Page 19 of A Bachelor’s Lessons in Love

“Yes, Peter? What is it?”

He blinked and his expression became neutral once more. “Colonel Halstead has asked that you come to his study, Miss Price. To discuss an important matter, he said.”

“Oh.” She looked at Daphne with raised eyebrows and a limp smile. “I wonder what he could need now. Why don’t you find a book to read, dear? I am certain I won’t be long.” Despite her words, her stomach twisted with worry.

Was this it? The moment when he would tell her he would hire a suitable companion, that her presence was no longer needed? True, it was somewhat unconventional for her, a member of Daphne’s family, to stay in a bachelor’s home. But surely it made a great deal more sense to keep her than it did to hire someone else to chaperone Daphne—another stranger?

Felicity made her way to the study, walking through the bare-walled corridors, her steps echoing off the walls far too loudly. When she came to the study, the door was already open. Still, she hesitated on the threshold.

This was surely the moment where she would discover her fate.

Colonel Halstead sat at his desk, head bowed as he made a notation in a book. His red-brown hair fell across his forehead in loose waves, his brow furrowed as he concentrated on his writing. He wasn’t wearing a coat. It looked as though he had cast it off on the back of the chair, leaving him in white shirtsleeves. Somehow, the absence of the dark fabric made him look even larger than usual. Broader.

She had never particularly noticed the breadth of a man’s shoulders before, certainly not when they were hunched in concentration over estate accounts. Her brother had been…Anthony. She had barley registered his appearance. But there was something…steadfast about the Colonel. Solid in a way that unsettled her, as though this house’s weight rested entirely on his shoulders.

“Do come in, Miss Price. I will not bite.” He spoke without looking up.

Felicity stilled in surprise. He had to have heard her coming, of course. There was no carpet outside his study.

She entered quietly, approaching his desk. There she stood, waiting patiently for an invitation to sit. Though the abrupt sound of his voice had startled her, he had not spoken harshly. Indeed, his deep voice was low. Gentle, even. It struck her that she had not yet heard him raise it, nor speak harshly to man or beast.

He put the pen down on the blotter and looked up at her, his green eyes somewhat less bright than normal. “Oh do sit, Miss Price. You need never stand on ceremony with me. I had quite enough of that during my time in the army.”

She complied, sitting in one of the comfortable chairs across the desk from him. “You do not speak of that time often, sir. Not at any of the meals or conversations you have had with Daphne and me.” She looked down at her lap, clasping her hands there. “Anthony rarely spoke of such things, either. He once told me that the less a man spoke of his time at war, the more my brother respected him.”

A moment of thoughtful silence passed before she heard Colonel Halstead’s sigh. “I agree with your late brother.” Felicity glanced up to see him pass a hand over his eyes. “War is nothing to speak of lightly, nor are there as many glorious moments within it as old ballads and tales would have you believe. It is a violent, heart-breaking time, and no man who sees a battle can ever be the same as he was before.”

Here was more revealed to her about him than she had heard before, and Felicity could not let that be all she learned. Carefully, keeping her voice soft and tone polite, she asked, “How long were you in the army, Colonel Halstead?”

“Eighteen years,” he said, gaze focused on her once more. “I became an Ensign at eighteen years old. I resigned my commission shortly before Waterloo.” He grimaced, his jaw going tighter. “I am both grateful and ashamed I was not there that day. I had no way of knowing what a battle that would be. How…how it would shape the fate and end the lives of so many men.”

The words he spoke were strained, carrying a sharpness that pricked her heart. There was not a person in England who did not understand what Waterloo has cost their nation in blood.

“After so long in the military, half your lifetime, why did you decide to leave?” she asked softly. She would neither soothe his conscience nor offer him censure. What did she, a spinster with a comfortable life, know of war? She had no right to speak against him, nor enough familiarity to comfort him. Best to merely move the conversation along.

The Colonel cleared his throat and stood, tucking his hands behind his back in a surely unconscious gesture as he went to the window. “In March of 1815, my older brother sent for me. I took leave to return home, for my father was dying. There were things he wished to tell me before he passed. We had spoken little to one another since I became a soldier, you see.”

“Did he not approve?” Most men, to her understanding, took pride in their sons serving in the military.

“Oh, he is the one who forced me in,” the Colonel said, looking over his shoulder enough to offer her a bitter smile. “It was I who disapproved—at least for the first few years that I served. But, after a time, I saw the importance of what I was doing. I accepted that my father may have understood better than I did how to take the wild, reckless youth I had been and mold me into a more responsible, more honorable man. Still, I often found myself at odds with him every time I returned home. Even that last time, when he was weak in his bed, I was angry with him.”

It was quite the confession to make to a near stranger, but it did not make her uncomfortable. If anything, Felicity felt more at ease with the man. It was disarming, this glimpse of vulnerability. She had expected the Colonel to be as rigid as the walls of his study, as sparse with detail as he had been with his décor. Instead, he was proving himself all too human. Besides, Felicity wanted to understand him better, which was a most inconvenient feeling.

Here was another sign of his humanity, his imperfections. “I imagine you had good reason for such feelings. After he passed away, did you forgive him?”

Colonel Halstead turned fully to face her, hands still behind his back, eyes on hers. “Not quite. But I grow closer to that point every day.” He gave her a measured look, as though realizing how much he had revealed. “Miss Price, I don’t know why I am telling you all of this.”

Felicity remained still, uncertain what to say, but he gave a dry, almost self-deprecating chuckle.

“Perhaps because we are about to be comrades in arms of another sort.”

She tilted her head to the side as her curiosity and hope flickered brighter. Hope? Good heavens, what nonsense. What exactly did she hope for? Cooperation, surely. An agreement that she was best suited to secure Daphne’s future, nothing more personal than that. And yet, when he smiled at her in that quiet, knowing way, the thought lingered, stubborn as a weed.

“Comrades in arms, Colonel?”

He nodded once, decisively. “I have been thinking on it, and I believe it is in everyone’s best interest that you remain at Briarwood with Daphne for the foreseeable future.”

She drew in a breath, schooling her expression into polite neutrality, but inside—inside she felt blissful relief. Oh, thank the heavens.