Page 2 of Yielding to Love

Oh? “You keep it then.” The boy’s eyes lit with disbelief and pleasure.

Of course, Jasper would have taken care of the stabling fee. Or rather, Benjamin would have seen to it. Benjamin Carroll, Jasper’s supremely competent steward. Benjamin their soon-to-be brother-in-law. Crispin’s smile burst forth once more. Benjamin and Olivia! He’d thought there was something in the air back at Christmastime, but he hadn’t been home long enough to sniff out what.

Crispin backed Mercury away from the boy and mounted, settling into his seat while letting his horse dance about. The stallion’s eagerness to run matched his own.

And good for Olivia! There was no better man than their old friend Benjamin, lowborn though he might be. Crispin snickered. He would have liked to have been there to see how Jasper handled their little sister’s unconventional courtship. For the full tale, he’d have to ask Vanessa, Jasper’s brave-hearted wife. Or Reg, their younger brother. Or Georgiana, the duke’s daughter who’d chosen Reg over the chance to be Jasper’s countess. He imagined they’d all been secretly rooting for Benjamin.

He guided Mercury to the road where he kept him to a walk to warm his muscles before nudging him into a trot.

His grin suddenly felt false. It dropped away, and he blew out a sigh. His siblings had all found their life mates. His baby sister would be married in two days. His younger brother now had a son of his own. It was wonderful, but…

Homecoming meant something different when the Taverston siblings were dispersed into three different homes. Four—if he leased himself a set of rooms in London, or moved to his cottage in the lake district. If he even meant to stay in England.

The devil. What would homecoming mean for Major Crispin Taverston?

*

Miss Camellia Harrington disliked wearing black. She was convinced it made her look like a crow, despite the fact that an appalling number of well-meaning but tactless individuals had told her she looked very nice in it. One unthinking old woman told her she should always wear black, a particularly cruel statement, since at this point in Camellia’s life, it felt as though she always had. Worn black. Mourned. She pushed away the thought: and always would.

Of course, she might wear half mourning, gray or lavender or some such. Her father had been gone almost a year, and dear Mama had been gone for three. But Camellia was superstitious enough to fear that if she dared throw off full mourning, Fate would ricochet it right back at her. And although she knew it was improbable that her fashion choices would doom her poor brother Neville…

It didn’t matter how she looked. No one would be looking.

Besides, there were more important things to spend her fast-dwindling inheritance on than fashionable modistes and fine dresses. Or London-made bonnets, gloves, shoes, and fans. Or the various Theaters-Royal. Or lectures. Or, Camellia sighed, the Temple of the Muses, Mr. Lackington’s legendary bookshop.

She had always dreamed of seeing the sights of the great city. At one point, she’d even dared hope for a debut during the London Season. A fleeting dream. She’d been nineteen years old and naïve. Now she was twenty-five and whatever the opposite of naïve was. She was “on the shelf” and finally in London. And nothing in the city was how it should be.

Nothing in life was as it should be.

Stifling a groan of resignation, Camellia buttoned the cuffs of her crepe dress, put on her drab bonnet, and tied the ribbons, then slipped her hands into black knit gloves. She avoided the mirror, picked up her reticule, and stepped from her guest chamber into the quiet, candlelit hallway of the St. James townhouse where she was staying.

The house belonged to Lord Philip Stirling, husband of Lady Marianne Stirling, Camellia’s best friend since childhood. If not for their kindness, Camellia didn’t know how she could have come to London and remained for so long. Four months and counting, excluding the three very brief trips back home to Tonbridge to check on the improvements to the house. Marianne insisted she must stay as long as needed, but Camellia was beginning to detect a note of impatience in Lord Stirling’s daily greetings. For this reason, she was trying to make herself as inconspicuous as she could.

She practically tiptoed down the marble staircase, waved away an approaching footman, and had almost made it to the front door when she heard Marianne’s voice.

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

Camellia turned. Looking at her friend, who had golden hair and wore a primrose day dress, was like staring at the sun. She had to blink. “Good morning. I—”

“I know what you’re about to say. Colonel Harrington is waiting. You have to speak with his doctor. Or…I don’t know. What excuse is it today?”

She flexed her fingers nervously. Marianne meant well. But there wasn’t time to argue. “All of them. And I must also meet with Mr. Cooper.” This excuse was new, though she had mentioned Mr. Cooper before. He was a singularly competent young man who worked at the Royal Chelsea Hospital. Camellia had come to realize that she could not bring her brother back to Tonbridge without a manservant who could handle his care, and she hoped to sway Mr. Cooper to be that man. One would think that seeing to the needs of a single invalided gentleman in a country home would be a more pleasant occupation than tending to a multitude of injured veterans in a hospital, even if it did not pay as much. But his lack of enthusiasm when Camellia had first approached him about it did not bode well.

Marianne turned her frown into a pout. “Surely this Mr. Cooper can wait until you’ve had a decent breakfast.”

“I’m afraid not. He has patients to see to. I’m fortunate he even agreed to give me this much of his time.” She regretted her clipped tone, but her words were true. Camellia was torn between annoyance that Mr. Cooper would not allot her an extra quarter hour, and admiration for his dedication to duty. Of course, that dedication was the reason she wanted to hire him. That, and the fact that he and Neville seemed to put up with one another.

“Honestly, Camellia. He’s an attendant at Chelsea Hospital, not the Duke of Kent. He should make time for you, not the other way around.”

Camellia waved away the complaint. “I am the petitioner. If he says ‘no’ I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Marianne’s gaze fell and she bit her lip. Whatever she might have wanted to say, she did not. Camellia wouldn’t listen anyway. She was going to take Neville back home. She’d promised him. Four months ago, impetuously, she’d promised. And now she was even more determined to get him out of that awful hospital. He had ceased to improve. Even his doctors said so. The smashed bones of his hips had knit badly; he would never walk again. There was no point pretending that he would.

Unfortunately, her brother’s expectations for a speedy discharge were not realistic. He wanted to go “home” to a place he had rarely even visited since his youth. He’d seemingly blocked from his memory the cobbled drive, the uneven steps leading to the front door, and the fact that the bedchambers were all up a flight of stairs on the second floor. She had understood the difficulties he would face the moment she first saw him again, her poor, beloved, stranger of a brother. And so, for the past few months, she had been devoting herself and all her resources to making their house a place where he might live in comfort. Relative comfort. Maybe it was impractical, but she’d done what she needed to do.

But she really did have to hurry. It was an hour-long walk to the hospital.

“Marianne, Neville is probably awake already, staring at the walls.”

Her friend sighed. “Go, then. But please say you’ll take some time for yourself before you go back to Tonbridge. Promise you’ll see something in London besides the hospital.”

She felt a stab of yearning so strong she feared she might cry. And she didn’t even know what she was yearning for. A life, she supposed.

“I promise I’ll try.”