“Ask Ellie for help,” Pammie said, tapping the tea strainer against the lip of her cup. She let the strainer drip for a few moments, then set it aside on the hearthstones. The leaves would doubtless be used again, probably for the children.

“Ellie has nothing to do with the hiring and firing at her bank.” Various Wentworth and Penrose clerks and tellers had made that plain to Jack in casual conversation.

“Bankers gossip like laundry maids, to hear her tell it. Can’t hurt to ask her, Jack.”

Asking Ellie for help would hurt, but would it hurt worse than being a molly boy for nasty old men with a fondness for the birch rod? Would it hurt worse than coming down with the French pox?

Worse than the shame of dying on the end of a rope when some scheme or rig went sour?

“This is good shortbread, Pamela. I will miss your shortbread.” Would she miss him? Would anybody miss him?

She went to the window box and passed him two more squares. “Call on Ellie. She’ll be home at this hour, and if you’re honest with her, she’ll help you.”

Jack took the shortbread and finished his tea, though it pained him to swill what should have been savored until the cup itself had no more warmth to give. “I’ll stop by again before you leave town, and I want your direction in Scotland, Pamela. Family stays in touch.”

“Family that’s not in trouble stays in touch. Go see Ellie, and do it now, before you talk yourself into more time wasted in the pubs.”

She was right. The hour wasn’t that late, and two pieces of shortbread wouldn’t last Jack another day. He donned his coat, kissed Pamela’s cheek, and made his way back to the frigid darkness of the street.

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Nothing added up for Ellie as it should, nothing remained in its assigned column or on the proper row. She stopped with Elsmore at the foot of the bed, though the bedroom was colder than the parlor.

“Eleanora, you will regret this,” Elsmore said, a hand on each of her shoulders. “A passionate interlude solves nothing.”

How that note of patient reason in his voice grated. “I am not trying to solve anything. I am trying to for once have what I want, even if only for a short time.”

“We already did that,” he said, wrapping her in his arms. “The experience was lovely and heartbreaking. In hindsight, the selfishness was not well done of me. I should have courted you properly and at length. Why don’t you trust me?”

Heartbreaking? He called the greatest intimacy she’d ever known heartbreaking? “I have confessed to you my grandfather’s scandal and my cousin’s crimes. How can you say I don’t trust you?”