Page 34 of A Bachelor’s Lessons in Love

“Aunt Felicity has a talent for seeing what something could become,” Daphne added, as if reading his thoughts. “She did the same at home. With the house, I mean. With Papa. With me.”

Edward glanced down at his young companion, surprised by the frankness of the admission. “With your father?”

“Yes. She helped him remember life after Mama died. I think he would have been perfectly content to retreat from the world forever, but Aunt Felicity refused to let him.” Daphne’s eyes widened somewhat and her smile grew. “She is…she is very good at reminding people to live, I think. She does not like to see people wither away when there is so much good in life. After Papa died, I was certain I could never abide anything beautiful again, but Aunt Felicity would not allow it.”

Edward cleared his throat, uncomfortably aware that Felicity had said nearly the same of him. The woman had a way of making him feel exposed, as though she had scouted out his weaknesses before every one of their verbal skirmishes.

“I had thought,” he said slowly, “that her primary interest was in your welfare. Your protection, your safety⁠—”

“Oh, it is,” Daphne said cheerfully at once. “But she believes life is more than simply being safe, Colonel. It’s about... I don’t know. Joy. Beauty. Music and gardens and all the things that make us glad to wake up each morning.” She smiled faintly, her gaze distant. “I cannot explain it so well as my aunt. She says that the lovely moments are what makes all the rest worth enduring.”

Edward glanced down at her. So young still, yet she spoke with the quiet assurance of someone who had already walked through life’s shadows and survived them. Perhaps, in a small way she had, orphaned so young as she was.

He wished, in that moment, he had someone who had insisted on beauty when he had returned from the war. Someone who had refused to let him retreat into the cold silence of an empty house. But there had been no benevolent aunt, no Felicity Price waiting for him then. Only the ghosts of men he could not save and a father still ashamed of him. A father who had sent him to war to keep him out of sight.

A tightness formed in Edward’s chest. He hadn’t intended to have his convictions challenged by a seventeen-year-old girl with freckles across her nose and lingering grief in her eyes.

But there it was. It felt rather like standing on a battlefield with the wrong map and realizing, too late, that you’d underestimated the enemy. Except Daphne was not his enemy in the least; she was his responsibility. He had agreed that her aunt was his ally, though he hadn’t exactly acted that way during their last private conversation, either. They had been polite to each other, at meals, the way one was civil to a distant relative. It was excruciating.

“Oh, Miss Banhurst.” Daphne slowed to greet another young lady, curtsying with a graceful ease that was almost startling. When she had first arrived at his door, he hadn’t seen the confidence in her she bore now.

Felicity’s doing, no doubt.

And where was Felicity now? Home, recovering from her cold, no doubt commanding the servants of Briarwood from her sickbed and rearranging his life without asking permission.

Rather ridiculously, he almost missed her presence.

“I suppose,” he said, after a pause after pleasantries with the Miss Banhurst had been exchanged and the young lady had continued on her way, “that your aunt is more formidable than I gave her credit for.”

Daphne gave a soft laugh. “Oh, yes. Most definitely.”

They continued walking in silence, but Edward’s thoughts churned. The weight of Felicity’s words, and her quiet power in his household, settled over him like a heavy, immovable cloak.

He still intended to protect Daphne, that mission would never alter. But perhaps there was more to protection than vigilance and rules. Perhaps there was something to Felicity’s belief in joy—and perhaps he ought to consider the shape of his role, not just as Daphne’s guardian, but as the man standing across from Felicity Price.

They had not gone three more steps before a lady Daphne’s age approached with a bright smile and an airy curtsy.

“Miss Price! We were just about to play a game of lawn bowling. Would you care to join us?”

Daphne’s face lit with pleasure as she cast a quick glance up at Edward. He felt the weight of it immediately, the silent question of permission.

He gave a short nod. “Of course. Enjoy yourself.”

“Thank you, Colonel. Oh, this is delightful, thank you, Miss Anna.” Daphne linked arms with the other young lady and they walked rapidly to the back of the garden, where a small rectangle of grass held the game.

Edward walked along behind her at a slower pace. As he slowly approached the group, he caught the tail end of an exchange between Daphne and one of the young men. He was a dark-haired fellow, well-dressed and with the easy posture of someone accustomed to laughter.

“—and I tell you, Miss Price, if you cannot best Miss Norman at lawn bowling, I vow I shall write an ode dedicated to your defeat on the spot. A dreadful one, too, to punish you.”

Daphne’s bright laughter filled the air, and he was proud she took the teasing in stride. “Then I had best play well, I wouldn’t want my reputation ruined by terribly written poetry.”

“Then we are all in agreement,” Miss Anna said airily. “No one here wishes to hear Mr. Montague rhyme ‘Price’ with ‘precise’ again.”

The small circle laughed free, unguarded laughter, as young people did when they felt at ease in each other’s company. It gratified him. Daphne had found her footing with ease, had made friends of these people. She was liked.

Then Edward stepped onto the green.

The laughter died, a soft, halting death.