fellow...’
‘I will relay your compliments to him,’ she said, praying that there was more to the sentence.
‘But I do not think he is right for you.’
She knew that as well. But she had waited for Jack until her options were limited, hoping for love. When Waterloo had come and gone with no sign of his homecoming, she had settled.
But now he was home. She smiled, realising that they still stood in the doorway, under the mistletoe. ‘Do you have someone in mind that would suit me better?’
Perhaps she was being too obvious in her questions. But she wanted some hint that he had come to make things right between them and he was playing far too coy.
She was not expecting the answer she received. ‘I know no one who will suit. But I know you well enough to think that you need a man with spirit and a sense of humour, and someone who will appreciate those qualities in you. Thoroughgood is wrong on all counts.’
‘What?’ It was all she could manage, for the answer he had given rendered her near to incoherence.
He gave her a firm and somewhat puzzled smile, as if he felt he had been perfectly clear before and should not have to repeat himself. ‘I would not offer advice on the matter, if your choice seemed more appropriate. But I have known you so long that I cannot help but be concerned for your future happiness. I fear you would make an abominable vicar’s wife and would make yourself miserable by trying.’
She shook her head, amazed. ‘You return after all this time and have nothing more to say than that?’
‘If you were expecting something more—’ his brow furrowed ‘—then I must remind you that it has been five years,’ he said. ‘Things have changed.’
‘“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds.”’ She touched her cheek, wondering if she was really so different from the girl he had once wanted. ‘If they are so easily forgotten, then the feelings you claimed for me were not as deep as you claimed.’ It made her feel all the bigger fool for succumbing to him then.
‘It is not you,’ he said, hurriedly. ‘You are every bit as lovely as you were on the day I left and just as hard to resist. It is I who have changed.’
‘Of course you have,’ she laughed. ‘You are a war hero now. If I am to believe what I have heard, you are quite well off and no longer dependent on an allowance from your brother to cover your bills.’
‘I have changed for the worse,’ he argued. ‘Ignore the nonsense about my being an officer and a gentleman. One cannot be a good soldier and remain untouched by the brutality of the profession.’ He turned away again, staring into the fire, and his hand gripped the mantel until his fingers went white.
‘But that is over. You are home now,’ she reminded him.
He smiled sadly. ‘Would that a change of location was all it took to return to the man I was.’
‘Time will help,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘It will not change what I have already done. And the man who could behave in such a way is not a man worthy of your affection. Now, if you will excuse me, I must wash for dinner.’ And he left the room, walking beneath the kissing bow without even looking up.
Dinner at the Clifton table was much the way he remembered it from childhood, when the house had been his refuge against the capricious affections of his own family. He had spent most summers and Christmases at the neighbouring estate belonging to his grandfather, Sir Henry Gascoyne, but since the family seldom bothered to come along, it was more exile than holiday.
But once the Cliftons took note of the boy living largely unsupervised next door, his loneliness ended. He became an honorary member of their family, playmate of the children and doted on by parents and servants alike. Now, apparently, Fred had notified the cook that Master Gascoyne had come home, for a fricassee of chicken and mushrooms had been set on his end of the table and he helped himself to a liberal portion. The recipe was too simple for a holiday meal, but since the night he had mentioned it was his favourite, no Clifton meal was complete without it.
Tonight, this gesture of welcome was warm, but undeserved. He was too unsettled to enjoy any of the delicious foods on the table. He had broken his promise to Lucy, who had been foolishly loyal and waited for him. Though he’d thought that there would be nothing worse in his life than battle, greeting his lover this afternoon had been the hardest thing he’d ever done. It was also the cruellest.
He had not realised that she would look even more beautiful than she had when he’d left her. She’d felt right when he had kissed her and even better when he’d put his hands on her waist. It was like finding a lost part of his soul. For a moment, he had forgotten his plan to remain aloof from her. He’d wanted to be her last kiss as he had been her first.
Then he’d turned from her, called her sister and pretended it meant nothing. She had been angry when she’d confronted him later. But there had been a dangerous undercurrent beneath it. She had been searching for a reason to forgive him. She’d acted as if it should be easy to cast off his sins and come back to her, to be what they had been to each other.
A return to Lucy was impossible. She was too pure, too good. If she learned of the things he had done in the name of King and country, she would flinch from him in disgust. He would not taint the memories of the past by trying to rekindle something that could never again be as sweet as he’d remembered it.
After dinner, he mingled with the other visitors, feeling the same out-of-place sensation he’d had in London these last few months. On one side of the room, a group of guests were playing charades. On the other, he could hear another crowd gathered around the pianoforte singing ‘Ding Dong Merrily on High’. Neither occupation interested him, nor did the Buffy-Gruffy game or playing Hunt the Slipper with Miss Forsythe and the other young ladies.
Everything was by turns too loud or too quiet. The laughter seemed forced and inappropriate. He wanted to shout at them that there was no reason to celebrate when good men had died while they’d stayed safe at home.
But death and dying was the lot of a soldier. He’d known it when he had gone to war. Yet he had not understood how wrong it would feel to have survived. It seemed he would spend the rest of his life starting at loud noises and shadows and waking in the middle of the night unable to sleep because of the battle he was convinced must wait him in the morning.
To steady his nerves, he decided to share the activity that Fred had chosen: honour guard to the punchbowl. He stayed on one end of the table, while his friend manned the ladle, both of them imbibing liberally.
He’d drunk far too much since Waterloo, trying to numb his mind to peacefulness. But it was strange to see someone who was supposed to be celebrating his engagement dipping so deep and it made Jack wonder if there could be something wrong between the pair. But the days where he could ask personal questions of Fred were long gone, so he held out his glass to be refilled and they sat in silence.
Nearby, a group of children were taking turns at the snapdragon bowl, pulling raisins from
