Page 3 of The Way We Were

He set down his glass as his smile faded. “I didn’t intend to lie. Surely you know that.”

“Do I?” she countered. “Friends who pitied me told me you were here, wondering why I wasn’t.”

“I have duties with my regiment every day. I wouldn’t be free to be with you. I thought it better I came to our London home.”

“And did Miss Fournier agree?” Lucy asked, trying to mask her sarcasm and failing.

His eyes widened.

Lucy took a deep breath, then glanced around. The couple closest to them gave them a curious look. “I don’t wish to discuss it here,” she said quietly.

Reggie’s gaze shifted as he, too, seemed to remember they were in a public place. “Of course. Then what should we discuss?”

“How was your voyage?” she asked, as the waiter brought them the first course, a plate of oyster patties to share and bowls of carrot soup.

After the waiter retreated, Reggie said, “It was thankfully uneventful. I read, wrote letters that I posted to you when I could, journeyed over forty days by steamship and train—and I try to forget the overland journey through the desert from Suez to Cairo. They’ve begun negotiations to build a canal, which will make travel so much easier.” After taking a few spoonsful of soup, he asked, “What have you been doing since your last letter?”

She proceeded to tell him about the Female Aid Society, the charity that consumed her time, helping impoverished women learn new skills to support themselves. As they ate another course, he asked about her brothers, and she asked about visiting his family in Southampton, each topic feeling more awkward than the last.

He looked at her as if she should be grateful for his consideration, as if he hadn’t created a scandal by being seen with a single young woman and lying to Lucy about it.

The pressure to demand real answers was building up inside, and she was worried it would spill out in public and never be controlled again.