SEARCHING FOR LYDIA Read online

  SEARCHING FOR LYDIA

  Gloria Gay

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Gloria Gay

  SEARCHING FOR LYDIA

  Copyright © 2019 by Gloria Caballero Gay

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  Published by Gloria Caballero Gay, San Diego, CA, United States of America. Copyright 2019. All rights reserved.

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  Except for the number of lines necessary to include in a review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

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  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to any person or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

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  Printed in the USA.

  Edited by Juliana Gay

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  Cover Design and Interior Format:

  The Killion Group, Inc.

  To my dear friend, Anna Bertha Peters

  Chapter 1

  -London, April 1809 -

  Simon Westrick, Earl of Brandell, at nearly eighteen and the season’s newest earl, had been waiting at the London posting station for his friend, Ambrose Rustwellon, who was due to arrive from Nottingham in the mail coach.

  Simon and Amby had been best friends since their first day at Eton and Amby was to spend the season with Simon at Simon’s family townhouse in Mayfair. They were to celebrate their birthdays together as they had been born on the same day.

  A loud strident female voice cut through Simon’s thoughts. Annoyed, Simon’s eyes fell on the source. The woman was two or three paces away. Instinctively, Simon moved closer, as he noticed that the woman was admonishing a young girl who stood before her.

  “Stay here and do not move an inch, Lydia,” the woman ordered the girl. The girl nodded, avoiding the woman’s eyes.

  The woman was dressed all in black and was thin, tall and had a concave chest. Large eyes like busy beetles were too wide-set on her long face and had hardly any whites to them, and her mousy hair was pulled back into a tight knot at the nape of her neck.

  She had an alert, angry look on her face.

  In sharp contrast to her, the girl she had addressed as Lydia was like a fresh breeze in spring. She appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen years of age. Her face glowed like that of a young Madonna in a Renaissance painting. The long waves of her honey-gold hair were tied loosely with a worn ribbon and she wore a coarse cloak frayed at the edges that was loosely tied at the neck, revealing a faded blue dress underneath.

  Her eyes were downcast, and her hands were clasped together in front.

  “Sit on this bench,” the woman ordered the girl in a shrill voice that grated on Simon. But even as she said this, the woman did not give the girl time to sit but rather pushed her onto a narrow space between two women on the crowded bench, causing exclamations of “Hey!” from the two women on the sides.

  Ignoring the protests, the odd woman went on, mumbling to her maid:

  “I must find out why my brother didn’t meet me where I told him to and bring him back, Melba.” The maid had just then returned to their midst, a cup of tea for her mistress held between her hands, which she handed to her.

  “This is a dangerous busy place and he could get lost,” the woman added, taking the tea and smelling it.

  “I’ll go find out what’s holding him.” She said in her grating voice as she hurriedly gulped down on the tea.

  “Stay here with Lydia while I go search for him,” she ordered and added, annoyed: “This tea is almost cold, Melba.”

  “I must return the cup, madam,” said her maid. “They required a deposit.”

  “All right,” said her mistress, with an annoyed look, “but rush back here with Lydia. Understand?”

  She hurriedly drank the remainder of the tea and gave the cup back to her maid, ignoring the glares from the women on each side of the girl she had shoved between them, as she continued to address her maid in loud tones:

  “I must go find Dwain,” she repeated.“He may have been accosted. There are a lot of vagrants about. He may have also lost his way.”

  “Don’t move from here, Lydia,” she said to the young girl, “and do not speak with anyone,” she admonished, appearing close to frantic.

  “Dwain gets lost easily in places he doesn’t know,” the woman mumbled more to herself than to the girl as she then walked hurriedly away.

  Chapter 2

  Simon glanced again at the young girl named Lydia. The large posting station was crowded, smelly and noisy and people jostled, while vendors cried out their wares. His ears buzzed, as though he were inside a bee hive. It was the first time Simon had been here. When he traveled with his family it was always in their elegant well-sprung chaise.

  Just then the girl looked up. Simon saw the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen in his life—brilliant sea blue and thickly fringed with dark lashes under delicate arched eyebrows, and they were awash with tears. He watched one tear join another as it slid down her left cheek along porcelain skin. The lovely girl sat still, with her hands clasped on her lap as she gazed at him.

  A shiver of sympathy towards the girl skittered through Simon, settling in the area of his heart.

  He took another close look at her.

  Something about her as she gazed at him made him want to reach out to comfort her, hold her hand and tell her everything would be all right, for there was a cry for help in her eyes.

  He would be her champion against her awful caretaker who was abusing her, judging by the clothes the girl wore, obvious discards too large for her.

  The girl stood up from where she was being crushed between the two women and moved away from them and toward Simon.

