“A great, great waste,” she said sorrowfully. “It would have been far better if you could have been friends for the next fifty years and sat in front of the fire and told each other lies about the glorious days of your youth.”
Gregory was surprised into laughter. “We would have, too. They’d have be lies, because much of daily life in an army campaign is dam . . . very uncomfortable.”
“At least he died quickly and not in lingering pain,” Lacey said. “And his spirit is intact even if his body is gone.”
“Do you truly believe that?” Gregory had been unable to go to church since he returned from Spain.
“Oh, yes. Without question.” After a dozen heartbeats, she continued shyly, “I’ve not seen war, but I’ve sat with the sick and dying. I have seen and felt things that have given me faith.”
He’s underestimated her, he realized. The fact that she had lived a quiet life in the county didn’t mean that she was sheltered. As a girl from a lower order of society, she’d had to be stronger than the more cosseted girls of his own class.
Cruz shifted on their feet, his body twitching. Lacey smiled and scratched his neck. “At least one loyal friend came home with you. You said you owed Cruz too much to leave him in Spain. Was there a particular reason, or just that he was a good companion?”
Gregory’s hand spasmed tightly on Lacey’s. When she made a small sound, he relaxed his grip. “Sorry. There was one particular occasion.” Even thinking about that caused his heart to pound.
She waited, clasping his hand but silent. Finally he managed to say, “Not long after Jack was killed, the French were bombarding us again, and . . . and I was buried alive in dirt. Couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. I knew I was dying.
“Then I heard Santa Cruz barking nearby. He found where I was buried and started barking and digging. My men joined him and they pulled me out.” He swallowed hard. “Barely in time. I was unconscious when they rescued me.”
“So Cruz saved your life, but what a dreadful experience! To be buried alive and face helplessness and death,” she said compassionately. “Though you survived, that kind of experience is the stuff of nightmares.”
“Exactly. But . . . there’s worse.” He hated to reveal his weakness, but he felt compelled to tell her the whole sordid truth. “It turned me into a . . . a coward. I realized that I no longer had the strength and courage to lead my men. My presence was endangering them. That’s the real reason why I sold my commission.”
“How long was it between being buried and your returning home?”
“About six months.” It had felt like six years. “When my mother wrote that my father wasn’t well, I seized on the excuse instantly.”
“Six months of heavy fighting, if the newspapers are to be believed. During that time, did you lose more men than might be expected?”
“No, thank God.”
“Did any of your superior officers say you weren’t doing your job? That you were a disgrace to the uniform?”
He laughed humorlessly. “They were all too busy fighting to notice my failings.”
“Perhaps. But perhaps you were doing your job well and honorably but had lost the desire for it,” she said thoughtfully. “That’s not cowardice. It’s moving from one stage of life to another. Going from heedless youth to maturity. From feeling immortal to . . . to recognizing mortality. You were brave enough to protect a barmaid from three beastly drunks without thinking twice about it.”
Lacey’s words struck like a bolt of lightning. Because she was right: After being buried alive, he’d lost all his interest in soldiering. Yet looking back, he realized that he’d managed to behave like a decent officer despite his inner horror. He’d even done some things that an observer might have called brave. He’d lived and slept with fear and wanted desperately to go home, but he hadn’t actually acted like a coward.
“You were right that barmaids have more than their share of wisdom,” he said with wonder. “How did you become so wise?”
“The hard way. I’m not sure wisdom comes any other way. We learn by our mistakes, not our successes.” Moonlight limned her delicate, flawless profile. She looked very young, but also calm. Strong. “I’ve suffered nothing dramatic. Just the usual errors of judgment. Times when I wasn’t kind. Times I didn’t help someone who needed help. Enough small mistakes to have a large effect.”
“You don’t give yourself enough credit. Plenty of people make mistakes like that, and it never improves them.”
