Page 76 of Miss Dignified
“I have been thinking,” Dylan said. “I was a good reconnaissance officer.”
“I’m sure you were.”
“One thing a reconnaissance officer cannot do, not if he wants to remain alive, is become lost.”
Lydia closed the ledger before her. “I beg your pardon?”
“Somewhere along the way, somewhere in Spain or France or perhaps not until I came back to London, I went missing in action, like your brother. I became obsessed with matters not strictly under my command.”
Lydia had never heard Dylan Powell speak with less than perfect self-assurance, and yet, he sounded reflective now. Introspective rather than commanding.
“Dylan, are you well?”
“No. No, I am not. I have behaved badly toward you and toward my sisters, and if I do not make amends, I will be drummed out of the only regiment that matters. And yet, I cannot reconcile myself to the notion that you had to lie to me… Do you know what a reconnaissance officer’s greatest skill is?”
Lydia had not been forced to lie to Dylan. She had chosen to lie to him—and chosen to make love with him too. She had pondered the matter at length and in hindsight did not see that other choices would have yielded appreciably better results.
“I suppose a reconnaissance officer relies most on his sight,” she replied. “His ability to notice details.”
Dylan shook his head. “His hearing. His ability to listen carefully, to ask the right questions, to notice what isn’t being said, or what’s being offered in jest what isn’t humorous at all. I could ride the countryside all day, noting what was in plain view—crops, cows, terrain—but what I heard and overheard in the taverns, in the churchyards, at the farrier’s forge gained me the most useful information. I would like to hear from you why you came to London and why you could not tell me who you really are.”
“So you can call me names again?” Lydia asked. “Reassure yourself that I am a scoundrel and liar?”
Dylan scrubbed a hand over his face. “I am sorry for those words. I spoke in anger, and I was wrong. You are not a scoundrel, and you are no more a liar than I am. You are right that I would go forth under false colors myself, pretending to be a tinker or a deserter or some other convenient character. There was a war on, and I want to know what war you are fighting, Lydia. You are not simply searching for a wayward brother, are you? Your uncle is some sort of threat, and your mother depends on you.”
What was the purpose of this discussion? What was Dylan’s objective? Did that even matter, when for her own sake, Lydia wanted only the truth between her and Dylan?
“After Waterloo, my brother, as you know, apparently traveled as far as London. He resigned his commission and then just… disappeared. You know Marcus. You may not respect him, but he is conscientious to a fault, much concerned with honorable behavior, but not… not quick. He will think a matter to death, and unless some old Roman has a quote precisely relevant to the situation, Marcus will dither and equivocate.”
Lydia was dithering and equivocating, while Dylan remained silent.
“I do not trust my cousin,” Lydia said. “Wesley expects to marry me, though I’ve never given him encouragement. My settlements are generous, and when I marry, my husband will have control over a substantial sum. Wesley isn’t awful, but he’s lazy. My mother has taken to losing jewelry in recent years, and whenever a piece goes missing, Wesley shortly thereafter decamps for a visit to London, or Brighton, or someplace where idle young men waste great sums of money.”
“Your mother is an heiress,” Dylan said. “The Lovelace heiress.”
“Yes, and she has a large and lovely collection of jewelry that she owns personally, or she did, but she’s a widow and has few occasions to wear her better pieces, so how are they going missing?”
“Precisely the sort of question a reconnaissance officer asks. Go on.”
“My uncle has no head for business, and he relies on my cousin’s guidance. Wesley has never managed his allowance well, much less had responsibility for a huge estate. I fear Uncle and Wesley have both borrowed against expectations, mortgaged tenancies, and otherwise helped themselves to Tremont’s wealth, and I cannot stop them. Uncle has raised rents, but he’s not keeping up with repairs. Our best tenants have gone elsewhere, and some land agent in Oxford is now responsible for replacing the farmers who leave.”
“A land agent who’s also helping himself to Tremont’s bounty?”
Lydia nodded. “The lawyers won’t talk to me. Horse Guards won’t talk to me. My father’s friends reply to my letters with avuncular nonsense about trusting to my uncle’s judgment. My home is being plundered before my eyes, my mother is fading, and my cousin has been subtly harassing me to accept a suit I want no part of. I feared if I remained at Tremont, Wesley would engineer some sort of scene, and my choices would be limited to ruin or marriage to a man I cannot trust.”
This recitation flattered nobody. A more clever woman would have found a means of taking the situation at Tremont in hand, putting Wesley in his place, and getting some answers from His Majesty’s military. Lydia was fresh out of cleverness.
Was this how Marcus had felt? Dull-witted? Inadequate, slow to see the obvious?
“Do you trust anybody, Lydia?”
“I tried to trust you.”
“And I disappointed you, called you names, and then expected you to meekly return to polishing my windows. Tegan recognized you.”
“So did Sycamore Dorning. I danced with him at some point during my misspent Seasons, maybe at several points.”
“Him.”
