Love for Lucinda by Gayle Buck

remove his household to Brussels on a wedding trip, allowing Lucinda’s sisters to accompany the newlywed pair so that they might be presented in Brussels. But such grand expectations had fallen flat when Lucinda’s husband had banished herfrom London to the country just seven months after they were wed.
    Lucinda had lived in virtual exile. She had had Carbarry and its income, but there was not enough available to her in rents where she could have supported the cost of a second household in London. Nor would she have really wanted to do so, for the humiliation of her circumstances would have been too much to have been borne.
    Lucinda had maintained a correspondence with some of those who had claimed her friendship, but inevitably the exchange of letters had dwindled. Her life was too separated from society. Those acquaintances whom she had thought to be her friends had for the most part gradually forgotten her existence.
    Three years later, Lord Mays’s totally unexpected death while in the arms of his mistress had freed Lucinda from her cage. Not only did she have Carbarry, but her husband’s demise had made her a rich young woman. Suddenly, the world was open to her.
    During Lucinda’s exile, each of her three sisters had managed to get herself a husband. Though a curate, a squire, and a baronet were not the exalted personages that Sir Thomas and his wife had envisioned for the rest of their daughters, they were able to be content. Mere respectability, after all, had proven in each young woman’s case to provide a fuller and more satisfying marriage for her than had Lucinda’s spectacular social triumph.
    Lucinda sighed. She turned her eyes to the glazed window and looked out at the bustle of the street. She was no longer close to her sisters. Their comfortable lives and the growing families that they were beginning to establish had put a gentle wedge between them. On the rare occasions that she saw her sisters, there was expressed between them a fondness that had its roots in a common childhood. Perhaps if her marriage had worked out differently and she had had a child of her own, there would have been a strengthening of those old ties.
    A well set-up gentleman on a showy hack passed the window. Lucinda was reminded of Lord Pembroke. As Lucinda recalled again the details of their encounter, she realized that there had been an awkwardness about how his lordship had extended her parcels with his left hand, as though the arm or shoulder was stiff.
    Lucinda decided that he must have been a soldier. Lord Pembroke had not struck her as the type of man that would attach himself to a diplomat’s coattails. He had probably seen action at Waterloo, she thought. So many had.
    Many of the survivors of the war had retired to the country with their wives and children, having learned what was important to them and what was not. Others had simply grown indifferent to the machinations and gossip of the society that they had once been a part.
    Lucinda had not been in London for much more than a fortnight before it had been brought home to her how many had taken part in the greatest and most horrific battle of the hard-won war. The fortunate ones had emerged from the carnage that was named Waterloo unscathed or with only minor wounds. Others who had survived had not been so fortunate. There were many gentlemen who had empty coat sleeves, like Mr. Weatherby, or who used crutches or canes to compensate for missing or permanently damaged limbs.
    Lucinda hoped that in making her first gathering a supper and ball she would be able to entice even those who did not dance. The success of the function was extremely important to her. She hoped it would serve to reintroduce her to the society that three years before she had been compelled to forsake.
    Lucinda looked forward to the evening with a mixture of anxious anticipation. She had done her utmost to ensure a smashing success. She had provided herself with a prominent address and an