A Season of Love

by Carla Kelly

  “Will we do?” Edward asked, the older of the two.

  “You will,” she assured him. She gave him a pat on the shoulder and straightened his collar. “I am impressed.”

  “What about me?” Miles asked.

  The little boys laughed as Lucy scrutinized Miles, walking around to view him from all angles. Edward chuckled, a child again, when Lucy made a great show of tugging at her cousin’s neckcloth, then licked her finger and wiped a smidge of shaving soap off his neck.

  Lucy stood so close to him, nothing unusual in itself, except that it was, because she felt herself breathing a little faster, her face warm. It’s just Miles, she reminded herself, but that admonition did nothing to slow her respirations. She stepped back, irritated with herself.

  “Well, uh, let’s go outside,” Miles said, and she wondered why he should seem so ill at ease.

  Without asking, Michael took her grip in hand and started after his older brother. “Thank you, kind sir,” she said, which earned her a smile from a boy far too serious.

  She realized with a start that what happened to these boys today came close to life or death. A modest career meant a chance. Anything less could spell ruin. Mama understood, she thought, and blinked back tears. With great clarity, she remembered Mama’s last words to her: “Do all the good you can.”

  She hadn’t said anything like that to Clotilde, and Mama had clung, wordless, to Papa’s hand as the final moment approached. “Be sweet,” had been her final words to Clotilde, who had sobbed and sobbed. Mama had said nothing to Papa, only looked deep into his eyes, because no words were necessary.

  Following behind Miles and watching Edward walking with him, Lucy suddenly understood what Mama meant. You expect me to do, rather than just be, she thought, and realized that keeping Christmas this year meant exactly that. Christ hadn’t come to earth to be an ornament—he’d come here to do. She would have to tell Miles about this, if they had a quiet moment.

  “Oh, wait,” she said suddenly to Miles. “One more thing. I’ll meet you outside.”

  It wasn’t ladylike, even in her own home, but Lucy pulled up her skirts and dashed up the stairs. She burst into Clotilde’s room.

  Her sister gasped in surprise and stopped her contemplation of her face in the mirror. “What in the world, Lucy!”

  Here I go, Lucy thought, as she took her older sister by both arms. “Clotilde, Aunt Aurelia has gone home for a well-deserved rest. I will be in London with Miles for a day or so. Honoré knows what he is doing, and Mrs. Lonnigan is finishing your trousseau.”

  Clotilde nodded, her lovely eyes open wide.

  “I want you to take a serious look at what you are doing,” Lucy said, her voice firm. “You’re moping about and crying. If I were in love, I would be over the moon with joy and counting every second until I was Mrs…. Mrs…. oh, I don’t know, Mrs. Bledsoe. Whoever.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Clotilde replied, striving for dignity.

  “I think it is,” Lucy said. “It is also never too late to change your mind.”

  “You are absurd,” Clotilde told her.

  “Probably.” Lucy kissed her sister. “Just promise me you’ll think about it. I’ll be back soon. I love you.”

  T

  The post chaise was a tight fit made easier because Michael sat beside her and Edward beside Miles. She smiled inside to see the wonder on the boys’ faces, and understood that any previous travels had been on the crowded mail coach.

  So she thought. Edward disabused her of that notion when he leaned across the aisle and tapped his younger brother’s knee. “Mikey, do you remember those days when we rode on the caisson in Papa’s battery?”

  “You had better fill us in on your Spanish exploits,” Miles said. “I have a strong feeling that you have lived a far more exciting life than we have.” He winked at Lucy. “We’re boring old sticks, compared to these two.”

  Lucy wondered how Miles knew the precise way to draw out these solemn children who had seen their fair share of challenge, and then some. Her heart opened up and took in the Lonnigan boys, too, noticing how they sat taller, with a certain quiet pride. She couldn’t help but sit taller, too, happy to be in the company of little heroes and a man who had a fine instinct about people. Funny she had never noticed that before.

  The miles flew by as the boys took turns telling Lucy and Miles about battles, and heat and dust, and babies born on the march as their father, an artillerist, plied his trade in Wellington’s army. The animation on their faces told Lucy everything she wanted to know about the little Lonnigan family, sticking together through war and tumult.

