Releasing Yesterday Read online

  "You would not. In fact, both of us would rather have it out sooner rather than later."

  A quick peek from Sara confounded his mind of any words, the darkness of her eyes bringing memories of her mother's final farewell. He forced his feet to move forward until he safely settled himself into the nearest wing-back chair. "Then, by all means," he said.

  Another sidelong peek from Sara sent hope soaring before he could gather it under more firm control. Then she whispered something to Christopher, him leaning closer for a repeat before he inclined his head while offering her a smile. It ached to see the relationship, for he saw the happiness provided to her which he himself had not been able to offer. Though it did make him thankful for Christopher Lake on a completely alternate level. He had rescued her. Healed her. Comforted and protected her when he himself had not known of her existence.

  His mind spiraled into the realm of morbid curiosity. Of what life would have been like if he had returned, escaping the demands of his family. Or how life would have changed if Ann had been persuaded to journey with him, ushering her into introductions to a family who would not have truly appreciated her spirit.

  He knew there was nothing to be gained, other than a silent torture, but he could not restrain the questions. The images. The flights of fancy kept distant since he received her letter—The thoughts crashed away, broken as his hand instinctively reached into his suit coat pocket. ‘Pursue her, dearest Timothy, as only you can do.’

  A hand gripped his shoulder, drawing him back from the dark silence and to the whisper and rumble of the city life bustling outside his window. He offered Christopher Lake a tight-lipped smile.

  "If you need to wait, we understand."

  But the hope … Joseph spared a glance toward his daughter’s rigid form, her face pale and her fingers trembling even as they clutched her gloves and reticule. Hope fluttered strongest when near her, the whisper of her mother on the young woman's voice encouraging him to keep trying. "No," he said gruffly. "I will be fine."

  Christopher regarded him for a long moment before giving a single incline of his head and whispering, "Take heart, man. She is trying," before returning to his seat beside her.

  But Joseph wished beyond anything that the young man had kept that truth to himself. It would be far easier to deal with a refusal to allow him into her life if he never knew she attempted to do so in the first place. But now, with that assurance spoken, he was lost within the hope of a happy ending.

  And it was more than too late for any sort of happy ending. Decades too late. Joseph focused on Christopher with a hard stare, and the young man did not flinch away from it. "Then let us move on with this conversation."

  Christopher did not say a word and, at first, even his features did not show a reaction. Than he simply smiled, a small smile that hinted of a similar type of tortured agony. An understanding? Something of use in his conversations with his new bride? Joseph thrust the thought away. It did not matter. If any forgiveness was offered him, it must be of her choosing and hers alone. Otherwise, he did not want it.

  Or, at least, that is what he told himself, at that moment, and every waking hour to that point. He could not admit to himself how easy it would be to settle for something less.

  ~**~

  “Then let us move on with this conversation.”

  Sara felt painfully aware of Mr. Conklin, akin to a new employer when she still lived as a servant. She felt powerless to do anything to stem the tide of uncertainty and heartache. Instead, she kept her focus solely on her fingers, hidden within a tender clasp from Christopher, the touch comforting a struggling heart.

  But why did she choose the struggle? Her mother never presented an emotion of hate when it came to his memory. Never once in all their conversations. Regret, yes. Loneliness, yes. But never rage nor any of the darker tortures that could have hollowed her spirit.

  "Mum forgave you," she whispered. Mr. Conklin said nothing, and she could not force herself to view his reaction to the simple statement. "I do no' know how to do the same."

  "I know." His gruff voice clawed at her soul, chastising her reluctance. Yet that petty aspect of her heart deemed it a small price. Who was this person who now stood in her place? Wishing ill on a person's soul?

  Her fingers sought out the pearl drop necklace at her throat, the chill of the piece sending a sobering message. But she could not go back to a place of ignorance. His confession had escaped and now stood as a barricade between them. Because, as Rachel said, she herself chose to leave it as such. She had closed that door, and it would be up to her to open it yet again.

