The Memory of Your Kiss by Wilma Counts Page A

The former vicar’s daughter was presented at court—Queen Charlotte insisted on maintaining her traditional receptions despite the king’s bouts of ill health. Lady Paxton acquitted herself well in the entire social milieu, even hosting a large dinner party for members of her husband’s Tory faction, though some whispered that her ladyship was rather quick to voice her own opinions on Parliamentary matters—and— gasp! —that those opinions often seemed to have Whig overtones of reform.
    With her husband’s compliance—nay, his encouragement—she made two visits to Windham to alleviate what she recognized as bouts of homesickness.
    Her father, having given up his duties as vicar just after Christmas, moved, along with Marybeth and Geoffrey, to Paxton Hall. As long as he was able, he tutored his son and oversaw his younger daughter’s education. He also discussed with Sydney his wishes regarding further schooling for them: Harrow and Miss Sebastian’s, of course. The Laughton twins, Lady Anne and Lady Amy, would also go to Miss Sebastian’s when Marybeth went, for the girls had become fast friends. Meanwhile, a governess saw to their training. Sydney regretted the time in London, time away from the family back at the Hall.
    In London, Henry was attentive to his new wife, though he made it quite clear they should not expect to “live in each other’s pockets.” He frequently spent long evenings away from home, presumably at his club or out with his male friends. Though he tried to be quiet, Sydney would hear him come into his room next door sometimes even as the city’s delivery people were starting their rounds. Still, he performed his marital duties with alacrity, pronouncing “this business of getting an heir to be quite wonderful indeed.”
    But it did not happen.
    When the season ended in June, Sydney welcomed the return to Paxton Hall, but she found her father’s health far weaker than his letters had led her to expect. She was so preoccupied that summer and autumn with the increasingly imminent loss of her beloved papa that she scarcely noticed Henry’s prolonged absences. He was often off to oversee the earldom’s far-flung interests, which included Welsh coal mines, Irish estates, and sundry other enterprises. He announced his latest departure during one of his frequent visits to her bed.
    When Sydney commented on the geographical diversity of Paxton holdings, he explained, “My ancestors made interesting acquisitions in their marriage settlements.”
    “Unfortunately, the present earl did not,” she said, aware of just how little of material value she had brought to this union.
    He pulled her closer and murmured, “Do you hear me complaining?”
    Not yet, she thought. But so far she had not fulfilled her primary obligation of getting an heir.
    Her father died in late autumn, over a year after performing herwedding ceremony. Sydney had mixed feelings about his passing. She had selfishly exulted in every moment he stole from the inevitable, but his last weeks were so fraught with pain that she—and he—welcomed the release.
    “Oh, Papa,” she said on visiting that grave next to her mother’s, “I am going to miss you so very, very much.”
    She had shared one spot of joy with him before he died, though: She was four months pregnant.
    Christmas was a subdued affair that year and Henry later journeyed to London alone for the opening of Parliament. Sydney, with few regrets, missed the London season of 1813 entirely, for by the time the official six months of mourning for her father were over, she was too near her confinement to journey to the city.
    In late March Henry managed to make it home in time for the arrival of his son and heir, Jonathan Alfred Henry Laughton, named for his two grandfathers and his father. His cries as he was promptly given the Paxton heir tattoo fairly broke his mother’s heart.
    A week after his birth, she still could not bear to be away from him for long.