Elisabeth Kidd by For Love of Celia

Author:For Love of Celia [Celia, For Love of]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 8

Celia was unaccountably disappointed to find that Mr. Lambert did not after all contrive to meet her on her early walks. Consequently, one particularly warm morning several days later, she decided to take a horse out of the stables rather than exert herself on foot. Feeling more than usually restive, she did not take her regular route, which was sheltered from the sea by the line of trees at the edge of the Hardwicke property. Instead, she rode the mare over the Spittles towards the cliffs to the east of Lyme Regis, where the breeze was brisker and the path closer to the edge. As the smell of the sea grew strong in her nostrils, she found herself urging the mare more quickly towards it.

Why should he come out to meet you, after all, the sensible part of her insisted, when Kitty is always there, pretty as an illustration from one of her favourite novels and more than happy to flirt with him—or to share secrets with him?

Furthermore, her sensible self informed her, what had really disappointed her was seeing Kitty and Nicky alone together the morning before, earlier than either of them was accustomed to be awake and abroad. It was not that Celia had wanted to find them so. In fact, she had begun to think the idea of their running away together had after all been a foolish notion, the figment of her own romantic imagination.

Nevertheless, there was no denying she had seen them. She had walked out the sun-parlour door into the garden, thinking to take the path that ran from the gate in the hedge to the cliffs. There, on the bench shielded from the house by the brick wall, sat Nicky with his arm unmistakably around Kitty’s shoulder. Kitty had apparently been crying, because she had her handkerchief in her hand, but Celia did not wait to be sure. She turned swiftly, hoping she had not been heard, and went back through the house to take her walk in another direction.

When she returned, neither Kitty nor Nicky were anywhere to be seen, and Celia experienced a momentary dread that they really had eloped. Then Kitty had come down to lunch and picked at her food, saying nothing to anyone. She had not then seemed much like one of her princess heroines, palely loitering, in wait for her knight to spirit her away on a white steed. Celia tried to imagine herself in the same situation and was forced to admit that she would probably behave in the same listless, preoccupied manner.

When Nicky did not appear for dinner, either, Celia breathed a sigh of relief that he was not off somewhere making arrangements for an abduction. Kitty remarked petulantly over her sweet that he had gone off to see his father without so much as taking his leave of her.

“I should not think he needed to apologise for visiting his father,” Celia had remarked, unsure whether to be pleased or annoyed that Mr.

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