Page 3 of Stay Here Forever

Audrey shook her head, realizing she’d been staring absently for some time. Focusing on the view out the window before her, she once again noted the people bustling down the street, busy living full lives. She couldn’t recall the last time she had stepped foot outside their townhome for anything unrelated to Victoria’s debut. Thinking back to the last time she attended a social occasion, her cheeks colored further remembering the looks of pity many had thrown her way.

How had she not seen it? And when had she stopped living? When Rufus told her that he needed time to see the world before marriage, knowing he’d be tied to England once he became baronet, at the time it made sense. She loved him and wanted him to have the adventures he craved. But no man needed to spend ten years in such pursuits, did they? No, if a man truly loved the woman he’d left behind, he would desire to return to her long before so much time had elapsed.

Breathing suddenly felt difficult. Awakened from her dulled and suppressed senses, Audrey needed fresh air with a desperation she hadn’t felt in a long time. Leaving the house immediately became paramount, and she stumbled to the entrance of the townhome, begging the footman for her pelisse. She was just tying the ribbons of her bonnet when Felix walked past.

“Where are you going?” Surprise and a touch of condemnation laced his voice. “You never go anywhere.”

“Out,” Audrey managed to gasp through her constricted throat.

“But it’s almost time for tea, who will manage it if you’re not here?” The protest was so perfectly Felix that a laugh almost escaped between her shallow gasps. His brow furrowed in aggravation. “Where on earth could you possibly need to go at this precise moment?”

With a fierce determination that felt more solid than anything she’d experienced in years, Audrey looked her brother in the eye and answered clearly, her breathing no longer hampered. “Wherever I want to.”

She firmly pulled the door closed behind her.

CHAPTER 2

Taking long strides through the park, Luke inhaled the chilly autumn air while savoring the slight burn in his sinuses—a sensation he had not experienced for too long. It was lovely to be back on English soil after so many years.

A grin pulled at the left corner of his mouth as he thought about how Inez would have hated the crispness, always preferring the more temperate Portuguese climate. An image of her—head thrown back and face lifted to the sun, dark hair falling in a loose plait over her shoulder as she soaked in its warmth—came so clearly to Luke’s mind he almost gasped. A sharp pain seared across his chest, and he found himself once again within the fierce grip of grief.

He’d noticed in the few days since beginning his sabbatical that such feelings were creeping up more frequently. Now that the endless fighting with Napoleon was ostensibly coming to a close and a more permanent peace appeared possible, there was finally enough space away from the tumult for his grief to make itself present. Luke wasn’t exactly sure what he expected to feel upon returning home while awaiting his next post from the Foreign Office, but the mix of sadness and peace took him by surprise.

It was a lovely time to be in Hyde Park. Just past the fashionable hour, most patrons had already made their exit, finding their way home to tea. While Luke loved a good afternoon respite as much as anyone, he didn’t relish the idea of returning to his brother’s empty London rooms and instead kept walking deeper into the park. He was grateful that Stephen was allowing him to stay in the apartments, which were part of the holdings of the Viscount Kent, the title his brother had inherited five years prior. Stephen had offered to let Luke stay with him in the Mayfair townhome, but such space and pampering by the staff would have allowed too much leisure time for unwanted thoughts to creep in. No, he much preferred to stay in the bachelors quarters on the other side of the park and attend to his own needs. Staying occupied was the only thing keeping him sane in his newfound free time, even though he wished for his brother’s company.

Luke still regretted being unable to return home for his father’s funeral and help Stephen in his transition to the title. It reminded him of when he’d assisted his old school friend, Felix, shortly before leaving for the Continent.

The image of another woman came to mind now as he reflected on his final season before departing. Luke hadn’t thought of Audrey in a long time, but she’d come to mind more than once in the last few days since returning. It amazed him how clearly he could still picture her and how acutely he could recall his feelings for her, even as he mourned his Inez.

