Chapter 7

Max heard Mrs. Brighton come in to retrieve her son and followed her up the stairs.

"Jeremy Jonathan Brighton, what on earth do you think you are doing?" His mother looked over the young boy many times to make certain that
he really was unharmed.

"I'm having tea with Cassidy, Mama." He said blushing as she scooped him up. "I walked her home, you got my note, didn't you Mama?"

"Yes, I did, dear." She said, then looked at Cassidy. "Are you alright, sweetheart?"

"Yes, Ma'am." She nodded and stood. "Are you going to take my tea mate away now?"

"Yes, I'm sorry." She patted Cassidy's hair. "Who were the girls who did this to you sweetheart?"

Cassidy looked at the floor and shifted her foot over the rug.

"It was the Troy girl, and Delaney, Mama." Jeremy filled in for her.

"Cassidy?"

She nodded but didn't look up.

Her daughters were well acquainted with them.

"Alright, I'll see you tonight, Mr. Evans."

"Bye, Jeremy." Cassidy waved.

"Goodbye." Jeremy said and blushed when his mother ushered him out of the room.

Max sat down for tea with Cassidy after Jeremy left.

"Cassidy." A voice from the doorway said a few minutes later.

"Daddy!" Cassidy jumped from the chair and dashed across the room to Kyle. Max stood as well.

"Hello, princess." He hugged her. "Mummy said you got hurt at school today."

"Yes." She said and she promptly burst into tears as he scooped her up into his arms.

Max stood against the wall, bored as usual at these things. Young ladies flitted and flirted with him while trying to get him to ask them for a dance. He gave them all a bored expression until they left him to his solitude.

"Mr. Evans." He turned when he heard his name. While he could be bored his mother wouldn't stand rudeness.

"Valenti." He said surprised to see his father's friend.

"How are you this evening?" He asked.

"Same as I always am at these things.." Max said, looking at him and noticing the brunette beauty at his side.

"This is Mrs. Parker, a friend of mine." Valenti pulled her gently forward, "Mrs. Parker, Mr. Evans."

Max nodded in her direction, not saying more. He was unable to. The woman in front of him looked exactly like Liz, except with blue eyes. He looked back at Jim Valenti and saw Liz's dark brown ones.

"There a problem Mr. Evans?"

"No." He shook his head, unable to take his eyes off her. "You look like a friend of mine."

"They say my daughter is the spitting image of me, except she has her father's eyes."

He looked between the two again.

Jim raised his eyebrows as he turned to Nancy Parker.

"Told you he was a bright boy, Nancy."

Max just sputtered. How in the world! These were Liz's parents. Liz did say her mother was Nancy Parker, but Jim Valenti, what did he have to do with anything?

"Stay away from my daughter, Max." Jim said quietly.

"But..."

"There are no buts, Max, just stay away." Jim turned and directed Nancy away. Nancy gave one more glance back at the boy her daughter fell in love with before catching up to Jim.

Max glanced again over to where Pamela Troy and Victoria Delaney were standing. He smiled softly and headed towards their group.

The began fluttering around and Max had to fight the groan that was threatening to come up.

"I believe this dance is mine." He smiled, as he took Cornelia Brighton from the group. He did not even bother to acknowledge the other girls in the group.

"This is a pleasure, Mr. Evans." She smiled at him. They had been childhood friends and they never used their surnames.

"The pleasure is surely mine, Miss Brighton." He answered.

"Actually, It's Miss Cornelia." She laughed. She was the younger of a set of twins, giving the title of Miss Brighton to her sister, Ella, who was a full five minutes older than she. "Ella's over there."

"Pardon." He laughed with her. They were identical he never could tell them apart and he doubted that he ever would.

It was then that he noticed how she was looking at him.

"Nellie, don't." He said softly. "There's nothing between us."

"I know, Max." She knew in her hear he did not love her.

"You should have sent Ella."

"I would have been jealous. I would not like to hate my twin." She looked at him.

"You'll find someone, someday." He told her.

She nodded and looked away as tears filled her eyes.

"Come, we've done our damage." He directed her eyes towards Pamela Troy who looked like a hen who'd had her nest disturbed.