“Thereby giving those of us who are wise a chance to suffer the sin of pride,” she said with a laugh. She rose to her feet. “Time for me to go back to work.”
He stood also, reluctant to end the intimacy of their conversation. “Do you feel well enough? I can walk you home.”
“Truly, I’m fine.” She stood on her tiptoes and placed her hands on his shoulders as she brushed a kiss on his mouth.
The sweetness of her lips paralyzed him. He kissed her back, forcing himself to be gentle, but her mouth opened eagerly under his. Her uninhibited response struck fire through his numbed body. His kiss deepened, and he enfolded her in his arms.
Her soft, lusciously female form pressed into him, sending his heart hammering and his wits scrambling. Sweeter than honey, more stimulating than brandy.... “Lacey,” he murmured. “Lovely, lovely Lacey . . .”
She turned rigid in his arms, then pushed away from him, her eyes wild in the moonlight. “No!” she gasped. “No, I mustn’t!”
The cold air slapped him to his senses. Dear heaven, how could he behave so to a young woman who had just been mauled by a drunken stranger? Gregory was no better than the man he’d saved her from. He reached out an apologetic hand. “Lacey . . .”
Before he could apologize, she bolted around the tavern. By the time he pulled himself together, she’d disappeared. She was fast! He followed, wondering if she’d darted into the kitchen, but he heard no sound of a door opening or closing.
A cluster of pines were behind the inn, and a path to the village ran through it. He saw a branch shaking though there was no wind. She must be running back to Roscombe. Swearing at himself, he moved into the path. In the moonlight, he saw a dark mass caught on the head-high pine branch.
Had Lacey been wearing a scarf or hat that had been tugged off? He lifted the object from the branch, disconcerted because it felt like a dead animal.
It was a wig. A black, curly wig. His sweet little Lacey was a liar.
Chapter 6
Lucy ran until a stitch in her side forced her to stop. She leaned panting against a tree, hand pressed to her ribs. Only then did she realize how chilled her head felt. She’d lost the blasted wig when she ran through the pines. And she’d stolen Gregory’s cloak. She was turning into a hardened criminal.
Would he follow her? She wanted and feared that.
He didn’t follow. At least she wouldn’t have to explain herself. She continued home at a walk, his cloak wrapped around her like warm arms.
When she slipped quietly into the vicarage, she heard the living room clock striking. Midnight. Wearily she returned to her room, where Chloe was tucked under the covers reading the family’s worn copy of Robinson Crusoe.
Her friend looked up, bright-eyed with curiosity. “How did it go? Was he there? Did you get to talk to him?” Her brows furrowed. “Whose cloak are you wearing? It’s almost dragging on the ground.”
Lucy collapsed into her shabby wing chair. “Yes, Gregory was there, I talked to him, I lost your wig and stole his cloak, and now everything is much more complicated!”
Chloe’s brows arched. “It sounds like you had an interesting evening. Did it include a kiss so you can forget him and move on?”
Lucy began unpinning her hair, which had been flattened to go under the wig. “I got my kiss. That’s why everything is so complicated.” Briefly she explained the drunk who’d grabbed her, Gregory’s rescue, and their long conversation, though she didn’t say what they talked about. That was private.
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She ended by saying, “Now I know him so much better, I had a kiss I will never, ever forget—and I realize how foolish I was to think he could ever be interested in me.”
“Why do you say that?” Chloe asked. “It sounds like the two of you got on really well. A good discussion and a good kiss.”
“Yes, but in the course of it, I realized that he is no longer a boy, but a man. He has been shaped by experiences beyond anything I’ll ever know,” Lucy said slowly. “I’m just a country girl and not very interesting. It wasn’t me he kissed, it was Lacey the barmaid. He isn’t interested in me. And his interest in Lacey was of the temporary sort.”
Their conversation had been real and valuable to them both, she was sure of that. But it was a passing moment, nothing more.
Lucy wanted more than a moment. But she wasn’t going to get it.
