Miss Merton's Last Hope Read Online Free Page B

one close at all. She can’t bear to let anyone comfort her.
    He brushed a tear from her cheek carefully. Her soft skin was hot and he struggled against the urge to pull her back into his arms. He’d found the reason for her withdrawal and at last he understood what had begun the change. “I am so sorry.”
    “I thought at first she was playing a game and begged her to let me go before anyone found me and, and…when fought free, I turned. I did not recognize her.” Melanie sobbed the last words and she began to shake again. “Her eyes were open and…I was so terrified that I fled to the nursery without telling anyone she had passed away. I didn’t want to get in trouble. I didn’t know everyone expected her to die.”
    “You did nothing wrong,” he assured her.
    Fresh sobs shook her and he inched closer. “She loved you very much. I remember that. I can understand that you didn’t want her to be alone when she was ill.”
    “I wasn’t allowed to love her, but I did.” She sniffed. “She was the only one who dared to risk my parents’ ire. If a servant was too familiar with us, they were dismissed without a reference. They couldn’t be bothered with me except when they had guests to present me to.”
    “‘They’ being your parents?” Walter was fast learning to detest them. He stroked the backs of his fingers down her hot cheek once more. “There is no harm in loving the people who look after us. Those brave souls who live with us every day, expecting no more gratitude than the coin they are paid. For good or ill, they shape our lives in ways our parents could not ever imagine sometimes.”
    He moved his hand to rest lightly on her shoulder. “You were only a child and what you saw of Andy’s death must have been horrifying to you. Her last moments on earth were spent with you. She would have died happy.”
    “Perhaps.” She wiped at her eyes. “But I cannot forget.”
    “Then don’t try to.”
    Her face lifted to his and the expression there broke his heart. “If only I had been good and done as my parents had told me, if I had remembered my station, then I would never have to remember her like that. I did not mourn her,” she whispered. “I huddled in my room and hated her for not sending me away.”
    Walter took a risk and bent his head to rest against hers. What she had witnessed, what she had suffered in silence, guilt and horror and mourning all confused about in a child’s mind, had changed this woman from the happy girl she’d been once. She had loved deeply and mourned still. It was no wonder even friends were rebuffed. Melanie simply couldn’t bear to let anyone that close again.
    He sighed at the pain she’d hidden behind excessive propriety. “Then honor her memory but don’t let her passing torment you. She was a wonderful woman and you were always a good girl, always her favorite.”
    He did not say she was good now because, to be brutally truthful, Melanie often spoke harshly of other women when they failed to meet her high standards. Was that too a result of her grief? Her terror of letting anyone close again? Hiding how lonely she must be behind a strict adherence to rules and propriety?
    Her head twisted a little against his, brushing her soft hair against his skin. “I am not that girl anymore. I don’t feel as other women do and I’m not sure I even know how to be any different than I am.”
    “At least you know you have faults,” Walter murmured. “Most people live oblivious to their mistakes.”
    “And I have made so many.” Melanie sobbed again but beneath the whimpers, the sound of the front door shutting reached him. He drew back, assuming her brother had returned.
      “There is no reason you cannot overcome this,” he promised her. “When you turned away from Imogen, she thought it was her doing. She loved you so very much once. You could have her friendship back if you just try. We all liked Andy a great deal. If you explain, talk about how tortured