Charlotte House Affair 01 - My Particular Friend

look,’ I said inelegantly.
    ‘I have that good luck, but I will soon see nine and twenty and my luck will soon turn. Ah, that shocks you. I should have told you earlier but I am as vain as any woman. Still, my age is an open secret, just one you did not care to investigate fully.’
    ‘The midshipman, from the sketch? He was your love?’ I asked. I looked to the mantel for the sketch in its frame, but it had already been packed.
    She nodded. ‘Finally a lieutenant … on the day he died, actually.’
    ‘Was it … like the matter between Mr Jenkins and Mr Sunderland?’
    ‘Oh no, this was in deadly earnest. Although it was alike in that he was defending my honour, or what he thought to be my honour. And it was aided and abetted by one senior in rank, age and experience to him.’
    ‘I am very sorry. Were you to … was there an understanding?’
    ‘Between us there was, but my father and mother forbade our union because they would not call Edward a gentleman. And then he died before I could defy my parents and marry him regardless.’
    As she said this, the sadness that I had registered before took over her whole being and I felt drawn in to her misery and regret.
    ‘How very sad,’ I said, ‘and you are unable to love again because you lost your heart to him and only him.’
    And then she surprised me by a little laugh. ‘Such a romantic, Jane. Yes, I could contemplate no other because I lost my heart to him. And because of his child that I bore.’