  "There is an odd similarity about our meeting I cannot set aside."

  Sara peeked at him, but his gaze never wavered from its focus of the centerpiece upon the coffee table.

  "Art. I connected myself to your mother through art. Art is how I found you as well. In both instances I had given it up as lost, sacrificed to the will of family and financial power. Both times I have come to appreciate the power behind embracing art as a creation and an empowering force. You, Christopher Lake, are a prime example.”

  “Am I?” Christopher regarded Mr. Conklin with wide eyes.

  “You are. Art is your escape, sir, and your passion. An outlet as well as an overwhelming interest. An outstretched hand to others. Even an outward display of faith.”

  The truth of the observation spoke volumes to his understanding of a creative spirit. It reminded Sara of their first meeting at the display, of their conversation and how strongly she felt drawn to him. But the reminder deepened the ache and a shadow of confusion and anger. She closed her eyes, almost desperate to fight back the pain.

  Mr. Conklin released a slow breath. "My art has never shared such a position of motivation. Nor have my beliefs. Sad, surely, and a poor testament to my character. Perhaps you are correct, after all, to remain so distant? Who is to say I will not abandon you again when put to the test of my family? Perhaps I am a fool to hope for—never mind. Gads. Where is the blessed coffee?" He stood, escaping the couple’s scrutiny in search of the valet.

  Shame bombarded her like the crash of an ocean wave. White-knuckled hands confessed as much to Christopher beside her. Rachel and Dix both would have scolded. Her mother … but she could not face that truth, though she recognized even a fraction of the result. How could she so easily torture a person's already ragged soul?

  "I do no' know who I am," she whispered.

  Another beat of silence and then Christopher’s arm surrounded her, sharing what warmth and strength he could. "You are an artist, a broken heart. Someone struggling to find their way."

  He pressed a kiss upon her hair, but the chastisement remained unspoken. Perhaps that is what caused it to sink deeper into a known truth within her? He did not chastise nor praise. The subject was simply left alone. Like a spoiled child, they allowed her to turn from the only right course. Would she have done the same with Christopher? Would her mother?

  "Christopher, it is no' right." She turned, guilt and shame a weight against her, fighting against the action of tilting her chin to meet his understanding gaze.

  "I know. But I do not know how to speak to you in this, Sara. What do I know of losing a father?"

  "You understand betrayal and loss," she murmured, her gaze retreating from his to spare herself the further torture of seeing the truth reflected.

  "Yes, but," he sighed, "somehow it doesn't feel right to impose my view. The loss of a wife and child is so very different in many ways."

  But Christopher would understand the other side. The pain of the man who attempted to fill the role of father for her own life. The loss. The burden of moving on. "If you were in his place … what would you have me do?"

  Christopher's fingers increased their pressure upon her arm for a long moment before retreating. "I would want you to talk to me. To release all the anguish suffered to this point. To accuse. To question. To berate and condemn … anything to allow you the one freedom you never had before: e
motional freedom."

  The truth of it stung like a slap, and the burn of the after-affect ushered the tears to the surface yet again. The emotional freedom. How many times did the Lord encourage her to speak to Him in emotional freedom because she did not have a family? To let loose the aches of her soul so He could heal and refresh.

  But the challenge of speaking to another person was their own freedom to rebuff and rebut. To contradict. To reveal the lies. Sara, for all her piety, refused to give Mr. Conklin that opportunity, as Christopher said before. He was not offered the honor of defending himself.

  She lowered her tear-blurred vision to her clenched hands. "I am ashamed of myself," she whispered. Christopher remained silent, his hand warm as it continued to cover and caress hers. "Dix would scold."

  "Yes, well, Dix scolds everyone regardless of the situation."

  The humor could not even tease the corner of her lips. "She would be right to do so. Rachel as well … I am a horrid person."

