Chapter 2
London, England
Widow Lucy Ashbrook cast a fond glance about the parlor in her Hanover Square townhouse, a property bestowed upon her husband in thanks for his valiant deeds performed on the battlefields against Napoleon. Then her heart trembled.
Too bad the use of this place would soon be over.
Quickly blinking back tears, for now was not the time to dwell on memories, she focused on her sister, Lydia, who prepared to take Lucy’s two children to Lancaster Hall with her for the Christmastide holidays.
In fact, they were due to leave on the morrow.
Lucy would join them once she’d concluded business here in Town.
Not that she particularly wished to return to a place that had featured so prominently in her past, a time that had been so idyllic and lovely and full of potential.
But there was no help for it. Every year since she and Lydia and Fegley, their brother, were children, they’d spent the Yuletide with the duke’s family at Lancaster Hall, which was a good thing, for their parents still lived in the small manor house on the neighboring property, and it was the only time of year they’d all come back to the family fold.
Life was busy and full of rapid changes. Now more than ever. Unfortunately, those recent changes forced new directions that weren’t pleasant. This year especially.
“It will be nice to see Mama and Papa again,” she mused while her children bantered back and forth as they took tea.
“Of course it will. They’re getting on in years and will adore having you home,” Lydia agreed. “Too bad Fegley won’t join us this year.” She patted a tendril of blonde hair back into place and smiled. “No doubt he’s busy running after Lord Archewyne.”
“Yes, that family does keep him quite busy.” Lucy shrugged.
She didn’t know much about the mysterious Hawkins family other than they were often out-of-pocket on some adventure or another all over the world, and Fegley considered it his sworn duty—why she had no idea—to follow and protect them.
“I’ve put a letter into the post today informing him of our plans for the holiday.
” Their brother, who was mysterious enough, had the habit of checking up on both her and Lydia at inopportune moments, doing his brotherly duty as he always said.
“Ah, perhaps that will keep him from poking into our business.” Lydia smiled, and mischief twinkled in her light blue eyes, so very much like hers and their brother’s. “I love him dearly, but he is quite intrusive.”
“He merely wishes to see us safe and happy and settled. You know how he worries.” Their brother was loyal to a fault, and just now his attentions were taken up with the Earl of Archewyne as a valet and a man-of-all-work.
It was a nice enough position for a man of Fegley’s intelligence.
Since she became a widow, his notice had landed once more on her and her life.
“Put him out of your mind, sister dear, and tell me how you plan to snag a man’s notice during this house party of the duke’s.
” It was a well-known fact that Lydia wanted nothing more than to be married and start a family.
There was no better place to start, for the Duke of Lancaster’s parties were always filled with people of marriageable age. She flirted with every available male she found in her close proximity, but to date, none had come up to scratch.
Lydia rolled her eyes. “I’ve decided to employ whatever means necessary.
Let’s hope there will be a nice crop this year.
” She took a sip of tea. “Not that it matters, for I’m looking forward to the Christmastide festivities most of all.
I wonder if there will be wassailing this year. I do so enjoy singing.”
“Well, don’t talk to Mother about the fun to be had,” Lucy’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Beatrice, said with a toss of her glossy brown curls. “She’s lost the Christmas spirit.”
“I have not,” Lucy protested with a frown.
“I still love the holiday.” Yet, she had to admit the festivities had paled in recent years, for the death of her husband had brought grief to dim some of the joy.
Above everything, she adored having a romance to indulge in during Christmastide, but hadn’t had the heart to encourage suitors.
And in light of what she’d yet to tell her children, for the first time in her five and thirty years, she wasn’t looking forward to the holiday season.
“Perhaps you did, sister, but these days you’ve become something of a wet blanket,” Lydia was quick to point out. “You might consider your usefulness past, but some of us have much life left to live.” She winked at Beatrice, who nodded vigorously. “And to celebrate.”
Simon, Lucy’s fifteen-year-old son, and the spitting image of his father with softly curling blond hair and serious brown eyes, brushed crumbs from his clothing.
“The girls are quite correct, Mother. Since Father died, you’ve ceased to live.