  As Simon looked deeply into the girl’s eyes, her silent plea reached him as few things had ever touched him before in his young life.

  The girl appeared wanting to say something to him, but instead, her lips trembled, and her gaze fell to her clasped hands, which also shook.

  Just then, a flower vendor, walking by Simon, yelled out her wares.

  Simon stopped her and bought from her a posy made of violets and tiny rosebuds, which he then handed to the girl.

  With a surprised look in her lovely eyes, the girl reached out and took the small wreath and a smile graced her mouth as she put the flowers to her face. The kind gesture had calmed her. Her sudden smile was like golden sunshine spreading over a field of flowers.

  With her other hand she reached out and touched Simon’s hand, softly, in silent thanks, as she looked deeply into his eyes.

  Streams of tears ran along the sides of her cheeks, and again, she appeared to want to say something, yet was having trouble doing so as Simon waited to h
ear her.

  Her touch produced strange sensations on Simon, sensations that throbbed along his veins, skittered along his nerve endings and stunned his head in a most surprising manner.

  He had never felt anything that compared to it.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Simon Westrick, miss, at your service,” he whispered back, his heart melting at her tears.

  “What relation is that woman to you?” he asked.

  “She is my aunt. I live with her and her half-brother.”

  “Why did she not buy you some tea?”

  “She never does. That is the way it is.”

  “Are you unhappy living with them?”

  “Oh, yes!” said the girl, brushing the tears away from her eyes. “But there is nothing I can do about it. My Aunt Julia, who is sweet and kind, tried very hard but could not get custody of me.”

  “Give me the direction of your Aunt Julia. Perhaps I could help you with that—what is it?” he interrupted himself as the girl suddenly looked over his shoulder, her eyes wide with fear.

  Immediately the posy disappeared underneath her cloak.

  Simon turned and saw that her caretaker, the horrible bug-eyed woman, was rushing back toward them, almost at a run. A burly man ran alongside her.

  “See, you shouldn’t have worried, Jalenta,” the man said loudly as they reached the girl.

  The woman gave Simon a dirty look and turned in a fury to the girl, shouting at her:

  “How many times have I told you not to talk to strangers, Lydia?”

  She grabbed one of the girl’s hands and pinched it with such force that the girl cried out.

  “Hey!” Simon yelled at the woman, “Stop that!”

  “Mind your own business you dandy fop,” the woman yelled in his face.

  Suddenly, the woman grabbed one of the girl’s arms and the burly man grabbed the other one.

  In a matter of seconds, the girl was then whisked between them away from the station, at a run.

  Taken by surprise by what appeared a practiced action, Simon had lost a few precious seconds before he, too, chased after as the largely-built couple carried the girl away, between them.

  The place was so crowded that Simon soon lost sight of them as they disappeared among vendors, travelers and beggars.

  Simon ran to the station entrance and looked about in the crowded yard, but there was neither sight nor sound of them. The group had disappeared into the thick fog among the horses, carriages and people.

  Nevertheless, he walked about around the yard, weaving alongside parked coaches in the fog and asked the people that were milling about if they had seen the group.

  Nobody was able to help him, so Simon went back inside the station and looked about for his friend.

  The girl knows that it’s better not to cry out in public, Simon thought in disgust. Most probably the punishment would be worse once they were at home.

  He felt helpless to defend the girl and it made him sick to his stomach.

  “I saw you run after a girl, old chap,” said his friend Amby when he met up with him. “Skirt chasing is not really meant to be literal, you know.”

  “That horrible woman was mistreating her ward.” Simon shook his head and settled down to a pace with his Eton friend, “She made my blood boil.”

  He was still outraged at what he had witnessed but more so because he had been unable to come to the girl’s aid, even though the girl’s eyes had begged for his help.

  “That odd woman called me a dandy fop.” He shook his head. Had she been a man, he thought, she would have been on his back in the dirty station floor before he had realized what had happened to him.

  “Not you, old chap,” said his friend, who much more fit the description of dandy. “You’re as severely dressed as Brummell. That woman doesn’t know fashion worth halfpence.”

  “I agree,” said Simon. “Her brother called her ‘Jalenta’,” he added. “No last name. It will be difficult to locate them.”

  The lovely girl’s blue eyes were stamped in Simon’s mind and refused to leave it for a long time after.

  A very long time.

  Chapter 3

  Surrey, three years earlier

  Harold and Julia Sandvel looked at each other as a noise sounded from the yard.

  “They have arrived,” Julia said, breathlessly.

  “Wait here, my dear. You are overwrought,” said her husband. He had been glancing out through a side slit on the drapes.

  “It appears that awful woman and her brother have accompanied Lydia,” he said.

