Page 11 of Forget Me Not

“I certainly did.”

Her brow dropped. “But if I don’t enjoy myself, you won’t give it to me?”

He shrugged. “I imagine I still will; I just might make you wait a little longer.”

“Then let us hope your token is not something prone to spoiling. I am unlikely to receive it for years.”

“Do not doubt me, Caroline Julia Cummings. I have been known to work miracles.”

“I stopped believing in miracles a very long time ago.” She walked past him and disappeared inside her bedchamber. The door closed behind her with a click.

This was nothisJulia.

***

Lucas’s mother brushed the feather of her quill back and forth over her chin. “I cannot decide between offering a European-inspired supper in honor of your travels or an English-inspired one in honor of your return.”

“Oh, English,” Lucas answered with exaggerated enthusiasm. “But only if your menu includes jellied eels and stargazy pie.”

Mother wrinkled her nose, rendering the little round patch she always wore above her lip a bit askew. “Fish heads looking up at me from the inside of a pie is not my idea of a tempting dish.”

“But it is so very English.” Lucas held back his grin.

“It is so veryCornish,” Mother countered.

“Then Continental cuisine it is.” Lucas sighed.

Mother swatted at him. “You delight in teasing me, son.”

“I delight in seeing you smile,” he said. “And a bit of teasing is the surest way of accomplishing that.”

“Oh, my darling boy.” She reached over and touched his cheek. “You being here once more has affixed a permanent smile to my face.”

“Perhaps you ought to allow a physician to look at that. It might prove a very serious condition.”

Mother laughed. He would always enjoy that sound. Always.

Father stepped into the library. “A delight to hear your laughter, my dear.”

“You say that as if I rarely laugh,” she said.

“More rarely when Lucas is away,” Father said.

She turned up her rouged cheek to Father. He kissed it, then moved to sit in his usual armchair near the fire.

“It is good to have you back, son. Your Grand Tour ended precisely when it ought.”

Lucas hadn’t given a great deal of thought to it. He supposed traveling in the winter would have been more complicated. Journeying home in the late summer had been a boon.

“Returning in time for Mother’s ball. Thatwasvery fortuitous timing. Without my influence, she would have served a stargazy pie, and that would have been a disaster.”

Father’s nostrils flared, and his lips curled. “Stargazy pie? We aren’t actually serving that, are we?”

“Of course not,” Mother said.

“By the by,” Lucas said, “I have gifts for the two of you, little offerings from my time on the Continent.”

“Have you?” Mother clicked her tongue. “You’ve been home for two days and haven’t yet presented these tokens of your affection.”

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