Page 17 of Twelve Drummers Drumming

Scarlet with embarrassment, she tried to speak quickly and under her breath. “She is not my mother, Sophia cries every afternoon for some reason or another, and Caroline’s engagement ball will be more than enough to satisfy her! No,” Jemima interrupted her father before he could speak again, “you know these facts to be true, Papa, so do not attempt to dissemble with me.”

“The last thing I shall do is argue with you,” said her father, the frown on his face darkening, tugging at his collar to keep his ears from the cold, “but when we get home—”

“Mr. Fitzroy?”

Jemima’s father turned to face the soldier who was standing, somewhat awkwardly, with a crutch underneath his left arm. The captain bowed.

Only then did she remember the warmth she was currently enjoying was thanks to the captain’s jacket around her shoulders.

“My name is Captain Hugh Rotherham,” he said with a smile for Jemima, “and I must bear all the blame for Miss Fitzroy’s absence. She was good enough to attend to me when I fell in the street, and she would not leave me until she had been assured of my health. She brought me to this bench and was waiting until I felt well enough to return to my lodgings.”

He ended this speech with another little bow of his head—which Jemima thought a little overdone. She could not help but return his cheeky smile, despite her father standing between them.

Besides, Captain Rotherham had twisted the truth.

Heaven help her, though, if he had revealed the real location where they had met that morning…

“Well, then,” her father spoke slowly, his eyes flickering between the tall young man on one side and his daughter on the other, “as no real harm is done, I am sure this can be forgotten.”

“I thank you for your understanding, sir,” said Captain Rotherham eagerly. “I really do not know what I would have done without Miss Fitzroy’s help.”

“It was the least I could do,” said Jemima quickly.

She had not looked at her father, conscious of the jacket around her, but evidently, her father was no fool.

“So glad my daughter could be of some assistance, Captain Rotherham,” he said smoothly. “Captain Hugh Rotherham, did you say?”

Captain Rotherham stared, bemused, and Jemima’s embarrassment returned threefold. “Why, yes, sir.”

Jemima sighed as she watched her father take in all of what he would consider to be useful information. She could almost hear in her mind what he was thinking.

Handsome man, perhaps too handsome for Jemima, who had not managed to capture the eye or inclination of any gentleman to whom she had previously been introduced. A soldier, that much was apparent; had Jemima made any awkward or offensive comments about the war in France? Must remember to ask her that later. Let us hope she did not make a fool of herself by falling on this poor unfortunate man.

It was all so predictable. Jemima tried not to blush for her father, but did he have to look at Hugh—at the captain with such an obvious hope to make him a son-in-law?

“Capital,” Arthur Fitzroy said suddenly. “Excellent.”

“It is?” Captain Rotherham ventured to ask.

Jemima’s father nodded. “It is. And now if you will excuse us, Captain Rotherham, my daughter and I must return home—but I hope that we shall see you at Miss Caroline Fitzroy and Dr. Stuart Walsingham’s engagement party two weeks from now?”

Captain Rotherham’s face showed nothing but confusion. “I regret to say I do not know the gentleman and have not been invited,” he said honestly.

“Nonsense,” said her father with a broad grin. “Consider yourself invited.”

Chapter Five

It had takenJemima a full week to completely comprehend what had occurred. It seemed too marvelous, too ridiculous, and at the same time, utterly fantastical that she should fall quite literally into the arms of a stranger, and that stranger to be so…fascinating.

And what’s more, fascinated with her.

Jemima sank back against her seat at the breakfast table and sighed. Her father had certainly embarrassed them both enough to ensure Captain Rotherham would not be attending Caroline and Dr. Walsingham’s engagement ball, for she had nothing but his name to identify him.

Even if she had wished to find him again, there was no way of doing it.

Not that she had been able to stop wild ideas from running through her mind. Ideas that included bumping into him again on the street. Or Hugh—Captain Rotherham—appearing at the door, asking for her. Creeping into her bedchamber in the dead of night…

It had all been too good to be true, Jemima thought to herself, and was unlikely to be repeated. And anyway, shouldn’t she be putting such a man—a soldier!—out of her mind?

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