Baffled by the wig, Gregory made his way back to the Willing Wench, Santa Cruz at his side. Maybe Lacey wore the wig because her own hair was bad, perhaps shorn off if she’d suffered a bad fever. Or maybe she thought that looking dramatic and a little wicked would help her earn more money as she served drinks. Whatever her reasons, they undermined the sweetness and trust between them.
But he’d responded to her unlike any woman he’d ever met in ways both physical and emotional. He wanted to see her again.
He needed to see her again.
The tavern was almost empty when he returned. He and Lacey must have talked for a long time, though it hadn’t seemed that way.
Daisy and anther barmaid were cleaning the taproom, their movements and faces weary. The girls here were a jolly lot who created a warm, welcoming atmosphere, which was why he was a regular. He’d never thought about what a tiring job it must be.
He approached Daisy, and she glanced up from the table she was wiping. “A bit late for another drink, Captain,” she observed.
He handed her the empty brandy tumbler he’d been carrying. “I wanted to return this.” He lifted the wildly curling black wig. “Also this. It became snagged in a branch after Lacey left me.”
“Fancy that,” Daisy said noncommittally.
“Where does she live?”
Daisy shrugged. “I don’t rightly know.”
“Then what is her last name?”
The barmaid shrugged again. “No idea.”
Gregory said with exasperation, “You hired a young woman and don’t even know her full name?”
“She was a friend of a friend who came to help out and maybe see if she’d like to work here regularly.” Daisy stretched as if her back was aching. “She was pleasant and pretty, so I decided to give her a chance.”
Daisy was flat out lying, Gregory was sure of it. But if she didn’t want to talk, there wasn’t much he could do about it. Maybe there was some good reason why it would be better if he didn’t find the elusive Lacey. “If she comes searching for her wig, let her know that she can retrieve it at Naughton Grange.”
“I’ll do that.” Daisy’s voice was still bland, but there was a spark of amusement in her eyes. “I do know Lacey is a local girl. If you keep your eyes open, you might see her around.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “Are you trying to get me out and about?”
“Isn’t it time?” she asked tartly.
He felt a stab of irritation at the implied criticism. But Daisy had been kind to him over the last weeks when he’d been unable to face the normal world. And she was right—he’d gone to ground to lick his emotional wounds long enough. “Yes, it’s time. Thank you, Daisy.”
He left the tavern, mentally listing all the things he needed to do. His father wanted him to take over management of the estate, and that meant going over the account books with the steward. He must ride the property, visit the tenants, check the condition of estate-owned houses to make sure they were right and tight for winter.
He must also visit family friends and all the others who had the right to expect him to call. He hadn’t wanted to before, yet he found that now he did.
And while he was doing all that, he’d keep his eyes open for Lacey. He owed her an apology for kissing her when she’d just been mauled by a drunk. She didn’t seem to mind at first, but it was badly done.
And he needed to discover if she was as alluring as she’d seemed tonight.
With Christmas fast approaching, Lucy was kept busy helping with the preparations. She and her mother made up gift baskets for the poor, gathered greens to decorate the church and the vicarage, and helped the cook with the holiday dishes that would be served at the vicarage open house held after the Christmas Eve children’s service.
Her biggest task was organizing the traditional St. Michael’s Christmas Eve pageant, which featured young members of the congregation acting out the story of the nativity. The service was more playful than the solemn celebration of Christmas morning.
The pageant was popular with children and adults alike, but herding the young actors into some semblance of order was not for the faint of heart. Lucy’s mother had directed the pageant for years, and Lucy had been her assistant. When Lucy turned twenty-one, her mother handed the production over to her daughter, sheep and goats and all. The job was a challenge, but the results were worth it.
Lucy hoped busyness would help drive away thoughts of Gregory Kenmore, but she wasn’t entirely successful. Actually, she wasn’t successful at all. As she chopped dried fruit in the kitchen and adjusted costumes to fit the pageant players, she said all the right things and managed to get her mother’s recipes right, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Gregory. About the conversation that had taught her so much. About the kiss that curled her toes and taught her even more.
