Lily George

by Healing the Soldier's Heart

  “I see,” she gasped.

  “I w-want you to d-dine with us. I came to see if you c-could join us. Tonight.” His voice sounded careworn, strained. She searched his face for clues as to his real feelings. His firm lips were tightly drawn, and the darkness under his eyes suggested he hadn’t slept well.

  “So soon? I don’t know….” She glanced behind her once more. The girls would be dining with their father tonight. His lordship had canceled all his evening plans in the wake of Sophie’s departure. So she would not be expected to dine en famille. There was no reason to say no. She’d have to face Charlotte Rowland sooner or later. ’Twould be better to have things done quickly than to prolong the inevitable.

  “I’ll come tonight,” she agreed.

  “Thank you,” he replied and touched her cheek with his gloved hand. The softness of his touch was in direct contrast with the taut tone of his voice. “I know Mother and Mary will adore you. Is eight o’clock all right? I c-can c-come by and walk you to our new home.”

  Our new home. He was so certain, so absolutely sure that everything would work out all right. Her eyes welled with sudden tears and she blinked them back rapidly. He mustn’t see how this affected her, for then they’d argue about it again…

  Footsteps sounded behind Lucy, and she sprang away from James’s touch.

  “Lucy?” Louisa called as she bustled toward them.

  “I must go,” Lucy murmured, hastily wiping her eyes and composing her features into a semblance of blandness. For if Louisa knew that Lucy were about to meet her potential motherin-law, there would be no end to the questions and suppositions.

  James nodded and squeezed her hand. “Eight o’ c-c-clock.”

  “I shall be ready.”

  Louisa drew near, and James touched the brim of his hat. “Miss L-Louisa, how g-good t-t-to see you again.”

  “Ensign Rowland,” Louisa replied, a smile lighting her face. “Have you come to finish the library? I am so excited about it. Papa is anxious to see the final results of your hard work.”

  “We’ll be finished within the f-fortnight. There are still a f-few m-minor d-details that the workmen must see t-t-to,” James replied with a grin. He seemed to enjoy Louisa’s company and never grew impatient or affronted with her many questions.

  Lucy tilted her chin, slanting her gaze up at him. He would be a good father someday. Her cheeks grew hot at that thought—but it was true. Some men had the gifts of nurturing and patience; others did not.

  “Oh, very well then.” Louisa’s wide brown eyes narrowed, and she shifted her gaze from Lucy to James as though sizing up just why the two of them had met on the sidewalk. “Papa will be that much more surprised when he does get to see it.” She threaded her arm through Lucy’s. “We were just going on a walk over to the Circus. Won’t you join us?”

  “No, thank you. I will go inside and m-make sure the w-workmen are fitting the m-moldings in as they should—it’s a t-tricky b-business.” James bowed to them both. “It was g-good to see you b-both again.”

  They made their curtsies and continued down the sidewalk toward the Circus. As soon as they were out of earshot, Louisa spoke up. “I saw him kiss you.”

  Lucy halted in her tracks. If Lord Bradbury found out that she had been kissed out in public, she’d lose her position for certain. Why, if he had even an inkling of a suspicion that Lucy was nearly engaged, he’d start looking for another governess. She turned to Louisa, her heart beating a rapid tattoo in her chest. “Please don’t tell anyone. It was perfectly innocent, I assure you.”

  “Oh, Lucy, why must you keep pretending that I don’t know about you and Ensign Rowland? I can tell he adores you just by the way he looks at you. And I can tell that you adore him, too.” Louisa twirled her bonnet strings, a happy little smile quivering about her mouth. “Has he asked you to marry him?”

  Lucy closed her eyes for a moment. Whatever should she do next? Louisa guessed at the truth, and she was becoming less and less adept at skirting the matter. “If your father finds out, I could well lose my position as governess in your house,” Lucy finally admitted. Perhaps if Louisa knew the gravity of what Lucy faced, she would cease her teasing ways.

  Louisa shook her head. “Papa would never sack you,” she responded, “but I won’t tell a soul. So he has proposed? And did you say yes?”

