Page 21 of The Spinster (Emerson Pass Historicals 2)

“He seems to like it here,” I said.

“He’s handsome, isn’t he?” Mama asked.

“Is he? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Lying doesn’t look good on you, Jo.”

“Mama, I’m not lying. Why would you say such a thing?”

“I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

“I do not look at him any way at all, other than as Walter’s friend.”

“Do you think it’s odd that Walter ran away from the orphanage? Why would he have done that?”

“Maybe it was awful there.” Where was she headed with this? I tried not to bristle, but it was already too late.

“Phillip said the nuns were good to them,” Mama said.

“As you said, Phillip tends to see things very positively.”

“Isn’t that a wonderful quality?”

“Mama, what are you trying to say?” I asked with an edge of impatience in my voice.

“Nothing, darling. Just that you two have a lot in common. You’d have to be blind not to notice those eyes of his.”

“Well, I haven’t. Walter was the love of my life. There’s no need for a Phillip.”

“A Phillip?”

“Don’t sound like that. I’m merely saying that he’s nothing to me, other than a friend of the man I loved and lost.”

“Many people have fallen in love through letter writing without once meeting in person.”

Fall in love? Had she lost her mind? “The difference is that those letters weren’t to him. He read them as a distraction while he was convalescing. Not because of anything genuine between us, since I wasn’t even aware of him. He said he read them as if they were a good book.”

“I think he came here for more than the fresh air,” Mama said.

“I’m sorry to be impertinent, but that’s ridiculous.”

“Aren’t you at all curious about why you’re so insistent on remaining loyal to Walter?”

“I don’t need to be curious. I already know why.”

“A fear of losing someone again isn’t a good enough reason. Your whole life will pass you by, Jo, holding on to a ghost. Your sisters and all your friends will marry and have families and what will you be doing? Escaping forever into a book instead of living your own life?”

I’d like to have pretended that Mama’s words didn’t bother me. However, they did. She was right. I would have to stand by and watch from the corner of the room like a wallflower as my sisters and even Poppy fell in love and married. “I made a promise. Shouldn’t that mean something?”

“It should. But promising the rest of your life to a dead man makes no sense at all, and you know it. I’ve never known you to be afrai

d of anything, Josephine Barnes. Until now.”

I rose wearily to my feet. “I’m not sure what you’re doing, Mama, but goading me into forgetting about Walter isn’t going to work. I loved him with all my heart. What would you say to me if it were you who’d been left a widow because Papa died? Would you just move on as everyone seems to want me to do?”

“Walter wasn’t your husband.”

I stared at her with my mouth partially hanging open for a second or two. “He would have been.”