Gingerbread Bride

Chapter Four: Part 1

After his visit to check on Mary, Rick reluctantly left Haslemere, because he couldn't find a reason to stay. He wasn't family, and Mary was an adult, able to make her own decisions. Rick had no right to interfere with her choices.

That's what this reluctance was; concern she was making the wrong choice. Rescuing Mary Pritchard was the habit of half a lifetime. She was a friend. Just a friend. He wasn't so foolish as to dangle after a girl who showed no awareness of him as a man.

When he called that morning, Miss Pritchard and her sister, Lady Rumbold, had been as protective of her as they should be. Rick couldn't doubt that Mary was welcome, and that she would be looked after.

Even so, all the way to his father's house in Portsmouth, where he planned to stay for a month, he felt a nagging sense of loss. He kept turning to Mary to tell her something, and she was never there.

The hollow ache didn't go away. It followed him around Portsmouth. He visited with friends. He travelled across to Haslar to see a doctor at the naval hospital who recommended leg-strengthening exercises, which he carried out faithfully several times a day. And all the time he missed Mary.

Papa couldn't get down from London, but he said Rick was to treat the house as his own. The staff had either been ship's crew with Papa or servants at Longford, his boyhood home, when Mama was chatelaine there. Rick had never been better looked after. Or more lonely.

He came home one day from dinner, with a friend who'd just been raised to commander, and who was about to take his new ship to join the fleet in the West Indies. If it hadn't been for a freak gust of wind, it could have been Rick; he was due his own ship. Who knew how many of his friends and colleagues would jump ahead of him while this stupid leg healed?

"There is a letter for you, Lieutenant," said Markham, the butler. "From your sister, I believe."

He pounced on the letter and carried it into the study, where the brandy decanter was waiting on a small table next to his favorite chair. He took a letter opener to the wax seal and was soon settled with his leg up on a footstool, a glass of brandy at hand, and Susan's letter spread before him.

She must be on an economizing drive again. The feminine loops and swirls were tiny, and she'd used every inch of the sheet of paper, writing on both sides, and crossing the horizontal lines of text with vertical lines, and then writing more on the inside and edges of the enveloping sheet.

He deciphered the first page: Susan started with an outline of her social activities, interspersed with news of his baby niece, little Amelia, the only occupant of Susan's nursery. Captain Cunningham, Susan's husband, had been posted to the Far East shortly after Amy's birth, more than four years ago.

Here were a few sentences about their father, who was, Susan said, working long hours at the Horse Guard, but still found time to come and play with his granddaughter.

Ah. Here's what he'd been looking for.

You asked after Admiral Pritchard's daughter. Does this mean you know where she is? For I swear, her aunt does not, though she is putting a good face on it.

After I received your letter, I went to one of the Lady Bosville's afternoons at home. Such a bore, so you owe me the new bonnet you promised me. She does not offer refreshments or any entertainment, so one sits and talks to people one does not know about people one does not like.

Rick frowned as he read on. Susan said it was an open secret that Mary's aunt had been warning off suitors all season, meaning to keep Mary for her son—or Mary's money, more to the point. When Susan asked after Mary, Lady Bosville claimed she was in the country, recovering from a small cold, and would return soon.

At the Haverford Ball several nights later, Susan had danced with Bosville in order to interrogate him. Rick's frown deepened as he read.

I asked him if it was true that he was betrothed to my friend, Mary, and he said his mama had it all arranged, and he would have to comply because they were near rolled up. He really did. And I a near stranger to him, and like to be more so, I can assure you.

So, I said that she was a sweet thing, and very pretty. Well, he told me that he did not admire pasty skin and red hair, and I would not call her sweet if I had heard her in a temper! But, he said, he could always park her at his country estate, which he never visits, because it is so boring. I know what you are thinking, and I agree with you.

Susan finished with a few trenchant observations about the Bosvilles and a sisterly farewell. After reading her final admonition to follow the doctor's instructions, Rick refolded the letter. His mind was made up. It was time for him to return to London, anyway. And he would do it via Haslemere. He was sure Mary was in safe hands, but he would not rest easy till he saw for himself.