Free The Seeker by Ann H. Gabhart Page B

place for Mellie years ago when it was apparent you were getting too attached to her.” He frowned as he stared down at the paper while the ink dried on the pen’s nib.
    Charlotte’s heart went cold inside her. How could her father even listen to such a suggestion? That woman had spun a spell over him. Charlotte moistened her lips and managed to keep her voice soft and insistent without letting the panic she was beginning to feel leak through. She had to protect Mellie. She had given Aunt Tish her word. “Mother didn’t think I was too attached. She said it was good to have servants we could depend on. You do remember that she promised Mellie to me, don’t you? A promise she had no doubt you’d keep.”
    He stared across the walkway at the dogwood tree whose buds were already showing white. “I did so love your mother. I planted that tree for her with my own hands on our first anniversary to prove how much. She sat on this very bench and laughed when I showed her the dirt under my fingernails. She had just felt the stirrings of the first child she tried to carry for me.” He smiled at the memory, but then the smile slipped off his face. “She lost that baby two weeks later. You and our poor little baby boy were the only two she carried past the first five months. And then the baby boy never drew breath.”
    “I remember,” Charlotte said.
    “Yes, I suppose you do. What were you four, five?”
    “Almost six,” Charlotte said. “He was born in May before my birthday in June.”
    “So many years ago and yet even now I can close my eyes and see that round little face, so perfectly formed. So silent and still. Mayda held him to her breast and whispered the name she’d planned for him as if at the sound of her voice he might yet gasp and begin to breathe. Charles Grayson after me and her father. I didn’t want to use the names. I wanted to save them for the baby son we might yet have, but she would not hear of naming him anything else.” Her father let out a breath heavy with the sadness of his memories. “I had to peel her hands from his tiny body to let Aunt Tish prepare him for burial. Mayda was never the same after that.”
    “But she kept loving us.” Charlotte needed to hear him affirm that.
    “Yes. As much as she was capable. She put too much on you when you were little more than a child, and I suppose I did as well. We should have let you go away to school.”
    “I never wanted to leave Grayson. Grandfather taught me to read and write before he died,” Charlotte said. “And I went to Miss Lucinda’s school in town. I’m not uneducated.”
    “Not in history and letters, but there is an art to being a lady and rules that must be observed by young women in your position.”
    “I have observed the rules.” Charlotte pushed her words at him. “Haven’t I always managed to show Grayson in the best light whenever you wanted to entertain here? You have never had reason to be ashamed of me.”
    His eyes came away from the tree back to Charlotte. “Oh, my dear girl, I didn’t mean to make you think that. You’ve always been a very dutiful daughter.”
    Dutiful. Is that how he thought of her? As only dutiful. She let her eyes fall shut a moment as she composed herself. She didn’t want to lose her focus. Not until he wrote the paper giving her Mellie. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “And you a loving, caring father. That’s why I know you will honor Mother’s promise to me.”
    “Promise?” He had gone so far back in memory that he seemed to have forgotten what promise she meant as he looked down at the pen in his hand with a little frown.
    “Mellie. Mother’s promise to me.” Charlotte held the little pot of ink out toward him. “My wedding present.” She wanted to ask for Aunt Tish again, but feared pushing him too far.
    “Oh, Mellie. Well, I suppose you’re right. I should honor your mother’s promise.” He dipped the pen into the ink and wrote the words on the paper. He