As she spoke the words, she marveled at how true they were, and how much lighter she felt for saying them. Her affair with Bram was over, it seemed. He hadn’t spoken to her in days. There’d been no further notes. Still, she would be forever changed by what they’d shared. Changed by him. He’d given her this precious, freeing gift—the courage to accept herself as she was. Scars, freckles, passions, and all.
In time, did a broken heart scar over? After a decade or so had passed, would she be able to forget about Bram for whole days at a stretch?
Somehow she doubted it.
“Miss Finch!” Violet Winterbottom appeared in the doorway. “Miss Bright needs you in the hall. She wants your opinion on the decorations.”
“I’ll be there presently.”
Susanna handed the cartridge-making supplies to Charlotte before rinsing her hands at the washbasin and leaving the breakfast room. She left her gloves behind.
She walked through the drawing room, where the militia volunteers stood like a field of scarecrows, arms outstretched, as pin-chewing ladies flitted and circled, marking final alterations to their uniforms.
When Susanna reached the hall, she found it similarly abuzz with activity. At one end of the long, narrow room, Kate Taylor was practicing on the pianoforte. Along the bay of plate-glass windows, Mr. Fosbury and two footmen were busy arranging tables for the buffet. Ladies and servants bearing flowers and furniture hurried this way and that, their footfalls clattering over the wood inlay floor. By tomorrow night, this scene would be a tableau of elegance—she hoped. But for the moment, it was the picture of chaos.
“Here,” Sally Bright said, thrusting a wriggling baby into Susanna’s arms. “Take Daisy while I climb the staircase. We have a few different choices for the swags.”
Susanna waited patiently in the center of the room, staring up at the balustrade and bouncing the youngest Bright sibling in time to Kate’s rapid scales on the pianoforte. Daisy had plumped in recent months. As the minutes passed, Susanna began to feel her arms would fall off.
“She loves you, Miss Finch!” Sally called, draping swags of fabric over the banister. “Now, this is the red. It’s striking, but maybe it will be too much, with all the uniforms in the room? And then we have this blue, but it’s a touch dark for an evening affair. Which do you think best?”
Susanna tilted her head, considering.
“I agree wholeheartedly, Miss Finch,” Mr. Keane called down, appearing next to Sally on the balcony. “Neither will do. We need something with more spark. I suggest gold.”
“I told you, vicar,” Sally said. “We don’t have enough of the gold.”
“You’re right. Unless . . .” The vicar snapped his fingers. “I know. We’ll combine it with the tulle.”
“The tulle!” Sally exclaimed. “That’s divine inspiration, that is. Just hold a moment, Miss Finch. We’ll show you what he means.”
They both disappeared, ducking to rummage in their boxes of supplies.
Susanna sighed, shifting Daisy from one arm to the other.
“There you are. I’ve been searching for you all over.” Bram was suddenly at her side.
Thrown off balance, she juggled the infant in her arms. “You have?”
Save a few glances across the green, she hadn’t seen him for the better part of three days. And of course, he would show up so dangerously attractive, wearing only an open-collared homespun shirt under his brand-new officer’s coat. She tried not to look at him, but avoiding direct eye contact was the best she could manage. Instead, her gaze lingered on the strong angle of his jaw, the sensual set of his lips. Then dropped to the exposed wedge of his bare chest, and the dark hair curling there.
Was he trying to torture her?
“What, pray tell, are these?” He displayed his newly hemmed cuff for her, pointing out the brass buttons studded there.
“Oh, those.” She bit back a smile. “Aaron Dawes made the mold and did the casting. Every proper militia needs a symbol.”
“Yes, but proper militias don’t choose a lamb.”
“As I recall it, the lamb chose you.”
His thumbnail traced the motto—a tiny crescent of Latin. “Aries eos incitabit. A sheep shall urge them onward?”
“Be careful, my lord. Your three terms at Cambridge are showing.”
His mouth softened into that subtle hint of a smile she’d come to love. “Buttons aside, you’ve done a remarkable job. You and all the ladies. The uniforms, the training . . .” He glanced around the room. “All these preparations.”
His approval warmed her inside. “We’ve all worked hard. I happened to see part of drill the other day. Very impressive, my lord. Tomorrow will doubtless be a splendid triumph.”
An awkward silence grew between them, until Daisy filled it with a wet gurgle.
“Who is this?” He nodded at the squirming infant in her arms. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
“This”—she swiveled to give him a better view—“is little Daisy Bright.”
“Should have guessed it from the hair.”
The towheaded babe stretched a chubby hand toward Bram, reaching for the shining buttons on his coat. Susanna yearned to reach for him, too. On impulse, driven by equal parts emotional distress and arm fatigue, she thrust the child at him. “Here. Why don’t you hold her?”