Govern your heart, you silly, silly girl,she told herself as she flipped the hoop over to tie the floss in a tidy knot. Peeking in the gentlemen’s direction, she noticed that her uncle’s eyelids looked heavy and his mouth was growing lax.
“Mr Alwyn,” she was prompted to murmur. “I fear he is tiring.”
“Ah yes, I see you are right. Mr Caspar, shall we end our session here?”
George nodded, shutting his eyes even while Mr Alwyn began to position pillows around him. Lee came forward to help.
Lindy nearly rose from her seat, intending to slip out of the room, but Mr Alwyn spoke.
“Tell me, Miss Everson, what do you think of town now that you are here?”
Polite when necessary, nothing more,she reminded herself.
“We only arrived last week,” she replied, barely looking up as she started a row of chain stitches, “and have done very little.”
“I suppose London seems drab to you since you are accustomed to having all of Trippingham’s diversions right at your doorstep,” he teased.
In spite of being pleasantly surprised that he remembered the name of her little village, she acknowledged his joke with only a wan smile, then followed it with silence.
It held for a moment before Mr Alwyn spoke softly. “You seem worried, Miss Everson. Please be assured, your uncle’s symptoms are all that we might expect at this point. I trust he will be himself again before long.”
The care in his voice sent a bolt of shame through Lindy. Here was the same Mr Alwyn she had known and admired for months, and yet she was parrying his bids of goodwill with cold detachment. She hardly recognized herself, and certainly didn’tlikeherself, as she did so.
Mr Alwyn’s pencil slipped from his hand, and he leaned to retrieve it, but succeeded only in pushing it under the bed.
“Confound it!” he muttered, then straightened up abruptly. “I beg your pardon, Miss Everson.”
The naughty schoolboy look on his face, drew a giggle out of Belinda, and her resolve to remain aloof melted away completely.
If I’m to be wounded again – and that seems certain – I must be my true self as it happens.
“Do not forget that I am the daughter of a coachman,” she replied. “Even my father’s ‘good mornings’ include an oath or two.”
He flashed her a grin, then ducked down again. When he reemerged, triumphantly clutching the stub, Belinda surprised herself by asking, “When did you know you wanted to be a doctor, Mr Alwyn?”
Blinking, he studied her and settled back into his chair, looking conflicted.
But she gave him no leeway, peering at him all the more intently, as she was hungrier than ever for his story.
If I must be myself while my heart is broken, then he must be himself while breaking it.
His Very Being
IT WASN’T THAT Alwyn didn’t want to answer Miss Everson’s question. In fact, he longed to, but it still felt premature to give her this glimpse into his past. Seeing the look in her eyes, however, he knew he could not put it off.
“Miss Everson…this is no light-hearted tale.”
Her gaze softened, but its intensity did not weaken.
“When I was not yet sixteen,” he began, “I had found school to be a rather lonely place, and was delighted when a classmate invited me to his family’s home for a week-long stay. Writing to my parents, I begged that I might accept the invitation. At term’s end, I rode my grey to Gawling Manor, alongside James and his father’s man. Unfortunately, when we arrived, it was nothing like what I had imagined or hoped for. There wereso manypeople there, and hardly a sensible one amongst them! But that is not the story you have asked for.
“Two days into my visit, I learned that my mother had taken ill. I knew she must be very poorly indeed when I heard she was asking for me, as she never was a nervous woman. I had never known true fear until that day.” Alwyn paused.
“Forgive me, I —” Miss Everson murmured, holding her hand out as if to silence him.
“No, the story honours her, so I will tell it,” he said gruffly. “That journey home was the longest ride of my entire life. When finally I reached her bedside, she struggled to lift her head.”
His mind stuttered on the memory of how withered his normally stout mother had appeared — how her hair, damp with sweat, had lain lank and tangled on the pillow.
