With slightly narrowed eyes, she concentrated on the older woman, fighting the painful thoughts. After a long moment she managed to say, “I know it is considered a breach but please call me Patience.”
The kindly woman smiled, gentle understanding in her warm expression. “Then you should call me Heddie.”
“Gladly,” Patience said.
“Now that we have that settled, come sit over here, and eat. I want nothing left on that tray when I come back, hear?”
Patience nodded then let the woman help her to a small sitting area as she fought back tears. No one had fussed over her this way since her mama’s death. Had she lived, would her mother have rescued her as she’d promised that fateful day? Patience would never know. Just as she would never know if the accident that had taken her mother and brothers’ lives had been an accident at all. She’d always feared her husband had had a hand in forcing that carriage off the cliff. The evidence of the tracks on the road had told the story of negligence at best, murder at worst. But she hadn’t been questioned. She didn’t believe there had even been an investigation at all.
“Eat up, now. I’m off to find something for you to sleep in.”
Patience dug in as ordered. The simple fare was delicious, the soup tasty and warm, the bread crisp and sumptuous. It had been so long since she’d eaten.
Although she’d been taught to take small bites in order to converse with guests throughout a meal, this evening, all alone, Patience fairly wolfed the food down. Her mother would have been mortified. Tears filled Patience’s eyes. Penelope Wexler was long gone.
Mrs. Winston returned not long after and dropped a nightgown on the bed. “There you go, dearie. Oh, done already? My you were near starved, weren’t you?”
Embarrassed, Patience dropped her gaze. “I’m so sorry. You must think me terribly unmannered to have all but inhaled my food that way.”
“What I think is that you were in great need of nourishment. Now let us get you out of those clothes so you can get some sleep. Mr. Alex sent up some brandy. You should drink it. It may help you sleep. Problems can be handled in the morning.”
Patience nodded and stood. Heddie helped her undress and put on the nightgown that must belong to Amber, judging from the small size and exquisite quality. Wondering what was to become of her, Patience climbed back onto the bed Mrs. Winston had turned down. The brandy did help and she fell into an exhausted sleep rather quickly, though it was a sleep haunted by the past and future.
She wakened several times with a start, thinking the man Alexander had seen out of the window had somehow found her. Each time she roused she was greeted by a small gas flame glowing in a wall sconce across the room. It illuminated the area enough so she could see that no one but her was in the room.
Hours later the morning sunshine slanted through the bedroom window, rousing Patience from her restless slumber. Though her sleep had been disturbed by nightmares, she had still slept. She hadn’t felt this rested since that awful interview with her father when he’d proclaimed her fate and banished her to her room until she capitulated.
She pursed her lips and swung her feet to the floor. He must be furious, surely having discovered her missing by now. And with Amber gone for Ireland, Patience had no one to turn to.
What am I to do?
If only there was some way for her to get far enough away. She walked to the window and cautiously peeked through the airy curtains, wondering if the man Alexander had seen was indeed someone in her father’s employ. Was he still lurking out there? Her stomach knotted. If he was, how would she be able to escape again?
The bedroom door opened slowly and Patience whirled, half-expecting one of the men from her nightmares to be standing there. But it was only Heddie backing in with a tray in her hands. The mixed scents of coffee, warm bread, bacon and fried eggs entered with her.
“Mr. Reynolds asks that you stay in your room until he’s taken care of some pressing matters. He wants to make sure it’s safe for you to come down. He was quite adamant.”
“How can it not be safe inside the earl’s home?”
“He said he isn’t sure about your rights under the laws here in the United States. Or his for harboring you. He thinks it would be unwise for you to risk being seen until you have a plan and he knows no one can legally force their way inside to look for you.”
Her heart fell. She knew the answer to that. She had no plan and no rights with a father as powerful as hers. With his connections at city hall things went his way in spite of the downfall of Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall political machine. That was why she had run here. Amber’s husband, the Earl of Adair, had as much power here and abroad as her father. She’d hoped the earl would be able to help her find a safe haven. She was beginning to fear there was no such place.
“I should dress and be on my way,” she told Heddie Winston. “I don’t think Mr. Reynolds understands whose runaway daughter he’s taken in. I am nothing more than Lionel Wexler’s chattel.”
Mrs. Winston smiled kindly and shook her head a bit. “You should know Alexander Reynolds isn’t afraid of your father, dearie.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t believe he’s afraid of anyone. Considering the man who raised him, I can’t imagine there is a person alive who could intimidate Mr. Alex.”
She took the tray to the sitting area where Patience had eaten last night. “Now you sit right over here and eat your meal. When you’re done, have a good soak. The bath is the door at the end of the hall. I’ve left a robe in there and I have someone brushing your dress out and fixing the torn hem. She’ll bring it up when she’s finished and then she’ll draw your bath. I’ll see she tidies up in here while she waits to help you dress.” Heddie turned back and motioned to the slipper chair. “I washed out your chemise and I’m about to iron it the rest of the way dry. Everything will be just fine. You’ll see.”
Patience ate what she could, no longer as ravenous as last night. Trying not to notice the time passing, she bathed, dressed and let the young maid fool with her hair. Then she paced. Three hours after Heddie Winston left her, Patience had run out of tolerance with hiding in a child’s room. She had begun to feel like a prisoner again.
Opening her reticule, she spread the jewelry her mother had brought along on that fateful visit just before the accident that had taken her life. It had been her grandmother’s and her mother’s. She fingered it now, remembering with a sharp pang the day her mother had given the items to her. And the shame she’d felt as she’d hidden it, guarding it under a loose floorboard in her closet. She’d made sure no one knew she had it, especially after her mother’s death and her father’s subsequent desertion. For the five remaining years of her marriage, she’d kept it hidden from her husband, at first unable to use it for escape. Following her mother’s departure that day, he’d kept her a virtual prisoner.
Finally he’d had a heart attack that had left him so wasted, the worst he’d been able to do was strike her on the back of the legs with his cane as she passed him. She’d learned to wear extra petticoats that made the attacks as ineffectual as he’d been in bed.
He’d blamed her for that, too!
And so she’d endured, knowing she had nowhere to go, hoping Edgar Gorham wouldn’t live much longer, thinking she’d be able to use his wealth to build a life for herself once he was gone. He’d lived two and a half years longer, though, and all she’d been able to do was fight against his attempts to crush her spirit. She was unsure of how well she’d succeeded.
She fingered the pieces of her heritage nestled