A Love for All Seasons Read online

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  Copyright

  Also by Edith Layton and Untreed Reads Publishing

  A Love for All Seasons

  “Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,

  SPRING’S PROMISE

  SUMMER’S FRUIT

  AUTUMN LEAVES

  SNOW BROTH

  A LOVE FOR ALL SEASONS

  A Love for All Seasons

  By Edith Layton

  Copyright 2018 by Estate of Edith Felber

  Cover Copyright 2018 by Untreed Reads Publishing

  Cover Design by Ginny Glass

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  Previously published in print, 1992.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Also by Edith Layton and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The Duke’s Wager

  The Disdainful Marquis

  The Mysterious Heir

  Red Jack’s Daughter

  Lord of Dishonor

  Peaches and the Queen

  False Angel

  The Indian Maiden

  Lady of Spirit

  The Wedding

  A True Lady

  Bound by Love

  The Fire Flower

  www.untreedreads.com

  A Love for All Seasons

  Five love stories by

  Edith Layton

  “Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,

  Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags

  of time…”

  —John Donne

  SPRING’S PROMISE

  “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May…”

  —William Shakespeare

  It was a time for coming out and going forth in both the world of nature and man. After a long dismal winter, it seemed that everything was emerging, and it was a delightful thing to see. The buds, the unfurled leaves—newsprung green was in every leafy thing from the hedgerows to the meadows, where all the newborn sheep and foals rejoiced on the fresh lush green pastures.

  And so it was more than odd, it was almost a crime against nature that such a lovely young thing as Miss Felicia Carstairs was returning in such a season—and so soon after she’d left, too. But so she did, coming straight back from London before her Season there was to have ended. She went from her coach to her house, and then the door shut behind her firmly. Everyone deemed it a shame. Because the squire’s daughter was bright and beautiful, clever as she could hold together, and altogether one of the most winsome young pusses anyone had ever seen. Everyone in the village had assumed she’d go directly from her first Season in London to St. George’s and then off on her newfound husband’s arm—whoever that lucky chap might be—straight to his mansion somewhere else, so it might be years until they saw her again. Not that they saw her now.

  She came home abruptly, in the midst of society’s Little Season—and the countryside’s most promising one, as well. Once there, there she stayed, not so much as sticking her adorably upturned nose out the door to watch the lilacs blooming. And for anyone who knew her knew that in itself was almost as astonishing as her precipitous return.

  Still, whatever her concerned neighbors might have feared, Miss Carstairs was not grieving. Or sulking. Or weeping. She was raging. That might have made them feel better had they known it. For that, at least, was much more like her.

  “She doesn’t say a thing about it, not a word,” Mrs. Carstairs complained to her husband, three days after their daughter’s precipitous return, “but if I mention his name, she goes rather white.”

  Her husband abruptly turned his head from the book he’d been trying to read. The polite, patently false, interested expression he’d put on while he’d half listened to his wife’s constant verbal worrying at the subject of their daughter’s behavior had vanished. His brown eyes were blazing.

  “I had no notion!” he said angrily, tossing his book down and rising from their bed at once. “He was always so damned correct—at least when he was with us. Almost supernaturally so, now that I think on it, for he was a handsome enough rogue. I’d no idea he was as facile as he was handsome—or as untrustworthy, either. Well then, we shall just see about that, shall we, eh?”

  “Not in the middle of the night,” his wife said on a patient sigh, because for all her husband was seriously grieved, and doubtless capable of some violence, he looked very foolish pacing the bedchamber in agitation, looking for his boots, his pistol, or vengeance, with his nightshirt flapping about his knees. “And not because of anything the fellow did. That, I’m convinced of. Oh, do get back into bed, Hugh. It’s because he didn’t do anything improper that she’s so chagrined—or so at least I suspect.”

  Her husband stopped in his tracks and gazed at her narrowly, a mixture of incomprehension and suspicion both writ large on his face.

  Mrs. Carstairs sighed again.

  “She fancied him, and he did seem to be courting her. Everyone thought it was a settled thing,” she said. “Remember? And why shouldn’t they? She could have had anyone, anyone. She was marked an Incomparable. And she chose him right off. Who could have guessed? I told you we’d be buying orange blossoms before long, and so I honestly thought we’d be,” she said hollowly. “I even teased her about it, and we planned for the future—the reception and such,” she confessed in a soft voice, as she plucked at the lace on her nightdress, gazing down, avoiding his eyes. “But I’m certain he never did a dishonorable thing, for if he had, he’d have asked for her hand. He is terribly correct, you know,” she added, looking up at him earnestly. “Which was the problem,” she went on glumly, “for I don’t doubt that minx compromised him in some fashion—else why would he have offered for her, and so suddenly, too—when everyone knew he’d his eye on Felicia?”

  “His eye, and not his hand?” her husband asked as he stood irresolute at the side of their bed.

  “Oh, I’m quite sure of that,” she answered before she breathed. “More’s the pity.”

