He wasn’t interrupted on the way there. Only a servant or two asking if they could get him something. All Edward needed at this moment was some time away from the crowds and the gossip and the glitter. Some peace away from too many people. His father would think him a coward for wanting to escape. Not that anything Edward ever did produced a compliment from the man.
Edward often wondered what Louis Whitman would have been like had his wife, Mary, not died just ten days after she gave birth to Edward. Edward’s nurse talked about the kind, lovely woman Mary Whitman had been. A woman who picked fresh flowers for the table whenever they were in the country. A woman who hummed when she read. A woman who tried so hard to carry a child to term before she finally did, only to have her strength an
