Page 42 of Forget Me Not

A quick knock on the door sounded the moment before Lucas poked his head inside. “Are you ready?” He sounded like the friend she once knew: eager excitement, boyish glee. She’d missed that side of him.

He stepped closer to them, addressing his next comment to his housekeeper. “I’ve nipped off with a great deal of food from the larder. Best not tell cook or she’ll have my neck.”

Mrs. Park’s expression was stern but just as unreadable as it had been during their quick, silent dressing. “That is a story woven from whole cloth, no doubt.”

“Refuse to believe me if you must,” he said on a sigh, “but I am every bit the thieving ragamuffin you refuse to believe I am.”

Mrs. Parks retained her very dignified mien and, with a quick nod, slipped past him and through the door.

“Does she always treat you so coldly?” Julia would do well to understand the housekeeper’s character if she was to have any hope of assuming her role as mistress of the house.

Lucas laughed. “She adores me.”

Julia glanced in the direction Mrs. Parks had gone. “That was adoration?”

“An outpouring of it.”

Lucas motioned her to the door. They walked side by side from the room, on their way, no doubt, to their picnic.

“Was Mr. Barrington terribly scandalized by my appearance in the book room yesterday?” She’d worried over his true reaction to it all, though he’d been everything that was polite and cordial.

“Must not have been,” Lucas said. “He’s setting up the picnic even as we speak and didn’t inquire even once whether you meant to wear shoes.”

Curse her bare feet. “If I’d had the least idea he was visiting...”

“He lives relatively nearby. We’ll see him quite often. And he has been invited to the ball at Falstone Castle, so we will see him there as well.”

Her surprise caused her to stumble a bit, though she kept pace with Lucas. “We’ve been invited to a ball?”

“Did I not tell you?”

She shook her head.

“Well, then... Julia, we have been invited to a ball. The Duke of Kielder—his home is Falstone Castle—hosts balls only when his wife is in residence, which she often isn’t. Invitations are highly sought after, and we have obtained one. Aren’t we quite the distinguished pair?”

Her pulse pounded in her throat. A ball held in the castle of a duke and duchess with, no doubt, an extensive guest list. “Must we go?”

He eyed her sidelong as they stepped out onto a gravel path that bisected the side lawn. “Invitations to Falstone Castle are both rare and prestigious. Many in Society would pummel one another to obtain one.”

That was hardly the way to convince her. “I admit I have a strong preference for remaining at home. I am not generally one for traveling about. I’ve only ever been to one ball, and that did not go well by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Our ‘betrothal ball’?” Though his voice held a hint of a laugh, there was also a fair bit of disappointment.

She took a calming breath. Lucas liked balls and Society. He had far more experience with them than she did. But she could hardly complain about him wanting to be away from home if being at home meant complete isolation. She could try to be a little more accommodating. “Can you promise me that if we go, no one will unexpectedly announce my betrothal to someone? I understand that can happen at balls.”

Lucas set his arm around her shoulders, squeezing as he tucked her playfully against him. “No one had better do any such thing.”

It was unexpected but so very familiar. They’d assumed this precise posture many times when they were younger, always when he was teasing her. “You would miss me if someone snatched me away?”

“I suspect I would, Julia Jonquil.”

It was the first time someone saying her new name didn’t make her feel physically ill. That was progress.

His arm dropped away, but he bumped her with his shoulder, his smile not fading. This was familiar footing. She felt like a little girl again, spending a lighthearted afternoon with him while he was home from school. He’d been very attentive when he’d returned after Easter term the year Charlotte had died. Julia hadn’t the first idea how she would have endured such heartache without him there for the two short weeks he’d spent in Collingham. He’d saved her in so many ways. And she’d missed him desperately when he’d left again.

Her gaze settled a moment on the distant mountains before returning again to the beauty of this comparatively small expanse of lawn and garden. “Do you have a river?” she asked.

“There’s a picturesque stream not too far from here, but it doesn’t reach Brier Hill.”

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