” He eyed her askance. “He wouldn’t be best pleased, for he was always one for laughter and doing things.
You are dull now. You haven’t once tried to tie a festive bow about the cat’s neck. ”
Beatrice nodded. “You know Herbert loves to be made handsome at this time of the year.”
“He’ll get quite enough attention at the Hall.” For her children adamantly requested the feline’s removal with their own. Quick tears stung the backs of her eyelids. Lucy nodded while she blinked away the telling moisture. “I know your father wouldn’t be happy, but I cannot help missing him.”
“It’s been five years, Mother,” Beatrice gently reminded her. “He would understand if you wished to circulate again, to enjoy yourself at parties and such.” She smiled. “Father loved it ever so much when you dressed up.”
“He did.” Jacob took great pleasure in buying her pretty gowns, even if the occasion to wear them was only dinner with the neighbors or joining one of his military friends for a walk in Hyde Park.
Even from the first, Jacob had professed that her dresses were merely fripperies that accentuated her beauty, and she’d always laughed, batting him away for telling such gammon.
“Dear Jacob.” All these years after she married him, she no longer retained the blush of youth or the vitality.
Faint wrinkles and time had touched her, but she had saved all the pretty gowns he’d bought.
Never wore them, but she kept them. Even now they were packed away in a trunk, ready to go into the coach with her sister.
“It’s not the same without him.” That ache in her heart would never truly fade, and perhaps she didn’t wish it to. It meant she remembered…
Everything.
Lydia eyed her with concern. “Will you be all right, going home? After all, Lancaster Hall is where you met Jacob when we were young girls.”
“I think so.” Lucy busied herself with refilling her teacup. Please don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
But her sister launched on, oblivious to her wishes, or the sudden uptick of her pulse. “He was Colin’s best friend, wasn’t he? At one time, I thought you’d fancied Colin; we all expected an engagement announcement that last Christmas together. You seemed in each other’s pockets.”
A different sort of ache slipped through Lucy’s chest, tied to another remembrance.
Colin, the Duke of Lancaster’s second son, and the first man she’d given her heart to.
But he had been much too reckless and selfish in his youth to marry, and he’d not wished to change at all, if the gossip rags were to be believed.
The plans he’d told her about in the chilly garden, and the absurdity of a future he’d envisioned for them both had broken her agreement, for it would have been a risk.
I had no choice but to turn him down. Even though she’d loved him fiercely with all the power of an innocent heart and first love.
It still stung after all these years, parting from him, and she heard the words she’d given him on that long-ago winter’s night ringing in her ears as if she’d just uttered them.
In her mind’s eye, the shock on his face that had quickly changed into anger burned through her soul.
She’d sealed their fate, and nothing had ever been the same since.
Christmas hadn’t been the same, even if she had passed happy holidays with her husband and the children. Now, Christmas was riddled with sadness on all fronts.
“Lucy?” Lydia touched her arm and brought her back to the present. “I didn’t mean to cause you grief.”
Her hand trembled so badly she was obliged to set the china teacup down on the low table in front of her.
“I am fine.” She met the concerned eyes of her children and forced the memories back into the dark recesses of her mind, where she prayed they would stay.
It wouldn’t do to dwell on the past, for she couldn’t change it.
Both she and Colin had moved on. And no one could replace Jacob.
“Yes, at one time Colin and I were… close, but things didn’t work out as we’d thought.
” She shrugged. “That is how life goes.”
“Oh, Mother, what a sad story. Failed romance is so… tragic!” Beatrice came over from the low sofa across the table to wedge herself onto the seat next to Lucy.
Her brown-blonde curls bounced and ran riot down her back, caught up with a blue satin ribbon.
Both of her children resembled their father.
Only the shape of their eyes, noses and mouths came from her. “You should have told us.”
“It is nothing but a romance from the days of my youth.” She waved a hand. “I went on to live a happy life, find romance again, so all is well.”
“Except the fact you would rather the Christmas holidays never happen,” Simon was quick to point out. Then he jammed a nut cake into his mouth. The boy was always eating. “And you certainly don’t wish to return to Lancaster Hall.”