Written in My Heart (3 page)

“Yes,” she murmured.

He was the very best man she knew, the sort of man every girl dreamt of. She longed for him to see her as a woman, as someone to love, but even more she longed for him to be unharmed. And as long as he returned safe and whole, she wouldn’t ask for anything else of fate.

Ethan leaned over the rail and took a deep breath, searching for the first sight of coast to break through the mist that shrouded the Channel. Thankfully, his regiment was being sent back to England rather than in pursuit of Bonaparte. It was probably due to the fact that the regiment had suffered tremendous casualties, but he didn’t want to think about that now. It was simply too painful to think about his dead mates. Selfishly, he only wanted to go home. “Yes.”

“Is that all you can say of her?” Morton laughed. “No wonder she’s not your wife!”

“I always imagined her as a fetching blonde,” said Bingley in a wistful voice. “Pretty and neat, sitting at her desk writing about the miller making eyes at the girl in the baker’s shop or the dog ruining the clean floor.”

“No,” said Ethan. “Her hair’s dark.”

“Dark like tea? Dark like treacle?” prodded Morton. “Come, man, we want details.”

“I can’t wait to see proper English lasses again,” put in Bingley. “Blond, brunette, red-haired, even gray-haired. My mum will be the loveliest sight I’ve ever set eyes on, I think.”

“Proof you haven’t got a wife, either.” Morton laughed. “You’d find it hard to think of aught else if you did.”

“Dark like mahogany,” Ethan said, leaning to the left. Was that a spit of land, nudging up out of the sea? He wanted it to be, so very desperately. “With dark eyes.”

“Will she be waiting for you as eagerly as you’re straining to be back at her side?”

“Jane?” He was startled into a laugh. “Who said I was straining to be back at her side? That is—she’s not
my
Jane, so I can’t possibly be straining to get
back
to her.”

“If she’s not your girl, why did she write to you so devotedly?”

He glared at Morton, who had attached himself to them since Waterloo. The man’s mouth was never closed, and he was very fond of asking pointed and intrusive questions. “That’s the way she is. She promised to write to me, and she did.”

“Every week? For three years?” Morton shook his head. “The girl’s in love with you, fool.”

Ethan was taken aback. “I doubt it. We were children together.”

“It’s very possible,” put in Bingley. “Although if you don’t want her, I’d like to meet her.”

An instinctive refusal rose in his throat. Ethan cleared his throat to keep from saying it. “Whatever for?”

Bingley shrugged, leaning against the ship’s rail. “She’s got pretty handwriting. I feel like I would know her voice, just from hearing you read her letters. And any girl who’d write that often must be a very loyal one. I daresay my girl hasn’t waited for me.”

“You don’t know that….”

“I do, actually.” Bingley gave a crooked smile. “My sister wrote that Sarah started walking out with James Hill.” He raised his shoulder again. “Not that she ever wrote me half as many letters as Jane wrote to you. I didn’t expect her to wait.” He turned toward the sea, squinting as the stiff wind blew his long hair into his eyes. “It’s better that way, most likely. None of us are the same men who left, are we?”

“I am.” Morton thumped his chest. “My Willa won’t notice a thing different.”

Bingley cut him a glance that was surprisingly wistful. “Lucky chap.”

A spray of saltwater hit them all, and Ethan turned away, glad for anything that diverted the conversation. Jane, in love with him? Unlikely. He’d known her almost as long as he could remember, ever since his father had sat him down and explained that Jane’s papa, like Ethan’s mother, had gone to be with God. He’d impressed upon Ethan that now it would be up to them to look after the Widow Barton and her five-year-old daughter, Jane. From that moment on, it had been his duty to walk her to church, make sure no rowdy boys bothered her, and to make any repairs around the Bartons’ small cottage. He could still remember her big brown eyes shining up at him when he held her hand and walked her to church, adoring and devoted.

He gave his head a small shake. Adoring, because she’d been a child. She was like a sister to him. And if her eyes still shone when she looked at him, it was out of sisterly affection.

