Page 97 of Miss Dignified
Dylan lay awake, thinking about Lydia’s situation, about her brother, about Wales… about much. When his thoughts eventually slowed, he simply savored the feel of Lydia in his arms and in his bed, and he came to some decisions.
He awoke with the soldier’s ability to decide exactly how much sleep to permit himself and was waiting for Lydia when she joined him in the breakfast parlor. They had not made love, and the light in her eyes suggested they were about to make war.
“May I fix you a plate, my lady?” Dylan asked, rising and bowing. “You have to be famished, and the day will be taxing.”
She frowned, suggesting she’d been willing to hide behind her Mrs. Lovelace uniform for one more day and hadn’t anticipated that Dylan would challenge her decision.
“Eggs and toast please, and a cup of tea would not go amiss.”
He heaped her plate with enough eggs to feed MacKay and Goddard for a week, set the plate and a toast rack at the place to the right of the head of the table, and held Lydia’s chair for her.
“If your artillery are in place,” he murmured close to her ear, “you may fire when ready.”
Lydia took her place, scowled at him, and picked up her fork. Dylan sat as well, prepared to give as good as he got, though he also ensured the butter was beside Lydia’s plate.
“I missed you,” she said. “I asked Mr. Dorning to arrange the coach for me because I did not want you talking me out of fetching Mama. I also did not want you going yourself, because she would not have come at your insistence, nor could I tolerate even a day’s delay with Marcus so intent on leaving the country. I asked Mr. Dorning to put Mama up because we haven’t room here now that your sisters have arrived. Besides, your cousin Jeanette was married to a marquess, and Mama is a countess. They will get on as Mama and I never have.”
Dylan set the honey and cream near Lydia’s tea cup. “I missed you too. Desperately. I worried that you’d left… left London for good, or that Wesley had somehow threatened you, or Marcus had convinced you to sail with him.”
Lydia took a bite of eggs. “You have a prodigious imagination, Captain. I put the note where you should have found it easily.”
What a joy, to hear the starch back in her voice. “Bronwen found it first. She turned it over to me after seeing the torments I endured.”
“Because one of your charges had gone astray?”
He heard both the dignity and the vulnerability lurking behind Lydia’s question. “Because I love you, my lady, and if anything happened to you, I would beundone. I’d become as lost and confused as those old soldiers who can barely stumble from the street corner to the pub and back again. You have become map, compass, and canteen for me. The simple necessities that will bring me home. Without you…”
Lydia was giving him the same puzzled appraisal she gave a parlor in want of a thorough cleaning. Where to start, what to keep, what to toss?
“I smell bacon.” Sycamore Dorning sauntered into the breakfast parlor, the Countess of Tremont on his arm. “You should hire a butler, Powell. Somebody to keep the riffraff out and send the trades around back. Maintain order on the male side of the domestic infantry. Lady Lydia, good day. How lovely, I see you were expecting us.”
The extra place settings were for Dylan’s sisters, who’d had the good grace not to interrupt Dylan’s first real opportunity to propose to Lydia.
Dylan rose and bowed. “Countess, Dorning, good morning. You must of course join us.”
“We can discuss strategy over the teapot,” Dorning said, pulling out a chair for the countess. “Lady Tremont has intimated that there is trouble in Shropshire and a weasel on the loose in London.”
“I did not intimate,” Lady Tremont said, gracefully taking a seat. “I laid the situation out for you and your wife very clearly, Mr. Dorning. If Lydia trusts you, then I am bound to do likewise.” She aimed a glance at Dorning that suggested her trust would be withdrawn without recourse if he didn’t cease his strutting.
Dylan’s heart wanted to toss them both out of the house. When his sisters decided to join the breakfast affray ten minutes later, he wanted to toss them out as well. The noise rose, the food disappeared along with the last of Dylan’s patience. While Lydia silently sipped her tea, it was decided that Dylan would escort her and the countess to Marcus’s dwelling, and Dorning and his liveried retinue would take guard duty.
The entire distance to Marcus’s street, Dorning speculated aloud about how best to catch a weasel, and all the while, Lydia remained quiet.
“You are trying to figure out how to present matters in a light that doesn’t make your brother feel like a fool,” Dylan said as he handed her down. “Not every problem is yours to solve, Lydia. You were smart to fetch your mother, and I expect she’ll do a lot of the talking for you.”
Lydia took his arm after a quick glance at the surrounding street. She was learning reconnaissance, and Dylan was displeased about that. The countess was at Dorning’s side, though he would wait at the front door, keeping an eye out for one particular weasel.
Dylan escorted the ladies up the long, dingy climb to Marcus’s room, rapped on the thin door, and waited for it to open.
“Tremont, you have guests.”
To Dylan’s great relief, the door opened. Marcus looked, if anything, more pale and gaunt than he had previously. No writing materials remained on the desk, and on the cot a battered valise sat open, neatly packed clothing arranged inside.
“Captain, good day. If you’ve come to… Lydia, and…Mama?”
Marcus’s hands twitched, as if he’d reach for his mother, then fell back to his sides as he stood at attention.
“My lady, a pleasure.” Marcus bowed. “Lydia, very good to see you again, though I really wish you had not come.”
