Chapter 11
The ice from the night before dissipated, and for the moment, the rain held off, so the journey resumed. However, from the looks of the gray, swollen clouds, the skies would open with rain before too long.
Throughout the day, Lucy had worked on her embroidery while Ellen did the same beside her.
Colin had kept his own counsel, reading a copy of The Times and alternately talking with Ellen about her school and friends.
Lucy hadn’t minded the non-threatening conversation, for she had much to think about, and she was glad he took an interest in his daughter.
Ever since he’d poured out the secrets—or some of them—of his heart to her and cried in her lap, Colin had been a changed man, or at least the start of one.
The surly, sarcastic, bitter man she’d met that day in the London street with her luggage at her feet was gone.
In his place was a kind, considerate, hopeful gentleman who appeared ready to put the past behind him and walk into something new, perhaps try to salvage the remainder of his life.
Why can I not do the same?
It had been five years since Jacob had died, seventeen years since she’d walked out of Colin’s life.
Both men she’d relied on once upon a time, and both brought an avalanche of memories with them at Christmastide.
What she couldn’t do was separate the good from the bad, for every scene kept circling through her mind’s eye and she was powerless to stop them.
How could she purge what she didn’t wish to remember, what brought her too much pain, while keeping the fond ones?
Because she didn’t want to forget. That would reduce half of them and she feared both men would slip farther away. Once they reached Lancaster Hall, Colin would surrender to his family’s attention and she to hers. She rather doubted their paths would cross again after Christmas.
By the time they arrived at the posting inn that evening, Lucy expelled a sigh of relief. She needed time away from him, to think, for over the past few days, he’d crept into her consciousness again and set off her awareness of him as a man unattached to the memories of the past.
But she wasn’t that foolish, stars-in-her-eyes girl she’d been then, and she certainly couldn’t fall for this man again and risk having her heart broken a second time.
“Allow me to escort you down.” The pleasant rumble of Colin’s voice yanked her back to the present. When had he exited the coach without her knowing?
She glanced about, dazed as she gathered her belongings.
Ellen had already disembarked. Without recourse, Lucy glanced out of the vehicle at him and his extended, gloved hand.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and she grasped his fingers in hers.
Just like yesterday evening when he’d touched her hand or when he’d whisked her into his arms for that dance at the village festival, tingles trailed along her spine to scatter the butterflies in her belly.
A tiny gasp escaped when he put a hand to her waist as he assisted her down the lowered steps.
Once her feet were firmly on the graveled ground, his touch lingered and he took a step into her personal space, nearly pinning her between the shiny, black-painted side of the coach and his hard chest. “Colin?”
“Do you know that when you wool-gather, you have the tendency to bite your bottom lip, just as you did when you were a girl?” Amusement danced in his lake-blue eyes. “It’s adorable.” The warmth of his breath skated across her cheek. “I have missed seeing that particular tell of yours.”
Heat infused her cheeks despite her experience in being a wife and a mother.
Gently, she laid her free hand on his chest. Oh, how well she remembered what his body had felt like against hers when kissing had grown into innocent exploration.
Though they’d never gone quite as far as love making all those years ago, she’d wanted him.
She wanted him now, but she would absolutely not voice that thought aloud. He wasn’t for her anymore, and she had to move on.
“We should go inside.” A chilly wind whipped her skirts about her ankles, and she gave into a shiver.
Whether it was from the winter weather or his proximity, she couldn’t say.
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve developed quite the hunger from today’s traveling.
And Ellen will wonder what’s become of us. ”
“I wonder that myself,” he whispered, but he released her and eased away with a slight frown marring the relative smoothness of his forehead. “Sunset is a couple of hours off. There might be time for a walk before nightfall. If the weather holds. Would you be amenable?”
Was this change in heart for the benefit of the trip, or would it carry through for a lifetime?
She nodded anyway. “It will be lovely to move cramped muscles,” she responded and then glanced at the inn where Ellen lingered in the doorway, chatting or rather flirting with a footman in full livery. “Oh, dear.”
