He didn’t stop her. Instead, he squinted up at her from under his bushy brows. “Did I ever tell you I had a daughter?”

“I wasn’t aware, no.” Grace cradled the glass in her palm, its smooth surface still warm from his grip. He had clearly been there for quite some time. “Is she in London?”

He sat up slowly, swaying. “She’s dead.”

Grace winced at her egregious misstep. “Forgive me. I didn’t—”

“It happened several years ago, same car accident as my wife.” He adjusted his glasses with clumsy hands, setting them almost correctly at the bridge of his nose. “She would have been about your age now, my Alice.”

A ghost of a smile flickered at the corners of his mouth. “You look like her. I suspect it’s why Mrs. Weatherford sent you my way, the meddlesome woman. Her boy Colin had been friends with my daughter for the whole of their lives. No doubt she thought it might help ease the pain of Alice’s loss or some such rot. Nonsense, all of it.” His furrowed expression softened. “Though I suppose now Mrs. Weatherford understands the futility more so than before.”

There was a sadness in his eyes that Grace felt in her core, the hollow emptiness of grief. One that had resonated since her mother’s death and never went silent.

She carefully set the glass on a stack of boxes, away from his reach. “Does it bother you that I look like Alice?”

His gaze slid to Grace and paused as though considering her appearance in earnest. Tears filled his eyes, and his chin began to tremble. Quickly, he looked away and a hearty sniff filled the room.

“In the beginning.” There was a quaver to his voice, but he cleared his throat. “Every time I’d see you, I’d see my Alice. She had blond hair, like me. Before this.” His fingers danced over his white, rumpled hair.

Grace said nothing, letting him speak.

“I thought I’d buried her here.” He slapped his open hand on his chest and gave an exhale that seemed to cause him great pain. “Now I know, such things are too great to be contained. It also makes me realize I wasn’t only trying to push aside my grief, but also my guilt.”

There was a thickness to his words, not from alcohol, but from emotion, and it made Grace ache for him.

Mr. Evans tilted the bottle to study the inch or so of liquid sloshing at the bottom. “I hope she knew how much I loved her. How much she meant to me.” He set the bottle firmly into place and looked up at Grace.

“I’m sorry I was cross with you for staying on with the ARP.” His jaw worked beneath a sprinkling of fine, white whiskers. “You’re not Alice. I know that. I know that.” He looked away. “But I can’t lose you too.”