Hidden Affections

by Delia Parr

  Never. Never. Never.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Learning to live with Annabelle had been hard enough, but living without her was proving more difficult with each passing hour.

  Desperate to ease the gnawing pain that intensified with the dawn of each new day, Harrison threw himself with reckless fervor back into the life he had led before he met her—only to find that he found no pleasure in the entertainments he had always enjoyed with likeminded friends on Petty’s Island.

  He finally returned to Graymoor Gardens at midmorning a week later to embrace the pain completely, once and for all, in an attempt to finally end it. But he was more exhausted, broken in spirit, and heartsick than he had been before he had left.

  Avoiding Irene entirely, he locked himself in Annabelle’s room and gave Lotte instructions to leave his meals on a tray outside of the door. Surrounded by crushing memories, he sat in front of the fire and stared at Annabelle’s empty chair. While their frank and open talks were often not easy for him, at least at first, he had learned what it was like to have a friend whose opinion he valued and whose character inspired him to improve his own.

  It was the memory of Annabelle, simply Annabelle, however, that haunted him the most. He could still envision her pale green eyes, alive with excitement as she shared her enthusiasm for the volunteer work she had done, or shadowed to a darker green by the scandal that wound around his name, rather than her own. He could hear her voice, encouraging him to share his talents and wealth with others, yet rejecting the settlement funds she rightly deserved.

  But most of all, it was the deep and abiding faith that held her steady, even when he set her aside because he could not take the risk of loving her and keeping her in his life.

  Although he had not been able to pray for years and had little interest in his faith until Annabelle walked into his life, it was nearing midnight when he was inexplicably drawn to the Bible she often read that was lying on the writing desk.

  He picked it up and saw that she had left it open to the passage from Corinthians that she loved. He carried the Bible back with him and sat in front of the fire to read it, over and over, until it was as familiar to him as her beautiful face.

  “Faith. Hope. And love,” he murmured and flipped through the pages of the Bible. In the simplicity of those three little words, would he find the core of the faith that sustained Annabelle and actually claim it for himself?

  When his fingers touched a page thicker than the others, he paused and worked his way back until he found it again near the center of the book. He had not seen this page before or realized that this particular Bible contained a record of his family that dated back to his great-great-grandfather, who settled in Philadelphia over one hundred fifty years ago. Marriages, births, and deaths were all listed in a variety of handwritings, and they testified to generation after generation of Graymoors who had made this city their home and claimed this faith as their own, as well.

  Using the tips of his fingers, he traced the names of his parents, the older brother he could not remember, and his older brother Peter, along with Peter’s wife and two sons. Harrison’s name and the date of his birth, however, stood alone, real testimony that the Graymoor family name would end with him.

  He knew he had not updated the record to include the date of Peter’s death, along with his wife and sons, and he dismissed the possibility that Irene was responsible. Even though she was just learning how to write, she would never have made those entries without his permission. Not in his family Bible. That left Annabelle as the obvious suspect, and he narrowed his gaze to study the record again.

  She had not listed her name or the date of their marriage, which made sense, and he wondered if she had, would he have had the courage to make an entry noting the date of their divorce?

  Deeply troubled, he juxtaposed the pain of living without her with the incredible risk he would take to love her and keep her as part of his life, inviting the pain that he knew only too well could follow. Either way, he would be hurt, and he could not decide which path to take or which hurt would be greater.

  Desperate to find an answer to the dilemma he faced, he paged through the Bible until he found the passage in Corinthians again. He pressed his hand to the page, closed his eyes, and opened his heart to receive the love of God he had rejected for so long.

  He whispered the passage he had memorized by now, word by word, over and over again. Finally, when his voice was hoarse and his spirit had been broken and bowed down to the will of God, his very soul filled with faith, with hope, and with a love so overpowering that he literally dropped down to his knees. And there he found the courage to do what he thought he had forgotten how to do: He prayed.

  After living at the boardinghouse for a week and swinging from despair one hour to hope the next, Annabelle finally came to accept that Harrison was not going to change his mind and keep her as part of his life.

  After spending that same week working at the boardinghouse, she also knew she definitely did not want a similar position again anywhere else, regardless of how much it paid. It was nearly eleven o’clock again tonight before she had a new but late-arriving boarder settled into a room, and she collapsed into her own bed, which was actually the cot Widow Plum had once kept in the kitchen.

  The elderly woman was extremely kind and the only saving grace to working here. Otherwise, Annabelle found the position so physically demanding that she ached from head to toe. Her hands were raw from scrubbing every room. Her back was sore from moving furniture and carrying loads of laundry up and down three floors on the only staircase in the house. Her entire body was stiff from overwork, but it was her broken heart that caused her real pain.

  Unable to find a position on the cot that did not hurt some part of her body, she got up. Even though she was so exhausted she doubted she could get her eyes to focus properly, she lit the oil lamp and spread the newspaper out on the cot to see if there was a position posted today that had not appeared before.

