Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Louisa knew, if she just kept breathing, one breath at a time, then all this panic rising in her lungs, clogging them up, would disappear.
The panic would have to go. Otherwise she would suffocate here, in the library, curled in an armchair by the window, trying to reconcile the man she had just seen, all military brass buttons and might, with the gentle, kind David she had seen just over a year ago.
David. David Nelson. Archduke Nelson.
They could not be the same person. It was not possible. How did one rise to the title of Archduke, in any case? She was not aware of any Continental relations of the Nelsons and he had only been gone a year, surely not enough time to –
That did not matter. The point was that he had stepped into her drawing room and back into her life.
Louisa took a long, slow, and deep breath, feeling the shudder of her breath through her body. Every inch of her chest was tingling, with panic, or fear, or hope, she could not tell. David was here. Her David.
Well, her mother certainly had not known. That had been plain to see by the look of absolute astonishment that had made Louisa almost laugh in the discomfort of the moment.
David. He was here.
Was he here for her?
Louisa’s heart fluttered painfully as hope rose in her soul. She could think of no other reason. An Archduke wishing to spend Advent in London, with an English family? It had seemed strange enough when her mother had first mentioned it, and now she couldn’t understand why she had not said anything.
Gone was her imagined elderly gentleman who would speak in a slow, Germanic accent.
Gone was the assumption that she would have to explain their English customs, take him to the parks and show him the way to different places.
Gone was the fear that an interloper would be coming into her family home.
Because it wasn’t a stranger, was it? No. No, it was David.
Her David.
What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t hide here in the library forever, tempting though that was.
At some point, she would have to stand up and…
what, she did not know. The fact that he was here, and for the Advent period, was only just now starting to dawn in Louisa’s mind, and it was terrifying to consider.
She could certainly not face him, she knew that. She would never be able to string two words together before her former childhood friend, the first and only man to kiss her, to tell her she was beautiful, to make her feel things she had never felt before –
“Louisa.”
Louisa almost fell from her chair in surprise. She turned and saw David standing in the doorway. His ridiculous coat with all those dazzling brass buttons was still on.
She rose, trying to keep her fingers from trembling. She would be mistress of herself. She would not lose her temper, nor permit herself to speak words she did not wish to say. She would not permit him to see just how his return had spooked her.
“You must excuse me, Archduke Nelson,” Louisa said as coldly as possible. “I was a little overcome by the heat of the room. I came here to recover.”
Had she managed to keep herself at arm’s length from him?
Certainly David looked upset by her words.
He had shut the door behind him and taken a few steps into the library, but he halted, moving no further towards her, for which Louisa was grateful.
She was not entirely sure whether she would be able to control herself if he came much closer.
In silence, David’s fingers scrabbled at his buttons, tearing them apart and pulling off his greatcoat.
Without it, he was merely a gentleman underneath. A fitted jacket, a fine waistcoat, finer than any she had ever seen him wear, and a matching cravat. If she had passed him on the street or at Almack’s, she would have considered him a gentleman.
She knew him to be one. Knew he was an honourable man, or at least, had been. Until he had disappeared from her life without a word.
“I know I have startled you,” he said quietly.
Louisa swallowed. His soft, gentle voice had always been able to calm her when they were children. It had been the voice she most wished to hear when he had left Surrey to attend university. The voice that always managed to calm her, and yet at the same time, excite her.
She had not understood it then. She understood it far too well now.
And then he had gone. Oh, she had always known that David was destined for university. It was perhaps the only help his father, the squire, had been able to give him.
But Louisa had not gone to see him before She had criticised herself then, for not speaking with him, before he had left. Oh, they had spoken. Hours upon hours.
But not the words that were on her heart.
Louisa had believed her chance had gone forever, believed that when David had disappeared to the Continent, no one telling her why he had gone without saying goodbye, that she would never see him again.
And now he was here.
