Free Where Love Shines by Donna Fletcher Crow Page B

straight at a high stone wall, and we hit it full tilt. The world has simply come to a crashing halt.” He paused. “And there it is.”
    Now the silence in the room grew deep, but not with the uneasiness Jennifer had feared before. She took her time, giving careful consideration to all Richard had said. Certainly she, too, had been plodding through her days ever since she had returned home. Richard was not the only one without a goal, a reason for getting up in the morning. Her mother would have her fill her calendar with social functions. Arthur would have her plunge into social causes for the good of England. But she had found no way for herself.
    With Richard sitting so near a new realization dawned on her. She suddenly saw that it was
he
who had sustained
her
through the worst days in the Barracks Hospital just by being there for her to care for. She had sped through chores that could easily have bogged her down, because she knew that if she finished in time, she could then go to Richard. She hadn’t given a single thought to returning home with Mary Stanley or any of the other nurses, not because of the countless number of men who needed her, but because of one man who needed her.
    She rose and walked to him, and this time she did not wait for him to hold out his hand. She simply took it in both of hers. She felt the slight jerk and thought he was going to pull away. But he didn’t.
    “Richard, I am so glad to have found you again. I—”
    “Miss Neville!” The double doors burst open with a crash, causing Jennifer to jump backwards. “Great-aunt Charlotte has sent me to fetch you. Tea is being served.” Livvy Greyston stood in the lighted doorway, blinking at the darkened room. “Oh, I see you’ve met my brother. I don’t suppose it’s any good asking you to come to tea, is it, Dick?”
    He shook his head, holding up a hand to shade his eyes against the light from the open doors.
    “All right. I’ll tell Branman to bring you a tray, shall I?”
    “Oh, could I take mine here with your brother? We’re old acquaintances, you see. I was one of Miss Nightingale’s nurses at Scutari.”
    Livvy hesitated, but Richard was adamant. “That would never do, Miss Neville. You have been summoned to Lady Eccleson’s tea table. ‘Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do or die.’”
    Jennifer smiled, then murmured a farewell to Richard and obediently followed Livvy from the room. “So you are Livvy. I wrote several letters to you for Richard.”
    Livvy stopped and flung her arms around Jenny. “Oh! How marvelous! I can’t wait to tell Mama. It will mean so much to her. Just think of you being there with Dick, and here we are together—it’s like Providence. It must have been
meant
.” She took Jenny’s hand and almost dragged her down the long, oak paneled hall hung with dark, gilt-framed portraits. “We’ve longed to know more of what happened in Turkey, but Dick simply refuses to talk about it.”
    As soon as they were settled in a corner of Lady Eccleson’s parlor, Livvy began plying Jenny with questions. But Jennifer felt a restraint. If Richard had not chosen to tell his family about it, she wasn’t certain it was her place. So after a few comments about how heroic Florence Nightingale and the sanitary commissioners were, it was easy to encourage Livvy to return to what quickly proved to be her favorite topic of conversation—her brother.
    “I think we were all surprised when Dick chose a military career. Of course he always played soldiers when he was young, and he was an absolutely mad rider—no fence was ever too high for him to jump. But he was so quiet and gentle too. The thought of him killing anything always seemed strange to me.”
    The perky features of Livvy’s round face softened with memory. “I was sickly as a child. Dick would amuse me by the hour, reading stories he couldn’t possibly have enjoyed. And he could always make me laugh. He would slip little asides into the