Loving Lieutenant Lancaster

by Sarah M. Eden

  He could not explain why, but her impression of him mattered. It mattered greatly. They’d not exchanged a single word—he didn’t even know her name—but his thoughts remained on her. He’d never felt such an immediate draw to any lady before. It both intrigued and unnerved him.

  The housekeeper indicated the bedchamber that would be his for the duration of the party. He offered a thank-you and stepped inside.

  He set the case he carried inside on the bed. The latches opened a little too easily. He would need to tighten them. His lyre sat securely inside, whole and unmarred. Of course, the instrument had sailed between continents during wartime. An uneventful and comparatively short jaunt between counties ought not destroy it. Linus ran his fingers over the strings, setting them humming. The familiar sound had accompanied him through countless journeys. After the voices of his family had grown vague in his memory, those strings and the tunes he’d played with them had become the sounds of home to him.

  He snapped the case shut once more. These memories would find him the moment he returned to Shropshire. He need not face them yet.

  With a quick breath and a firming of his posture, Linus moved to the window. He told himself he meant only to survey the view beyond. If he were completely honest, he would have to admit that he hoped to catch even a fleeting glimpse of the mysterious lady he’d seen below.

  The prospect offered views of a copse of trees and a bit of a side lawn. Alas, no intriguing, if unnamed lady. It was a beautiful vista though. Green and lush and alive. He did like that about being on land. The sea offered its own sort of beauty, but the English countryside held a charm not to be found anywhere else. His own family home boasted many lovely vistas. He only hoped his ignorance of estate matters did not prove truly detrimental. Perhaps Lord Lampton had a book or two in his library that Linus could peruse during the quieter moments of this gathering, assuming there were any. If he was to be an active member of the landed gentry, he’d do well to figure out what that meant.

  A quick question to a passing maid afforded him directions to the library. Lord Lampton’s frivolity had led Linus to expect a somewhat neglected space, it being dedicated to more serious pursuits. That, however, was not the case. The large desk showed every indication of being regularly used. Several shelves’ worth of treatises on estate management sat near the desk without a trace of dust to indicate disuse.

  He had likely best ask his host before removing any books, as they appeared to be regularly consulted. Perhaps during one of his rescue missions, he could turn the topic from fashion or gossip or whatever a dandy chose to expound upon to the possibility of borrowing a volume or two.

  A young gentleman stepped inside the library. Though Linus did not know the new arrival, he had little trouble placing him. He was tall and slender, with light eyes and fair hair. He was in many ways the very image of Lord Lampton, though likely at least a decade younger. Linus felt certain this young gentleman was the earl’s brother.

  “I didn’t realize anyone was in here.” The young Mr. Jonquil stepped back as if to leave.

  “I do not require solitude,” Linus assured him. “I was looking for reading material.”

  “Are you anticipating being bored at this house party?” A smile lay in the question.

  “As I suspect you are brother to my host, I had best be very diplomatic in my answer.”

  “Don’t lie on my account.” The young Mr. Jonquil stepped farther inside once more. “I am planning to be bored myself.”

  Interesting. “Do you not enjoy house parties?”

  “Did you at my age?”

  He would guess the young man to be somewhere near eighteen or nineteen. “At your age, I was on board a ship.”

  “You’re in the navy?” He stepped closer, clearly intrigued.

  “Retired.”

  “What do you plan to do now?”

  Take up a position that ought to have been my brother’s. But he did not intend to delve into that matter again, even silently. “I will spend my time fending off boredom at house parties. That is my only concrete plan.”

  That earned him a laugh, just as he’d hoped. His retreat from life’s unpleasantries had always been to a place of lightheartedness and jests. It had saved his sanity more than once.

  “There is no one here to make a formal introduction,” Linus said. “Still, I think we can be forgiven for undertaking it ourselves. I am Linus Lancaster.”

  “Charlie Jonquil,” he responded.

  Jonquil. “You’re one of the earl’s siblings?”

  Charlie nodded. “One of many.”

  “Brothers and sisters?”

  “No. Just brothers.”

  The lady in the entryway was not the earl’s sister, then. A cousin, perhaps. She’d not held herself like a servant.

  Charlie sat near the fireplace. Linus did the same. The young gentleman took a small figurine from the end table and tossed it from hand to hand.

  “Are you down from Cambridge?” Linus asked.

  Charlie nodded. “Summer holiday.”

  Linus had assumed most students were overjoyed to be away from school for a time. Charlie, however, seemed to be anything but. “Would you rather be there?”

  “Ask me again at the end of holiday, and I might say yes.”

  The young gentleman didn’t want to be at school, but neither did he seem to want to be home, yet he also expected his preferences to change. There were few things Linus found more diverting than a mystery.

  “What does your family have planned for the next fortnight?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, still tossing the porcelain milkmaid. “They don’t really talk to me.”

  That helped explain Charlie’s assumption that he would be eager to return to school after a little time spent with his family. Feeling overlooked at home would certainly do that.

  “I, for one, am hoping for some kind of excursion to the river,” Linus said. “A navy man never can resist the pull of the water.”