“What?” Colin’s huff of breath formed a white cloud in the cold while he followed her gaze. “That girl needs to be taken in hand, and I don’t have a bloody clue how to go about it without coming off an ogre. It’s positively scandalous how she behaves.”
“Perhaps she has too much of her father in her,” Lucy said with a grin she couldn’t recall.
He eyed her askance, but a grin played about his sensuous mouth too.
“That cannot be such a bad thing, for my daughter does have marvelous qualities as well.” With that, he started toward the door, and when he reached Ellen, he whisked her inside, effectively dismissing the footman with a handful of words.
“As do you, Colin, if only you would see them,” she said into the breeze before she crossed the graveled drive and followed him into the heavenly warmth of the inn.
Not a half hour later, Ellen stood in the doorway to their shared room as Lucy finished changing into a dress not wrinkled and stained from constant travel.
“Is everything all right?” she asked in some alarm. Please don’t tell me Colin has taken refuge in drink again. “Your father is well?”
“As far as I know. He has reserved a private dining room and is currently poring over the menu choices for this evening’s supper.” Ellen’s expression of confliction tugged at Lucy’s heart. “There is nothing amiss with me either,” she added as an afterthought.
“Then why are you standing there as if you wish to say something but cannot summon the courage?”
Though Lucy’s dress featured elbow-length sleeves and the green satin set off her pale skin, the neckline was lower than she usually wore, and it was one of the gowns Jacob had insisted she buy.
Why it had been put into her luggage and swapped out for the simple day dress she’d actually packed, she couldn’t fathom.
Still, Lucy grabbed a black shawl, and the lacy crocheted work gave her the semblance of modesty.
“Ellen, either say what you came to say or forever lose the opportunity.” She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Colin she was hungry, and the rumbling in her belly made her a tad snappish.
Finally, Ellen sighed. She tucked an errant section of blonde hair behind her ear as she approached.
Then she slumped onto the end of the bed with a frown that, if she worked on harnessing its power, would have any number of young men buzzing about her in a couple of years.
“I’m feeling rather sad, and I know I shouldn’t, for I have ever so much in my life I’m thankful for, but I cannot help it. ”
“What has you so maudlin?” With her mother’s heart on alert, Lucy slipped over the floor and perched on the bed next to the girl. “Is it the young footman your father so expertly and rather rudely dismissed as we came in?”
“Pardon?” Ellen lifted her gaze to Lucy’s. She waved a hand in dismissal. “Oh, him? No, he was an interesting nuisance, nothing more.” She let her hand flop into her lap where she knitted her fingers together. “I find I’m rather missing my mother very much right now,” she confided in a low voice.
“It’s understandable. Christmastide is a season where we think about lost loved ones the most, I think,” Lucy answered in an equally quiet voice. “I am struggling with the same feelings, quite frankly.”
“Which is why you will understand more than Father.” Ellen focused her gaze on her fingers. “Beyond missing Mother’s presence, I feel cheated, somehow. All of my friends have their mothers, go shopping with them, have them about to talk with, and I… don’t.”
Lucy’s heart squeezed. She thought about all the little things she did with her own daughter, the laughter they shared, the outings they went on, and she sighed. “Your father loves you, though. Don’t discount him.”
“It’s not the same, and besides, Papa is… well, you’ve met him.”
“Yes, but he’s trying, and I think he’s doing better.”
“But he’s not a mother.” She glanced at Lucy, and her brown eyes swam with tears. “When I have my Come Out, I fear I’ll be a failure, for I don’t know how to do all the proper things a young lady of the ton should.”
Lucy tamped down the urge to roll her eyes. Instead, she sighed. “The ton places too much importance on the art of being idle, Ellen. Remember that, and play into your own strengths instead.”
The girl was quiet for a long time. “I suppose if I attempted to sum up how I’m feeling just now, it’s lonely.”
“Oh, sweeting.” How could she not comfort the child when she was at her most vulnerable?
Lucy quickly slipped her arms around the girl and held her tight.
“Nothing I can say will keep you from missing your mother, but just know that over the course of the Christmastide holiday, if ever you feel like this again, I’m available for encouragement. ”