  “James has proposed.” Lucy sighed. “But I cannot say yes. Not until his mother and sister meet me and I earn their approval.” She took Louisa’s arm once more, and they continued their progress, dodging a flower cart that gave off a dizzying mélange of scents—roses, gardenias, violets.

  “Well, of course they shall love you,” Louisa avowed stoutly. “Everyone does.”

  “I wish I could be so certain,” Lucy murmured. “Remember, the Rowland family is of a much better background than mine. Few mothers would welcome a penniless orphan for their son.”

  “Then we shall change their minds. When do you meet them?”

  “Tonight. That’s why James came to call. I am to have dinner with his family this evening. His mother and sister came from Essex just to meet me.” Even saying the words was difficult. The thought of meeting Charlotte Rowland, of having to carry on an intelligent conversation with her, of having to eat with her—made her throat tighten. So much of her happiness lay in what James’s mother thought of her.

  “Goodness. That doesn’t leave us much time to plan, but we shall persevere. Now, what did you plan to wear this evening?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it. I only just learned about the dinner a few moments ago,” Lucy admitted. “But I suppose I shall wear my gray silk. It’s the best dress I own.”

  “Gray silk? For dinner with your prospective motherin-law? I should think not. We must find something more festive.” Louisa paused at a milliner’s shop window, staring with grave intensity at a bonnet festooned with ostrich plumes. “Haven’t you anything more alluring than that gray silk?”

  “Hardly.” Lucy’s defenses began to rise. It was never her place to look or be anything but serviceable and plain. She was a governess after all. Not a debutante…but then, there was that chest full of dresses that Sophie had left behind. “But Sophie left a few gowns for me. Perhaps I could rummage among them.”

  “Yes, that’s much more what I was thinking of,” Louisa pronounced, turning from the window. “We shall go through Sophie’s things and find something elegant and beautiful. And we shall try a new way of dressing your hair. Perhaps in the Grecian manner, with part of it up, and the rest of it loose and flowing about your shoulders?”

  “That’s quite enough,” Lucy interrupted crisply. “I’m just going for dinner with James’s mother and sister. I am not going to doll myself up as though I am headed to Vauxhall Gardens. I’ll find a suitably pretty gown, but I draw the line at fantastical hairstyles.” She tilted her head, eyeing her charge closely. “And why, pray tell, are you so eager to marry me off? With Sophie gone, one would think you might be eager to keep me about. Do I mean so little to you and your sister?”

  “Oh, Lucy. You mean the world to us both.” Louisa flung her arms around Lucy and smothered her in a tight embrace. “But I cannot help myself. I am such a romantic. I want everyone to have a chance at their fairy-tale ending.”

  *

  James sat in the rented hackney for a moment, breathing deeply. He must go in and announce himself to Lucy, but first he must prepare himself. This evening was, in many respects, the culmination of his life since leaving the army. He was hosting a dinner in his own home. His mother and sister were ready to meet the woman of his dreams. And the woman of his dreams had consented to marry him if his mother gave her approval. When he lay praying for death in the rye field at La Sainte Haye, the prospect of an evening such as this would have seemed the product of a fevered hallucination. He was now, after years of being a boy, a man in his own right.

  He opened the door—and nearly tumbled over Lucy who stood waiting on the mounting block.


  “Are you all right?” he gasped. What in the world was she doing out here?

  “Yes, I am quite fine. Let’s go now. Before his lordship can see.” She grasped his hand and pulled herself into the carriage, landing on the squabs with a thud. He closed the door and rapped on the window, signaling to the coachman that they were ready to return home.

  Lucy pulled herself into a sitting position, arranging her pale yellow skirts around her ankles. “Why did you bring a hack? It made things so much more difficult for me to sneak away. I thought you were walking up.”

  “Sneak away?” Something wasn’t right. Was she trying to hide being seen with him? Was she ashamed of him? “I d-don’t c-catch your meaning. I thought hiring a hack was the p-proper thing to do on a night like this. A sight better than w-walking.”

  “Oh, James, don’t get angry. If his lordship realizes that I am meeting a young man, my very position as a governess in his home could be called into question.” She sat back on the cushions and drew her wrap about her more tightly. “I had to creep out and wait for you in the shadows like a footpad.”