  “Oh, aye,” he agreed as he clambered into bed again, now as crestfallen as she was, “for then I’d have marched him to the vicar double-quick, you can be sure. Not that I’m not tempted to do it anyway, mind,” he added, taking up his book again.

  “You can buy her anything she wants, Hugh,” his wife said sadly, “and have done, always, now I think on it. Which may be part of the present difficulty, too, you know. But you can’t buy her out of a broken heart.”

  “Aye, true,” he grumbled, “but you’ve always been harsh with her, I suppose.”

  She flushed a little and looked away before she said softly, “But now I’m afraid of what she’ll do. She’s always had her way, and she wanted him so very much.”

  “Afraid?” he asked, a faint note of worry in his voice.

  “Well, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Oh. N
o, nonsense,” he said a little too quickly. “She’s reasonable, there’s nothing she can do now, the deed’s done. He’ll be wed within weeks. The notice of the engagement’s been in the Times, the invitations have gone out. She’ll get over it, what else can she do?” he asked, avoiding her eye now as he pretended to read again.

  She lay back and pretended to sleep, as they both thought of their darling daughter, Felicia, and what form her inevitable revenge—on the world—would take.

  *

  Felicia stopped staring into the looking glass. The answer wasn’t there. She suspected the question never had been either. No, all she ever saw was the same thing: an oval of a face, ornamented with a pair of golden brown eyes, distinguished by a saucy nose, and framed by a great deal of brown hair to match her eyes. The matter of upturned lashes covering supposed mysteries in said eyes, shining tresses usually celebrated as silken, the promising lips, faintly blushing cheeks contrasting with porcelain white skin, and determined yet dimpled chin, she left to her admirers and fervently wished they’d leave it out of their poetry to her, too. Because most of them were bad poets, and her face, when all was said, was something she couldn’t appreciate so much herself, since, she reasoned, she so seldom saw it. At least, she thought, glancing into the glass one last time, until recently, when she’d passed hours searching it for an answer.

  But whether she only looked at her face or stood far enough away to see all of herself, and the bounty the abominable poets of her acquaintance appreciated mightily, but couldn’t bring themselves to celebrate in verse because of her upbringing and theirs, she still couldn’t see the answer. No matter, she thought impatiently, rising from a seat at her dressing table, she was done with looking for answers. There obviously were none that she could see.

  He had danced courtesies on her, he’d spoken of the future—after he’d done presenting his past for her to approve and querying about hers. He’d danced with her at balls and sat with her at suppers, chatted with her at the theater and decorated the drawing room of her parents’ rented town house all Season. And then he’d turned his coat and broad, well-tailored back on her, to offer for Miss Probisher. Plain, ineffectual, shy, and inane little Miss Probisher. Miss Probisher, the girl that appeared every spring Season, with the regularity, if not the glad welcome, of crocuses in the garden. Miss Probisher, such a fixture at every house party and ball that she went unnoticed as the background music played at them. Miss Probisher, who had gazed at Lord Jeremy Wallace, as if at the Annunciation, every time she’d seen him. Miss Probisher, who for reasons known only to himself and his Creator, would be his wife in a matter of days. Instead of herself, the much-feted, always celebrated, pretty, clever Miss Carstairs. Whom he’d said he loved. Well, Felicia admitted as she marched down the stairs, whom he had as much as said he’d loved.

  It was unendurable.

  But she was done with sulking and worrying, wondering at what it was in her that might have done it. She’d done with unworthy, spiteful reasonings as to how the unexpectedly sly Miss Probisher, or her father, had got him to do it. She was through with insane and fanciful imaginings as to why he’d done it, too. She tossed her head and straightened her slender shoulders as she went to join her parents for breakfast for the first time since she’d come home. She’d eighteen years in her cup, after all, it was time to be mature, to stop hiding and dwelling on what had happened.

  Her father was very right in what he always said, she thought: She was a reasonable girl. No, as she was done with her first Season, however ignobly it had come to an end, it was time to use some of the worldly wisdom she’d acquired during it. It was time then, to show the entire world that none of it mattered a whit to her; she couldn’t care less, it was too amusing to think she’d been affected in any way at all, as if such a trifling thing could overset her. It was time to have a marvelous time. A magnificent time. It was time, as the young bucks said when they thought she couldn’t hear them, to go to hell in a handcart with herself. To show just how little she cared what anyone thought, of course.

  Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were sparkling as she came into the breakfast room.

  “You look wonderful, my love!” her mother cried in glad surprise when she saw her.

  “Just like your old self, puss,” her father said approvingly, rising to take her hand, as though he were her gallant.

  “Yes, I feel marvelous, too,” she said, beaming at the footman as he presented her with a dish of eggs. “Wonderful,” she added gaily as she took a helping. “Excellent,” she went on, with a glowing smile that caused the footman to color up with pleasure, as she helped herself to porridge, which she’d always detested. “Ah, it’s good to be home again,” she said.

  Her mother sighed and her father repressed a shiver of unease as they looked at each other anxiously, before they both began immediately chatting about the morning and the latest local gossip.

