by Julie Daines
“Go on, take it,” the old man said. “There won’t be more. If you fail, let it be on your head.” He picked up a pen and made a show of going back to his work.
Edmund held the packet for a long moment before tucking it in his coat. “Thank you, Father,” he said.
The marquess did not look up, and Edmund took that for the intended dismissal. He didn’t look at the contents of the envelope until the hackney pulled away from his parents’ house. When he did, he found a generous portion. It didn’t constitute a fortune, but he thought it enough to purchase a modest house suitable for medical offices. He closed his eyes against tears that threatened and let hope—and gratitude—push out the grief he had harbored. His father loved him.
The stiff seat of the hackney provided none of the comfort of his mother’s well-sprung carriage, but Edmund leaned against it happily. The road to Bath lay open before him.
I have one more stop to make first.
* * *
When weeks turned into a month without word from Edmund, Lucy trudged home from Lady Hardy’s new apartment with sagging shoulders, thoroughly dejected.
She continued to attend the lady daily, even after Baron Hardy moved his mother to a set of rooms near Mrs. Wellbridge and his affairs to a new man of business suggested by Aunt Imogene. Relations between mother and son remained strained, but they both agreed it was best if she remained in Bath. He left with a promise of regular visits.
His offer of a small stipend for Lucy—“a token of gratitude for your kindness and generous friendship”—stunned her, but she accepted it eagerly. Nursing Lady Hardy gave her a sense of purpose. Her growing competence in the task gave her pride. Life as a physician’s wife would suit her perfectly. Of that, she had no doubt, but the thought drove her spirits into the ground.
If only Edmund came, I might actually be happy, she thought, climbing the steps to her aunt’s townhouse.
“A letter come for you, miss,” the maid, Erma, said, taking her cloak and bonnet. “I put it on the mantel in the sitting room.”
Edmund? Heart racing, Lucy hurried into her aunt’s tiny sitting room and grabbed the folded bundle of paper from the simple wooden mantelpiece in the center of the room, avidly scanning the address. Her heart sank. She dropped into a deeply cushioned chair.
“Lucy, dear, I heard you come in. I—Oh my. Bad news, is it? You look despondent,” Aunt Imogene clucked with concern, seating herself beside Lucy.
“It is from Stepmama, of course.” Lucy held the unopened missive by one corner and waved it in the air, too miserable to care.
“Your patient, then? Has Agnes taken a turn for the worse?”
“No, she is right as rain, improving every day.”
“What, then?”
“Mrs. Wellbridge stopped to see Lady Hardy. She had been to see Dr. Barry and brought fresh potions for our patient.” She drew breath to continue, the words sticking in her throat. “She saw Lord Edmund.”
Aunt Imogene sat up straight. “Lord Edmund? Back in Bath? Was she certain?”
“As certain as can be without actually speaking with him. She noticed him near the Pulteney Bridge walking toward Dr. Barry’s premises, which she had just left. He didn’t see her.”
“Why—” Aunt Imogene began but did not complete the thought.
“Why has he not called or even appeared in the Pump Room? I asked myself that all the way home. Perhaps he has no wish to continue the acquaintance. Perhaps his parents have forbidden it.”
Lucy stood up and paced to the window, staring out as if she might conjure Edmund from the ether and bring him to the door. She heard Aunt Imogene order tea without turning to look. The older lady believed tea healed all ills.
“Come sit and read your stepmother’s missive. Perhaps there is happy news from Little Hocking.”
Lucy looked at the papers in her hand. She did not care to read Stepmama’s words gushing over Elise’s coming Season but knew her aunt would give her no peace until she did.
The letter showed signs of a difficult journey via the mails. A muddy footprint gave evidence of it falling at least once. Indeed, when she opened it, the message appeared to have been written at least two weeks before. She scanned it quickly.
“Do tell, Lucy. Don’t dawdle over the thing,” Aunt Imogene urged. “That frown tells you found more news not to your liking.”
