Just Once Read Free

Lucille always did before she was going to make an important point. She took a deep breath.
    “You know I would do anything you ask of me—”
    “Then do this, Jemma. Please.”
    She turned aside in order to wipe away more tears before they spilled down her cheeks. She had never let him see her cry, not since she had learned as a child that even the slightest show of tears caused him to immediately turn her over to her nanny.
    Her father used the heavily silent pause to put down the agreement and pick up the snifter. He made his way back to the liquor table. His hand shook when he lifted the decanter and removed the heavy crystal stopper. When he finally turned around, Jemma had gained some control. Before she could speak, he started in again.
    “As soon as the young men around here find out you’re home, the offers of marriage will start to come in. Marriage and family are your only options.”
    Don’t forget your promise, Jemma gal. Don’t let him see you tied down
.
    When Grandpa’s admonition came back to her, as loud and clear as if he were alive and in the room, Jemma shook her head, beginning to wonder if she was losing her mind.
    “I want to see some of the world before I silently slip from one household to another, into another man’s keeping,” she said.
    “I can’t
believe
we are even having this conversation.” With a lost look in his eyes, Thomas stared up at Marjorie Hall O’Hurley’s portrait, shook his head, and hastily downed the brandy.
    Jemma felt increasingly desperate. “Don’t you see? I don’t want to be tied down by marriage yet. I’ve just spent nine years at convent school. I don’t know anything about the world. I want to see things, do things I’ve only imagined. I have my own dreams, Father. I want a taste of adventure.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    His cold reaction to her heartfelt plea was like a slap in the face.
    “Ridiculous? Why is it all right for a man to want to experience the world, but a woman must quickly settle down and give up her freedom?”
    “Damn your grandfather’s eyes!” Thomas slammed the snifter down on the desk so hard that the remaining liquor sloshed all the way to the rim.
    He had not been enthusiastic about taking in her maternal grandfather when the old man had come knocking on the door nine years ago, but she hadn’t realized the depth of her father’s resentment until today. Theodore Hall had come to Boston to live out the last few months of his life, forced to accept his son-in-law’s charity or die alone on the streets. A penniless adventurer, Grandpa Hall had spent most of his life at sea or roaming through foreign ports. Since her father measured a person by his wealth, in his eyes Theodore Hall had been worth nothing. To Jemma, Grandpa was a hero, a spinner of tall tales who owned more than riches. He possessed a treasure trove of memories and he had shared them all with her before he died.
    “If I were a son, not a daughter, you’d
expect
me to sow wild oats, wouldn’t you? But no … I’m cursed. I’m a woman, so you’ve gone ahead without consulting me. Did you know that Grandpa once told me that his one regret was that Mama died so young, without having really lived, without having seen anything but this one little corner of the world?”
    At first she thought he was not going to say anything, but when he did respond, the words were so softly uttered that she barely heard them.
    “We were young and in love, your mother and I. She died having you. I don’t think she would have traded one moment of her life for adventure.”
    It was the first time Jemma had ever heard even a touch of love and reverence in his voice. She watched Thomas set the empty snifter on the desk. His eyes seemed incredibly bright. Jemma caught her breath. Perhaps this was the miraculous moment she had been praying for, for so very long. She had finally reached his heart and he had heard her.
    Now he would ask her to forgive him and tell her the