  “The Trent can’t be as interesting as the ocean.” Charlie tossed the figurine again, but it fumbled as he attempted to catch it. Several grabs didn’t save it, and an unpromising crack announced its arrival on the floor below.

  “Ah, tare an’ hounds,” Charlie muttered. He bent down and picked it up. The milkmaid had lost both arms. He met Linus’s eye. “Don’t tell my mother.”

  “I’ve never been a taleteller,” he assured the young gentleman.

  “She’ll probably sort it out anyway,” Charlie said. “This kind of thing always happens to me.”

  “Perhaps it’s a good thing for the dons that you aren’t returning immediately.”

  Charlie tucked the broken figurine in a drawer. “It only happens at home.”

  That was decidedly intriguing. It certainly added to the mystery young Charlie presented.

  His host’s odd behavior, his brother-in-law and youngest sister’s animosity toward each other, and now this conflicted member of the Jonquil family. And, of course, the unidentified lady who refused to leave his thoughts.

  Perhaps this house party would prove a better distraction from his own troubles than he had at first anticipated.

  Chapter Five

  Arabella sat in the drawing room, a little apart from the ladies, wishing she knew if she would be welcome among them. She wanted to be. She wanted to join them and be part of the gathering. But she was a companion, a poor neighbor far beneath these exalted guests. She was meant to be helpful, not equal.

  An elegant and graceful lady entered the room, another Lancaster if the golden curls and green eyes were any indication. Was the duchess the only one of her siblings not in possession of that striking combination?

  The duchess rose and greeted her sister with a fond embrace. Miss Lancaster did the same. The newest arrival offered a curtsey to Mater and received one i
n return.

  “I am so pleased you could be with us, Mrs. Windover,” Mater said. “I trust your journey was an uneventful one.”

  “Blessedly,” Mrs. Windover said, sitting beside the others. “Any journey undertaken without our children is destined to be far less eventful than those we undertake with them.”

  Mater grinned in amused acknowledgment. The duchess offered a vocal, “Indeed.”

  Mrs. Windover met her older sister’s eye once more. “Your little Oliver is no doubt here. His father never can bear to be separated from him.”

  “Or he from his father,” the duchess replied. “I fully expect them both to descend into an irreversible decline when Oliver begins his schooling.”

  Were all fathers so tenderly attached to their children? Her earl had certainly been. She had so little experience with fathers that she wasn’t entirely certain which was the rule and which was the exception.

  How she wished she were in a position to ask. But these ladies were far enough above her touch to be utterly intimidating.

  “I seem to remember you fell apart when the boys left home,” Mrs. Windover said to the duchess. “You can hardly fault Adam for feeling the same way.”

  “Our brothers were not simply going to school,” the duchess said. “They were going to war. The two are hardly comparable.”

  “From what Harry has told me of Adam’s experience at school, he very much viewed it as a battle.”

  The duchess sighed. “For Oliver’s sake, I hope his experience is a better one.”

  Mrs. Windover faced her younger sister. “And what mischief do you have planned to keep yourself entertained during this house party?”

  Miss Lancaster rose in palpable dignity, clearly offended by the implication. “Why would you assume I mean to make trouble?”

  “Perhaps because you always do,” Mrs. Windover replied.

  “You shall see. I will be a pattern card of respectability.”

  Whatever response the youngest sister had been expecting, Arabella would wager it wasn’t the laughter she received. All offended sensibility, Miss Lancaster sat once more.

  “While Artemis decides what dire revenge she means to enact upon us,” Mrs. Windover said, “I have a matter of family business I find far more pressing.”

  The duchess appeared intrigued. “This sounds urgent.”

  “Quite.” Mrs. Windover looked to her youngest sister, then once more back to her elder. “We simply must find Linus a wife.”

  Linus? Who was Linus?

  All three sisters turned eager eyes on Mater. Their hostess was not even the tiniest bit confused. “A number of eligible young ladies will be joining us for various entertainments over the course of this party. I can’t imagine your brother wouldn’t find at least one of them interesting enough to wish to know better.”

  “Perfect.” Mrs. Windover seemed the most excited, though all three sisters clearly meant to participate.

  Linus was their brother, the gentleman from the entryway. Her heart fluttered at the memory of him. Those beautiful curls. His handsome features. Linus Lancaster. She would certainly see him again. Would he speak to her? Offer a greeting?

  He was brother to a duchess, a member of a fine family. He had likely already forgotten her.

  “Does your brother know he is destined to make a match at this party?” Mater asked.

  “He does not need to know,” Mrs. Windover said. “He has three sisters here who will make absolutely certain he finds himself in the perfect situation for falling desperately in love.”

  Though they spoke with obvious mischievousness, tenderness filled their words. Arabella would have liked to have had sisters who cared about her that way.

  “Once we have decided on the most likely candidates,” Miss Lancaster said, “perhaps I could take turns about the room or the grounds with them and make certain to cross Linus’s path whenever possible. I could ‘accidentally’ bump into the lady I’m walking with, sending her falling into his arms.”

  Mrs. Windover laughed openly. “If we find ourselves in need of dramatic intervention, we will make certain to employ your services.”

