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He ran a hand through his graying hair and blew out a breath. The frustration in him was palpable. And she suddenly remembered the same reaction from him the night before, how she’d been about to question him on it when the others had arrived.
She leaned closer to him. “What’s preying on your mind?”
He gave her a tortured glance. “I promised I wouldn’t mention it. But it’s killing me to remain quiet.”
She frowned. “Promised what?”
But he seemed not to hear her. He caught Joan’s eye. She gave an imperceptible nod before turning back to her work. It seemed to bolster something in Mr. Kitteridge. His expression shifted, a determined gleam entering his eyes. “Though that promise was only that I wouldn’t write to you of it, not that I wouldn’t tell you outright.”
Margery was growing alarmed. Had the man received a blackmail letter as well? She had not even considered it, but wasn’t it possible? “Mr. Kitteridge?”
He took her hand and pressed it between his. “My girl, your father is not the villain you believe him to be.”
She blinked. Well, she certainly hadn’t expected that. Though she was relieved that the man wasn’t aware of his son’s desertion—and she prayed he might never find out, for it would destroy him—she didn’t know what to make of this new subject. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve come to know your father over the past years since my Aaron died. He’s visited me often, has offered help, has made it so we could keep our heads afloat while grief ate at us. And I can say, with absolute certainty, that there is not a man alive who feels his guilt more keenly.”
Margery, stunned, could only shake her head in disbelief. Her father was a proud man, a stern man. Picturing him befriending Mr. Kitteridge, confiding in him, was as foreign to Margery as picturing him skipping down Dewbury’s main street wearing a flowered hat.
“And now I’ve said my piece,” Mr. Kitteridge said.
“I—I don’t know what to do with this,” she admitted.
He patted her hand and nodded in understanding. “I know he’s hurt you. But I do hope you can forgive him and move on, if only for your own sake. Won’t you visit with him before you leave?”
Margery stared at him, stunned. “I—I can’t,” she whispered.
He nodded sadly, sitting back in his seat with a heavy sigh. Margery, confused, needing something to do, rose and gathered up dishes with shaking hands. Mr. Kitteridge should despise Lord Tesh. The man had outright refused Aaron’s suit for Margery’s hand, had made him feel unworthy. And here he was, pleading his case?
So immersed was she in her troubled thoughts, she didn’t immediately realize that Joan had become uncommonly quiet. Nor did she realize there had been a knock at the front door until Mr. Kitteridge rose from his place at the table and spoke.
“I’ll get it,” he murmured. Then, casting Margery a hooded glance, he made his slow way from the kitchen. In short order he was back. But now he was accompanied by someone who was painfully familiar.
Margery gaped at the newcomer, unable to believe her eyes. “Papa?”
Viscount Tesh, looking as out of place as any one person could, standing in the doorway of this simple kitchen in his fine, expensive clothes, stood ramrod straight and gazed at her with uncertainty. It was an expression she had never seen on his face before.
He cleared his throat. “Hello, Margery.”
She shook her head, still unable to comprehend that he was here in Mr. Kitteridge’s humble home. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
He motioned to the kitchen table. It was only then she realized Mr. Kitteridge and Joan and baby Wesley were nowhere to be seen. In a daze she stumbled to the table and sat down heavily.
Her father sat across from her. “I didn’t think you would ever return to Dewbury,” he said.
“I didn’t do it for your benefit.”
The words escaped before she quite meant them to. But they opened something up in her, the anger of years coalescing into something sharp and painful. Here was a man who should have supported her in everything, loved her through everything. And she had never doubted his love for her. Until she’d needed it most. It was then he’d turned his back on her.
His eyes fell from hers, as if he could hear the shouts of condemnation ringing through her head. “I understand,” he rasped. “And if you never want to speak to me again, I understand that as well. But I am sorry. I’m more sorry than I can ever say.”
She gaped at him. This was not like him. Lord Tesh never apologized, never begged for forgiveness. She remembered Mr. Kitteridge’s confession shortly before her father’s arrival then, his claims that the viscount had been giving the Kitteridge family help, that he’d been visiting. She narrowed her eyes. “What are you playing at?”
“Nothing—”
“No, you are.” Her body fairly vibrated with her anger and confusion. She clenched her hands tight beneath the table. She longed to rise, to run from the room. But she feared in that moment her legs would not hold her.
“You don’t do anything but for your benefit,” she continued. “And I’ve never known you to suffer from a moment’s guilt in your life.” An idea struck her then. “Is it to save face with the villagers? Or did my stepmother put you up to it? Is that why you’ve had a change of heart with the Kitteridges?”
