Page 3 of A Bachelor’s Lessons in Love

Daphne needed her.

With a stiffening of her spine, Felicity went to the staircase and ascended, ignoring the soft winter light streaming through the large windows. The sunny skies were a lie, for the moment one stepped out of doors they would be shocked through with the bitter cold of a February afternoon.

So much of life was like that. Shiny and bright in appearance, but cold and unkind in truth. Felicity had learned that with some difficulty. Now she was determined to protect her niece from the same.

But how would she manage that if this interloping stranger, this Colonel Halstead, took over Daphne’s care?

“I simply cannot allow it,” Felicity whispered, her hand on the latch of her niece’s bedchamber door. She took in a deep breath. She had to give the news to her niece that she hadn’t managed to persuade Mr. Vole even an inch. They needed to pack—and then there was the carriage ride. There was time enough to come up with something, some way of sparing Daphne the miseries of living with a bachelor who knew nothing of women and their needs.

Heavens, the man might try to marry Daphne off to the first ill-mannered fortune-hunter who asked for her hand!

Felicity knocked softly before she entered the room, knowing already she would find her niece in the same place Daphne had been when she’d left a half hour before. Sure enough, Daphne reposed in an armchair by her hearth, legs curled beneath her, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, staring into the fireplace as though hoping the meager glowing embers would hold the comfort she desperately needed.

With a heavy heart, Felicity forced a smile. “Oh, this will not do, Daph. You’re going to freeze yourself through!” She hurried to the hearth, picked up the poker, and stirred things about before reaching for the coal scuttle. “You must keep warm. Catching a chill now will make our carriage ride to Briarwood House rather miserable.”

Daphne’s head lifted slowly. Even her strawberry-hued curls looked dull and lifeless, her gray eyes tired. “We are still going to my new guardian’s home, then?”

“Yes, my dear. I am afraid so.” Felicity barely kept a grimace from her countenance. “But it will not be all bad. I believe I will stay with you for a time, to help you settle in. I doubt the man will wish to have the care of a vibrant young woman left to him all at once.”

At seventeen, Felicity had thought herself to possess the same vibrancy that, two weeks ago, her niece had exhibited. There had been years ahead for laughter, courtship, the sort of promises whispered beneath moonlit trees. But years turned quickly to obligations, and duty, and waiting for someone who never returned the way he said he would.

Daphne wrinkled her nose. “Vibrant? Aunt Felicity, we both know I am hardly that—especially at present.”

“You are vibrant, and charming, and an engaging young lady. At present, of course, is an exception. You are in mourning, and that is perfectly all right.” Felicity knelt at her niece’s chair and laid a hand on her arm.

“Everything…hurts,” Daphne murmured. “I cannot think there will be any warmth to the world again.”

“My dear girl, I know it hurts. I miss your father terribly, and I remember losing my own far too well.” Felicity pushed aside the pain she had learned to live with. “The ache in your heart means you love him, and he was deserving of that love. Anthony was a wonderful father, and he did all he could to ensure you would be safe and happy, did he not?” She watched her niece carefully, hopefully.

“He did.” Daphne sniffled and nodded, a little smile turning her lips upward. “Papa did his best to give me a good upbringing. We were so happy.”

“Then we must trust that he left you in the care of someone he in turn trusted to do the same.” Felicity gave Daphne’s hand a gentle squeeze, attempting to convince herself in the bargain. “Your father would hardly sentence you to life with an ogre for a guardian.”

A soft laugh escaped the young woman. “No, he certainly would not do that. He spoke often of Colonel Halstead in the past. He genuinely liked him.”

Felicity had no recollection of Anthony mentioning his old army friend, but she was not about to say so to her niece, not when Daphne wore a smile for the first time that day. But if her brother had liked the man so much, why had he never made certain Daphne met him?

“There, now. That is most reassuring, is it not? And I will be with you as long as you need me.” She hoped that was not a lie. Colonel Halstead might very well scoff at her suggestion that he needed help with handling and housing a young woman.

Packing up Daphne’s things in anticipation of her journey did not give Felicity much time to think. The poor girl needed to weigh the decision of what to take and what to leave in her home, what to send into storage, and what to give away. The child—and even though Daphne was in many ways out, Felicity could not help but think of her darling niece as a child—managed to keep her tears at bay remarkably well for some time, but several handkerchiefs were drenched before the maid brought up a tray of dinner for the two of them.

Felicity tucked her niece into bed as she had when Daphne was much younger, placing a kiss on her forehead. “I love you, Dilly-Daph.” It was a silly old nickname, sprung from the word daffodil, years and years before…but it felt right in this moment.

“I love you too, Aunt Felicity.” Daphne smiled up at her in the dim candlelit room. “Thank you for looking after me. Truly, I do not know how I would manage all of this without you.”

Withdrawing to her own bedchamber, Felicity readied herself for bed without calling for a maid. It took her mere moments to cast off her somber black mourning gown in favor of a comfortable, warm nightgown. She slipped beneath the cool sheets and shivered a moment before the heat from her body warmed the bedding adequately. The maid must have forgotten the bed warmer. But then, given that the household had been turned upside down, and it had been all Felicity could do to console the three maids who were now without employment, she could not bring herself to do more than sigh over the cold sheets.

Felicity turned over on one side, then the other, trying to find physical comfort while her heart hurt far too much. She had lost every member of her family, all except Daphne. Her parents, years ago, her sister-in-law upon her niece’s birth, and now her brother a fortnight before.

“I cannot lose my little one, too,” she murmured to the ceiling. She had already lost too many pieces of her heart.

But what was she to do? After she delivered Daphne to her new guardian, the man might send her packing. She had no legal recourse to stay with the girl she had raised.

Felicity’s jaw set. She had to prevent that. She absolutely could not allow him to think, not for one moment, that Daphne could do without her aunt—that he, Colonel Halstead, could manage to look after a girl on the cusp of womanhood.

And so she plotted against the man who had, quite without knowing it, become her adversary.

Chapter Two