Noel's Wish by Donna Lea Simpson

Author:Donna Lea Simpson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: 0
Published: 2014-07-04T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Ruston slammed the cup down on the tray and thrust his fingers through his hair. He had reacted badly to her words and had wounded her with his stinging comment that she had no children. He could feel it in the air the moment he said it, her sudden tension, her pain. But dammit, she had no right to say such things to him! He had been well within his rights to deliver a rebuke after that unbearable bit of righteous indignation. Who was she to say what his little girl, the light of his life, was feeling?

Unless Mossy had told her.

He remembered the cozy scene he had witnessed, with Mossy gazing adoringly up at Lady Ann and the woman’s arms tight around his child. That was why he had interrupted; he couldn’t bear the thought that Mossy would be hurt when Lady Ann went away . . .

When Ann went away.

Like he went away, hurting his little girl time after time after time.

Was Ann right? She had some experience, after all, with abandonment. Reading between the words that she spoke, he thought that perhaps she had been a lonely little girl, never sure of her father’s love. But Mossy knew he loved her, didn’t she? He told her so often enough.

He leaped to his feet and paced in front of the fire. He had never been the introspective sort, and all of this thought in one night was making his brain ache, but he was no coward. If he was wrong, he wanted to know about it. If he was failing at some elemental part of his role in life as a father, it was best to know now, while there was time to make amends.

His own father had always proclaimed that a man was known by his actions, not his words. Words were easy; it was harder to do the right thing day after day. Value your family, the old man had always said. Ruston sighed and sat down, staring into the fire. Value your family. When he was a boy and home from school on holidays, his father spent a good portion of every day with him, taking him on his weekly visits to the tenants, teaching him what the figures and numbers in the estate books meant, spending valuable time.

At school he had learned that not all fathers were like his own; many sons would not be able to point their fathers out in a crowd. Some only saw the old man if they had done something unforgivably bad.

For Ruston it was different. When he was just three, his mother had died giving birth to a little brother who lived only ten months after her. His little brother had died suddenly in the middle of a dark winter night. Little Charles, as Ruston was known by one and all when he was a child, was just four then, but still he remembered clearly his father holding him and explaining that wee Jonathan had gone to keep Mummy company because she was lonely in heaven.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.