Of course she’d grown a great deal since he used to mend her broken kite or tell off the boys who teased her. Now that he thought about it, he’d had to tell off a good number of boys. Jane had grown up slim and pretty, and just as neat as ever. Despite their tight circumstances, Widow Barton had always kept her daughter in clean, well-mended frocks. When Jane was grown, she’d apprenticed to the town dressmaker and begun making her own clothes, sturdy and well-made but also fashionable and flattering. Ethan didn’t think he’d ever seen her look less than lovely; she had a way with needle and thread. In fact, he could remember exactly how she’d looked when he said good-bye before joining the regiment. There had been quite a crowd to see him and the few other men from Caxby off, but for some reason he could remember everything about her while the rest of the crowd was a blur.

Her dark curls had shone in the sunlight, her straw bonnet hanging down her back. She’d worn a green dress, with a spray of pink lilac pinned to her dark blue spencer. Her voice had caught when she promised to write to him, as he kissed her good-bye, and she’d kept her word. Now that he thought about it, no one else in his regiment had got as many letters as he had, just from her. Some letters had taken a while to reach him, and there were a few times when it was clear, from references she made to previous letters, that one had gone missing entirely in the army’s postal system, but if Ethan had to wager, he’d bet Jane had written a letter every single week of the last three years.

She’s in love with you, fool….

Could she be? He was astonished by how quickly he liked the idea.

And for himself, why, of course he loved Jane. Like a sister … and maybe then some. Ethan was aware of other girls in Caxby; he remembered kissing some of them good-bye, too, taking advantage of everyone’s fervor and well wishes. But he’d never walked any of them home because he’d always walked Jane home. The dressmaker’s shop was near his father’s law office, and it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to call for her there at the end of each day.

He turned back to the rail and stared at the sea. Yes, he loved Jane, but was he
in
love with her? Was it even possible, three years after he’d last set eyes on her? She might have a beau, even a fiancé by now—not that she’d ever written of one, but she was pretty and kindhearted and who wouldn’t want to marry her? His heart seemed to take a sudden drop at the thought. He couldn’t wait to see home again, but the thought of Jane on someone else’s arm was shocking and unpleasant. Bitter, even.

Ethan sucked in a deep breath of cold, briny air. In a few interminable weeks, he’d be home. He’d see her again. That was the most important thing, getting home. He could sort out any feelings he might have once he was there, where he could see her and talk to her and discern her own feelings for him. For a moment he tried to imagine how she would greet him. She wouldn’t run to him, because Jane was reserved. But her brown eyes would shine, just the way he remembered, and she would smile. Jane had a very pretty smile; just the thought of seeing it again made his own lips curve. And as she gazed at him with her glowing eyes and beaming smile, she would say….

Another spray of water hit him in the face. Ethan barely noticed. He didn’t know what she would say. But he did realize that his heart had taken a leap as he pictured her face, and the thought had struck him that he wanted to see Jane again more than he wanted to see his father, or his dog, Puck, or anyone else in all of Caxby. All those people he’d known since he was a boy seemed like strangers now, the cast of a life he’d left behind. Because of her many letters, he felt as though he’d never really left Jane behind, though. Every week or so, she’d visited him, and her voice and face were perfectly clear in his memory.

A dark line appeared on the horizon. It remained, growing thicker and more solid with each wave they crested. Ethan’s heart leapt again. There was England. There in England was Jane. And he couldn’t wait to see her again.

The days rolled by, each one bringing more reports. The French had been routed from the field in Belgium, and Wellington pursued them all the way to Paris, where the French government surrendered. Bonaparte was driven into exile, which spurred another round of celebrations as people dared to believe the war was finally over. Even more welcome were the letters that began arriving from soldiers writing to let their families know they had survived.

To Jane’s intense joy, one arrived for her. It was waiting for her on the table when she got home, and just the sight of her name in Ethan’s bold writing made her heart almost burst. For a moment she simply held the letter close to her chest, weak with relief. When she tore it open, it was brief but still all she’d hoped for: he was unhurt. He said little of the terrible battle beyond the fact that he never wanted to see anything half so violent in all the rest of his life. As yet he had no idea when his regiment would return to England, but it couldn’t possibly be soon enough to suit him. He closed with a commendation to her mother, and the hope that he would see them both again soon.

