The Sisters of Woodside Collection by Mary Kingswood

Author:Mary Kingswood [Kingswood, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sutors Publishing
Published: 2020-08-27T22:00:00+00:00

19: A Garden Party

This conversation with Tom had one beneficial effect on Leo, in that he now realised that there was no need for haste with Lucy. Indeed, rushing at the business had already caused him trouble, for she had sent him packing in the most unequivocal manner, and in such terms as to give him little hope of success in the future.

Yet he must try. He understood now, as he had not before, just how precious she was to him. Those few hours when he had thought Tom was his rival had reduced him to quivering terror. He could not lose Lucy now! All this time he had thought of her as his friend — a very dear friend, true, but still no more than someone to talk to and be at ease with and perhaps share a joke with. A little like Tom, only a more feminine version.

But it was not so. He was in love with her — he loved her, helplessly, desperately, beyond all reason. Tom was quite right to point out that Lucy was not the sort of woman Leo should be considering as a wife. He should be looking for someone elegant and refined, someone who would be a graceful hostess at Stoneleigh, who would connect him to one of the great families, the nobility, perhaps. And immediately he had a vision of Lucy sitting in the dining hall at Stoneleigh with a duke to one side of her and a marquess to the other, and chattering away to them, her face alive with interest. He could not help but smile at this image. Every time he thought of her, he smiled. She would not be cowed by rank, that much was certain. Dear, sweet, unaffected Lucy.

Even so, it was as well to be circumspect. Perhaps, as Tom said, the novelty would wear off, and he would weary of her and the endless chatter that so diverted him now. So he would wait and watch and do nothing precipitate.

At first, he had little chance to talk to her. That first evening there had been no opportunity to do more than exchange greetings, but she had smiled at him with as much warmth as always, which was reassuring. At least they had parted amicably. He was so glad he had been able to talk to her before he left for Lancashire, for otherwise their last speech together would have been his mangled attempt at a proposal and her vehement repudiation of him, which was not a memory he wanted to linger in the mind, for either of them. But then, she had never been one to sulk, always throwing off her brief ill-humours rapidly.

The next day was Saturday, and she was out all day with the girls on some expedition of pleasure or other to which he, having only just returned, was not invited. But that evening, he found her alone in the saloon before dinner, and wearing black again.

“Mrs Price, you are back in deep mourning.

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