He had been severely wounded at the Battle of Waterloo and had spent years recovering, first in France and then here at Hinsford Manor. He seemed perfectly fit now and had no visible scars, but Lydia doubted his recovery was complete or ever would be. Perhaps there were wounds of war that were not entirely physical. She had no evidence of that, but she had always thought it. How could one fight other human beings to the death, witness the slaughter of dozens, watch one’s friends and comrades dying, be wounded almost to the point of death oneself, and come away from it unscathed?
How did one live with memories of hell?
Why did people speak of battlefields as fields of glory? They must be as close to hell as it was possible to get in this life.
Oh, there was surely darkness in Major Westcott. Lydia could sense it. But it served only to make him more impossibly attractive to her than his appearance and outer manner already made him.
Could something be more impossible than impossible?
Lydia smiled to herself, gave herself a mental shake, and focused more of her attention upon Mr. Carver, who was still speaking even though Mrs. Bailey was playing again.
“Perhaps,” he was saying, “he has just grown too old and is ready to be put out to pasture. Do you think that might be it, Mrs. Tavernor?”
“Perhaps he just needs to rest for a while until his leg is better,” Lydia suggested.
As soon as the music had finished, Mrs. Bartlett, Lydia’s next-door neighbor, approached her and smiled apologetically down at her.
“Mrs. Tavernor,” she said. “I am sorry to interrupt your conversation. My daughter-in-law has persuaded me to go out to the farm with her and my son to stay for a few days. There is room in the carriage for me to go with them tonight. I have things out there and will not need to go back home first. I always welcome the chance to spend some time with my grandchildren. I will not need you to walk home with me after all, then. I know you are not afraid of the dark, but I do hope you will not mind going alone.”
“But we can squeeze Mrs. Tavernor into the carriage too, Mother, and give her a ride home,” her daughter-in-law protested, appearing at her side. She smiled at Lydia. “It will be no trouble at all.”
“There really is no need for you to go out of your way,” Lydia assured her as she got to her feet. It was indeed growing late. “I will enjoy the exercise and the fresh air after all the excellent cake I have eaten. And I really do not have far to go.”
“But—” the younger Mrs. Bartlett began, while all about them other guests were also getting to their feet and preparing to leave.
“Mrs. Tavernor will not have to walk alone, Mrs. Bartlett,” Tom Corning called across the room. “I’ll run upstairs and fetch a coat and come with you, ma’am. I doubtless need the exercise, and you really ought not to walk on your own at night.”
Lydia opened her mouth to protest. The main street of the village was not terribly long, after all, even though the Cornings lived at one end of it and she lived a little beyond the other end. A number of people between here and there would be at home with lamps or candles illumining their windows. There was absolutely nothing of which to be afraid. And then another voice spoke up, from the direction of the pianoforte, where Mrs. Bailey was gathering up the music and Major Westcott was putting it away neatly inside the bench.
“I am going in that direction anyway, Tom,” he called, “and would be happy to escort Mrs. Tavernor home. You will be perfectly safe with me, ma’am. I can fight off wild bears and wolves with my bare hands.”
“That would be a sight to behold,” Tom said derisively, grinning as he spoke. “Do you wish to take the risk that he is merely boasting, Mrs. Tavernor?”
“Since I have never in my life seen a wolf or a bear, stray or otherwise, in this neighborhood,” Lydia said, “I believe it is safe to take the chance. Though I hope I am not dragging you away earlier than you intended to leave, Major Westcott.”
“Not at all, ma’am,” he assured her. “Tom and Hannah will probably be glad to see the back of me. And it will be my pleasure to walk with you.”
He smiled at her. A sweet, quite impersonal, devastatingly attractive smile.
“Then thank you,” she said.
Oh goodness.
Three
Harry had grown up at Hinsford Manor, knowing almost everyone in the vicinity for most of his life. The arrival of new residents was rare. It had happened four years ago, however, not long after he returned from France and only a month or so after the wedding here of his sister Abigail to Lieutenant Colonel Gil Bennington. Mrs. Jenkins, the old vicar’s wife, who had been a witness at that wedding, had died suddenly, and the vicar, brokenhearted and lost without her, had decided it was time to retire and go to live with his son and daughter-in-law. His son, also a clergyman, was vicar of a church fifty miles or so away. The day of Mrs. Jenkins’s funeral had been a sad one for the community. That of the vicar’s departure had been equally affecting, for he had been here more years than most people remembered and was much beloved.
His replacement, the Reverend Isaiah Tavernor, could hardly have presented a greater contrast. He had been a young, vigorous, handsome man, eager to serve his God and his flock with every ounce of his being. He had been a charismatic man, a burning-eyed zealot who had held his congregation in the palm of his hand as he preached, often at considerable length, the gospel of moral rectitude, sober living, and devotion to duty and service. He had lived what he preached. There had been no hypocrisy in the Reverend Tavernor.
It had not taken long for many of his parishioners to become utterly devoted to him. It was not that they had thought any the less of the Reverend Jenkins, some had been at pains to explain when the topic arose in conversation, as it often did. It was just that this new man was a welcome change. He stirred things up. There were those, however, like Harry himself, who had never quite been able to warm to the new vicar, even though they had been equally unable to find any fault in him. It was because they missed Mr. Jenkins, Harry had supposed. What was new was often resented. Quite unreasonably so, but sometimes one’s deepest feelings were hard to shift.
No one had expected that the new vicar would stay longer than a few years, for he was the second son of an earl and had no doubt been intended for the church from the moment of his birth. He had served as a curate for a while before being appointed to his present living. But it had been very clear to all that he was destined for higher things, for a bishopric at least, perhaps even an archbishopric before his time was done. Alas, his time was done all too soon in the performance of an act of suicidal heroism when he rescued a young boy from a fast-flowing river swollen by two weeks of heavy rain. He had tossed the boy unharmed onto the bank, not counting a few scrapes and bruises and a great deal of fright, but he himself had been swept away by the current and drowned. It had taken a full day to recover his lifeless body and carry him home.
He had left behind a young widow, who had surprised everyone after his death by purchasing a cottage that had sat empty for a year on the outskirts of the village and moving in soon after the funeral. Mrs. Tavernor had been a diligent and loyal helpmeet to her husband. She had always been seated quietly in the front pew of the church at Sunday services, had busied herself with church and community duties, had led a number of women’s committees, and had worked tirelessly at visiting the sick and the elderly. It was said that she had never turned a vagrant from her door without first feeding him and pressing a coin into his hand, though those poor beggars more often than not had to endure the frowns of her housekeeper and a lecture upon the temptations of sloth and shiftlessness from her husband while they consumed their soup and bread.