“Elise is not to have a Season after all,” Lucy gasped. “Her illness delayed any hope of London before the Little Season, and now even that is not to happen. She has accepted an offer with Papa’s blessing, but Stepmama is not pleased. She is quite put out, in fact.”
“Why on earth?”
“Stepmama had such hopes for her eldest, and now Elise has accepted a man she met at a local assembly. Stepmama describes him as ‘merely a farmer,’ and calls his cousin—who is an earl, no less—as ‘distant as the moon.’” Lucy smiled sadly at that exaggeration. “Oh, Aunt, can’t you just see Stepmama’s dramatic sigh, arm protectively across her eyes, moaning about ungrateful children?” She mimicked the thought, bringing a disapproving glare.
“If he is Elise’s choice, then surely you must be happy for her!” Aunt Imogene said.
“I am—truly. If he is worthy, rank doesn’t matter.” Lucy dropped the paper, scrunched between both hands, into her lap. “Elise married! I wish her every happiness.” Her lip twisted a bit, and she returned her aunt’s concerned gaze. “Very well. I confess to envy, Aunt, at least a bit. I won’t let it color my love for my sister, do not fear.” Her heart felt as if a giant hand had ripped it out and squeezed it. I let myself hope, fool that I am.
“Why do I suspect there is more?”
“There is. Stepmama wishes me to return home. She writes, ‘If Elise must do this thing in the village, we will make the best of it. I will require your assistance, Lucy, if we are to put on the wedding breakfast that reflects our consequence. Come home as soon as you can manage the thing.’”
“She means you will put on a wedding breakfast to impress the neighbors. That hardly seems fair to me,” Aunt Imogene sputtered.
Lucy moaned silently. It isn’t. Merciful angels; it is not fair, but I'll do it for Elise. “I shall have to notify Lord Hardy that I can’t continue to accept his kind stipend.”
“Never say you plan to give in to that stepmother of yours!”
“How can I not, Aunt Imogene? Would you have me wait until Papa orders me home? From the looks of this missive, I have already been delayed well past when she expected me to respond. No, I think it best if I simply pack my things and go.”
“But, Lucy dear, what if—”
“Don’t weave dreams of fairy silk, Aunt Imogene. I will send the butcher’s boy to arrange transportation and pack immediately.”
Every step toward her room felt like one more step toward dreary spinsterhood in Little Hocking, caring for Stepmama’s ever-growing brood, brightened only by visits to Aunt Imogene. Even that will not lighten my life if Edmund is here but has no wish to see me.
Chapter Eleven
The too-small gilded chair offered to Edmund forced him to stretch his legs out, only to pull them back. He struggled to be still while the clock ticked and he waited.
“The ladies will be ever so glad to see you, my lord,” the little maid had chirped. “Especially Miss Lucy. She said—” The girl clapped a hand over her mouth at that and hustled off to fetch Mrs. Crane, closing him in the claustrophobic sitting room.
He didn’t want Mrs. Crane. He wanted his Lucy. After a full half hour elapsed, however, he wished either one would appear. His fantasy of his true love greeting him at the door and throwing herself into his arms lay in ashes. He couldn’t tell how long it had been since the maid left, but it felt like hours.
“Oh, thank the angels you are here, Lord Edmund.” Mrs. Crane bustled into the sitting room still wearing her cloak and bonnet, cheeks red and breath heaving. “I was at Mary Wellbridge’s bemoaning the news when Erma sent word you were here. I’m s
o sorry you had to wait. You may still be in time, but you will have to hurry.”
“Hurry? I beg your patience, Mrs. Crane, but I don’t understand.”
Lucy’s aunt wrung her hands. “You came to call on Lucy, did you not? She’s gone. That stepmother of hers has ordered her home to assist with her sister’s wedding. She left for the coaching inn an hour ago. God knows how soon the coach will depart.”
Leaving? “But I—”
“Don’t gape, boy. There isn’t time!”
She didn’t have to tell him twice. Edmund left the house at a sprint in the direction she gave him.
