Page 37 of Miss Dignified
“People in powerful positions can commit powerful trespasses,” Dylan said. “I refuse to be among them. In the general scheme of things, I’m of little import, but with respect to you, I am in a powerful position.”
He was not of little import to his family, to his men, or to Lydia, but she grasped his point. “Because you respect me, you will keep your distance?”
She did not like that solution at all. Selfish of her, which ought to have made her ashamed rather than frustrated.
“Because I respect you,” Dylan said, dropping her hand and pacing several steps away, “I will make a suggestion. I would like to write you a glowing, accurate, though undated, character. I will put that character in Bowen’s keeping, along with a sum intended as severance. I will instruct him that both are to be given to you upon your request, whether you provide notice to me or leave in the middle of the night.”
“You are making it easy for me to desert the regiment.”
He sent her a peevish look. “My intention is to make it possible for you to further your fondness for me, should the impulse strike you. Will you accept my suggestion?”
Lydia looked about the library for something to tidy up, but the room was quite in order. Dylan was right that consideration of her needs had never ranked with much import in the eyes of her family, and maybe not in her own eyes either.
“I hate that you served under this Dunacre person. He was a contemptible excuse for a human being.”
“He’s dead. Took a bullet at Waterloo. He lies in a hero’s grave, which is more than he deserves.”
Dunacre’s ghost clearly walked in Dylan’s dreams and was at least partly responsible for this quibbling over terms. And yet, Lydia sensed that, for Dylan, ensuring that her decisions were free of coercion was not quibbling, but rather, the sine qua non ofhisversion of fondness.
She had the odd thought that Uncle Reginald and even clever, worldly Wesley would be baffled by Dylan Powell.
“I accept your suggestion,” Lydia said, and because she had her own honor to tend to, she added, “I did not intend a permanent remove to London either, if we’re being painfully honest. I’m seeing to some family business while I’m here, and I’ve already made progress with that task.”
Not enough progress, but some.
“You will at least warn me before you retire to Shropshire?”
“I will give you plenty of notice, and by the time I’m ready to leave Town, you might be halfway to Wales.”
He looked like he might say more, but Bowen chose then to rap on the doorjamb. “Post is in. Letter for you, Mrs. Lovelace.”
Lydia took the epistle from him with a sense of foreboding. Aunt Chloe writing twice in the space of a week was not good news.
“Lunch is almost ready,” she said, stuffing the letter into her apron pocket. “I can have you gentlemen served in here, at your respective desks, or in the breakfast parlor.”
“I’ll nip around to the pub for my nooning,” Bowen said, passing a stack of letters to the captain. “Ask after Will, check in with the lads.” He saluted and left, his limp almost indiscernible.
“Did you have him fitted for new boots?” Lydia asked.
“I sent him to a cobbler who has accommodated other men whose feet are the worse for having marched off to war. Will you join me for lunch, Lydia? Take a tray with me on the terrace?”
She ought not. She ought to take herself back downstairs, don her cap, and come up with more recipes to delight his sisters—and him. But that would be ungracious of her, and the captain’s household was not Hampton Court, to be run according to endless protocols and pomposities.
Then too, he’d called her Lydia, and this whole business with a character and severance was his idea of gentlemanly deportment.
“I will take a tray with you, and we will not speak of the war or honor or glowing characters.”
The slight quirk had returned to the corner of his mouth. “What shall we speak of?”
Lydia cast around for a topic that would be interesting and cheerful. “Wales. You will tell me about growing up in Wales, because that is the sort of discussion fond friends would have.”
“And you will tell me about growing up in Shropshire?”
“There’s not much to tell.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Dylan had been studying maps of London when Lydia had come humming along with her daffodils.
