Page 15 of Miss Dignified
“I hope you find him soon.”
“He’s probably in love again. Springtime has that effect on him. Maybe he took a notion to return to Shropshire.”
Well, of course. Lydia hadn’t recognized the accent precisely, worn down as it was by years in London, but Bowen’s inflections were the sound of home. The music of Welsh ancestors blended with the rounded vowels of Liverpool and softened t’s of the Midlands.
A lovely accent, though not as pleasant as the captain’s. Lydia finished the first stocking and worked the wooden egg into the second.
“Why haven’t you returned to Shropshire?” she asked.
“I will, one day. You’ve a fine hand with a needle, missus, but I don’t believe that’s a ball of yarn curled up in yonder basket.”
One of the kittens had made a place for herself amid Lydia’s mending projects. “That will teach me to leave the lid open.” She extracted the kitten from her fabric nest and set the beast on the carpet. “She’s the bolder of the two. I believe I will name her Mab.”
“Fanciful name for a cat.”
“She appeared as if by magic.”
Bowen took another nip from his flask. “Does the captain know you’ve taken in strays?”
“He does. I have his permission to keep them.” More magic. That Dylan Powell would turn to his housekeeper to thwart his sisters’ matchmaking was also a little magical. Lydia had never met such a self-possessed man. Neither hunger, fatigue, blue devils, nor whimsy deflected him from his chosen course, and Lydia had never heard him complain either.
But she had seen him smile. Seen him absolutely beaming with good humor. All it had taken was making a complete cake of herself.
“Well, this stray soldier is for bed.” Bowen got to his feet, something he did slowly, his first steps always a bit gingerly. “Pleasant dreams, missus. I’ve a mind to write home and see if William turns up there.”
“We keep a lap desk in the butler’s pantry for staff. Leave the letter on the sideboard in the front hall, and the captain will see it posted for you.”
“Will do. Don’t stay up too late with your mendin’.”
“I’m almost finished. Before you go, might I ask you a question?” Lydia pretended to study her handiwork, the better to present her query casually.
“Of course.”
“You mentioned that in your soldiering years, you did hear mention of Marcus, Lieutenant Lord Tremont. What do you recall of him?”
“A lordling,” Bowen said, his affable air acquiring an edge of disdain. “One of Dunacre’s pretty boys. I transferred to the quartermasters’ unit not long after Lieutenant Lord Lacypants joined Dunacre’s staff. He was no worse than a lot of them and precious young. Little more than a struttin’ boy. You felt sorry for such as him, until he ordered you put to the lash.”
Bowen was the first person outside of Horse Guards to even acknowledge that Marcus had served, though Lydia could not fathom Marcus ordering anybody put to the lash.
“Military discipline was strict, I gather.”
“Military discipline was murderous under Dunacre. The less said about it, the better.”
“Do you know what became of the lieutenant?”
Bowen’s smile was bitter. “Probably shoveling coal for Lucifer’s forge. He was none too bright, but brave enough. Always spoutin’ some old Roman’s words or quoting Proverbs. I hope you weren’t sweet on him?”
“I have a distant connection with his family, and they are reticent on the subject of his whereabouts. I was simply curious.” A version of the truth. When Uncle Reggie was in his cups, Lydia was as distant from him as it was possible to be.
“Ask the captain. He knows more about who went missing and who deserted than anybody. Keeps most of it to himself. Good night, missus.”
“Good night.”
Lydia had been trying to get up her courage to ask the captain directly about Marcus for more than two months. At first, her employer’s nature had been off-putting. Always on his way out the door, relentlessly reserved, and occasionally forbidding. She’d taken some time to see past that demeanor to the man himself.
Dylan Powell was always on his way out the door because he was that conscientious about looking after any man wounded under his command. He had seen and continued to see human suffering on a horrific scale, and he seldom allowed himself adequate rest.
Of course he was serious.