He skidded into the inn yard to see the mail coach pulling out onto the road north. He had no time to ask if it was the coach to Herefordshire. Grateful for congestion on the road, he reached the horse’s heads while they still kept to a slow pace, grabbed on to the harness, and shouted to the driver to stop.
“Trying to get kilt, are ya? You best have good reason, you,” the driver glowered, but the vehicle halted.
Edmund didn’t wait to answer. He yanked the door open while the driver shouted at him to stop and called inside, “Miss Lucy Ashcroft?” No one answered. His eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he could see for himself. She wasn’t there. He slammed the door shut and turned back to the inn, the driver shouting rude curses behind him.
He didn’t plan to wait for the next coach to Herefordshire. He would hire a horse, a luxury he could ill afford. She said she would wait, he told himself angrily. Now I will have to follow her all the way back to— “Lucy!”
“Edmund?” The source of his hopes and frustrations blinked back at him across the room. She stood with a valise at her feet, dressed for travel.
He strode across the room, prepared to berate her for leaving him.
She pounced before he could speak. “Perhaps you wish to explain why you left me with expectations and then sent no word for over a month.”
“I did not give you expectations! How could I when I wasn’t sure of my situation? I was careful not to.” His face heated with the memory of that kiss. Of course she had expectations, you bloody fool. “Lucy, I’m sorry I took so long. I went to Oxford first to seek out Stallings for an endorsement. The old rip made me wait three days while he grilled me on my knowledge, but in the end, I got what I wanted.”
She stood in silence, her chin up, as if to say, “That accounts for three of the days . . .”
He glanced around, seeing avid stares in every direction, and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Lucy, this is hardly the place for this conversation. Can we go someplace private?”
“When did you return to Bath?” she demanded again. “And why didn’t you call?” Her voice cracked on that last, and his heart did as well, and he understood his error.
“It’s easier to show you,” he answered, picking up her valise and pulling her by the hand. She scowled at him once, and he thought she would object, but she followed him.
He led her as rapidly as he could without tripping toward the neighborhood near the Pulteney Bridge until they stopped in a street lined with stone houses, an identical row of modest residences several years old, each with the same white door three steps above street level.
“Edmund, slow down and tell me what this is about!”
They stopped in front of number twelve, a house with the knocker removed. Dead flowers filled pealing boxes, and the window frames needed paint. Edmund pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the front door, holding it open for her. Her eyes grew wide staring up at the house and back to the door.
He reached for her in exasperation and pulled her inside the empty house. Scraps of paper littered the dusty floor of the foyer. He had hoped to clean the place up first, but so be it!
“The rooms at street level are big enough. I can build a surgery in here,” he began, walking into a room obviously intended as a sitting room. “The drawing room across the foyer can serve as a waiting room.”
Lucy, who had been gaping at the fireplace, spun around. “Your father approves of your plans?”
“Hardly! He’s cut me off. ‘Until I come to my senses,’ he says. But I know my heart. I’ve met with Dr. Barry, and he agreed to take me on as an apprentice. Barry says Bath can well support a hundred decent physicians—–it supports enough charlatans.”
He sobered then and gathered both of her hands in his. “Father has cut off my allowance and made it clear no more assistance will be forthcoming, but he gave me enough to purchase this house. I have to succeed—or fail—on my own.”
Compassion shone through Lucy’s eyes, her own feelings consumed in sorrow over his family’s rejection. He cleared his throat, discomfort making him shy.
“I own the house outright, and a small estate in Devon. It provides little income, but enough I think to pay for the household. This floor will make a surgery, and the upstairs is large enough for living quarters.” He searched her dear face and found only confusion. “I should be able to set up a household, although life will be lean for a few years until I’m a full physician and begin to build a practice.”
I’m babbling. No wonder she looks confused. “If you are worried about my parents, I think they’ll come around in a few years, particularly once there are grandchildren.”
Lucy paled, shocked at his words.
He shook his head. “I’m bungling this.” He reached for her where she stood still as a statue.
* * *
Grandchildren? She blinked rapidly, her thoughts a jumble. When he took her hands and pulled her closer, she couldn’t think at all.