  She did not know how it happened, but the next thing Annabelle knew, it was dawn. She woke up with a start when she saw the newspaper spread out beneath her, but with little time before she had to help start breakfast, she did not bother to read the first page at all.

  Instead, she opened the four-page paper searching for the section where she would find the notices for positions printed among other advertisements for various shops, available houses or land listed for sale, and the notice Widow Plum had posted three days ago announcing that her boardinghouse was now accepting new clients.

  She caught a glimpse of something on the inside page that grabbed her attention, and she clapped her hand to her mouth to keep from squealing out loud while she read it:

  Mr. and Mrs. Eric Bradley and their infant son, Daniel, recent esteemed visitors to our city, have departed for an extended holiday in Richmond, Virginia, where the weather is far more hospitable than we all are struggling to endure here. They expect to return in the spring to their home in New York City.

  “Harrison did it! He actually got Eric out of the city!” she whispered, and her heart lurched in her chest for want of being with him again.

  Hopeful that God’s plan for her life might become clearer to her today if she found at least one notice for a position far away from here, she quickly scanned the notices and squealed out loud this time when she saw a position she actually found appealing:

  Widower moving west in March requires a mature woman of faith for housekeeping responsibilities and the care of four young children during journey and thereafter. Respond to this newspaper by 18 February and include references. M. L. Lerner

  “I could handle this position. I know I could.” She quickly refolded the paper and stored it under her pillow. Even the prospect of providing references should not present a problem, assuming Irene and Widow Plum would be willing to vouch for her character as well as her willingness to work hard. She dismissed the idea of getting any kind of references for the work she had done
at the Refuge as too risky for a host of reasons, and sighed. She had not even thought of doing volunteer work since she arrived here. She had not even picked up her knitting, for that matter, for the same reason: She had absolutely no free time.

  Heartened by the fact she had finally found a notice for a position that appealed to her, she closed her eyes to whisper a prayer of thanksgiving. She quickly said another to ask God to heal her broken heart and give her the strength and courage to follow the path He had set before her—a path that seemed to be leading her away from the man she still loved so deeply.

  She arrived downstairs a little later than usual but she still managed to get to the kitchen before Widow Plum. Shivering, she added some wood to the cookstove to heat the room as well as to get it ready to use to make breakfast. She was pumping water into a pot to parboil some potatoes to fry before she remembered to whisper a prayer that Irene would come for another visit soon and bring the diary Annabelle had forgotten to pack.

  Although she still could not fathom why she had not remembered to bring her diary, of all things, her heart was a little lighter knowing Irene would keep it safe until she was able to bring it to her. She took out a bowl and a sharp knife and set them onto the table before she lugged over a large sack of potatoes that needed peeling.

  She had barely started her work when she heard a knock at the front door and hurried to answer it. “It’s barely six o’clock. If boarders would take the time to read the notice in the newspaper more carefully, they’d know not to arrive before ten o’clock in the morning,” she grumbled and opened the door.

  “Wearing a face like that will send boarders in the other direction,” Irene teased before stepping into the house.

  Stupefied, Annabelle could scarcely believe her eyes. “What are you doing here again so soon and so early?”

  “Coming to see you—and don’t ask me how I got out of there so early. I don’t quite believe it myself. I can only stay for a few minutes so I can get back home with Mr. Anderson’s deliveryman before anyone finds out I’m gone. By the way, I finally found Jonah yesterday. Or I should say, he found me again. He’s keeping company with another squirrel. Now I’ve got two critters to feed.”

  “Did you find my diary?” Annabelle asked as they passed through the dining room into the kitchen.

  “I haven’t been able to look for it. Harrison was back by the time I got home last night, and he’d already locked himself up in your room and told Lotte to leave his meals on a tray outside the door. Even if he decides to leave the room, he’ll probably lock it up, and he’s got the only key.”

  Alarmed, Annabelle helped Irene out of her coat. “He’s in the same room as my diary?”

  Irene waved away her distress. “That diary can’t be in plain sight. Otherwise, you would have seen it, which means you wouldn’t have forgotten it in the first place. In the second place, Peggy was the one who cleaned the room right after you left, and she didn’t find it either, which means the diary is probably on the floor underneath your bed.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because that’s the only place it could be, and she doesn’t usually clean underneath the beds. She complains it’s too much trouble,” she explained.

  Unconvinced, Annabelle pressed her friend further. “Can’t you get Alan to take the lock off the door so you can get inside?”

  Frowning, Irene plopped herself down at the table, picked up the knife, and resumed the task Annabelle had just begun. “Not with Harrison in there. Besides, Alan’s afraid of his own shadow. He wouldn’t do anything unless Harrison told him he could. But don’t worry. I have a plan.”

  “You usually do. Should I ask what that plan might be, or am I better off not knowing that, too?” she teased and took the flour and other ingredients out of the larder to start making up the dough for the biscuits Widow Plum wanted to serve with breakfast.

