Page 26 of Miss Dignified
Lydia stopped lecturing herself long enough to have a good look around the library, but the errant kitten wasn’t there. Still wasn’t there—Lydia had searched the library twice previously. Mab wasn’t belowstairs. She wasn’t in the attic. She wasn’t in Mr. Brook’s new office. She wasn’t anywhere Lydia had looked.
Mab’s sister had curled up in the hearth basket and gazed at Lydia with subtle accusation, as if Lydia had done away with the prodigal rather than mounted a search from attics to cellars. The last place to look was the captain’s quarters. He hadn’t come home for dinner, and the hour was growing late. Lydia had hoped she’d find her stray hiding in the butler’s pantry or sniffing about Mr. Brook’s office, but no.
If the captain found the kitten under his bed, he would banish all felines back to the alley, and that would inspire Lydia to profanity and tears both. She regularly cleaned in his sitting room and bedroom rather than leave that to the maids, but she was loath to trespass on his privacy for her own purposes.
“Needs must, as Mama always says.” She missed Mama’s quiet humor, missed her serene outlook on life. Lydia wasn’t homesick for Tremont itself, which ought to bother her, except that, increasingly, Tremont was Uncle’s domain rather than Lydia’s home.
“And yet, I am homesick for something,” she muttered, opening the door to the captain’s sitting room. All was ruthlessly neat here, with a desk by the windows angled precisely to catch the most sunlight. The hassock before the reading chair was at the exact distance between the chair and fireplace to ensure the captain’s feet were warm, but not too warm.
He’d explained that to Lydia when she’d inadvertently moved the hassock to dust the mantel. He hadn’t quite scolded her, but she’d never again moved the hassock—or anything else in this apartment—without returning it to its assigned location.
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty…” Lydia called softly, but she hadn’t trained the kittens to come to their food bowl with that call. “Please come, please.”
She lit the candles on the desk, hoping to see a furry paw sticking out from beneath the sofa, but no such luck.
“Nothing for it, then.” She opened the door to the captain’s bedroom, a place she rarely ventured after dark. The room held his scent, a combination of orange blossom, a touch of cinnamon, and an undernote of something woodsy. Lydia had never come across its like elsewhere and found the light, warm fragrance an intriguing choice for such a serious man.
He would be very serious indeed if Mab had trespassed on his personal domain. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Won’t you please come out?”
Nothing. Lydia lit a candle on the bed table and opened the door to the wardrobe. The captain’s scent was stronger here, and his inherent sense of order was abundantly displayed. Everything—boots, coats, shirts, breeches—was neatly organized, not so much as a cravat hanging over a doorknob.
His life was so… soin hand. What must that be like? No missing brother, no eternally grieving mother, no uncle pilfering from estate coffers…
“No missing kitten, no cousin threatening to destroy the only viable plan I’ve come up with to find my sibling.” Chloe’s letter had weighed on Lydia’s mind all day, demanding a reply—or demanding that Lydia go haring back north, abandoning the search for Marcus just as glimmers of hope shone.
Tears threatened again, and this time, Lydia couldn’t force them away as easily. She sank onto the dressing stool, wanting to be surrounded by the captain’s personal effects where nobody would see or hear her weakness.
She missed her brother. She missed her mama. She missed the time in life when she’d been part of a family, not a resented spinster trying to keep an estate from floundering.
“Mab, where are you?”
The little room remained still and shadowed. “Please, for the love of God, show yourself.”Don’t you disappear on me too. Don’t die, don’t buy your colors and never come home, don’t fade into endless grief…
Perhaps this was why the captain had no dogs underfoot, why he remained distant from his siblings. Grief could not invade a life free of attachments, though loneliness could. Lydia rose from the dressing stool, weariness adding to her sense of despair.
Things would not look better in the morning—they seldom did—but the kitten might deign to come out of hiding after the household settled for the night—if she was hiding. The notion that Mab might be trapped in a drawer, or that she’d slipped out into the garden and gone exploring down the wrong drain was too awful to contemplate.
Lydia closed the wardrobe door—captain’s orders—and returned to the bedroom. She was blowing out the candle on the bedside table when she saw the bed skirt move ever so subtly.
“Mab?” Hope and relief tried to shove aside despair. “Mab?”
Again, nothing. Lydia set down her candle and knelt on the carpet. “It’s safe to come out. I’m worried about you. I’ve missed you. You make the kitchen a more cheerful place, though your sister is a bit grumpy because you went exploring without her.”
Lydia kept her voice cheerful, but for a ridiculous tremor. Kittens were as ubiquitous as pigeons in London, and Mab would in all probability grow up and take to the alleys where she’d been born.
“Mab? Will you please…?”
The kitten poked her nose out from under the bed far enough to peer up at Lydia.
“Don’t be afraid.” Lydia extended a shaking finger in the cat’s direction, the sight of that little nose bringing forth all manner of emotions. Mab bestowed a curious sniff to Lydia’s fingertip.
“There you are.” Lydia scooped the kitten into her lap. “I was worried about you.” She cradled the cat against her chest, which provoked silent purring, and just that—the slight, warm, furry, vibrating sensation—wrecked the last measure of Lydia’s self-possession.
When Captain Powell came into the bedroom a few minutes later, he found a teary-eyed Lydia, sitting on the floor, the kitten snuggled against her heart.
Chapter Seven
Military camps were full of tears. Women cried for their fallen soldiers, soldiers cried for their fallen comrades. Letters from home could cause tears, a lack of letters from home could as well. Life—and war—went on nonetheless.
