Now Blessing lurked just inside Stoddard and Tippy’s parlor doorway. She was listening to the murmurs of Ramsay taking his leave of Stoddard at the bottom of the staircase.Knowing Ramsay must pass this doorway as he left, she waited, hidden. She knew she should not be lingering here so she could say farewell to Ramsay. She tried to go deeper into the shadowy room, but she could not make herself obey this good sense.Then he appeared before her, reaching for the front doorknob.“Ramsay.”He turned to her and they both froze. He broke free first. “I didn’t know you were here. I was going to stop at your home and leave word that I had gone.”Memory of the night he’d held her in his arms kept her mute, wrapping around her heart. She nodded. The premonition that he was leaving and would not return welled up within her, a fountain of pain.“I wouldn’t be leaving if my mother weren’t so close to the end of her life,” he said. “And now Stoddard can manage without me.”She nodded again, feeling like an idiot.“I know you’ll watch over my cousin and his wife.”She cleared her throat.