Jane read it to her mother, who heaved a great sigh of relief with her, and then took the note to her room. She fingered the coarse paper. He was well. That was all she had prayed for, after all, and she was immensely grateful to be assured of that. But…. She traced the smudged ink, imagining him writing on a makeshift table in his tent or in the mess. His relief at surviving and his eagerness to be home in Caxby came through in every word. There just wasn’t any hint of longing to see
her
in particular.

Well. She put the note aside. “He’s coming home, Puck,” she told the dog, who had followed her. He cocked his head, then wagged his stubby tail. In spite of herself Jane smiled. “I know. I hope it’s soon, too.”

More days went by, accumulating into weeks. She visited Mr. Campbell, as usual, but he had heard nothing else from Ethan. Another soldier from Caxby wrote home of being sent to Paris to enforce the surrender and subsequent peace talks, which made it more likely that Ethan would also be sent there. Even though she kept her chair by the front windows, Jane gradually overcame the urge to glance out every hour or so.

Mrs. Lynch’s shop was busier than ever now, as every lady in town seemed to want a new dress to celebrate the end of the war. All the seamstresses were working from morning ’til night, even Millie, whose seams had grown straighter and tighter with so much practice. Jane began to lose track of whose pelisse she was working on, which gown needed the slashed sleeves, and whether the overskirt of the cream gown was to be blue, or maybe the green net. Her fingers were stiff and sore every night, and her neck ached. If not for Puck demanding to go out every few hours, she’d never leave her chair, she thought one extremely long day.

As if he sensed her thought, Puck lurched to his feet beneath Jane’s seat with a sudden snort, giving the chair a hard thump and almost oversetting her. She started, and the needle slipped right through the heavy fabric into the pad of her finger.

“Ouch!” She stuck the injured finger into her mouth and turned an irritated glare on the dog. Oblivious, Puck had trotted to the center of the room and paused, head cocked to one side. “Puck,” she snapped. “Down!”

He gave a sharp little bark, and ran to the door. He barked again, beginning to turn in a little circle, tail wagging fiercely.

“He just went out,” said Tamsin. She’d taken him down last time, as glad of a break as Jane was.

“It looks like he needs to go again.” Millie was good at stating the obvious.

“And there’s someone below. I heard the bell a moment ago.” Still sucking her bleeding finger, Jane put down the dress and got up to fetch the dog’s lead. “You have to be quiet,” she told Puck as she tried to loop the lead around his neck. “Mrs. Lynch has a customer.”

Puck was wriggling so hard she could hardly get a grip on him, and making a rather desperate-sounding whine. He had started circling around her feet as soon as she crossed the room, and as she fumbled with the lead, he jumped up, his paws on her knee. “I’m trying,” she told him in frustration. “Hold still!”

“He must have eaten something nasty,” said Millie helpfully. “Take him far from the door.”

Jane glared at her. Puck was frantically trying to lick her hand, and she pushed him back down onto all four paws. If Puck had eaten something bad and was about to be sick, she’d have to take him home. Mrs. Lynch wouldn’t tolerate her letting the dog in and out all day.

Puck ducked out from under her hand and jumped up at the door. He pawed at it with the same desperation, but it gave Jane a chance to slip the lead over his head and pull it snug. “We’re going,” she told him. “Get down so I can open the door.”

She already knew there was a client below; now at the door, she could hear the rumble of voices, although it was hard to hear anything over the scratching of Puck’s claws against the door and his increasingly louder whine. So she took a firm hold on the lead and opened the door cautiously. Perhaps she ought to carry the dog down….

But the instant the door was open wide enough, Puck shot through the gap, pulling her into the edge of the door and yanking the lead from her grip. The door hit her cheekbone and Jane gasped in pain, then again in dismay as Puck clattered down the stairs, now whining louder than ever. The lead trailed behind him as he hurtled around the bend in the stairs.

“Oh no,” cried Tamsin.

“Grab him!” Millie squealed, dropping her broom.

Jane was already scrambling after the bad dog, her heart in her throat. Mrs. Lynch would never let her bring Puck to work again. He’d have to be tied up all day behind Mr. Campbell’s house. She prayed the door to the salon was closed, so she could grab him before he disturbed the customers or Mrs. Lynch. She hoped he would run right through the hall to the garden door, which might even be open.