Page 29 of A Lady of Means
Lady Moria looked around to see who might have seen her before closing her eyes as more tears scorched a path down her icy cheeks.
“My lady, I hope you don’t mind my placing the flowers in your stead.”It was a masculine voice behind her, but it was gentle.
Lady Moria turned to see the young vicar, uncomfortably rubbing the back of his neck.She recalled the Sunday morning when her younger sisters had seen this man for the first time and how silly she’d told them they were for gawking.They didn’t feel so silly to her now.He was tall and wiry, with blonde hair and the kind of eyes that you just knew held a deep soul within.
Of all the men Moria would come to know, Llewyn had the kindest eyes.
She wiped her own eyes awkwardly.“Thank you,” she breathed.“But how did you…?”
“I saw you here before, my lady.Then I kept seeing fresh flowers left here.I’m something of a botanist myself, but I was impressed.Jasmine in winter?I figured it would be the charitable thing to do to leave something in your stead while you were…missing for a few days.”He paused for her reaction, there was no censure or judgment in his words, or in his tone.
As Moria was still trying to control her tears, he kept talking.
“I paid a call to your mother while you were ill.I looked in on you as well, but you were resting.”He offered her his hand to assist her with rising to her feet, she took it gratefully.
“It seems you have a habit of coming to my aid, then,” Lady Moria said as she smacked her hands together to shake off the snow on her gloves.She wiped the remaining snow from her dress and smoothed her hair where her cloak had mussed it.
Lady Moria had always been beautiful, that had never been a secret.When Llewyn Fortney looked at her, she felt that he saw more than just a pretty face.He sawher.Grieving and half healed and somewhat lost, but not broken.
He swallowed uncomfortably, looking away.“Yes, well.That is rather the calling of a man of God, my lady.And also, to tell you, that pain may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”
She leaned, picking a spare tendril of Jasmine from the posy at her former lover’s grave, and placed it in the buttonhole of the Vicar’s thick wool jacket.When he offered to show her the hothouse next to the church where he grew his flowers before walking her home, she felt that she had been given a rare gift: a true friend.
* * *
A clock tolledin the study.Moria shook her head to clear it of her reverie.She took a seat across from the vicar in her London drawing room.He’d aged some since, new laugh lines adorned his face, stubble coated his jaw, and he seemed more comfortable in his role.But the gentle demeanor of a fledgling vicar who placed flowers on a young man’s grave for a girl who mourned in secret, remained.
“London feels too…tarnished and worldly for a saint like you.”She offered him her best smile.
“Don’t know where you get such notions of my sainthood, Lady Moria.”
“That is the only explanation for your being such a long-suffering friend of someone like me.”
“Long-suffering,” he scoffed.“That’s more the word I’d use for whatever poor fellow finds himself saddled with you for a wife.”
Moria sighed, deflecting.“Why does everyone keep talking of my marriage?Perhaps I’m too interesting for matrimony.”
Llewyn laughed again, a sound that was all him, light and ebullient.“Nice try; but you sent me a missive that you had a matter you needed to discuss, and here I am, my lady, all ears.”
Llewyn took the cup of tea she offered him, prepared with two sugars as he preferred.The butler entered, announcing a visitor who was close on his heels and entered the room in a huff.“I tried to tell her you were entertaining company, my lady.”
Llewyn stood at the sight of the woman who entered, ever the gentleman.Was Moria imagining it or was Llewyn studying Letitia’s upswept dark hair, the chocolate shades of her eyes, the heart shape of her bronze face as though he found something to admire?
Moria went over to the young woman, kissing her on both cheeks.“Letitia?Is everything alright?”
The Vicar looked between the two women expectantly, so Moria made introductions.
“Reverend Llewyn Fortney, this is my friend, as well as my brother-in-law Viscount Ludlowe’s private secretary, Miss Letitia Blackshear.”
Moria thought that Llewyn took a little longer than propriety allowed bowing over her friend’s hand.Maybe Lllewyn would be impressed by her story, or her beauty; he seemed to find ladies in distress an array of some expertise.
Moria motioned for her friends to sit, picking up her teacup and saucer as Letitia poured her own cup.
“It was your missive that brought me here, my lady.I received a note that you had a matter that required urgent attention.”
Moria choked on her tea.
“Is that so?”Llewyn asked her, but looking at Moria.Moria saw how this looked, but she wasn’t the one who had sent either of them missives.Before she could reply, Letitia produced the note from the ample bosom of her topaz gown, a blush spreading up Llewyn’s neck and seeping over his cheeks as he averted his gaze.
