The Indebted Earl by Erica Vetsch (love letters to the dead TXT) 📕

red curl around her finger. “Are you married to him? He looks like he just kissed a sour pickle. Still …” She shrugged. “If you’re going to be grumpy, at least we’re used to it. Miss Fricklin was a grump herself.”

Laughter bubbled up in Sophie’s chest, and she fought to keep it down. She saw herself in the outspoken Thea. How many times had she aired her mind with no thought to how it would be received?

“No, I am not married to the captain … I mean the earl. Lady Richardson and I are his guests for the next little while.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “The captain—earl—isn’t grumpy. He’s just surprised. It’s not every day you come to live in a new house and then get three young ladies delivered by parcel post. Perhaps you might offer him a bit of grace and remember your manners. You are a guest in his home.” She kept her tone gentle but firm.

Thea’s mouth twisted as she gave it some thought before nodding. “Fine.”

“Where are your parents?” Sophie asked Penny. “Why were you sent to Gateshead rather than to them?”

“We’re orphans. The earl was our guardian. Our father worked on the estate, and we lived in a cottage near the cliff. Father’s job was to tend the boathouse and sail the earl’s boat for him.” She toyed with a fold of her dress. “Nearly two years ago now, the boat went down in bad seas off the coast. They managed to salvage the boat, the Shearwater, when it washed up ashore near Lyme Regis, but they never found our father.” She kept her eyes downcast.

Betsy stared at Sophie, as if the story meant little to her. The child had beautiful, round brown eyes and a sweet dimple in her chin. Her slippers dangled several inches from the floor, and she tucked her hands under her thighs. When she caught Sophie looking at her, she smiled shyly, and one hand crept up to tug her ear.

“And your mother?” Sophie asked.

Thea bounced up and moved to the window. Every line of her little body was taut, and she crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze fierce.

“Our mother never recovered from the loss. A few months after Papa died, she passed away.” Penny feathered her fingers through Betsy’s hair, and the little girl leaned into her older sister. “We had never met the earl, but for some reason, he took it upon himself to become our guardian. He sent us to Miss Fricklin’s School for Young Ladies. It’s a small school in Mousehole, down in Cornwall. He paid our fees, and Miss Fricklin kept us there, even over the holidays. But when the earl got sick a few months ago, the money stopped. Miss Fricklin wrote to the steward several times, but she never heard back. There were only a handful of girls at the school, most of them day girls from town, and when our tuition money stopped coming, Miss Fricklin couldn’t keep the school open. She accepted a position in another school, and she sent all the girls back to their homes.”

“So I guess we don’t have a home now.” Thea turned to face the room. “’Cept here.”

“Are there no relatives?” The captain asked. “No one to care for you?”

Penny shook her head. “The earl and the vicar searched right after—” She broke off, as if she didn’t want to say it again. “They weren’t able to find anyone. If the earl hadn’t paid for us to go away to school, we’d have been sent to an orphanage and probably separated.” Her brow knitted as if she realized this was still a real possibility.

Sophie’s heart wrenched. No family, no one to look after them, and the prospect of being torn apart and sent away from each other?

“You have no idea why my uncle became your guardian?”

At his abrupt question, Penny flinched. If only the captain wouldn’t glower and stand so rigidly, as if he were addressing some miscreant in his crew.

“No, sir. But we’re glad he did.” Penny hugged Betsy. “What we also don’t know is what will happen to us now. Are you going to be our guardian?” The hope in her eyes was undeniable.

The planes and angles of the captain’s face sharpened. “That’s something I can’t decide right this moment. I have no provisions for children, nor the desire to have any thrust upon me. Bad enough that I have the title and estate to look after. I’m a sea captain, for pity’s sake, not a nursemaid.”

Crestfallen, Penny looked at Sophie.

Sophie’s hand had risen to cover her mouth at his harsh words. While they might be true, they were painful to receive. She wanted to temper the wind to these shorn lambs. “You must be tired and hungry. I propose we introduce you to the most important person in the house, Mrs. Chapman. She was rustling up tea for us, and perhaps we can get her to include you in the plans.” Sophie rose and held out her hand to Betsy. “Let’s leave the captain in peace for a while.”

The child blinked, tugged on her ear, and squirmed around to look at her older sister. At Penny’s nod, she scooted off the couch and put her little hand in Sophie’s. Something warm surrounded Sophie’s heart at the trusting look in Betsy’s eyes. She had been dealt a bad hand, orphaned so young, sent away from home, and now with an uncertain future and a rather stern new guardian, but she was safe in the love and care of her sisters.

Sophie wanted to scoop her up in a hug and promise her that she would always feel loved and secure.

But she couldn’t, because the little girl’s future was in the hands of Captain Wyvern, who hadn’t exactly made glad-eyed offers to welcome the girls to Gateshead.

His life was pitching about like a ship’s deck in a typhoon. He’d lost his command and been cast ashore. He’d tried