  Their laughter filled the room, the joyful sound of family. It pricked at Arabella’s heart. She was grateful that Mater’s party was going well and hoped she would have ample opportunity to prove herself useful, but she also felt . . . alone. She ought to have been accustomed to the feeling, yet at times, it settled as a weight in her chest.

  Mrs. Windover held her hand out to her younger sister. “I have been dying to see your new yellow gown ever since you told me of it. Let us go have a look.” The two of them left, deeply discussing fashion.

  “Do you mean to tell your brother that his sisters are plotting his future?” Mater asked the duchess.

  Her gentle smile grew to an unrepentant grin. “Where would be the fun in that?”

  “I will enjoy watching this,” Mater said.

  Arabella would enjoy it as well. People could be endlessly diverting, and she suspected the Lancaster siblings’ antics would prove vastly entertaining. And just as she had all those years ago when the earl was alive and his boys were making mischief of their own, she would watch this loving family and imagine what it would be like to be part of one at last.

  * * *

  Linus reached the drawing room to await the promenade into dinner that evening and was immediately accosted by his sister Athena. He had not seen her in a few weeks.

  “I have yet to grow accustomed to seeing you out of your naval uniform,” she said after a lingering embrace.

  He was not entirely accustomed to his change in clothing either. “Is my civilian attire an improvement or a disappointment?”

  “There is no need to dig for compliments, Lieutenant Lancaster.” She swatted at him playfully. “You have always been handsome.”

  “With all these curls?” He motioned at his hair. He’d not had it cut recently, and the result was a touch riotous.

  “Tread carefully, brother. I have those same curls.”

  “Something applauded in a lady but not particularly praised in a gentleman.”

  She patted his cheek, something she and Persephone had done regularly when he was a very young boy. “You give yourself too little credit.”

  Harry approached in the next instant, slipping his arm through Athena’s. “Did Adam behave himself in the brief time before our arrival?”

  “He made very abrupt introductions, eyed Lord Lampton with unconcealed annoyance, and, no doubt, sent a tremor of terror through all the staff.”

  Harry grinned. “There may be bloodshed before day’s end.”

  “You seem excited at the possibility,” Linus said.

  “I missed the Battle Against Lord Techney the two of you undertook during Daphne’s Season. I’m owed a bit of bloodshed.”

  “Persephone assisted with that effort; she has forbidden this one.”

  Harry turned to his wife once more. “You’d protect me from your sister, wouldn’t you?”

  “No,” she said flatly. She slipped her arm free of Harry’s and through Linus’s instead. “There is someone to whom I simply must introduce you.”

  With a degree of force that would have quailed many a hardy seaman, Athena led him directly to a small grouping of people. Linus surveyed them quickly. None was his mystery lady.

  “Linus,” Athena said, “this is the Earl of Marsden.” She indicated a rotund man with a narrow circle of silver hair. “His wife, the Countess of Marsden.” Her hair was the same shade as her husband’s, but that was where the resemblance ended. “And this”—something in Athena’s tone grew more pointed, though subtly so—“is Lady Belinda Hudnall.” After a moment’s pause, Athena addressed the group. “This is my brother, Linus Lancaster, late a lieutenant in the Royal Navy.”

  The expected bows and curtsie
s were exchanged. As conversation became general once more, Lady Belinda kept her gaze on him, assessing him with no effort to hide her perusal. He wasn’t overly concerned with her evaluation.

  After a moment, her studying gaze lost some of its pointed edge, replaced instead by the casual disinterest a young lady was expected to show to the world. Her unreadable smile gave no hint as to her final assessment of him.

  Athena jumped in. “Lady Belinda, I believe your family has an estate in Shropshire.”

  “Yes, though not the principal one.” Her voice was far higher than Linus would have expected. It was not unpleasant, simply a little startling. “I do like Shropshire. It is a fine county.”

  “Though not one of the principal ones,” Linus said.

  Lady Belinda’s brow creased. “There are no principal counties.” She had not, it seemed, recognized the reply as a teasing one, a bit of word play.

  He offered an apology as he knew was expected. “An ill-executed attempt at humor, Lady Belinda.”

  “Ah.” Her slight laugh was clearly obligatory.

  An uncomfortable silence fell between them. Linus searched around for something to say. A remark on the weather, perhaps. A general observation. Anything.

  Then he saw her. The lady he’d been watching for. All thoughts of forcing a friendly conversation with Lady Belinda fled. The same pull he’d felt earlier for this stranger returned.

  Again, she was a bit apart from everyone else, watching. Perhaps if he found Charlie, they could be introduced. Why did the thought cause him such immediate nervousness? He’d been introduced to countless people during the past Season alone. He’d not been nervous then.

  The lady sat in silence, looking out the window. He couldn’t explain the strength of the draw he felt. Was it the mystery she presented? Was it that she seemed as out of place as he felt?

  She looked away from the window. Their eyes met.

  Her position, posture, and appearance spoke of one who was bashful, humbled, likely by circumstances, yet her expression held something different—an eagerness, a hopefulness. And to his surprise, he sensed laughter beneath the surface. What did she find so funny? The guests? Him? Something to which he was not privy?