He could almost remember the feel of her hand in his as he led her out to dance and the warmth in his chest as he watched her glow when a smile bloomed across her face, rounding her cheeks and bringing a light to her eyes. Shaking his head, Luke tried to dislodge the memories by recalling how she had turned her gaze to another. He’d been so busy in the decade since, his disappointment was long forgotten and replaced with concerns for Great Britain and the people of Lisbon, the place he learned to call home. He’d lived an entire life completely removed from anything to do with his life before, and until now, thoughts of Audrey had not inhabited his new reality.

But returning to England, being surrounded once more with familiar surroundings, liberated from any obligations, Luke could neither escape his grief nor deny what he’d felt as a young man. He had grown to love Inez deeply, but forgetting the woman he’d first held true affection for, and the feelings associated with that time, was difficult.

Walking aimlessly, he wondered what her life must be like now. Surely, she was married and if so, likely had her own children. He’d lost touch with Felix soon after departing, the Baron Jacobs not one for correspondence, so he didn’t have any notion what had become of his old friends. He’d heard Rufus married, to Audrey perhaps. While they had not been engaged at the time of his departure, it seemed an imminent event.

Rounding a bend in the path, Luke slowed to appreciate the ocher leaves of a magnificent oak, meandering to take in the beauty of the changing of nature which surrounded him. Further making his way down the footpath, a bench came into view. He was surprised to see a figure sitting there as he hadn’t encountered anyone for nearly a quarter of an hour, and as he grew closer, the contours of their female form coalesced.

Though he couldn’t see any defining details, her features hidden behind the brim of her bonnet, there was something familiar about her posture—the way she held her body and the shape of her frame as she shook her head.

His breath caught. His pulse quickened.

Was that . . . No, he was only imagining it to be Miss Jacobs, who’d been lingering in his mind. Nevertheless, his pace quickened as he approached the bench.

Audrey was still breathing rapidly, her pulse thrumming as she tried to make sense of what had happened in the last hour. Leaning forward slightly, she realized she could feel splintered wood beneath her fingernails and forced herself to relax her grip on the bench beneath her.

Did she truly just leave the house after telling her brother he needed to figure out his own evening? She’d not done anything so bold in years. It felt marvelous.

Walking through the park before settling on the bench, she had felt unconstrained. It seemed odd at first to be wandering around without someone to accompany her. She had always required someone in the role of her chaperone before. But Audrey realized with a twinge in her chest that things had shifted in the last year, and she had once again failed to take notice. Assisting Victoria in her season, suddenly she had become the one acting as chaperone.

But if society saw her as a spinster, old enough to be unattended and no longer a young innocent, then she would embrace this newfound independence and go about the world as she wished. It was a freeing and sobering new reality. The thought that her entire orientation had shifted washed over her anew and the world seemed to tilt on its axis. She felt vertiginous with the magnitude of the shift in perspective.

For ten years, her entire life had revolved around Rufus. Though he might not have been physically present, he had inhabited her every thought and action. Each choice Audrey had made was with his desires in mind, even if unconsciously. She thought back to this morning before Victoria had awoken her, how she changed the menu ostensibly to please her brother but had done so with Rufus’s preferences in mind. As if he was about to show up for dinner, and she wanted to make sure he would be pleased with what was laid before him.

How pathetic was she for not questioning that he would return? Not once in ten years. She would have looked at anyone else in such a state with the utmost sympathy, believing them to be deluded, even as she could not recognize the same in herself. It was as if her reality had become frozen in time. While she kept living and moving forward from day to day, her mind had stayed mired in 1805 when he was her affianced.

But what if her numbed state was because she was afraid of what would happen if unthawed? Had she willingly let this reality and the possibility of a different life petrify her—scared of the very thoughts that now consumed her?

Tears descended Audrey’s cheeks, and she screwed her eyes shut to stem the flow. There was absolutely no use in crying—the time for wallowing was long over. She’d overindulged in a form of it for nine years too long it seemed.