  They stopped for luncheon not far from London at a tavern more ordinary than she would have thought necessary, considering how plump in the purse both she and Miles were. She watched the boys as the chaise slowed and then stopped, noting the return of their serious faces, coupled with worry.

  The worry vanished when Miles ushered them inside the working man’s eating place. It was warm and noisy and full of people exactly like the boys. She couldn’t help her amusement to see how the talk died down when Miles found them places, and realized that they were the odd ones. They were eating here to keep their little charges comfortable.

  “Pasties and cider,” Miles said to the man behind the counter. He leaned closer. “We’ll take some with us, too. Growing boys, you know.”

  Lucy never ate anything better.

  They arrived in London mid-afternoon, the chaise slowing to a walk as the post rider expertly threaded his way through crowds that had Michael and Edward staring, and Lucy, too. I really don’t want a London Season, she thought. Give me a quiet place.

  “You really don’t care for London, do you?” Miles asked her.

  His evident concern touched her heart, deep down in that place she thought was hers alone. Miles Bledsoe was watching out for her; he listened to her. For the first time in her life, she knew she could share that part of her heart someday—maybe with someone like Miles.

  “I don’t,” she said. “I wish I did, but I don’t.” She shook her head and stared out the window, embarrassed to be so provincial, and wondering where her heart was taking her. “I like to know my neighbors and walk when and where I want to.”

  Michael nodded and put his hand in hers, which touched her heart. She squeezed his fingers. “Miles, I do believe Michael and I would rather be at home.”

  She glanced at Edward, noting the excitement on his face. “You, on the other hand, would be a Londoner,” she said to him.

  “I would,” Edward replied. “This is exciting.”

  The post rider took them to Half Moon Street, with its row houses two and three stories high, each stoop gleaming white, as though in competition with the house on either side. Lucy saw Miles’s mother standing at the first floor window.

  “I sent her a quick note that you were coming, too,” Miles told her. He leaned across Edward and blew his mother a kiss. Lucy saw her head go back in laughter and then she was gone from the window.

  Mrs. Bledsoe opened the door herself and ushered her little guests inside. She pulled Lucy in next, and kissed her. Miles got a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

  “Mother, these are Edward and Michael Lonnigan, in London to seek their fortunes.”

  “You have certainly come to the right place,” Mrs. Bledsoe said. “Bolton, show them to their room so they can freshen up before a visit to the counting house.”

  Lucy watched the boys, seeing the understated elegance of No. 12, Half Moon Street through their eyes—the walls of the foyer a pale green. Instead of the fresh flowers of summer, a Christmas wreath hung above the little table with its silver salver where guests left their calling cards. The boys would have no way of knowing that the charming portrait of a young girl that smiled at them was Vivian Bledsoe at age five, painted by Thomas Gainsborough himself.

  Lucy admired the painting now, and saw the resemblance between mother and son, standing close together in the entranceway.
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br />   “I’ll take them up, Mother,” Miles said and kissed her cheek. “You can deal with our cousin.”

  “Deal with you? My son treats you in a cavalier way,” Mrs. Bledsoe said as they mounted the stairs more slowly.

  They went first into her private sitting room, where tea and biscuits already waited. Lucy took off her bonnet and fluffed her mashed hair. “Your son has been kind enough to help me keep Christmas as Mama would have, by doing a little good. Thank you, Vivian,” she said, accepting a cup of good green tea.

  Lucy relished the comfort of the small room, wondering if she could make the Bledsoe home her refuge from the trouble and anxiety of a London Season. In only a few minutes, she spilled out her sorrow at her mother’s passing, the unwelcome burden of a come out, and her earnest desire to keep Christmas by helping the less fortunate.

  Her cousin Vivian took it all in without comment, edging closer on the sofa until she put her arm around Lucy, which allowed her to rest her head against the woman’s shoulder. “Maybe I am the less fortunate,” Lucy said. “Edward will be apprenticed to a counting house, and Michael perhaps to a surgeon. I’m the one with no fixed aim and purpose, beyond protecting our cook from Aunt Aurelia.”

