“Never!” Bernadette declared without hesitation, and Flora nodded her agreement as she shoved all those harder emotions aside.
“You deserve all your happiness and all that will come in your life,” Flora agreed, and meant those words wholeheartedly.
“Well, I thank you. And I know we wouldn’t have reached this point without your support,” Valaria said. “I shall tell that to everyone I meet that once I can be free to go out again. Just two more months!”
“I cannot wait,” Flora said. “I always feel so dreadful when Bernadette and I go out to parties or teas and have to leave you behind.”
“Not always alone, though,” Bernadette said with a little knowing look.
Valaria ignored the teasing about Callum sneaking into her house to see her regularly and sipped her tea before she said, “So what are your plans tonight?”
“There is a ball,” Bernadette said.
Flora jerked her gaze toward their friend, who was suddenly worrying a thread on the sleeve of her gown, her dark eyes turned down. “And who is hosting the ball?” she encouraged.
Bernadette glared at her, though there was no real anger or heat to the expression. “Oh, stop.”
“No, tell her.” Flora folded her arms.
“I’m sure I can guess,” Valaria said with a laugh. “If Flora is making such a fuss and Bernadette cannot make eye contact, then it can be only one man who is holding the ball, and that is the Duke of Lightmorrow.”
Bernadette made a little sound of frustration in her throat and turned away from them a fraction.
“Yes.Theois hosting the ball,” Flora said in a little sing-song voice as she drew out the duke’s given name. “And Bernadette and I received the same invitation a few days ago, but do you know whose had a special little note scrawled across it?”
Valaria straightened. “What did it say, Bernadette?”
Bernadette pursed her lips and ground out, “I hope you come, Etta. Theo.”
“You see,” Flora said with an arch of her brow. “The man is fascinated by you.”
Bernadette pushed to her feet and paced away. “You two are daft! I know the duke from childhood—we are old acquaintances, that is all. There is no way he would ever possibly want me when he could have, and gossip says he has had, practically any other woman in this country. Goodness, you two need a hobby.”
She stomped off to get another biscuit and Flora exchanged a brief look with Valaria. They could both see what Bernadette refused to acknowledge. And though Flora had every intention of pushing and helping what could be a happy union along, she did appreciate the anticipation. Another thing she had missed in her life.
Another thing she feared she’d never see again. It had been almost three years since her own husband’s death—there was only a month before that sad anniversary. Still, she had long been free to pursue or be pursued, yet there had been no attracted parties, or at least none that turned her head. No flutter of desire. No hint of interest.
Perhaps there never would be. Perhaps hers was a once-in-a-lifetime love and that was all there would be.
“Don’t look so troubled,” Valaria whispered as she squeezed Flora’s hand. “You know Bernadette pretends half her upset when it comes to Theo.”
“Oh, I know,” Flora said, bringing herself back to the present. “And don’t think for one moment that I won’t push our girl a little closer to the man if I have any chance to do so.”
“I can hear you, you know!” Bernadette said as she pivoted from the sideboard and returned to their circle, a plate of biscuits in hand. “You two are menaces.”
“And you love us for it,” Flora insisted as she wrapped an arm around Bernadette and squeezed her. “But we won’t tease you anymore.”
“Wouldn’t that be a change,” Bernadette muttered, though not darkly. “Please, let’s talk about any other subject. The weather, the roads, the fact that you look so ridiculously pretty in that dress, Flora. Anything but this.”
The women laughed and then surrendered to their friend’s desire, changing the subject to other matters than the men in their lives…or lack thereof. And Flora was able to push down those dark thoughts, those lonely resentments until they only became twinges of something ugly.
And she hoped, as she had been hoping for some time, that one day she would be able to accept what was and not long for what had been. Or worse, what might not ever be again.
* * *
Roarke stood in the doorway of his mother’s desperately small home and frowned at the disrepair he saw. Now that the two hundred fifty pounds he’d been promised had been received, he would have to have someone come look at the crack in the mantelpiece and the loose window. It would be cold soon—he didn’t want his mother to suffer.
He smiled sadly as her carer, Hilde Smith, tucked a blanket around her legs. “There now, Mrs. Desmond,” Hilde said gently. “Are you going to say good day to your son?”
