Page 35 of Miss Dignified
Powell had spent the past several years seeing those men set on their feet. A former marksman might not hear well, but he could earn his keep working for the night-soil man. Another soldier might have come home with a game leg, but serve well and happily as a gardener. Yet another could have lost the full use of an arm, but be particularly talented at walking dogs for Mayfair’s elderly widows.
Powell was resourceful and quietly relentless once he’d set a task for himself. That he might take it upon himself to find Marcus, whether on Lydia’s behalf or because Powell finally ran out of soldiers to look after, was deuced alarming.
Lydia was neither panicking nor flying into the boughs over her kiss with Captain Powell, but she was inspired to sing more. She had forgotten to don her cap two days in a row, and she was also—as predicted—smiling more.
“You are cheerful,” the captain said as Lydia set a vase of daffodils on the library mantel. He did not remark her lack of cap, but then, unlike some men, Dylan Powell wasn’t compelled to bleat and carry on about his every opinion or perception.
“The sun is shining, your sisters are to arrive within the week, and the house is showing to good advantage. I have reason to be of good cheer. Luncheon approaches, sir. Would you like a tray in here, or will you dine in the breakfast parlor?”
“Don’t flit away.” He rose from the desk and came around to take down the vase Lydia had just set on the mantel. “I love the scent.” He put the bouquet on the blotter and propped his hip on the desk corner. “Elegant and sweet, also unique. How are you?”
Lydia was in a complete, flummoxing muddle, but a happy muddle. “I am well. You?”
“I am distracted,” he said. “I should be finding William Brook, looking in on the men, explaining the household accounts to Bowen, and otherwise preparing for the upcoming siege, but instead…”
He regarded the flowers, while Lydia regarded him. Dylan Powell was no downy youth, hadn’t been for some time. He was weathered and worn, unsentimental, and battle-hardened. And yet, he kissed with more tenderness than Lydia had known a man was capable of.
He’d talked with her, held her hand, and escorted her through the darkened house. In the past two days, not by word, glance, innuendo, or hint, had he offered Lydia anything approaching disrespect or presumption—or encouragement, drat the man.
“Instead?” Lydia asked.
“I stare off into space and marvel, but I also ponder the demands of honor.”
That did not sound encouraging at all. “In what sense?”
“You work for me, madam.”
Lydia set off on a round of tidying, starting with the newspapers on the reading table. “That is my happy privilege.”
“A gentleman does not impose his attentions on those he employs.”
She arranged the newspapers in date order. “I don’t recall anybody doing any imposing. In fact, I find your observation ironic.” She moved on to the books stacked on the reading table, two of which came from the history shelves. She returned them to their proper places and took up a bound libretto from some old masque by Handel.
“Ironic how?” the captain asked.
“You did not kiss me, sir. I kissed you. A first, unless you count the times I’ve kissed my mare. On every other occasion, the gentleman assumed the initiative, though some of them did not behave as gentlemen, and my assent was apparently irrelevant. Now I find a man whose attentions I enjoy, a man I esteem—”
“And of whom you are quite fond.”
“And of whom I am quite fond, and he’s enthroned himself on some philosophical toadstool to ponder trivialities having nothing to do with anything. This is the same fellow who asked me to tolerate the fiction that he was enamored of me, and now he’s gone for a Puritan.”
Lydia had spoken civilly, but the urge to shout was nearly overwhelming. Finally, and in the least likely place, she’d found a man who held her interest and esteem, and he was turning upmissish?
“Your dignity and livelihood are not trivialities, Lydia.”
She pretended to leaf through the libretto while trying to sort logic from longing. The captain believed her to be a housekeeper, and assenting to a fiction of interest was very different from acting on a real attraction.
She ought to esteem him for his blasted scruples.
The captain eyed the libretto, which she’d rolled up like a newspaper. “Do you plan to smack me with that, Mrs. Lovelace?”
“I would like to smack you with something, Captain. You have decided to be uncomfortable with what passed between us. Rather than acknowledge the true source of your unease, you reach for the fig leaves of gentlemanly honor. Not well done of you. You are supposed to tell me that I caught you in a weak moment, that my confidence overpowered your common sense, and as delightful as the interlude was, I must not presume again. We retire to neutral corners and speak no more of the matter.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Is that how it’s done?”
Apparently, nobody had ever had to pin his ears back in that fashion. “I grasp, Captain, that I have been insubordinate or violated orders or somehow threatened your command. You need not be delicate. I will execute my duties as conscientiously as I always have, and you will find no bouquets left on your pillows.” Better that way, considering that Lydia hadn’t planned to tarry in London even this long.
“You leave the bouquets in my library instead.”
