Page 36 of Miss Dignified
“And in your formal parlor, and I keep one blossom for my own parlor.” Lydia shoved the abused libretto onto the shelf reserved for music. She had not anticipated that the captain would blow retreat like this. She’d expected—she’d hoped, more fool she—that their flirtation might continue or mature into friendship or the pleasures that came after admitting a flirtatious warmth toward another person.
The captain stood, and whatever else was true about the military, it gave a man spectacularly impressive posture.
“Am I really so fragile as all that, Mrs. Lovelace? My entire command can be upset by”—he waved a hand in upward circles—“some expressions of fondness?”
Lydia had come to London to find Marcus, not to become entangled with a difficult Welshman, and yet, the captain was not difficult. He was… different. She had begun to hope he was different in a wonderful way.
“You need no one,” she said, gathering up a stack of three almanacs. “You are ever available to your cousins, to stand up with them when they speak their vows, aid their causes, or make up a fourth at cards for their convenience. You never rely on them to do likewise for you.”
She reshelved the almanacs and started on the Welsh periodical newspapers sent in from Swansea.
“We played cards hour after hour in Spain. I hate playing cards.”
Lydia organized the newspapers by date and added them to the stack on the shelves. “Then tell your cousins you’d rather play billiards. You could have one of your sisters manage this house for you. Instead, they visit you when they’re of a mind to buy new frocks. You could have hired Bowen or one of his ilk at any point to act as your house steward. Instead, you bury yourself in the ledgers every Wednesday and mutter about the cost of paper.”
Lydia had tidied what needed tidying and hadn’t thought to bring her duster with her. She took up the broom from the hearth set and began sweeping what did not need sweeping.
“You look after a battalion of tattered and lame soldiers,” she went on, “but they are not permitted to look after you. They could be your gardeners, your footmen, your grooms, but you never hire the men who fought under your command for this household—save for Bowen, and I had to goad you into that.”
The captain watched her wielding the broom and said nothing.
“I keep this house immaculate,” Lydia said, “but you never entertain. We are a temple to pointless industry belowstairs, while you racket about London, getting lost in the very slums, where thievery and worse are rampant, and—”
She stopped because the captain had stalked over to the hearth to stand immediately before her.
“You were worried about me.”
“Will you have me court-martialed if I say yes?” Lydia’s reply was not merely insubordinate, it was angry—upset. She was never upset. She was determined, focused, occasionally annoyed and sometimes puzzled, but not upset.
Losing one’s composure accomplished nothing.
The captain gazed down at her, his expression unreadable. “The men took enough orders from me in Spain. I don’t want them having to take orders from me as my gardeners, footmen, or whatnot. In Wales, they won’t have to put up with me personally, because the estate is large and managed by familiar retainers. When I finally see the last of the wounded settled, I will close up this house and decamp for home. Hiring the men for this household makes no sense.”
When that day came along, he would no longer need a London housekeeper. Well, no matter. Lydia had always intended that her post be temporary.
“You dislike playing cards,” she said, “and you want your men to have long-term situations. That does not explain why you never impose on family or friends, Captain.” Or why a single kiss with his housekeeper had him making a belated case for gentlemanly scruples.
Even as Lydia posed that query, the logical, never-upset part of her had to wonder what had caused her outburst. All she and Captain Powell could ever be to each other was a temporary pleasure, a passing preoccupation.
But she wanted that pleasure, had been starved for it. A hand to hold, somebody to talk to, a shoulder to lean on. She craved those comforts and had not even known what she’d longed for.
“I conclude,” the captain said, “that nobody has ever taken your welfare to heart, Lydia Lovelace, else you would not rip up at me when I fear to cross the honorable line. You are correct that a shared kiss can be set aside, the memory ignored.”
He took the broom from her—gently—and set it back on the stand. “But I am also correct that a personal connection between us presents different risks for you than for me. I can turn you off without a character, for example, and then you are a woman alone, cast on your own resources far from home.”
An earl’s daughter did not have to think in these terms. If the captain turned her off without a character, she would collect the wages she’d saved, toddle off to the solicitors’ offices, and have them arrange either lodgings or a short-term rental for her.
But the captain did not know that, and Lydia wasn’t about to tell him lest she lose her post before sundown.
“I have some means,” she said. “I would not be destitute, and my family is all but demanding that I return home as it is.”
“You truly don’t understand.” He glanced at the open library door, then took Lydia’s hand and led her to the far end of the room, where they were less likely to be overheard. “A commanding officer exercises the power of life and death over his subordinates.”
“I thought those powers were reserved to the Almighty.”And you are not my commanding officer.Uncle Reggie was, for the nonce, or believed himself to be.
The captain brushed his fingers over her knuckles. “You enjoy that happy misconception because you never served under Lieutenant Colonel Aloysius Dunacre. He was a viscount’s younger son, not even the spare, and keenly felt the indignity of his station. When he tired of sending me out to die, he turned to sending MacKay out to die, simply to taunt me. MacKay transferred after yet another heinous incident involving Dunacre, mostly because the alternative was to murder his commanding officer.”
In the midst of a war infamous for the scale of its violence, what constituted aheinous incident? Lydia had the sense that Dylan would not disclose particulars to her, even upon pain of death.