  “You cc-c-an t-tell his lordship t-tonight that we are t-t-to be m-married,” he protested, wishing that the words rang true. But somehow, they felt hollow. A niggling feeling of anger and despair roiled within him. He was going to lose her, somehow. He couldn’t hang on to her—she was too fine, too beautiful. She’d slip away like a leaf tossed on the wind.

  “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched,” Lucy retorted crisply. “I still haven’t garnered your mother’s approval.”

  He bit his tongue and fell silent for the rest of the short journey to their new home in York Street. He always thought of it as Lucy’s home as well as his. It was meant for the two of them. Without her, there would be no need for a sweet, cozy home in his life. No, he’d still be rooming with Macready in their bachelor flat.

  As the carriage slowed to a halt before the mounting block, Lucy glanced out the window. “Oh, my,” she breathed. “It’s so charming.”

  And it was. The last threads of daylight were fading from the sky, and a smoky twilight enveloped the little house, shrouding it in a blue glow. Candles twinkled from every window—even the tiny dormer window that dotted the attic. A low iron fence contained the flower garden, which gave off the dusky attar of late summer roses. The stone cottage with its slate roof was beckoning to its future mistress with all the allurement of a diamond winking in a jeweler’s shop window. She had only to say one word and it could be hers.

  He smothered a wry grin as he helped Lucy from the carriage. At least something was speaking in his favor to his beloved. Between his hot temper and his stammering tongue, he had very little to recommend himself. As they mounted the shallow steps that led to the front door, he bent low and whispered urgently in Lucy’s ear, “Welcome home, dearest.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lucy hardly had a moment to compose herself before being thrown into the social whirl of meeting Charlotte and Mary Rowland. Fortunately, Macready was there, so she wasn’t the only guest. But she was the only guest with, perhaps, a deeper motive for her attendance. Though, judging by the way Macready gazed after Mary, perhaps he was there for another purpose, as well.

  They gathered in a small dining room, where a rosy-cheeked, snowy-haired servant ladled out the soup course. It was a fine meal, and the dining room was everything that could be desired in a dining room. She’d always taken her meals dormitory-style at the orphanage; later on, after joining his lordship’s employ, she dined in the schoolroom or on a tray in her room. She’d always wondered why people thought of meals as convivial events. They never had been in her experience. And yet, as they gathered together under the candlelight, with a superb chicken soup warming their souls and Macready and James cracking jokes, it was a little more apparent why some people thought of meals as gatherings.

  Was this what having her home, her own family could be like?

  Mary leaned over, her dark green eyes sparkling. “I’m s-so g-glad to m-meet you finally,” she murmured. “James has certainly s-sung your p-praises to M-Mother and to m-me. And none of the p-praise was exaggerated.”

  “That’s very kind of you.” Lucy’s heart warmed to Mary, whose stammer and whose wide, dark eyes were so like her brother’s. “Have you ever come to Bath before?”

  “No,” Mary admitted, tucking a lock of honey-blond hair behind her ear. “We hardly ever t-travel outside of Essex. When James used to write t-to m-me from B-Belgium, it was such a thrill. T-to see those foreign m-markings on the envelope and to w-wonder what he was seeing.” She dropped her eyes to the tablecloth. “Of c-course, I had no idea of the horrors he w-witnessed. He c-concealed those from me as long as he c-could.”

  Lucy nodded, slanting her gaze over at James. He was chatting with Macready about their youth. Charlotte Rowland occasionally interjected a languid comment. He really had pulled himself out of his self-contained misery. James was no longer a haunted, hunted shell of a soldier. He was back among the living.

  She loved him for that. In fact, she loved James Rowland as she had loved no one before.

  The clarity of her emotions startled her, like a beacon turned on the darkness, searing in its intensity. But there it was. She loved James. She always would, even decades from now when her memories had faded.

  She tore her gaze away from James before he could look over at her. For if he did, the love she felt for him would be shining in her eyes, and he would see it—and all could be lost. Thus far, Charlotte Rowland had not given her any encouragement or sign that she was welcomed as a potential daughter-in-law. In fact, she’d hardly said anything beyond the usual expected politesse.

