Free Love Between the Lines by Kate Rothwell

parents’ house. But at least her father wasn’t a witness—and at least she wasn’t the only one. Her mother fiercely clutched her and the way her shoulders shook, Lizzy understood she too was crying. Lizzy hadn’t seen her mother cry for years. Was it for joy that they finally embraced? Sorrow that she had such a stubborn daughter? Lizzy wanted to howl. Instead she held her mother tighter.
     
    This was actually good, Gideon told himself as he stared down at his well-polished boots. The way mother and daughter clung together, he judged this scene was a long time coming. Reconciliation, he supposed. Or perhaps they indulged in this sort of scene every time they met. They seemed emotionally ostentatious people.
    He shuffled his feet and tried not to make any excessive noise. Let the Drurys have their private moment—for once his reporter’s urge to witness raw events was entirely absent. He wished himself any place on earth other than this room.
    The squeak of a wheeled cart and the rattle of cups announced the arrival of the coffee , and the two women broke apart immediately.
    Mrs. Drury pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her face. Elizabeth swiped her sleeve across her swollen eyes.
    “Oh, Lizzy,” her mother scolded and pressed the neatly folded white cloth into her hands. “You never have remembered to leave the house with a handkerchief.”
    Gideon hid a smile. In seconds the atmosphere in the room had gone from high drama to a normal interaction between mother and daughter.
    She sat back down , and they drank coffee after all.
    “ But should you tarry with me, Mama?” Miss Drury glanced at the door significantly. Both women seemed to watch that door more than anything else.
    “ Mr. Drury will be angry, but he will not do more than lecture me,” Mrs. Drury said as she sipped from her cup.
    “ Will he cut off your allowance?”
    “ Perhaps, but I do have some savings of my own now.” She put down her cup.
    Though Mrs. Drury had said that it didn ’t matter that they stayed longer, she seemed anxious, glancing at the door, again, and then at the clock over the mantel.
    Gideon half hoped Mr. Drury wou ld come back in and he’d witness why the two women were so anxious to avoid the man’s disapproval. Perhaps he played a pompous god in their little universe. He looked the part. Take away the well-tailored suit of a businessman, give Drury another decade or so—not to mention a flowing white beard—and he’d be the double of the portrait of God in the Sistine Chapel.
    Although now recalling his brief examination of the man, Gideon decided that Mr. Drury appeared slightly more Nordic than Michelangelo ’s version of God. He certainly was nothing like Elizabeth, although they might have similar noses. Ah, and her father’s blue eyes were a washed-out, warier version of hers.
    He sipped the excellent coffee, perhaps his eighth cup that day , and observed the ladies. Miss Drury seemed to catch her mother’s anxiety. At last she mumbled something about things to do and rose, leaving her cake and coffee untouched. He got to his feet as well.
    “ Good-bye, my dear.” Mrs. Drury was brisk again. She held her daughter by the upper arms and pressed her cheek to hers.
    She looked at Gideon. “I am pleased to meet you, sir,” she said with much less emotion. “I wish you a pleasant journey.”
    As they walked out into the sunlight Miss Drury turned to him. Her nose was still pink from her crying. “Was that worth your time? Have you satisfied your busybody curiosity?”
    “ I was glad to meet your parents,” he said repressively.
    S he had the right to display a pushy, disrespectful manner at the moment—after all, he’d insisted on the visit to her parents’ house. Yet he expected she’d probably behave as an impertinent nuisance under any circumstances.
    She looked across the cobblestoned street toward two figures under a street lamp. “You are ridiculous. Our companions are waiting for us and