  "No." He lifted her chin to face him. "No, you are a hurt person struggling to find their way to the other side." He caressed her forehead with a kiss. “You are almost there, Sweet Sara. "

  Sara inclined her head, and her thoughts already drifted toward an honorable man and a needless agony he suffered alone. As if summoned, Joseph Conklin entered the suite followed by the valet, a silver coffee service tray in hand.

  “I found him,” Mr. Conklin grumbled.

  Pain and uncertainty marred his countenance, so different from the smiling and thoughtful expressions from their past visits. She had done this to him, without hesitation nor care. Sara’s gaze retreated to the silver platter. I am sorry, Lord. The valet retreated, leaving the trio to sit in silence as all simply stared at the silver cups, waiting.

  Sara breathed in, deep, and shifted her position to pour a cup of coffee first for Christopher and then for… her father. “Cream?” She ignored the broken whisper, although she could do nothing but notice how it affected him.

  Mr. Conklin’s hands clenched. “No. Thank you.”

  She willed her eyes to meet his as she offered forward the cup, her other hand motioning to the chair across from them. "Please."

  Mr. Conklin clenched his jaw, the muscle twitching wildly, before he did so.

  Once he accepted the cup of coffee, he simply stared into the steaming depths, lips pressed into a thin line. How often had she seen this same expression of consternation, frustration, and helplessness shadowing Christopher’s countenance?

  Sara’s eyes retreated. "Why did you seek me out now? Why did you wish me to know you are my father?" How many times had she uttered those questions to the dark? To the heavens. To her very self when they should have been spoken to the man sitting so stiff and rigid across from her?

  But Mr. Conklin balked at the answer, his expression wiped clean of emotion and reaction. "Why?" Even his voice held nothing but the syllable.

  “Sara,” Christopher’s protest drew a return of her father’s hard stare.

  Mr. Conklin sharply lifted a hand toward Christopher. "No. It is fine. She deserves no less." Each word an emphatic enunciation of the lifetime of agony compacted within the confines of the room. "You ask why I wish you to know me as your father. How could I leave you to whatever knowledge you had of my fate when I knew the truth, that all important truth, had not been divulged to you? Sara….” His jaw clenched for a telling moment, “you have been greatly wronged. This fact should be put right."

  Silence descended, Sara's gaze unable to rise from the coffee cooling within her untouched cup. “But what does that mean?” Her whispered question hurt, herself and him she felt certain, but it was the barest, rawest truth she could possibly feel and imagine at that moment. She didn’t understand what it meant, for him or for her, to put something like a history of one untruth to the wayside.

  Conklin shifted in his seat and retrieved something from his vest pocket. A kerchief with tatted edges. Sara gasped, her hand clutching the necklace at her throat as she stared, wide eyed, at the bit of familiar fabric he unfurled with deliberate tenderness. Beyond anything she had ever known before, she knew that handkerchief had been crafted by her mother.

  Mr. Conklin stared down at the item hidden within the folds of the material for such a long moment ... he offered it forward, his gaze determined in meeting Sara's countenance. She, however, leaned back, her eyes not wavering from their view of the kerchief and its precious treasure.

  A ring fashioned from a trio of bent sewing pins.

  Conklin cleared his throat, and again, before venturing any type of speech. Sara recognized the courageous action as a last, desperate attempt to convey all of his wishes into this one approach.

  "This ... there was so little money in those first days. So, Ann and I agreed to make do with what we had between us. She took the pins used in the making of her dress and my suit-coat and we made this. I….” He cleared his throat, blinking back the glimmer. “I put this on Ann’s finger on our wedding day, and she sent it back to me with a note requesting I give her up and not return. There was nothing left for me there, she wrote." Conklin's gaze retreated to the ring once again, and only then did Sara reach a trembling hand to retrieve it from the kerchief. "She ... I could not find her when I returned. Our home vacant. Our accounts untouched."

  Confusion marred Sara's face, freeing the tears to trace paths down her pale cheeks. "I ..." She shook her head, her eyes unable to lift from their regard of the ring. "I do no' understand." The action seemed so utterly contrary to the mother of her memory.