She smiled as he took her to her mother where she would be safe from the hurtful tongues of the other girls.

"Chin up, my Nellie." He said gently.

She watched him as he walked away, wondering who held his heart so tight he couldn't share it with her.

Max woke early the next morning. There was a pile of work on his desk in the study that adjoined his father's.

He couldn't concentrate on any of it.

Cassidy came in to bid him goodbye before heading off to school.

"Hi." She looked fightened.

"Mr. Evans, will you walk me to school? Mummy said not to bother you because you're too busy, but I-I'm scared."

"I'm never too busy for you, Cassidy." He said as he stood. Nor would he be too busy for his daughters.

Jeremy was waiting by the fence.

"Morning," he called happily.

"Morning!" They said back.

Cassidy held Max's hand as they neared the gate. They stopped outside the schoolyard.

"Miss Milton's Academy for Girls." The sign glared in his face. Across the street was Milton's Academy for Boys.

As a male and not being Cassidy's father, his stop was here.

Two girls ran up to them.

"We're sorry, Cassidy." They said in unison. Cassidy just stared at them clutching tight to Max's leg.

"We really are." The other girls added.

She looked uncertain about what to do.

Finally she spoke.

"If you were sorry, you wouldn't have done it in the first place." She put her nose in the air so high; it would have done Isabel proud. She walked around them and grabbed another girl's hand. Max assumed it was Edwina.

"Jeremy will you walk her home from school?"

"Yes!" He said. "My pleasure."

"Thank you, I know she'll be safe with you."

Max started back home then changed directions.

He knocked on Jim Valenti's door and waited.

"Mr. Valenti was expecting you, please sit down." The butler said.

"A few moments later Jim Valenti entered. "I wondered when you would come see me."

Max glowered at the man.

"I bet you've got many questions about Elizabeth. Some of them I'll answer, some I won't."

"Does Liz know?"

"No." Jim said after a pause.

"How could you let her live there in that place, when you live here?" He asked.

"I've had to make many painful decisions, Max, they weren't always the best."

"You let her live in the poorest part of the city, have you ever been there?" Max couldn't forget how it had been there. The smell, the people, the disease that now had her family camped out at his house. "How could you do that to your own daughter?"

"I fell in love with her mother." He stated simply.

"But how can...why...God!" Max couldn't put a sentence together.

"How? The same way you did. Why? Why did you fall in love with her daughter?" Valenti fired back.

Max sighed.

"You can't explain it either." He said softly.

"No, I can't." Max said. "Kyle too?"

"Yes."

"You're Cassidy's grandfather?"

"Yes." Jim smiled. "I heard about yesterday, Thank you."

"It should have been you." Max bit out.

There was a long pause as the men faced each other.

"She's here, isn't she?"

"Yes."

"Can I see her?"

"No, her mother wouldn't like that." Jim said. "Sit down, we'll talk and then I'll convince Nancy to let you see her."

Liz rolled over in the unfamiliar bed.

"Liz, darling." She knew that voice but pulled away from the hand that was on her forehead.

"Max."

"Yes, darling."

"Go away, don't touch me." She shrank back into the covers. She still didn't open her eyes, there was too much light in the room and it took too much effort. "You broke my heart."

Max jerked his hand back. He told himself that it was the fever that was talking, it wasn't really how she felt.

"I'm sorry, my darling." Max hurt. "I'll leave you now."

"Good, I don't want you here." She mumbled before she fell back into a restless sleep, tear slipping out the corner of her eye.

Max walked back to Liz's apartments, he knocked and a drunken Jeff Parker opened the door.
"I told you she ain't here."

"I know." Max said.

"What you want then?"

"Just to see something, may I come in?"

"Sure." He sat down on a chair, muttering curses.

"You don't speak that way in front of Cassidy do you?"

"Why should it matter, the little thing will learn it sooner or later."

Max raised an eyebrow. "She repeats anything and I'm coming after you." Max slipped a letter into Liz's apron pocket.

"Good day."

"Yeah, whatever." Jeff Parker mumbled as Max closed the door.

Max boarded a train to New Mexico three weeks later.

tbc