Page 119 of A Winter By the Sea
But he retreated without a word, closing the door behind him, and for some reason tears heated Emily’s eyes.
“Let him go,” Charles urged. “I am trying to tell you how sorry I am for distancing myself from you and your family. Especially with your poor heartbroken father suffering as he did.” Charles shook his head and Emily saw a sheen of tears in his eyes as well.
She looked away, staring off into her memories. “I remember him being more angry than heartbroken.”
“Can you blame him? When he discovered what Claire and Bertram had done?”
She said, “What Bertram did.”
“Claire was a willing party,” he gently reminded her. “You cannot paint her as innocent victim in what happened.”
“How would I know?” Emily asked. “I have never been allowed to ask her. To hear her side. I have written to her but received only a brief, stilted reply. You know how I looked up to her. Loved her. To come home after spending time away to discover Claire gone? And no chance to say good-bye?”
“I am sorry for that too. Yet maybe that was for the best. Perhaps the separation kept rumors from overshadowing you and your other sisters. That was a mercy, was it not?”
Emily considered and grudgingly nodded. “I suppose so.” But losing Claire did not feel like a mercy.
“Come.” Charles stood and offered her his hand. “Let us go inside before one of us takes a chill.”
Emily put her hand in his and allowed him to help her to her feet. For a moment they stood like that, hand in hand, face-to-face. Then Charles opened the door and ushered her inside.
Charles joined them for dinner again that evening. James Thomson did not.
After Charles left Sea View, Emily went in search of Mr. Thomson. She did not find him in any of the public rooms. And when she knocked on his bedchamber door, there was no answer. Georgiana came down the passage, and Emily asked if she had seen him.
Georgie nodded. “He went out.”
“To Woolbrook?”
“I don’t know.”
An hour later he returned, wiping his shoes and taking off his outer things.
Emily waited near the stairs, hands clasped. “Good evening, Mr. Thomson.”
“Miss Summers,” he said, tone civil if curt.
“Where have you been?” she asked. “If that is not too prying a question.”
“I went to Fortfield Terrace to talk to the captain. See if there might be a room for me there.”
Remorse jabbed her stomach. She pressed her hands to the spot and asked softly, “Has your stay here been so unbearable?”
“Only in one respect.”
She looked at him, waiting for him to expand on his reply.
He huffed a sigh. “Please understand. I have no interest in trying to come between you and Charles Parker. Ill-fated rival is a role I have played before and am not keen to repeat. You and he clearly have a long history, a bond, that I cannot compete with. I fooled myself for a time, but it is clear you still have feelings for him.”
“I ... well, yes. I cannot deny we have a history. But that does not mean you and I cannot be...”
“Cannot be what?”
“Friends?”
“I have enough friends, thank you,” he retorted. Then he sighed again and ran a hand through his hair. “Look. I don’t mean to be churlish or petty. Just tell me. Are you and he going to ... Have you reached an understanding?”
“No.”