  Mary smiled. “He’s a g-good b-brother,” she confided. “He’ll m-make a g-good husband too, some d-day.”

  Lucy cleared her throat. “Yes, I am sure he will.” Time to change the subject—move on to less contentious territory. “If you haven’t been to Bath before, there must be some things you’d like to see. What is on your itinerary whilst you are here?”

  “Oh, I’d love t-to see all the famous spots—the Assembly Rooms, the Roman B-Baths, the Circus.” She plucked at the frayed collar of her dress with a rueful gesture. “I’d love a chance to p-peek into the windows of a real m-m-modiste.”

  Lucy eyed the worn dresses that Mary and Mrs. Rowland wore, which were in sharp contrast to her own gown of buttercup-yellow, the bodice ruched and embroidered to perfection. Sophie had even embroidered the sleeves. What use had a governess for such gowns? Sophie had left a dozen or so behind. Wouldn’t it be lovely for Mary to have an entirely new wardrobe just for her trip to Bath?

  “You know, I have just the thing for you, Mary. A friend of mine who is a modiste recently had to leave town and gifted me an entire wardrobe of gowns, such as the one I am wearing tonight.” She took a small spoonful of soup. “But as a governess, I can’t possibly make use of them all. They are far too pretty and impractical for a governess to wear. Would you like to have them?”

  Mary gasped as though Lucy had offered her a treasure hoard. “Are you certain you can b-bear to p-part with them? If they are half as lovely as that g-gown, I can’t imagine anyone g-giving them away.”

  “I would consider it a favor if you would take them and wear them until they fall to pieces,” Lucy said with a chuckle. “Otherwise, I shall feel guilty for keeping them in a chest, hidden away while I wear my serviceable grays and blacks.”

  Mary’s eyes grew brighter, and she cast a shy glance over at Macready, who happened to look up at the same moment. Lucy caught their joined glances and looked away. How sweet—Mary and Macready admired each other. If everything worked as one hoped, then Mary’s first trip away from home could be everything a girl would want—a new wardrobe, amazing sights and a beau to call her own.

  “I’d l-love the ddresses if you really c-can’t use them,” Mary confided in an undertone. “B-but on one c-condition. You m-must k-keep the yellow one you
’re wearing. When my b-brother c-came in the d-door with you on his arm, he l-looked so p-proud. I’m surprised he didn’t p-pop a waistcoat b-button, his chest was so p-puffed out.”

  Now it was Lucy’s turn to blush, and her cheeks grew hot accordingly. “If you insist,” she replied quietly and turned her attention back to her soup.

  The rest of the dinner passed rather uneventfully, and for that, Lucy was grateful. She sank into the gentle hospitality of James’s new home. Everything about it was so perfect. After dinner, as they gathered in the parlor, Lucy played the spinet while Mary sang. Her stammer disappeared entirely as she sang, and Macready watched her with rapt attention. James fixated on Lucy, his admiring glances and encouraging smiles combining to make her rather giddy. When the mantel clock chimed ten, she stood up with a regretful sigh.

  “I really should go,” she said. “I usually awaken early to prepare my lessons.”

  James stood with her and rang for his servant to order the hackney brought around. But his mother placed a retaining hand on his arm.

  “James, dear,” she said in that quiet, languid tone of voice, “I wish you would stay here whilst Miss Williams is driven home.” She looked over at Lucy, her expression one of resignation. “I would like to speak with you before I retire.”

  As though sensing the awkwardness of the moment, Macready sprang into social action. “I’ll escort Miss Williams home,” he said with a jovial laugh. “I must take advantage of a hackney cab wherever I can get one.”

  Mary’s eyes flashed with a protective light, and Lucy’s stomach lurched with pity. Poor thing, to be so fearful of losing her sweetheart’s regard. As if Macready ever had any real designs on someone like Lucy. He was so obviously besotted with Mary. As she embraced Mary, she whispered, “He’s just being a gentleman. Good night.”

  Mary nodded. “I know,” she whispered in return. “B-but—”