  “As soon as I know exactly what it is, I’ll let you know,” Irene replied and her cheeks turned pink. “I’m not sure how I’ll manage to do it yet, but I intend to take that lock off myself if I have to, get the diary out of your room, and put the lock back on again without anyone being the wiser.” She set the potato she had peeled into the bowl and grabbed another one.

  “As simple as that,” Annabelle murmured and drew a deep breath. “How is Harrison doing? Really?”

  “It’s hard to tell, because I’ve only seen him once since you left. I think he blames me for helping you leave, even though he can’t prove a thing, but I’m keeping my promise. I haven’t uttered your name once. How are you faring? Anything interesting in the newspaper yet?”

  Although Annabelle was dismayed to hear that Harrison was not faring well, she was so excited about what she had read in the newspaper this morning that she had to remeasure the flour she was doling into a bowl twice. She had the news about Eric leaving the city on the tip of her tongue before she realized Irene did not know anything about Eric at all. “I did find something today,” she replied and quickly shared the details about the position. “I’ll need references, of course, and I was hoping you would give me one. I know you’re not up to writing words and sentences yet, but if you tell me what you want to say, I could write it down for you and have you sign it.”

  Irene’s gaze grew troubled. “Are you sure this is what you want? It’s only been a week. Harrison could still change his mind.”

  Annabelle blinked back tears. “Leaving is what’s best for both of us. It’s what he wants.”

  Sighing, Irene nodded. “Why don’t you just write what you want and let me sign it. How soon did you say you had to reply to the notice?”

  “By the eighteenth of February.”

  “Then we’ve only got nine or ten days. Write up that reference. I’ll try to get back in a day or two to sign it.” She put a third peeled potato into the bowl and grabbed her coat. “I’m sorry I have to leave so soon, but I have another errand I have to run. I’ll see myself out,” she said.

  She planted a kiss on Annabelle’s cheek before she walked out of the kitchen and well before Annabelle even had the chance to ask her what kind of errand she could possibly have at this early hour.

  When Philip had not been waiting for her in the city earlier today, as they had originally planned, Irene returned to Graymoor Gardens and the news that Reverend Bingham had invited everyone to come to church on Saturday to see him married to one of Edward Cranshaw’s daughters, Eliza.

  Once she had supper started later in the afternoon, she put Lotte in charge of the kitchen and donned her coat. “I need a bit of fresh air. If anyone asks, tell them I needed to be alone for a while,” she explained.

  She walked along the pathway into the woods with a confidence that was rewarded when she found Philip sitting on the bench waiting for her.

  He stood up the moment she approached. “I’m glad we had set up a second plan to meet here just in the case the first fell through. I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t be there this morning to talk to you like I hoped I would.”

  “You’re here now. That’s all that counts,” she said, and he sat down beside her once she had taken her seat. “We’ve got a bigger problem than I thought and little time to fix it,” she offered. “Are you certain you’re up to helping me set things right between Harrison and Annabelle?”

  He let out a long sigh. “I’ve had time to think about what Annabelle said, and I can see now that she’s right. We have no future together, but I still care about her enough to want to help her and my cousin to resolve their differences.”

  “That may take some doing,” she said. “Harrison locked himself into her room yesterday and won’t come out, and Annabelle found a notice for a position in the newspaper today. I had to agree to give her a reference, and I think Prudence will give her one, too.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I saw the notice. If I recall correctly, she has about ten days to reply to the notice. With references, she probably stands a good chance of securing the position.”

&nb
sp; “Which means we have little time to get Harrison to come to his senses.”

  “That won’t be easy, since we both promised Annabelle we wouldn’t say anything to Harrison to make him change his mind.”

  “That’s true,” Irene admitted. “I only have one promise I really can’t break, but I wouldn’t mind breaking the others. But I know I didn’t promise her I wouldn’t do anything. Did you?”

  He furrowed his brow. “No, but—”

  “Good,” she pronounced with a slap to her thigh. “Harrison needs a nudge or two. I’ve got a couple of my own in mind, but I think you can do me one better, assuming it won’t be a problem if Harrison gets really, really angry with you.”

  He chuckled. “I’m accustomed to it. Just tell me what you want me to do.”

  And she did. In great detail.

  By the time she returned to the cottage, supper was ready to be served, but she decided to let Lotte leave Harrison’s supper tray outside of his door and wait until morning to implement the plan she had worked out with Philip.

  If all went well, Harrison and Annabelle would be back here together within a few days. Hopefully, they’d be so happy that they both would forgive her for manipulating their reunion. If not, she would simply have to find another way to bring those two young people to their senses.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The pounding at his door woke Harrison up the next morning, but it was Irene’s loud voice that startled him out of bed where the scent of summer roses that Annabelle favored still clung to her pillow and had soothed him to sleep only a few hours ago.

  “Unlock this door, Harrison. That room you’ve been hiding in needs to be cleaned. I’m coming in to clean it, whether you like it or not. Don’t make me stand here all day pounding on this door,” she demanded and emphasized her words with a few solid hits at the door that sounded like she was using a mallet instead of her fist.