t survived, stealing Silas’s chance at forgiveness and changing everything.

Mary didn’t ask for more and he stared into her round brown eyes. She understood better than he could place into words the conflict between being home and wanting to be anywhere else. Here, the old failures settled around him like the dust not even a good cleaning could clear from the room after all these years. He longed to tell Mary of the argument with his father about Silas wanting to work for the railway instead of the Foundation, of his father accusing him of being as grasping as the grandfather Silas had never met and the ugly words of frustration that Silas had hurled at him in return. Then he’d stalked off to find employment anyway. It was Millie who’d found him at the railway yard a week later to tell him their father had caught typhoid and it was dire. It didn’t matter that Silas had returned home immediately. His father had never come out of his delirium long enough for Silas to know if he ever forgave him. He was too ashamed to reveal it, especially since he’d made

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