  “They probably want to snoop around our house and find fault with it in order to shorten Lydia’s stay with us,” he added.

  “You will not allow it, will you, Harold,” said his wife, a tremor in her voice.

  “I will not allow it, my dear. Please take a sip of your tea so that you will not appear nervous and give that awful woman a reason. She needs little to run to her solicitor.”

  They heard the loud knocker sound and a minute later, their housekeeper, Mrs. Andray, rushed to open the door.

  Howard and Julia Sandvel waited tensely as they heard Molly Andray let the three people in.

  Dwain came in first, his beady eyes glancing around the parlor with a look of distaste. After him, Jalenta walked in, pushing Lydia before her.

  The woman examined the neat parlor.

  “Well, here we are,” she said as Howard greeted her tersely.

  “My wife, Mrs. Sandvel,” Howard said.

  Julia nodded from her seat but did not stand up.

  “You have forced us to spend monies to stay at an inn for the night, Mr. Howard,” Jalenta said resentfully as Lydia rushed to greet her aunt and uncle and take a seat by her aunt on the couch, her hands clasped on her lap, a look of joy in her eyes and tears sliding down her cheeks.

  “As I informed you in our correspondence, Miss Conty,” Mr. Howard said tersely, “our house is not large enough for entertaining overnight guests.Please accept our apology.” He guided the woman and her brother to the various chairs around.

  Dwain guffawed in an ugly way, let fall his large body on a Sheraton chair and asked for his tea.

  Julia poured a cup for him and Mr. Howard handed it to him. Cups of tea were poured for Lydia and the aunt, as well as sandwiches, scones and cakes passed around.

  Jalenta sat on one of the two Sheraton chairs facing the long couch where Julia sat.

  “Yet you assured us you have room for Lydia,” she said to Julia. “How is that so?”

  “There is a small bedroom in the second story, where our bedroom is. It used to be a sewing room,” Julia replied and added, “it is now a guest room that can hold only a one-person bed, a small wardrobe and desk and chair.

  “I am sorry that you must spend funds at an Inn,” said Mr. Howard, “but as you will recall, we did offer to pick up Lydia in London as well as take her back once her visit was over.

  “Yet you declined our offer.”

  “As Lydia’s guardian I must inspect the place she is to stay for a whole month,” Jalenta said loudly.

  “You are welcome to inspect the bedroom that will be Lydia’s for her stay here,” Harold said tersely.

  “You and anyone else you bring here to inspect it, will find that it is adequate and comfortable.”

  The awkward meeting lasted less than half an hour and finally, not having been invited for dinner, Jalenta and her brother left, with warning glances directed at Lydia that said much.

  Julia was certain Lydia understood very well what those warning glances meant.

  But thankfully, they were finally gone. Howard and Julia could now look forward to Lydia’s visit, which was to last a whole month and would include Lydia’s thirteenth birthday.

  Howard noticed with great satisfaction that the look of distress had disappeared in both Lydia and her Aunt Julia.

  Lady Sandvel turned to her niece.

  “We have a wonderful month planned for
you, my darling niece.”

  The following afternoon, Lydia and her Aunt Julia were at the conservatory, admiring beautiful roses, the likes of which Lydia had never seen before.

  “Oh, Auntie, just see that!” Lydia pointed at a huge white rose speckled with red.

  “I have never seen a rose such as that one,” said her aunt. “These roses are exceptional. Look, Lydia, this tea rose is beyond beautiful.”

  As they moved on to a section of tropical plants, Lydia looked around her and sighed. “This has been one of the most memorable days of my life, Auntie. Seeing tropical plants in real life has been a wonderful experience,” she said, her eyes wide with admiration.

  “I’m so glad you are enjoying our outing, my dear,” said Julia, and added, “Look, my sweet, does it not feel like we are in a jungle, somewhere?”

  “Oh, yes!” Lydia skipped ahead of her aunt, admiring tropical plants she had never seen except in books.

  They spent a few minutes, reveling in the large tropical area, admiring a profusion of orchids.

  “These orchids are exotic!” Lydia said, and Aunt Julia exclaimed:

  “They are such a favorite with me, my dear.I have a tablecloth that I embroidered with just such beauties. Remind me to show it to you when we go back home.”

  The following afternoon Julia and her aunt went on a shopping spree to order for Lydiatwo walking frocks, two evening dresses and a ballgown.

  Julia was going to make certain that her niece enjoyed her stay with them and would forget, at least for a month, the awful place she had to go back to once her visit was over.

  For months she and Howard had scrimped and saved, to add to the small pile that had been set aside for the day when Julia would be allowed to visit with them. They would make certain that Lydia would have adequate clothes for the parties and balls they would be taking her to.