  “Brave girl,” Mrs. Bledsoe murmured. “Roscoe tells me that Aurelia can be a trial.”

  “Less than you would think. I convinced her to go home and rest, and she agreed.”

  Vivian stared at her. “You have the makings of a diplomatist. I’ll tell my son to take lessons from you!”

  “Oh, no,” Lucy said, embarrassed but pleased. “Miles will manage quite well on his own.” She took a turn around the room, teacup in hand. “Clotilde is my cross to bear. She cries and frets and I don’t understand why. She claims she is marrying the love of her life.” She took a sip. “Cousin, how does a lady know if she is in love?”

  Lucy hated to sound so pathetic, but there was no one else to ask. And why she was even asking, she did not know. Thoughts became words, welled up, and escaped. Clotilde seemed to think she was in love, but why so many tears and uncertainty? And why did it even matter? “I am in a muddle,” she concluded, vastly dissatisfied with herself. She sat down next to Vivian again.

  Mrs. Bledsoe pulled her close. “Lucy, I suspect love is different for different people.”

  “For you then,” she said. “Did you always love Cousin Will amazingly?”

  “No! I would be guilty of prevarication if I said I did.” She patted Lucy’s hand. “I had known him for years. My deeper feelings developed gradually, with no trumpet fanfare or drum roll.” Her voice grew a little dreamy, for a woman of matronly proportions and white hair, or so Lucy thought. “One afternoon he came calling and I just looked at him and knew. Bald hair and bad eyes and so tall and thin back then, but I just knew.”

  “That’s no answer,” Lucy said.

  “Yes it is, you scamp!” her cousin said with a laugh, the spell broken. “And there is this, now that you remind me: I began to feel uncomfortable when he was not nearby. I still do, I suppose.”

  “I’ll just know?”

  “You will, Lucinda Danforth, you will.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  U

  Miles didn’t seem surprised when Lucy insisting on accompanying him and Edward to the Bradfield-Ashby Counting House, which meant Michael came, too. They piled back into the post chaise for the trip to Cornhill Road, a part of London unfamiliar to Lucy.

  Miles knew it well enough. “Now we are officially in the City of London,” he told them all as they wove through traffic, noise, and bad smells. “Boys like you sled down Cornhill. See there?”

  Lucy looked, too, wishing that her sledding days weren’t over. Of course, if she married and had a little boy or two, would her inevitable-but-right-now-unknown husband object if she slid downhill, too? She knew Miles wouldn’t, but who could say a husband would be as obliging as her cousin?

  “This is London’s financial district, Edward. Take a good look,” Miles was saying. “I can see you doing quite well here.” He pointed into the maze of buildings. “Over there on Threadneedle Street—perhaps you can see it—is the Bank of England. Lots of money in there. And here is the Bradfield-Ashby Counting House.”

  “What will I do here?” Edward asked. “I mean, if they apprentice me?”

  “Count money. Tote up long figures. Subtract where needed. Make meticulous entries in ledgers. All those things you enjoy,” Miles told him. “If you become really proficient, you might find yourself giving clients advice on what to do with their money.”

  “That’s going to take a while,” Edward said, sounding dubious.

  “As it should. I have no doubt that you are equal to the task.”

  Lucy watched Edward’s face light up with Miles’s praise. The fear left, leaving behind quiet competence.

  Lucy couldn’t have said if she took Michael’s hand or he took hers, so magnificent was the Bradfield-Ashby Counting House. Led by a young man in a dark suit, they passed under chandeliers and down a corridor with a thick carpet and elegant walls to the office of Mr. Solon Bradfield himself.

  More dignified than she had ever seen him before, Miles introduced them. Both boys gave a proper bow. Michael seated himself and continued looking around the ornate office, while Edward focused all his attention on the man now seating himself behind a desk carved to a fare thee well.

  Edward knows exactly how important this moment is, Lucy thought, impressed with the same little boy that this morning was all eyes over more bacon than he had probably seen in years, if ever.

  Miles wasted not a moment in explaining his purpose and offering Edward Lonnigan, son of a dead artillerist in Wellington’s Army and a seamstress in Tidwell, as a candidate for an apprenticeship.

