Ether & Elephants Read Online Free PDF Page B

understand that she’d made up her mind. “But you have to stay, Nell. I’ve already gotten permission from the Chisholm to court you.”
    Might have been nice if you asked me first. Nell sighed. She’d known Roger was working up to proposing and she’d almost talked herself into accepting. The future with him would be pleasant—teaching, raising their own children alongside their students. It was the brightest outlook she could hope for—a family of her own, good companionship that could grow into love of some kind, and the vocation she truly adored.
    Still, she hesitated. Mindful of their audience, she pulled Roger out into a small nook off the corridor. “I wouldn’t have accepted. Not yet at least. You’re a great friend, Roger, and a good catch, but I’m just not ready to make that decision.”
    “But I thought… That is, when we kissed…and more, I was under the assumption…” He swallowed like a suffocating fish. “I certainly didn’t mean to seduce you and not marry you.”
    And that was exactly why she couldn’t make up her mind. He was a good man, and his sense of honor was powerfully attractive. The only thing holding her back was that nice as he was, intelligent as he was, Roger was just so perfectly normal. Their life together would be absolutely normal. Nell had become so used to being out of the ordinary that it had taken an almost-love-affair to point out that sometimes, ordinary was awfully close to boring.
    She pulled him farther into the alcove and pushed him down on a wide window seat. “It wasn’t that much more than kissing.” He’d barely touched her breasts and his hands had stayed firmly above her waist. She’d had worse gropings as a child on the streets of London, selling flowers. And while his touch had been pleasant, it hadn’t thrilled her to her soul the way it was supposed to, at least according to Wink and their married friends. “And I didn’t say no, I said I needed more time. But right now I have to go, Roger. My foster brother and I are going to go check on Charlie, and he’s taking me back to my family in London.”
    “I’ll miss you.” He regarded her with eyes as sad as a devastated puppy’s. “Write. I can come up to see you when the term is over, if you change your mind.”
    “I’ll write,” she vowed. “And you’re more than welcome to visit. But I can’t promise anything. Be well.” Why couldn’t she just fall for him? Still, leaving him hanging didn’t seem fair. In fact, it felt rather like what Tom had done to her. Roger deserved better. “You might think about asking Miss Harper to go walking. She’s always had an eye for you.” The local vicar’s daughter would be a perfect match for Roger.
    Nell gave him one last hug before going into dinner to say goodbye to her students.
    It was all too easy to say someone in her family was dying. It wasn’t a someone, of course. It was just another little part of her soul. Several parts, maybe. Some for Charlie and some for the sheer magnitude of Tom’s betrayal. Some for the hurt she’d unintentionally inflicted on Roger, who took supper in his room, claiming a headache. Finally, a large part for leaving the rest of her students. After lots of tearful hugs she joined Tom, who waited outside with a pair of rented hacks. With Lark perched atop her shoulder as if they were back in Wapping, Nell let Tom help her up onto a small, dappled mare equipped with a side-saddle. She dashed the moisture from her eyes. “Did you learn anything at the station?”
    “Even in such a rural location, there was enough traffic that the stationmaster didn’t know everyone passing through. He couldn’t remember if there was a blonde woman with a blind child, just that there were some women and children aboard. The last train for tonight left an hour ago, headed toward Plymouth, so I thought we’d drive to the nearest town with a decent hotel. It’s much less likely that they headed west to Truro or