Beloved Captive Read Online Free Page B

am here, but. . .”  
    She searched for the proper way to tell her father that while she loved him, he had less need of her than the children who were going without instruction in her absence.
    “But?” Dark eyes stared almost without blinking.
    He is my father. The children are but my temporary charges .  
    The cost too high to count, Emilie allowed a long breath and a short prayer. “As long as you have need of me, I shall stay.”
    Later, while lying in a tub of water heated on the stove and infused with lavender, Emilie had to wonder why she had agreed so easily. The education of Fairweather Key’s youth gave her life purpose and meaning. Staying with her father only added to the pain she’d been building on since childhood.
    Yet a part of her would never stop being the little girl desperately seeking her father’s approval. She blinked back a tear.  
    And looking for her absent mother’s love.
    She’d finished her bath and donned her nightgown when Mama Dell knocked. “Might I comb your hair for you?” she asked, obviously reluctant to enter the room uninvited.
    “Yes, please,” Emilie said. “And while you do, perhaps we can have a long-overdue talk.”
    Emilie seated herself at the vanity, then handed Mama Dell the silver brush. For a moment she felt transported to childhood when, as a child of the manor, she’d done very little for herself. Indeed the dressing, combing, and everything else but the feeding, it seemed, was done by the servant women of the Gayarre house.
    And of them, Mama Dell and Cook vied to be the leader until a truce was had. Mama Dell was queen of everything upstairs, and Cook reigned supreme over the downstairs. So while Cook might curry Emilie’s favor with her favorite sweet treat, Mama Dell would entertain her with stories and games.
    In all, it came out a tie and gave Emilie a wonderful childhood, even though Mama Dell eventually left permanently to take on the raising of Isabelle.
    “There,” Mama Dell said.
    Emilie looked in the mirror, stunned to see that her hair had been combed and braided so quickly. “I’d forgotten how fast you work.”
    Mama Dell replaced the brush on the vanity and stood a moment, giving Emilie the idea she wanted to talk. Emilie swiveled on the stool and turned to face her.
    “He gave you your mama’s miniature.”
    Emilie nodded. “We favor, don’t you think?”
    Her dark eyes looked away. “I always did.”
    “There’s a conversation to be had, isn’t there?”
    “Only if you want to,” she said, her face unreadable as she looked back in Emilie’s direction.
    Emilie gestured to the chair nearest her. “Please do sit.” She waited until Mama Dell complied before continuing. “Where to start?”
    “I generally believe the beginning’s the place,” she said. “But you just go on and start wherever you think best.”
    She smiled. “You know, of course, that after leaving New Orleans Isabelle found love with Reverend Carter’s son, Josiah.”
    “The young man who was paid to take her away from here,” she said with a nod. “I do remember him. Oh, but he was a handsome thing. Rough around the edges but so handsome.”  
    “He still is,” she said, “but he does love Isabelle so. And Viola Dumont, she’s found a love of medicine. The doctor’s employed her as his nurse. She delivered Isabelle’s son a few days before I left.”
    “And you? What is it that keeps you in that place? Some man, perhaps?”
    Emilie smiled even as she shook her head. “The children.” She paused. “I’m their teacher.”
    Mama Dell rose without any indication of surprise that the spoiled woman seated before her might actually be employed as a schoolteacher. “Then it’s all worked out as it should,” she said with what sounded like a strong measure of resignation.
    “I suppose it has,” Emilie said before Mama Dell could escape. “I only hope Papa wasn’t upset at your part in our escape.”
    She shook her head. “I know too much