  “He is skilled in arithmetic and comes here in need of future employment,” Miles concluded. “Try him.”

  The august Mr. Bradfield did precisely that. Lucy watched, holding her breath, as he took a sheet of paper from a drawer, pulled back his cuffs a little, and wrote three numbers each in four lines. He handed the paper to Edward and offered him a writing tool.

  “I don’t need that, sir,” Edward said, as he stared at the paper.

  Mr. Bradfield exchanged an amazed glance with Miles. Lucy held her breath.

  Edward took his time, then handed the paper back. “Four thousand, two hundred and twenty-five, sir,” he said.

  Mr. Bradfield took that pencil and toted up the numbers. “Precisely so,” he said. He wrote more numbers in five lines, with the same result. Another sheet came out, with two long lines. “Subtract this.”

  Again Edward shook his head over the offered pencil. Same result. Mr. Bradfield sat back in his chair with a satisfied look on his face.

  “You weren’t bamming me, were you, Mr. Bledsoe?” he asked, surprising Lucy by using such a cant expression in so dignified a setting. The effect served to relieve the tension in Edward’s high-held shoulders. He looked almost like a little boy again. Almost.

  “I never tease about money and numbers,” Miles said. “No more than you do, Mr. Bradfield. What say you, sir? I am willing to stand as proxy and surety to Edward Lonnigan, if you will apprentice him.” He reached inside his coat. “I have a note here from his mother, giving me such permission. Edward’s father died under the guns at Salamanca and the boy must make his own way in the world.”

  Mr. Bradfield turned his attention to Edward, who regarded him seriously, but with no fear in his eyes. “I was an apprentice in a counting house once,” the banker said. “I didn’t even know my father, so you have the advantage of me, Edward. Someone like Mr. Bledsoe here took a chance on me, too. What say you, young man?”

  “Aye, sir,” Edward said, his voice soft, but with no hint of fear.

  Lucy sat back in relief and gratitude as the three men in the room—Edward seemed to grow in stature—drew up apprenticeship papers. Her heart light, she listened as Miles assured both Edward and Mr. Bradfield that either he or a substitute w
ould come by monthly for the six years of the apprenticeship, to confirm that each party was maintaining his end of the agreement.

  “If I see anything amiss with his treatment, the apprenticeship ends, and so does Bledsoe money in your counting house,” Miles said.

  Mr. Bradfield gave a nod of appreciation. Obviously the men knew each other well. “Our apprentices live in a small house a block over on Finch Lane. A respectable widow supervises them and provides meals,” Mr. Bradfield said. “The boys have half Saturday and Sunday off. Edward, when the apprenticeship ends, you will either find employment right here, or in another counting house. Our reputation is stellar.” He said it with quiet pride, which gave Lucy some inkling of his own hard path. Mr. Bradfield held out the document to Edward. “Would you care to sign this?”

  “Aye, sir,” Edward said again. He did take a pen this time, signing his name where the banker pointed.

  Mr. Bradfield signed, followed by Miles Bledsoe. The banker looked at the page and then at Edward. “Your penmanship is excellent, too.”

  His head held high, Edward nodded. “My da taught me. He was an artillerist and a dab hand at letters and numbers.”

  “Just as I would expect from an artillerist. You were more fortunate than most,” Mr. Bradfield said. He directed his gaze to Michael, who sat next to Lucy. “And you, lad, are you equally adept at numbers?”

  The shy boy cleared his throat. “I like horses.”

  Everyone laughed. Michael ducked his head into Lucy’s side.

  “Until something better comes along, we need those, too,” Mr. Bradfield told him. He stood up and addressed Lucy this time. “My dear, take these lads around the corner to 15 Finch Lane, if you will,” he said. “Mrs. Hodgson will measure our newest apprentice for a suit of clothes. We like the lads to be uniform in appearance.” A shadow crossed his face. “I remember my own apprenticeship, Edward. I had but one shirt, pair of knee breeches and torn stockings to my name. No one is laughed at here. Good day to you, Miss Danforth. And you, Edward, I will see two days after Christmas. Be prepared to work hard.”