Someone to Cherish by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh [Balogh, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2021-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

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The shreds of his contentment seemed to have deserted him, Harry admitted to himself later that same afternoon, and he despaired of getting them back. It had all started at Christmas, of course. But then it had continued into this thing with Lydia Tavernor, which had stumbled along from its improbable beginnings until it flared into a brief, uncontrolled burst of passion. And last night had not helped, even though he usually enjoyed the village assemblies.

What had happened, he supposed, was that during the past few months he had come face-to-face with the essential emptiness of his existence. It had been bound to happen sooner or later. He had this large house and park to enjoy, but no one with whom to share them. He had a troubled past, which was best left where it was, and a present that was marginally satisfying—though lonely, damn it—but no future to look forward to except more of the same. Somehow more of the same, with which he had been perfectly content for four years, seemed like a dreary prospect.

There was no one special in his life.

No one to love or to cherish, to use his mother’s word.

He had come to hate that word whenever it popped into his head.

And no sex.

There had been plenty of the latter during the years with his regiment, lusty and satisfying. There had been none during the years of his convalescence, very little since.

And then Lydia.

He had spent an hour or so of the morning in his steward’s office, going over the account books, and then another hour or two out on the home farm, mostly admiring the new and not-so-new lambs. He had sat down to a cold luncheon, for the plainness of which his housekeeper, Mrs. Sullivan, had apologized with the peculiar excuse that she and the kitchen staff were more than usually busy taking inventory of their supplies. Afterward Harry had wandered out to the summerhouse among the trees east of the manor. He sat inside it now, out of the chilly wind, on the leather-upholstered seat that circled the interior wall of glass, gazing out over the park and across one corner of the village to the countryside beyond.

Perhaps this restlessness was a healthy sign. Perhaps it showed that he had finally and fully recovered his health and was ready to move on to a more active phase of his life. But what would that be? Or perhaps the restlessness had something—or even everything—to do with Lydia Tavernor. He frowned at the thought. For why should it? Whatever there had been between them was over, by mutual consent. She was not looking to marry again, and he was not ready for marriage yet—was he? She no longer wanted a lover, and he was not in search of a mistress. Not here, anyway. Not anywhere, actually.

Dash it all. He wished he could get his life back, the one he had lived with such contentment and with very little reflection just a few months ago.

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