“You have not startled me,” Louisa said with difficulty. She would remain in control, if she could, though all she wished to do was throw herself into his arms. “I was just…as I said. Overheated.”
“And perhaps a little surprised,” David said with an awkward laugh. “At my appearance. My title. Archduke Nelson.”
Why was there such space between them? Louisa longed to close the gap, to touch him, know that he was real and not a dream.
But she could not. Society had to be respected, there were rules about these things! Besides, she could not permit herself to move closer to him. Not after he had so brutally broken her heart by disappearing without a word.
No letter. No card. No promises that he would think of her, and only her, as she had only thought of him.
Louisa swallowed and trying to find the resolve within herself to look away from him. He was just a man. London was full of them.
Though none of them made her heart patter like this.
They should not really be alone in the library…
“You are an Archduke. Congratulations are in order, I suppose. I did not…I was unaware that could happen.”
Was that a wry smile on David’s face? “When I was sent…when I went to the Continent, I was sent to the Czar’s court, while he was in Austria. I was of some service to him. A title such as Archduke is within his power to give.”
Louisa smiled for the first time since David had stepped back into her life.
It was so like him. Some service? He probably performed a deed of great heroism and bravery – saved someone’s life, perhaps, and so was gifted such a title.
Yet he would not brag about such a thing.
It was not in his nature. The nature she loved.
“Some service?” she repeated lightly.
There was a sparkle in David’s eyes. It was the sparkle she knew so well. “Truly, it was nothing.”
“I think I know you better than that,” said Louisa.
“Oh, do you indeed?” There was a teasing air in his voice now, and Louisa found her heart skipped a beat. There he was. Her David. “The Czar’s daughter – stepdaughter really, though he treated her as one of his own – wished for a pet. I was able to procure a bunny rabbit for her.”
Louisa waited for the rest of the story, and then shook her head. “And…that is all?”
“I said it was a small service,” David reminded her, that teasing smile still on his lips.
They fell into silence. Louisa hardly knew what to say, though she wished to speak. Was it possible for two people, two people who had loved each other, or at least, she had loved him…
Was it possible to find that affection once more, even after he had abandoned her, rather than marry her?
No. Of course not. Louisa shook her head, as though that would help the idea dislodge from her mind.
It was impossible to think that the closeness they had enjoyed for that short Advent, all that time ago, could in any way be repeated. She had loved him, and had thought he loved her…and then he had gone. Disappeared. No longer hers.
One could not turn back time. There would be no Advent miracle for her this year.
“You look different,” she said quietly. “But you are the same.”
“The same,” David repeated with a nod of his head. He took a step closer to her, and Louisa felt her temperature rise. “The same man, Lou.”
She swallowed. It was all too much. Something was squirming in her stomach, unrelenting. “I…I was told by my mother that the Archduke would be staying with us all Advent. Until the New Year, that is. Is that your plan?”
David laughed and bitterly shook his head. “I do not – I wish it was. I am not entirely sure whether your mother would still like to keep to our bargain, now she knows of my true identity. I suppose it would not be fair to hold her to such agreement, now she knows of my subterfuge.”
Louisa looked at him. There was something different.
She had not noticed it immediately, it was subtle.
Something about him that had changed. A confidence, perhaps.
His shoulders could not be broader, could they?
Perhaps that was the difference an expensive jacket and waistcoat could wrought on a man.
The way he looked at her…it had the same fire, the same warmth. Yet there was something she could not put her finger on. Something that had been missing before, but completed him as nothing had before.
She swallowed again. David, here. David, an Archduke. After he left Surrey without a word to her, with no explanation at all, he had returned.
Louisa could never have dreamed of such a thing, and yet here he was.
“I shall help with decorating, of course,” said David quietly, looking around the library. “I can see you have not started yet.”
Louisa shook her head. “No, my mother told Mrs. Lane to hold off until you – until the Archduke was here. I think she was under the impression he may like to join in with the celebration. In truth, I had…well. Expected an older gentleman. More nostalgic.”