The Soldier's Poisoned Heart (True Love and Deception) (Victorian Historical Romance Book 1) by Michael Meadows Page B

spending so much time in town doing. He had been contented to let the boy think that he had been going to the horse track, or gambling around a barroom table.
    He was ready for marriage, he thought, but he was not in the slightest ready for the two of them to meet. Though he had grown quite fond of his nephew, there was something in his demeanor that the Colonel couldn’t place. Something he found unnerving, a foreign emotion after twenty years keeping the peace in the colonies.
    Then, as if in answer to his prayers, he saw a young woman turn the corner, carrying in her hand a largish bag marked with the name of a shop. Nan trailed a few steps behind, carrying a couple bags of her own, and they stopped for a moment to rest.
    John Paul took this as a sign and stood. He dropped a couple shillings on the table and walked across. Henry would follow him, or he would not.
    “Miss Wakefield!”
    The pair of women both snapped their heads up at the call. “Mister Foster,” said the younger.
    “If the two of you need any sort of assistance with those bags, my nephew and I would be more than happy to oblige.”
    Lydia didn’t answer immediately. She looked to her chaperone over her shoulder, who gave a nod.
    “That would be absolutely lovely,” she said. John Paul took the bag from her hand and felt an immediate jolt of electricity as his hand grazed hers. He saw her touch the spot where they’d touched as well, though she thought he wasn’t looking.
    Then he took the bags from Nan, as well. Henry tagged along for the ride, his hands free. The bags themselves were not heavy, but holding them away from his body as he walked, John Paul found his arms tiring as they walked. It was a couple of kilometers to the Wakefield home, and they passed it quietly.
    John Paul could feel Lydia’s eyes on him as they walked, but he ignored it as best he could. If he acknowledged it, he thought, she would stop looking, and he couldn’t bear the thought of that. So he would pretend that he did not notice.
    When they arrived at the Wakefield home, he stepped in when they opened the doors and set the bags just inside before stepping back out.
    “Thank you, sir,” Lydia said. She had an expectant look on her face and for a moment John Paul could not decide what it was. Then he realized.
    “Oh, pardon my rudeness. Miss Lydia Wakefield, this is my nephew, Henry Roche. My late sister’s boy.”
    Lydia regarded Henry and gave a small curtsy.
    “Nice to meet you, Henry.”
    “And you, likewise,” he answered. The women stepped inside and shut the door, and the pair of men set off.
    “Now, Henry, where were we?”
    “We needed to speak to the man about the flooring. You know, I think we should do it.”
    “Yes,” John Paul said. It rankled him to know that they were almost certain to be overpaying, but he knew that he had no way of doing it himself, either. It was not a position he was comfortable being in, and he had no greater wish than to see it finished as soon as possible. He swallowed his pride and decided that he would do what he needed to do.
    “She seems a nice enough girl, uncle,” Henry noted.
    “Oh?”
    “Yes, a perfectly nice girl,” he said.
    Whatever the rest of his thoughts were, he kept them to himself.
     
    The next few days passed awfully slowly. The gardener, Jacob, came to the house the next day. He was perhaps ten years older than Henry Roche and had a fastidiousness about him that the other boys lacked. John Paul found him easy to like, but at the same time, hard to talk to.
    He reminded the Colonel of many of the men he had served alongside for all of those years down in Australia. When he revealed that his father had been in the army and he had considered joining himself, John Paul was not surprised in the least.
    There was, he said, a considerable amount of work to be done. Thomas and Mark had never brought up any need for workers under them. Jacob took one walk ‘round the yard and immediately declared that