Page 55 of A Bachelor’s Lessons in Love

He should have put his foot down, insisted Daphne find a more reasonable afternoon diversion.

Instead, he now found himself stalking the edge of the Serpentine, his boots grinding against the path as he kept a wary eye on the boat bobbing across the water. Daphne sat laughing at one end of the rowboat, her bonnet tipped back slightly, a cheerful smile on her face. Miss Montague sat beside her, ever poised, while Mr. Montague manned the oars with an ease that irritated Edward for absolutely no logical reason.

“A person can drown just as easily in calm waters as in a raging sea,” he muttered aloud.

Beside him, holding her bonnet to her head as she tried to keep up with his rapid pace, Felicity laughed—actually laughed. “They are perfectly safe, Edward.”

Edward did not look at her. “I do not like it.”

“You rarely like anything that is beyond your control.”

That won her a sharp look, but she merely smiled.

Edward huffed and kept walking, his stride quick, as though he could escape the ever-growing knot of worry in his chest.

Felicity kept pace. “There are no signets yet,” she mused, glancing along the shore. “Nor ducklings or goslings. But soon, I expect.” Edward frowned at the apparent change in subject, but she only continued, her voice softer now. “You care about Daphne,” she said, “but I think there is more to it than that.”

He exhaled through his nose. “You think too much.”

“Oh, dear. Is that why we do not get along?”

That brought him to a halt. Edward looked down at her, lips parted. “You think we are not getting along? Right now?”

Her smile broadened. “I think we are doing better now than previously, Edward.”

He snorted and started walking again, gaze drifting to the young people in the boat. Ridiculous.

His ward’s aunt fell into step beside him, but this time she put her hand on his arm. “What happened, years ago, that has made you so protective? What did you see?”

His steps slowed. Felicity did not press. She only waited. And somehow, that was worse. Edward kept his eyes forward, watching the shifting ripples of the Serpentine.

He did not know why he finally spoke. But he did.

“There was a young woman,” he said, his voice carefully flat.

Felicity remained silent, looking ahead, but he felt all her attention focus on him. They kept walking as he formed the words, seeking to explain. But could he explain? Were there even words for such an experience?

He swallowed hard. “You will think differently of me, after this.”

“Perhaps not,” she said lightly, as though they discussed the weather. “But you will not know unless you try.”

He did not like that. He wanted reassurances that her opinion of him would not change; or would not, at least, grow worse. But one look at her expression told him she would not make such a promise.

So, with a sigh, Edward continued. “She was a gentleman’s daughter. Not well connected, but not without means. I was—I am a second son, and I was young. Foolish.” He closed his eyes a moment and stopped walking, his mind dizzying with memories pouring back against his will. “I thought myself in love, and I thought love the best reason in the world to cast off the strictures of Society. I convinced her to meet me, time and again…in the privacy of the wood between our parents’ properties.” A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Each time I pressed the bounds of propriety more than the last. Until…” He swallowed and shook his head. “My parents found out about my indiscretion.”

Felicity stiffened slightly, but hopefully not in judgment.

Edward did not cease his tale. He opened his eyes and looked at her. “They sent me away to war, as you know.” The words came out without inflection, as though he were relating someone else’s fate.

Felicity’s brows drew together. “They forced you to leave?”

“They purchased me a commission,” he said, almost absently. “A quick, quiet way to remove a son who had embarrassed them. I was not the first, nor last.”

Felicity exhaled sharply, even so, she let him speak.

“Their letters those first years were full of disappointment, with no word of the young woman except to inform me that her parents arranged a more appropriate match for her. She did not write to me, either. I had thought, of all the rules we broke, that would have been an easy one—to correspond, to tell me what had happened. What she felt.” His voice tightened slightly. “It was not until two years ago that I learned the whole truth of the consequences she faced for our—for my recklessness.”

Felicity’s lips parted, but she said nothing. Shock had drained the color from her face. He could read no other emotion there.