  "Nor did I, I can assure you. We were happy. We had plans, so many plans, for the future." His gruff voice wavered and disappeared, giving over to another wave of chokes as he attempted to clear the grief, both past and present. "When I saw you at The Gallery Lake, I very nearly called out your mother's name. Then to find you sported the very same along with my surname!”

  He sounded a strangled scoff, and his lips twisted in a wry smirk. “But my life has run a course of bitter disappointments, and the cynical side of my nature refused to believe what my heart felt desperate to hope. So, I began to delve into the mystery of your history."

  "Jeffrey Stillwell," Christopher murmured.

  Mr. Conklin inclined his head. "Indeed, though the charcoals which first toppled my chilled cynicism were those of your hand, Chris. They planted the seed, preparing me for her arrival, I believe this with all my soul. Then, immediately after that first display of the mysterious S.A.L., I confronted my father for the truth."

  "The truth?" Sara's breathless repetition sounded hollow as she stared down at the ring in her palm.

  "He manipulated Ann into a lie so that your future would be assured and mine would be altered from what I intended."

  She blinked and looked up. "I do no' understand."

  "My father wished me to take a different path than a dedication to art. He wanted me to follow the business of art rather than the creation of it, and my relationship with your mother stood in his way. So, he threatened her, though he still does not admit to what he threatened. Even when she confessed she was with child, my child, he did not relent. Instead, he altered his threat to make quite certain I would not be paired with her, nor her child. The marriage was annulled and ... and I was never told of your birth. Not until the solicitor approached me with the admittance of a mistake some ten years in age. Then, and only then, was I finally notified of Ann's death and of your whereabouts."

  Sara’s focus snapped, breath seizing as the outer edges of her vision and mind faded to black. She crumbled, ashen skin fading to green as she collapsed back within the settee.

  “Sara!”

  Christopher’s exclamation grabbed at her, pulling her back from the terrifying darkness. Then she felt his warmth upon her cheeks, her forehead, the caress of his touch upon her hand. Her eyelids fluttered, and she thought she heard a soft moan.

  "Brandy," Christopher hissed. Staccato steps faded and then returned. "Sara." Christopher continue
d to caress her hand within his and she struggled against the sludge to focus on him. "Sara, can you hear me?"

  But there were so many voices, muddled together in her head and confusing the little bit of herself she could remember. The father would have been there had he known. The mother had stepped away and then shut a door, one the father could not find to open. Panic and desperation swelled and she groped forward, searching for the door. The smooth, coolness of a glass was steadied in her hand and then the sweet sharpness of a liquid choking down her throat. She moaned, trying to push it away so she could chase after the voices and find the door.

  "One more sip," Christopher soothed, "this will help.”

  The voices and images scattered and her eyes focused momentarily on Christopher’s features, taut with concern.

  “There you are. Good girl. Now, focus on me.”

  Sara’s eyes struggled, her mind fuzzy and teetering between reality and a waking dream.

  “Here I am,” he said, the dulcet tones drawing her back. “There, yes. Listen to my voice. Good girl. Take another sip.”

  Another sip of the liquid traced a path down to her warming stomach. “Christopher?” Her faint voice somehow made it to him.

  He smiled. “That's fine. Now focus on me."

  Her eyes met his, clarity ushering back the darkness. She struggled to sit up, accepting Christopher's help to do so. "I am s-sorry."

  "No need. No, don't stand. Lay back and rest for a moment."

  Sara acquiesced, hiding her eyes behind her arm as she leaned back into the settee. She could feel the warmth of the tears trailing down, the sting and bite preventing even a single word. But she could feel him, standing rigid and still beside her, his hands fisted at his sides and his breath choked and stifled.

  How long had he suffered in silence? Tormented by the knowledge that a one-time happiness had been cast aside, and not understanding why? Why? Why?

  "I should leave you for a moment," he said gruffly.

  “No!” Sara bolted upright, grasping at his hand. Her eyes sought his, but they retreated to the joining of their hands. "Please, stay."