Promises and Primroses by Josi S. Kilpack

Author:Josi S. Kilpack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Mountain Publishing
Published: 2018-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

Elliott

Elliott couldn’t stay away. He was sixty years old, set in his ways, a determined bachelor, devoted to the security of his wards, irritated with Amelia Edwards Hollingsworth, and yet he had thought of little but her in the week since he’d left her home. He was coming to see her, again. Unannounced, again. But he was on a specific errand this time, one that intrigued him, and he desperately hoped for a different mood to this visit. Each time he saw her, he understood it could be the last time, and while this visit was no different, it could lead to at least one more encounter.

On the ride from Howardhouse to Feltwell, Elliott listed all her bad qualities: controlling, hard, stubborn, uncaring for her daughter’s happiness, unforgiving, prejudiced, judgmental. But he did not turn back, nor did he stop at Peter’s but instead went past Elsing by thirty miles. Amelia’s home was not convenient. Amelia was not welcoming. They disagreed on a sensitive issue. Eight hours in the saddle would leave him sore for days. He was not a young man; he should have brought a carriage. He should have avoided the trip entirely and sent the information in a message, which Peter had expected and she likely would have preferred. None of it made sense.

Elliott reached Feltwell at just after three o’clock in the afternoon and dismounted at a public stable. He paid the extra coin to buy a bag of oats and fresh water for his horse; who knew how long the water had been sitting in the trough? He had to walk a rather substantial distance to Amelia’s house, but it felt good to stretch his legs. He paused in front of her house—immaculately kept—and smiled at the yellow blossoms that seemed to light the flagstone path to her door.

Their exchanges had not been encouraging, and yet he knew there was more to her than what she had chosen to show him. Those hidden aspects drew him like a bee to a flower. Like moth to flame. Like birds to dawn. Like—

A sound stopped him. Humming.

He quietly moved from the walkway to the eastern corner of the house.

Amelia was on her knees, bent over what he thought to be an herb garden. Her face was relaxed, her apron dirty, and she was humming . . . a hymn? She was at her leisure, without tense shoulders and anxious eyes. And she was lovely. Truly lovely. All those poor qualities he’d listed the last forty-some-odd miles were hard to remember, and instead other truths about the years that had passed rose up with greater definition.

She was a widow, forced to find her way alone in a world she was not raised to be a part of, concerned for her youngest daughter, and working hard to make the small corner of the world she lived in more beautiful. She had succeeded at most of those things, and he admired her as a competent woman who had overcome much.

He’d

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