Esther knew that Lydia’s father and brothers wanted her to come home.Shewanted it too, she assured Lydia. They had met only once, when they had been too busy with the wedding to get to know each other as sisters ought. But like Lydia, Esther had no actual sisters and longed to have one with her now as she awaited the birth of her child and afterward, when she would need the close companionship of a woman.Oh, Lydia, please, please come home, she had pleaded just before ending the note. My very dearest regards, Your sister, Esther.
And Lydia had a sharp memory of her eight-year-old self begging and begging that the baby her mama had told her was coming to the house soon would be a girl so she would have a sister at last. Her mother had told her she could not guarantee it, as she did not get to choose the baby who would come. Lydia had hoped and prayed after that without openly begging. But then Anthony had arrived, and she had been bitterly disappointed. Very shortly afterward her mother had died, and she had had neither sister nor mother.
Now she had a sister.
And soon she would have a niece or nephew.
A baby in the family.
But not her own.
She would never go back home to stay, though there was a surprising and treacherous sort of temptation to do just that. To give up the fight and go back where she was loved, where she would have company. Where she would not have to see Harry almost everywhere she went. Where she could hide from the pain. And how silly that therewould bepain and the sharpness of unhappiness after tonight. Howverysilly. She scarcely knew him. She could hardly claim to be in love with him. She wasnot. And she did notwantto be.
No, she would not run away just because her childhood home and the people and the situation that awaited her there were familiar and safe. She would lose herself again if she went home.
She was too precious to lose.
Shewas.
If pain was the ultimate cost of freedom and independence andbeing a person, then so be it.
She was staying.
Eight
For someone who had made the very firm decision to put an end to a relationship that had actually scarcely even begun, Lydia took an inordinate amount of time deciding what to wear. She did not want to look overdressed—she rejected her new pink dress. But she did not want to look drab or dowdy either—definitely nothing black or gray or even lavender. The evenings were still too chilly for muslins or short sleeves, but long sleeves and high, round necks could look very matronly. And downright plain.
She was behaving, she thought as she finally donned a pale blue wool dress with long sleeves and a high, round neck, as though she had twenty wardrobes stuffed full of dresses in a wide variety of colors and styles. She did not. Isaiah had not encouraged either extravagance or vanity. No, correction. He had activelydiscouraged both.
Then there was her hair. At first there seemed to be no real choices with that, at least. There was only one way to wear it that would fit neatly beneath a cap—in a simple coil pinned flat to the back of her head. But which cap should she choose? She had several, all white, all very similar. They were not worth dithering over, in fact.
But then a question asked itself in her head and threw her into total confusion. Did shehaveto wear a cap? She had started wearing one a few days after her wedding because Isaiah had thought the modesty of it befitted her status as a married lady and his helpmeet, and she had worn one ever since. She thought she might feel a bit naked without one now. Yet she wasonly twenty-eight years old.She was not a girl, it was true, and she was a widow. But she was not in her dotage.
Could she remember any other way to style her hair, though? Even if she could, could she do it without the help of a maid?
Did she dare try?
But why would she even want to? She was about to put a firm end to whatever it was that was developing between her and Harry Westcott. Since he was coming anyway, though … She had said he could come when he asked her this morning. It was only fair, then, to spend an hour with him, sitting and talking. Perhaps even joking and laughing a little. It wasnotsinful to do either. She had never believed it was, but it had been easier to behave for six years as though she did instead of trying to explain her opposing point of view.
She was not going to wear a cap.
It took her an hour to dress her hair in a style that looked, when it was finished, as though it had taken her five minutes, if that. She had to be content with hair brushed smooth over her head and above her ears and up off her neck and twisted into a knot high on the back of her head. By accident a few tendrils refused to stay with the rest and hung in waves over her temples and along her neck. She left them where they were. They did not look entirely bad. In fact, they looked almost deliberate, and thank goodness for that bit of a curl in her hair. The rest of it—the smooth, scraped back, utterly uninteresting bulk of it—at least shone in the candlelight.
She did indeed feel funny without her cap. But even as she might have dashed after all to find one there was a knock upon the front door and Snowball darted out of Lydia’s bedchamber, yipping and barking.
He seemed almost sinister standing on her doorstep in the dusk of evening. He looked taller than usual in a long black evening cloak. But when he swept off his hat, he was instantly transformed by his fair hair and his smile. He stooped down to scratch Snowball under the chin, and her dog licked his hand and turned to trot back into the house, all ferocity forgotten. He looked up and smiled again at Lydia as he stepped inside and she closed the door. For a moment she stayed facing it, her hand still on the doorknob while she drew a breath and released it.
She was aware of him hanging his hat and cloak on an empty hook behind the door. His physical presence always had a more powerful impact upon her than merely thinking about him did—or dreaming about him. She should know that by now. She ought to have opened the door, smiled at him, apologized for bringing him all the way from the house at this hour, and explained that she could neither invite him inside nor see him privately ever again. It would be all over by now if she had done that. But of course she had not.
Let there be this present moment, then, she thought as she turned from the door.Let there be this hour.
He was turning at the same moment from hanging up his cloak, and they ended up gazing at each other, no more than a foot apart. Neither of them had spoken a word yet. He was no longer smiling, and his face looked less youthful than usual, less purely good-humored, more handsome. He had a far more powerfulpresencethan he had ever had in the dreams she had dreamed of him.
He raised his hands and cupped them gently about her face before running his thumbs lightly along her lips, from the center to the outer corners. Lydia inhaled very slowly and licked her lips as she gazed into his eyes. Her stomach was unsteady. So were her knees.
He closed the gap between them and set his mouth to hers. Just as he had this morning. But there was a difference. His lips were slightly parted this time. So were hers. She spread her hands over his chest and felt the kiss as a raw ache in her mouth, down into her throat and her breasts and through her womb to settle between her thighs and even reach down to her toes, which curled into the soles of her slippers as though to anchor her to the floor.
And then his mouth was no longer touching hers, and his eyes were gazing back at her again, heavy lidded.
