Courting a Spinster for Christmas: Sweet and Clean Regency Romance (His Majesty's Hounds Book 16) by Arietta Richmond

Author:Arietta Richmond [Richmond, Arietta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dreamstone Publishing
Published: 2018-10-07T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Monday dawned clear and crisp, with the touch of winter in the air and a solid frost upon the ground - the feel of things spoke of Christmas, of warmth by a cosy fire, and pleasant conversation with family and friends. Even more now, that thought reminded Lydia that she did not, really, belong anywhere, that, once the work on the library at Dartworth Abbey was done, there was no reason for her to stay. Her cosy cottage in Casterfield Downs looked more and more like a prison of boredom and loneliness.

She shivered, looking out of the window at the passing landscape, where the morning sun was melting the frost, causing spiralling drifts of fog to float above the streams and fields. She should sleep – she had always been able to sleep in coaches – yet sleep would not come. Instead, deep awareness of the man sitting opposite her thrummed through her, and the tumble of her thoughts spun in ceaseless circles. Somewhere, in the last few months, she had lost the calm and certainty that had been part of her all of her life.

She was not at all sure that she liked the way this tumult of emotion ran through her, the way that this one man discomposed her, the way that all of her certainties were gone. Yet she could not deny the fact that there was a sense of adventure, of limitless possibility, contained in it too.

Lady Sybilla, who had always been the one to stay awake, and intently study the world passing by, was also behaving contrary to her past – she had drifted into sleep, sliding sideways to rest against Lydia’s shoulder. It was comforting, in a way, that warm pressure, that sense of someone trusting and relying on her. It was a feeling she had missed, she realised, a feeling that had been part of her for so many years, as governess and as companion.

Mr Godfrey was also mostly silent, seeming unsure what to speak of, uncertain with Lady Sybilla. So Lydia watched him, under her lashes, as she tried and failed to sleep, as he watched the countryside through the window. It occurred to her that she had no idea where he had grown up, no idea what his life had been, before he became the vicar at Dartworth. Had he travelled far? Did he have siblings? Had he always wanted to go into the church? She found that she wanted to know, wanted, in fact, to know everything there was to know about this man.

Was this, she wondered, what love felt like? This obsession with another, this need to be with them, this mad unmooring of self, in favour of another? Were moments of giddy excitement worth all of this turmoil? She was beginning to suspect that they were. Another thing that she could not possibly ever let Lady Sybilla see, for seeing Lydia undone by love would amuse her just as much as this chaperonage. And, Lydia admitted to herself, this was, actually, love.

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