“Not until the next morning.”
Linley lowered her head. “I’m very sorry.”
“My father never recovered. He was never the same man again.” Now that he started talking, Patrick couldn’t seem to stop. “He didn’t just lose a child, he lost an heir. And I went from being the carefree second son to having to shoulder a world of responsibility that I was not born for. By the age of nineteen, I’d lost my mother, my brother, my father, and even Georgiana—she was sent to live with relatives until I reached my majority and became her guardian.”
Linley could not resist reaching over and taking his hand. “Most young men would rather their sister live with a relative than take on the responsibility of raising her.”
“It was clear our stepmother had no desire to care for her, so who else could do it but me? The way I saw it, I really had no choice.”
“Whatever you reasoning,” Linley said. “I respect you for it.”
He tried to smile for her. “Don’t think that it was all bad. Georgiana, and Johnnie, and I had some really wonderful times growing up. I think we were the three happiest children in all of England.” Patrick leaned forward in their basket. “Now, it is my turn,” he said. “I have a question I’ve been meaning to ask you all along.”
Linley leaned forward, too. “What is it?”
“Why does your father call you Button?”
She squeaked, covering her face with her hands. “It’s just a silly nickname.”
“Every nickname has to come from somewhere,” Patrick said. He reached up and pulled her hands down. “So…out with it.”
Linley groaned, hesitated, and then finally blurted it out. “I used to eat buttons.”
“You ate buttons?”
“I always had this obsession with putting things into my mouth,” she explained. “Nothing shiny was safe—cufflinks, collar buttons, glove buttons, dress buttons…I could snap them off and pop them in my mouth faster than you could blink.”
Patrick rubbed his palm hard against the side of his face. “I do believe this is the most fascinating conversation I’ve ever had.”
“Most of them were recovered, though,” she added. “Shinier than ever.”
He smiled. “And you lived to eat buttons another day.”
“Oh, I grew out of it,” Linley said. “But I went through all sorts of strange phases as a child. Someone once told me it was because I never had a mother. That I developed fixations in place of her to fill that necessary void in my life, though I am not sure I believe that.”
“You did not know your mother?” Patrick asked.
She shook her head. “I was just a baby when she died.”
“I cannot remember mine,” he said, frowning. “I was three years old.”
“It still affects us, you know. Whether we realize it or not, losing a parent, or the absence of a parent in whatever capacity, shapes us into the adults we grow to become. If your mother had not died, you might be a very different man today.” Linley paused and shrugged. “Who knows, if my mother had not died, I might’ve been a normal girl with a normal life. But there is no use in speculating,” she said. “I am here, and you are here, and everything happens for a reason.”
***
“So you never missed growing up with other children?” he asked her.
The sun hung much lower in the sky, and the jungle grew more active in the cool of evening. It seemed even the animals loathed the midday heat.
“I played with other children if they were around, but I was always more comfortable when I kept to myself,” Linley explained.
“What a pity. You must have missed out on a great deal of fun.”
She snorted. “I had heaps of fun as a child. I got to play in the dirt while other little girls learned embroidery and practiced French lessons. And, by the way,” she wagged her finger in his face for emphasis. “I speak French from talking to real French people. Not from reading a book to a governess.”
Patrick pretended to clap. Clearly, he was not impressed.
“Papa could have left me, you know. He could have given me over to my mother’s family, or to his own. But he didn’t. Instead, he gave me a life most children could only dream about.” She paused for a moment, and then turned to him. “What did you dream about when you were a boy?”
“The usual things, I suppose. Brave knights, fast horses, and fair maidens.”
Linley smiled. “You wanted to be a hero.”
“Oh, no. I was never that foolish.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am not brave or strong. Not in the ways that matter. Even as a boy, I knew that. I knew I would never fight battles, or slay dragons, or save princesses. I would never be a hero, so I set out to be a good man. The best man I could be.”