Her only return visit to the Willing Wench was to give Gregory’s brushed and folded cloak to Daisy. Daisy told her that Gregory had the wig and she could retrieve it from Naughton Grange, the Kenmore estate. Luckily, Chloe said it didn’t matter if the wig was gone since no one else had touched it in years.
Lucy didn’t see Gregory, but she heard about him. He had emerged from his seclusion and rejoined the Roscombe community. He made calls on friends and neighbors, and was reportedly pleasant and sociable. Perhaps not as outgoing as he’d once been, but no one suggested that he was behaving badly.
He even called on her parents one day, and Lucy wasn’t there! Her first reaction was to howl. Her second was relief. If he recognized her, she’d faint of pure embarrassment. It would be horribly awkward for both of them.
Luckily, he wouldn’t recognize her. Prim, blond Lucinda Richards, the vicar’s daughter, was nothing like saucy, raven-haired Lacey with No Last Name.
But she wistfully hoped that he would come to the Christmas Eve service. She’d like to at least see him. To make sure that he was really all right.
To mentally say good-bye to the charming Gregory she’d yearned for, and to the complex man he’d become.
Gregory had always enjoyed the children’s Christmas service at St. Michael’s. The church was packed to overflowing, warming the cold winter’s night. Garlands of greens and clusters of candles created a festive air.
His brother, Roger, who was studying at Oxford and planned to enter the church, was home for the holiday. As they made their way to the Kenmore family pew, his mother said happily, “I am rich beyond measure to be here with my two handsome sons.”
“Don’t I count?” his father, Sir James Kenmore, said with twinkling eyes.
She patted her husband’s arm. “You I can always count on. Sons are more unpredictable.”
Which was as close as she would come to saying how worried she’d been about Gregory. The morning after he met the elusive Lacey at the tavern, he’d come out of his room, announced plans to sit down with the estate steward, and eaten a hearty breakfast. His mother had looked ready to weep with happiness.
Gregory felt a surprising sense of rightness as he settled into managing the estate. This was his home, his place. If he hadn’t been away for five years, he wouldn’t have recogni
zed just how much he loved Naughton Grange.
His father was available if advice was needed, but Sir James was getting along in years and a riding accident had left him in need of a cane. He was delighted to hand over the daily work to his son. Gregory realized he’d learned something about command when he was at war, for he had no trouble with older tenants treating him as too callow to be taken seriously.
Life was good and getting better—except that he’d found no trace of Lacey. He hadn’t seen her, and discreet inquiries didn’t produce anyone who recognized the name. It didn’t help that he couldn’t describe her except to say that she was so high, amazingly pretty, and her hair probably wasn’t black. Perhaps she wasn’t really local.
He settled down at the end of the Kenmore pew, his mother on his right and his father and brother beyond. On the other side of the church, Major Randall and his wife and her family filed into their pew. The major smiled at Gregory before helping his wife’s grandmother into her seat.
When everyone was seated, leaving the main aisle clear so players could come and go, the Reverend Richards called his congregation to order. The vicar loved the pageant because he loved children. That was probably why he’d been such a good tutor when Gregory needed help preparing to attend Rugby, the school that Kenmores had attended for the last century or two.
The early part of the service was short because everyone was eager for the main event. The pageant began with the vicar reading the beginning of the nativity story, his sonorous voice filling the church. “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. . . .”
Gregory settled back with a happy sigh as the children took over and the familiar words rolled over him. The angel Gabriel was played by Major Randall’s foster son, who was actually some kind of cousin. Bursting with pride, the boy announced the coming birth to an adorable blond Mary. Gregory had played Gabriel himself one year, having worked his way up from the role of a sheep.
Mischief and Mistletoe Page 4