The Soldier's Poisoned Heart

She frowned. Whatever her private thoughts, John Paul couldn’t guess them. At last she spoke.

“Yes,” she said. “We should get inside.”

They started to walk, arm-in-arm, back toward the door.

“And then,” she said, leaning into him, “you need to get home and rest.”

“Yes, miss.”

The next day wasn't quite so bad as the night before. John Paul found himself a bit too ill to take lunch, though, and he’d made plans for the afternoon. After a good deal of money being spent on champagne and having to call a driver to cart him home for fear he might fall off his horse, he found myself at home the next morning with no need for anything but to deal with the consequences of his marriage to a beautiful young woman. When they'd stood there with Simon announced their engagement, he smiled as Lydia beside blushed and hid her smile. John Paul's head ached with the drink and his stomach churned with the last ebbs of nausea from the night before.

He rose late in the morning, and almost immediately returned to bed after only taking the time to fetch a glass of water. He looked at the ceiling. In a few scant hours, he would be heading back out to Derby again to meet Lydia. Together they would head out to purchase a ring for her. He could feel himself stirring inside to think of it. That was something in his mind that he couldn't quite wrap his head around. It was done. Now it was only a matter of time. He dressed finally and looked out the window. He could see through the slats in the blinds that Jacob was in the back with Theodore, a young man he'd brought on to work. The pair of them were trimming hedges. In a few hours, he guessed, they would probably be cutting the grass. It was getting long, but Jacob has d never given him any indication that he would leave it sitting for too long.

He saw Henry in the front room with another magazine and a newspaper folded beside him. He rose when John Paul entered the room. He looked vaguely excited to see something in the newspaper and jabbed a pointy finger at the text.

"See this," he asked. John Paul did not see; there was a finger in the way, after all. But after a moment he looked and his eyes adjusted to the text and he read that it was about him.

"ANNOUNCING ENGAGEMENTS" it read, in large block letters. Below, in smaller text, was his name, with the words “Colonial Governor” beside it. He winced and tried to ignore it.

John Paul tousled Henry's hair and gave him a weak smile. The time was growing nearer by the second for when he would need to leave though, so he left without explaining further. He took one of the horses and headed down the road.

Though it was a long way, he found that more and more often he was able to ignore the entire route, as if the horse knew it well enough that he didn't need to move it. Or perhaps his hands moved automatically and he managed to go without thinking. But in either case, he was not entirely surprised to find that he was in town before he knew it, even though ninety minutes or more must have passed in the journey.

Lydia was waiting in the front room behind the maid who opened the door, and she picked up a handbag and followed him out the door without a moment's delay.

"You look better," she said after a moment's walk. She had a smile on her face that he hadn't seen the night before. Perhaps his illness had taken a bigger toll on her than he had imagined.

"Thank you," he said, unsure of how to respond. "I feel better. I told you, only a day or two and I'd be all better."

"I'm glad," she said, and they fell silent as they walked. It was the first time they had been together without Nan there, and neither knew exactly how to act under the circumstances.

"That was a lovely party last night," John Paul said, hoping that she would have something to add. She didn't say anything, but she did nod and make an agreeable sound.

The silence was palpable, and John Paul felt the awkwardness firming between them. It was suffocating; if he did not divine a way to get her to act more comfortable with him, he feared that they might have the entire day unsure how to deal with each other, and the fate did not bode well for their future together either. He was concerned, to say the very least, but he pushed the thoughts away.

The greatest worry of all, he thought, was the one that you let get to you in the end. As long as he knew what needed to

be done, there was no reason to concern himself overmuch with the possible consequences; all that would do would be to make it all the more difficult to act.

"Would you like to go to dinner with me this evening? We could make a day of it," he said.

"Oh," she said. She had a look on her face that he recognized immediately.

"Don't worry, if you need to tell your brother, you know we can go straight home after we see the jeweler and tell him."

'Tell him,' he had said. Not ask him, and it was not accidental that he had phrased it that way. He showed a big, toothy smile to Lydia and she laughed.

"I've absolutely never seen you smile like that, John Paul Foster, and if you want to see me again, you'll smile like yourself!"

He laughed back at her. Then he gave her a bigger, sillier smile.

"That's it," she said, a large warm smile spreading across her lips. "I can't do this. The engagement is off,"

And then she followed him into the Jeweler's shop. The man inside looked up, a short thin man who looked more like a boy except for the thick lines around his eyes. "May I help you?”

"Yes, I'm John Paul Foster, and this is my fiancée; we needed to buy a ring. For the engagement."

"Of course," he said. He had a mousy look to him, and his spectacles were large and round and stood out against his face. "Right this way, I'll show you what I have."