  They’d got past the fine day and through the tale of the vicar’s wife’s tooth-drawing, had related the story of John Richmond’s new house built after last year’s fire, and were halfway through the details of freckled and fortyish Glenna Blake’s coming wedding to the apothecary, when they saw the look that came over their daughter’s face. Mrs. Carstairs bit her lip and exchanged worried glances with her husband. They ought never to have mentioned a happy wedding. And so they hurried on to speak of any other thing, seeing how Felicia had grown so suddenly still and thoughtful, sitting with her egg-laden fork arrested in midair.

  But Felicia scarcely attended to them, she was too involved with trying not to fall prey to despair again. Not because of Glenna’s upcoming wedding. Or at least, not for the reasons they thought. But listening to her parents review the local past and chat about the program for the coming weeks had given her distasteful food for thought. It occurred to her that she couldn’t go back to London so soon, nor could she bear to wait until autumn to astonish the world of the ton with her lightheartedness. But she could hardly dazzle them with her unconcern and insouciance even if tales of her merriment at the church picnic, annual strawberry fair, and Glenna Blake’s rural wedding came to their ears.

  Perhaps she could convince her parents to take her through Europe. But there was a war on. And, sophisticated as she tried to be, she was nevertheless a child of wartime and distrusted foreigners. Besides that, she’d a suspicion that it wouldn’t impress anyone even if she had an uproarious time in Europe, anyone could be a mad success there, just look at that ghastly Princess Caroline. She frowned. Her mother kept chattering nervously, scarcely hearing what she was saying until Felicia looked up out of her dark study and said, “What?” Because she’d just heard a word that might lighten her sentence of exile.

  “Ah—I said young Robert Grant came down with the mumps, and as there’s ten children in the family, they’re sure to have their hands full,” her confused parent said, wondering at the new excitement in Felicia’s face.

  “No, before that,” Felicia said, “when you were talking about his sister.”

  “Oh,” her mother said, flushing, for in her rush of words, she realized she’d said a few uncharitable and rather warm things. “I just said that if young Meg doesn’t watch her step, she’ll be starting her own string of Grants—because Lord Neville’s back in residence at Wildwood Court.”

  “I’d recommend she minds watching her skirts, not her feet, if she don’t want to fall,” Squire Carstairs said on a rich laugh, winking at his daughter, for he’d not raised her to be missish. “But she’s little to fear—or in her case—anticipate from Neville. He’s a rare rip, all right. But not in the way of seducing young village chits. No, his taste is more for London birds of paradise and other high flyers. I hear he’s importing a brace of them for his hunting this summer. A little domestic chick like Meg has to watch her step near hayseeds and haystacks, my love, not lordly gents like Neville.”

  “Why has he come back?” Felicia asked slowly.

  “Where else is he to go?” her
mother said on a shrug. “He’s been just about everywhere since he’s been a boy. And he never much cared for the London Season. Wildwood is his home, however much he scandalizes it.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself with thoughts of him,” Squire Carstairs said, as he attacked his breakfast beefsteak again, “any more than he does with thoughts of us. Say this much for him, he is to the manner born. He knows his place. He lives apart from us and always has. He’ll come, he’ll have everyone’s tongues wagging with the tales of his wild living, but that’s just it—they’ll be tales, come from gossips and snoops—like us.” As he grinned at his wife’s expression, he added. “And then he’ll move on, having enriched the local merchants and enlivened the local social teas with stories of his doings. And as usual, he’ll be three weeks gone before we know he’s left. And a year gone before we miss him.”

  “You speak as if you were a blacksmith and he a grand duke,” his wife said in some annoyance, forgetting the gossip in order to defend her family. “And yet you come from just as noble a family and are in line for equal honors yourself.”

  “Indeed?” he asked with great enthusiasm. “Then you mean I can look forward to inviting a parcel of demireps here to amuse myself and my friends someday?”

  While she protested that was not what she meant, and he saw that she was getting truly annoyed and so told her that no number of demireps could please him as much as she did—and then laughed, to spoil it—Felicia sat quietly and thought. If her parents hadn’t been so involved in their usual teasing, they’d have noticed and worried, even though it was clear she was entertaining pleasant thoughts for a change. Because knowing their daughter as they did, they’d have noticed they were clearly too pleasant.

  *

  It was hard to pine for the rites of spring in London when there was such a celebration going on here, Felicia thought. She sat her horse in the midst of a meadow and let herself renew her love of the countryside, even as she tried to forget the love of her life for a moment. She might miss him, but no, nothing else of London, not now, she decided. How could she? For how might teas, balls, ridottos, and routs compare to robins and roses? What opera or theater could rival the hilarity of fields of riotously blooming mustard and rapeseed, or the sight of brave, bright laburnum weeping over every other garden wall? The bird song, the freshness in the air—and the smell of it! She inhaled deeply. A nose was a positive hindrance to pleasure in London, but here, in spring, it was ecstasy to simply breathe.