“Lucy, don’t you see? Before I encountered a certain determined lady at the Pump Room, I floated through life, aimless and confused, allowing my parents to dictate my dreams. When I met you, the pieces fell into place for me. I—” He groaned and glanced upward. “Damn it, Lucy!”
Arms gentle but determined, he pulled her flush against his chest, holding her firmly in his arms. His mouth covered hers in tender salute that gentled and teased along her lips. She gasped, surprised by his impetuous behavior, but shock gave way to a tentative response. When his exploration of her mouth and neck continued, an instinctive need to mimic his actions took over. She slipped her hands up to his neck and into his thick black hair, holding him close.
He pulled away at last over her whimper of protest and nestled her head against his shoulder. After a shuddering breath, he rasped, “I will take that answer as a yes.”
Yes? Lucy stiffened. She put both hands on his chest and pushed. He let her go immediately. “My dear Lord Edmund. I don’t recall being asked a question. How could there be an answer?” She lifted her chin and attempted to glare. She suspected from the laughter in his eyes that she was unsuccessful.
Edmund gave a dramatic bow and dropped to one knee in front of her. “Miss Ashcroft, I present my humble self as a candidate for your hand in marriage. I realize my means are not of the highest, but I offer this hearth and home—” He gestured at the room dramatically with one arm. When Lucy tried to interrupt, he held up a hand and shook his head, cleared his throat and went on, “I must make you aware that a physician’s wife must be his partner in all things. Hard work will be required.” Again, he silenced her with a raised brow and pointed glare. “Please allow me to finish.” At that pronouncement, Lucy’s laughter spilled over, but he continued anyway, “Will you do me the honor of—”
Lucy dropped to her knees and kissed him, finally silencing his ridiculous speech and knocking him over in the process. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Of course I’ll marry you,” she said between kisses to his chin, his eyes, his cheek, and back to his tempting mouth.
Edmund rolled over and pulled her to a sitting position, gripping her hand with his. “That’s the reaction I rather hoped for in the first place,” he said, laughing. “We need to wed soon before there is much more of this delightful activity.”
Lucy bit her lip. “Banns take three weeks. It will take at least that long to plan a wedding.”
His smile melt
ed her heart. “You’ll want to prepare a dress, plan a breakfast, and invite the Circle to attend.”
She nodded as he pulled her to her feet. “But there’s more. Stepmama has ordered me home to Little Hocking, Edmund. I don’t want to step on Elise’s day.” Another thought struck her hard enough to make the color leach from her face. “Papa!” she said. “We need to ask my father’s blessing.”
His grin broadened. “Didn’t I say? We have his enthusiastic blessing. That is another thing that kept me away. The road to Little Hocking gave me a miserable time.”
“You spoke to my father?” she gasped.
“Of course. I wanted to do it properly—” What else he might have said was drowned in a flood of more kisses. At least this time they stayed upright.
“There’s more,” he said, smiling against her mouth.
She pulled back to blink up at him. “From Papa?”
“Yes, but mostly from your stepmother. She is quite in a dither, even though I made it plain the marquess and marchioness would not attend our wedding. She thinks perhaps Bath is a more suitable venue for the wedding of an exalted person such as myself.”
“Your parents won’t attend our wedding?”
“Persona non grata, remember? Your stepmother will have to be content with my brother, the viscount. He and his family will assuredly attend.”
“But here in Bath?”
“At this very moment, they are preparing to bring Elise, her betrothed, and your charming gaggle of younger siblings to Bath by the end of the month, after I made it clear I would brook no delay. We’d best warn your aunt about the coming invasion.”
“You’ve thought of everything!”
He looked around the room and ran the hand not cradling hers over the back of his neck ruefully. “Our house isn’t exactly ready for you, Lucy.”
“‘Our house.’ I like that. We only need a room or two to start. A kitchen, a sitting room, a bedroom.” Heat flushed her cheeks. “Can you show me the rest? It’s the place where we will care for people, care for one another, and, God willing, care for our children. We’ll be happy here, Edmund, I’m sure of it.”
