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СКАЧАТЬ her wing. Winston simply exuded benevolence toward Patience with frequent and surprising smiles.

      Unfortunately watching the older couple interact with her was a poignant reminder of the warmth and kindness he’d lost with his mother’s death and the loneliness that had never left him since.

      Patience laughed at one of Winston’s dry quips. My, but she was bright as a new penny today! Thus far she’d spent a lot of her time peppering the Winstons with questions about their lives and devising ways to fit her into their past. Alex couldn’t hear exactly what she said as she rehearsed the story of Patience Winston’s life but the murmur of her voice kept drawing his thoughts to her. And sparking his curiosity about how they planned to explain where a daughter had been during the years they’d worked in the houses of upper-crust families.

      He doubted any inquiries would happen but it paid to be prepared.

      He found his gaze constantly drawn to Patience even when she was merely reading or hemming another of Amber’s discarded dresses as she was at that moment. It didn’t seem to matter that she wasn’t doing anything remarkable. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Nor could he help notice the more miles that piled up behind them, the more relaxed and less shy she seemed.

      Except around him.

      With him she made only the stiffest of polite conversation at meals. It was clear she’d rather he were not there. It was a lowering thing. Most women went out of their way to converse with him. He had to admit her avoidance stung even though he understood it.

      But her behavior caused him to worry about more than his stinging pride, too. If the way she acted around him was her normal way around men, all her preparations would be for naught. Because he realized her demeanor didn’t come across as shy, but instead as fearful, and when she had to deal with others it would stand out, calling attention to her.

      So after a while he had two reasons—one altruistic and the other supremely selfish—to sit across from her in the parlor portion of the car when the Winstons vacated their chairs to sit in the dining area. He had to get her to feel more comfortable around him.

      Alex refused to examine too deeply why it seemed so necessary. It could only be to help further her masquerade and he knew it. He wasn’t sure a woman could ever heal from the kind of damage her husband and now her father had inflicted on her.

      “So how far have you come in writing the life story of Patience Winston?” he asked.

      She looked up from her notes, startled.

      Afraid.

      Then she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, seeming to reach deeply into the same inner well of courage that had helped her face death in her tree-climbing escape. Again she found enough bravery to look at him steadily. “We plan to tell everyone I was born on a New Jersey farm owned by Heddie’s older sister. She was wealthy, widowed and childless.”

      “And this can fit with the Winstons’ lives and personal histories?”

      “Yes. Heddie and Winston went there after her sister Esther’s husband died. Heddie was expecting at the time but the child didn’t live more than a few weeks.”

      Alex glanced toward Mrs. Winston where she sat toward the front of the car. “That is so very sad.”

      Patience nodded. “After that, Heddie took up a post as head housekeeper for her sister’s home and Winston became the butler. The farm began to fall on hard times because the foreman stole a great deal from Esther.”

      “It happens,” he said in an airy tone that had him wincing. He no longer wanted to be that man who hid his every deep thought behind a wall of careless comments. Patience stared at him, a tiny frown showing in her usually unlined forehead. She was as alone behind her walls as he was behind his. He didn’t know her well enough to scale hers or break down his before her, either. Instead he motioned for her to go on.

      It took her a short moment of examining her notes before she looked up and began again, all signs of disappointment in his character gone. “Heddie and Winston left in pursuit of income to send back to help pay debts and keep the farm going and to keep Esther in the privileged lifestyle she’d come to expect. The farm was to go to them upon her death except it went for taxes instead. That is where truth and fiction depart.”

      She looked at her lap, drawing his gaze to her knotted fingers. “The story will go,” she continued, “that they left their daughter—me—with Aunt Esther to be raised genteelly. Aunt Esther had me educated by governesses in her home where she kept very much to herself.”

      “Good. That will explain your cultured speech and manners. I’d worried.” He’d worried about her classic beauty, too, but didn’t want to make her ill at ease again by mentioning it.

      “The Winstons worried, as well, which is why we formulated the tale this way.”

      “So, go on with your story. How is it that you’ve joined up with your parents on a trek to the West?”

      “When Aunt Esther died two years ago, I joined them in San Francisco and was hired by your cousin as a governess.”

      “We had better make sure Jamie and Amber know of this. Amber is an involved parent who still teaches Meara on her own.”

      Patience nodded. “I have begun a letter to send to Amber so she knows in case there is an inquiry into the Winston family. Heddie apparently took Miriam Trimble’s place as housekeeper because Mrs. Trimble was too elderly to keep up with both the staff and act as nursemaid to the earl’s daughter.”

      Alex chuckled. “I would love to hear Mrs. Trimble’s reaction to that being said of her—the old warhorse.”

      A frown crinkled Patience’s forehead, her brows pulling together in a V. “Warhorse? But she has been described to me as all that is kindness. Amber loves the woman.”

      Now he laughed. “As does Jamie. She was a mother to him for nearly his whole life. And a better mother no boy could have asked for. Mrs. Trimble was a mouthful for a little tyke. You should know he called her Mimm and still does.”

      “Oh. Yes. Amber calls her that, as well. Thank you for the correction.” She looked down at her notebook and scribbled a footnote.

      Alex held tight to his lighthearted facade, refusing to let it crack. “I had another experience with her. She used to call me the spawn of Satan. Even did it once in the presence of the daughter of a British peer. The name followed me in society from that day until I came to America. Mrs. Trimble apologized after what happened in San Francisco, so all is happy between us.”

      Her eyes softened and he could have sworn she lifted her hand as if to touch him in comfort but she let it fall in her lap. “I am so sorry. I know how much it hurts to be misjudged,” she said instead.

      Though he wished with all the loneliness inside him that she had found the courage to reach out to him, he shrugged in a purposefully careless gesture. “I didn’t care,” he lied, feeling a bit like a petulant child denying what was true to spite an authority figure. “I had my way to protect Jamie and she had hers. Together, though very separately, we managed.”

      She stared at him for a long moment then looked away, withdrawing into her thoughts and leaving him to wish he had admitted that Mrs. Trimble had hurt him with her mistrust.

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