As if she’d burned him, Mr. Lutwidge released her arm. He stepped back, staring at her, vacant and horrified, like the shriveled flowers he used to lay at Papa’s grave.
Georgina shook her head and ran for the stairs. She barreled down them and raced for the library. She slammed herself inside. She flattened against the door. She sank to the rug, breathing hard, too engulfed in wrath to be afraid.
Seconds later, heavy footsteps thudded outside the door. The wood creaked, as if a body slumped against it. “Miss Whitmore?”
She did not want to answer. She knew she would never get the truth if she didn’t. “Yes?”
“I wish to confess.”
He did not sleep.
Simon stood next to the window, pulling a loose shirt over his head for the first time. His back screamed as the cotton brushed his blisters.I am losing her.
Already, Mr. Oswald had spoken to a captain about securing their passage on the next ship to America. Mother was on her way to say goodbye. The children spoke of nothing else.
Eight days.He had slept none of them, and if he did, she infested his dreams.
She should have come.
Or he should have dragged himself out of this room and found her. He could have. If he had wanted to enough.
But he’d stayed, and he’d pushed it away, and he’d talked to the children about home as if the mountains and cabin and new land would make it easier. As if he could climb on another ship like before and not look back. As if he could forget.
Stuffing the shirt in his trousers, he eased to his knees next to the trunk. He pried open the lid. He took out the drawing book for the hundredth time in the last eight days.
He did not mean to draw her.
He didn’t want to.
But Georgina’s face stared back at him, young and pensive, with glints of compassion and understanding warming her gaze. She was beautiful in her curls. He missed the touch of them. He missed her lips, that one frantic kiss, and the way an earthquake had rattled his core yet still seemed to steady him.
What is wrong with me?
He wasn’t certain what held him back. If it was Mr. Oswald’s profession of love, or anxiety that Georgina would not be strong enough for the mountains, or fear she would not come, or dread he might have to stay.
Or this.
He flipped back the pages, and Ruth stared up at him, faraway Ruth. Old love rang, and familiar guilt clamored, as he caressed the pencil strokes with his thumbs and smeared the lines.
Ruth is what kept him in this room.
Ruth is what kept him from finding Georgina, what prisoned all the words his heart needed to unleash. Not love for her. That was old and deep, like something that had simmered to the bottom of him and hardened. Another layer of himself.
No, it was something else.
Guilt maybe.
Perhaps fear as well.
He slammed the drawing book shut and tossed it back into the trunk. He did not understand himself enough to figure it out. He only knew one thing.
He could not get on that ship without asking her to come with him.
The rest was in the hands of God.
“Your mother was gone that night.” Mr. Lutwidge had motioned Georgina into the library chair, then locked the door—whether to keep her in or everyone else out, she did not know. “I knew because I watched this town house for two days straight.”
She tamped down the impulse to stand. Perhaps even run.Calm.She focused on his face, the way he angled it toward her without meeting her gaze.Remain calm.
