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

She would be sad to leave Gateshead.

The girls would too. They were already calling the nursery “their room,” and every day they explored some new corner of the house and reported back the treasures and nooks and discoveries. It could be a lovely home for them to grow up in, if only the captain wasn’t bent on sending them away.

And then there was darling Mamie. Since the girls’ arrival, she had enjoyed a clarity of mind and memory that encouraged Sophie to no end. She and Betsy had formed a sweet bond, with the little girl often standing on tiptoe and Mamie bending low as they shared some secret together.

Sophie walked toward the cliff to where a bench had been placed on a patch of gravel. Taking a seat, she turned sideways, raised her knees, and put her feet on the bench, wrapping her arms around her legs in a posture that would give her mother a fit of the vapors if she ever saw it.

But it was how Sophie prayed best.

“God, I don’t know what to do.” She spoke softly, and the breeze blew her words away on a whisper. “The captain is bent on leaving as soon as possible. The girls are going to be miserable shunted away to another boarding school. Mamie will be confused and unsettled when we leave Gateshead for a cottage somewhere for only a few weeks. And as soon as I return to Haverly, Mother has men lined up for inspection.” Closing her eyes, she rested her forehead on her knees. “I don’t see a happy ending for any of us … except the captain, who will get exactly what he wants, which is to be away from all of us, from all of this.”

Could she blame him? He hadn’t asked for any of the things that had happened to him. Being wounded, losing his command, inheriting a title, escorting Sophie and Mamie to Devonshire, three little girls foisted upon him.

She had supplied him with the names of three ladies’ academies that might take the girls. And the entire time, she had felt like a traitor.

Sophie could only imagine the look in Thea’s eyes as she was put on a coach to a destination she didn’t know or want. And Betsy. Sweet Betsy wouldn’t even truly understand what was going on. She would look to her sisters and to Sophie for comfort and assurance. Penny would try to be brave, convincing herself that she could handle the situation, that she was old enough to act as a mother to her sisters, when in reality, she needed a mother’s guiding hand herself.

“God, everything in me wants to offer to become the girls’ guardian myself, but would the courts even allow that? Not to mention what Marcus and Mother would have to say if I took on three motherless children without the support of a husband. They barely agreed to allow us to come on this trip in the first place. I would love to ask the captain if Mamie and I could stay on here instead of looking for a cottage to rent. We could look after the girls, at least for the rest of the summer, and put off them having to leave. But we can’t impose and invite ourselves to stay when he clearly wants to wash his hands of all of us and get back to the career he loves. I feel so helpless. I used to know exactly how my life was going to go, but now everything is turned upside down, and I can’t find my way. If You would just point me in the right direction, I’d really appreciate it.”

She raised her head, wiping away the tears that always came when she and God had a heart-to-heart. Though she had no answers, she felt at peace because she had poured out everything to God. It was up to Him now.

Letting her feet fall to the ground, she straightened her dress and smoothed her hair. Scanning the slope up to the house, her heart popped in a quick extra beat. The captain strode across the grass toward her.

He had comforted her on the stairs, and she had enjoyed it. Strong arms holding her, the steady beat of a heart against her cheek, the warmth of human contact. She had missed that, being able to lean on someone else for a little while.

A twinge of guilt pinched in her chest. Was it wrong of her to have drawn comfort from the captain? She had vowed to love only Rich for the rest of her days. But then again, she didn’t love Captain Wyvern. No, what she felt for him was … regard. Admiration. Perhaps the beginning of friendship?

Did that mean she had forgiven him for whatever part he might have played in Rich’s death? When he had first told her of the events that led to Rich being shot, she had been eager to have somewhere to place the blame. If the captain was willing to bear the burden, she had been more than willing to let him.

But as the days had passed, and as she’d thought about his account of the capture of the enemy ship, her anger had faded. She was coming to a place of acceptance. That somehow, someway, Rich dying in Portugal had been no one’s fault. Death in war had always been a possibility. She had known it even as she had prayed for it never to happen.

In truth, she hadn’t forgiven Charles Wyvern, because there was nothing to forgive.

Charles was her friend, and allowing him to comfort her had not been wrong. There had been nothing romantic in it.

Thea’s claim of everyone making calf eyes at one another was laughable. The child merely hadn’t understood an embrace between friends.

Why was he seeking her out now? To ask her for help in choosing a school for the girls? Or for assistance in hiring staff before he left? She gripped the back of