to find that he was dressing for dinner with eager anticipation. Perhaps his mood was helped by a decent night’s rest. Or perhaps it was the snow that had fallen, steady and deep, since the moment he’d arrived. When he looked outside, the world was covered in a virginal white blanket, untouched by humankind.
Or perhaps it was simply the prospect of seeing Lucy again. Even though he could not have her, his dark mood was not quite as black as it had been, knowing that she was close. It had been so long since he had looked forward with anything but dread, that the feeling of joyful expectation was as rare as a unicorn.
Would there be roast beef or goose? Or perhaps a turkey? Or all the above? Would the Clifton pudding be as good as he remembered? Would Fred finally open the ancient port that his father insisted on saving for a special occasion?
There was no question that Lucy would be hostess. But was it wrong to wonder what she might wear? The anticipation of seeing her again was rather like playing the electrifying machine that had been kept in his grandfather’s salon. Someone turned the crank and everyone else nervously joined hands and held their breaths, waiting for the jolt to travel through the party. Common sense said to let go. But some stronger urge demanded that one hang on and enjoy the shock.
Tonight, it was a shock to see her in her mother’s place, in a gown of ice-blue silk, with the family jewels at her throat. There was nothing unusual about her attire. In style and expense she looked none too different from the women he had courted in London while trying to forget her.
But he had not found himself intrigued by the way the candlelight settled in the hollows of their shoulders, nor were his eyes drawn to the shadow between their breasts that disappeared into the bodice of their gowns. Sitting across from Lucy, he had to struggle not to stare at her like a starving man in front of a feast.
Though he had loved her no less, he’d spent much of the last five years thinking of Lucy Clifton as a child, pretty but naïve, and in need of sheltering. But the woman at the table tonight was controlled, intelligent and beautiful. Worst of all, she intrigued him in a way that he hadn’t expected. He wanted to sit with her and have her tell him everything he had missed while he had been gone and how she had become even more wonderful than he remembered.
‘I swear, this dinner was the best we have had,’ said Fred, interrupting his thoughts. ‘Well done, Lucy. Well done.’ As the last of the pudding was taken away, her brother clapped his hands, beaming down the table at his sister.
Lucy blushed prettily in response. ‘I hardly deserve credit for it. The menu is the same every year and Cook and the kitchen maids did all the work.’
‘All hail Cook, then,’ he said with another grin, raising his glass in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Perhaps it is simply the company we keep this year and that we are eating without the threat from France, thanks to our friend, the fearless Major Gascoyne.’ He applauded again, this time directing his approval to Jack.
Jack’s feeling of contentment evaporated at this hyperbole. ‘Really, Fred. It is not as if I brought down Napoleon single-handed.’
‘Since Wellington is not here to receive it, you must accept the gratitude of the nation,’ Fred said with a shrug. ‘A toast to Major Gascoyne.’
‘Here, here!’
Now the whole table was raising their glasses to him and he had to fight the desire to run.
‘Now you are embarrassing Jack instead of me,’ Lucy said, drawing the attention away from him as if she had sensed his discomfort.
‘I cannot help it,’ Fred replied. ‘I am simply glad to see that he has returned safely.’ Then he looked to Jack. ‘It is good to have you home, old friend.’
‘And good to see you, as well.’ Jack was surprised to find that it was not quite a lie. He had cursed the fellow often enough, while in Portugal, for without Fred’s impetus he’d have never gone to war. But now that he was home, he realised how much he had longed for his friendship.
He took a hurried sip of his wine to fight a wave of sentimentality. Perhaps it was rich food, the smell of the yule log burning and the fresh greens brought into the house at the darkest time of the year that made one prone to such open displays of emotion. His throat closed as if in a prelude to tears. This, all of it, was what he had missed when he was away on the Peninsula, the homey familiarity of it.
After dinner, the parlour games did not seem as grating as they had on the previous evening. Against his better judgement, he bobbed for an apple, chasing the fruit around the basin in futility before submerging his head to trap it on the bottom. He came to the surface again, sputtering from this baptism, hair and neckcloth soaked, feeling younger than he’d felt in ages.
Someone was handing him a flannel to dry himself and he took it without looking, taking a bite from the apple before wiping his face and sweeping his hair out of his eyes.
‘It is cheating to go to the bottom,’ Lucy said in a soft voice, linking her arm in his to pull him away from the others. ‘You are supposed to chase it about on the surface.’
‘Really?’ he said, unable to help his grin.
‘It is called bobbing for apples, not diving,’ she reminded him. When he turned to look, she was hiding her own smile behind her hand.
‘I prefer to think of it as fortune favouring the bold,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it requires an extraordinary effort to take the prize.’
‘Like going away to war in an attempt to win my hand?’
That was not what he had meant at all. He had wanted to spar playfully with her, as they used to do. Now the present was interfering again and spoiling his mood.
‘Or cheating to win a child’s game,’ he said. ‘Do not make your brother’s mistake and turn me into some sort of paragon, Lucy. Believe me, I am no one’s hero.’ He turned to leave her, walking down the hall.
‘You were my hero, once,’ she said, following him.
‘People change,’ he said, trying to regain the reserve he had been using to keep her away.
‘And sometimes they change back,’ she agreed. ‘Tonight, you are taking part in the games that you scorned yesterday.’ Before he could correct her, she added, ‘And you are cheating, just as you used to.’
‘It is a wonder you put up with me, since both you and your brother have been quick to tell me what an ass I was,’ he replied.
‘Your tendency to reckless impulse was what made you fun,’ she said with a shrug. ‘You have obviously outgrown your worst habits, or you would not have survived the war.’
‘That shows how little you understand, about war and about me,’ he said, running a clawed hand through his hair.
‘Then explain it to me,’ she said, her voice soft and coaxing. It made him want to open for her, like a book, to see if she would erase the worst of what was written there or slam it shut and look away in disgust.
‘I did not live through these last years by learning restraint,’
