Free Regina Scott by The Heiresss Homecoming

number of people waiting to greet Samantha’s chaperone when she and Mrs. Dallsten Walcott exited the church.
    But Jamie and his father were not among them. She’d known they’d been right behind her in church; Jamie and his grandfather had always sat in that pew when she’d been growing up. Then as now, his presence had brought comfort.
    Jamie’s father was another matter. At times she’d found it difficult to concentrate on her worship, knowing Lord Kendrick might be looking at her back. Was her cap on straight? Was she standing reverently enough? Oh, but she shouldn’t worship to please anyone but her heavenly Father!
    Yet the moment she spotted him and Jamie standing in the shade of an elm along the edge of the churchyard, she felt a similar wish to please Lord Kendrick. She wanted him to approve of the way she smiled and exclaimed over new babies, recent marriages and good fortune. She hoped he would join her in commiserating over deaths, illness and hard times. But though she felt his gaze on her as she followed Mrs. Dallsten Walcott from group to group, he remained on the edge of the yard.
    What was he waiting for? Why didn’t he approach her? She could not have given him a disgust of her by admitting she fenced, or he was not the man she thought him. What kept him away?
    She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or dismayed when Mrs. Dallsten Walcott finally drew her up beside Jamie and Lord Kendrick. Jamie looked dapper in a navy coat and trousers, his cravat tied in some complicated knot she thought must have given his valet fits.
    But Lord Kendrick outdid his son. He wore a dove-gray cutaway coat over black trousers, his cravat simply but elegantly tied, the buttons on his silver-shot waistcoat gleaming in the sunlight. And those boots! The scarlet leather was tooled with fanciful birds and sweeping palms. She was certain there wasn’t another pair like them in England.
    Lord Kendrick and Jamie had been talking with another fellow dressed more humbly in brown coat and trousers, and it wasn’t until he pulled off his top hat to reveal carrot-colored hair that she recognized him, and every other thought flew from her mind.
    “Toby!” Samantha enfolded her friend and former suitor in a hug, then stepped back to eye him. “Oh, it’s been ages. How are you?”
    His grin was as bold as ever. “Quite fine, thank you.”
    Lord Kendrick’s smile was amused. “I take it you know the gentleman.”
    Samantha blushed, realizing she’d been her usual enthusiastic self, a fact that had caused more than one of her acquaintances to cringe. Of course London was a far more formal place than the Evendale valley, and she had known Toby most of her life.
    “She knows me to her sorrow, I’m sure,” Toby replied for her. “I once laid my heart at her feet.”
    Lord Kendrick raised a brow.
    Samantha couldn’t help laughing at Toby’s exaggerated sigh. “You remember it decidedly differently, Mr. Giles. As I recall, my cousin Vaughn made a cake of himself over some imagined slight, and you felt obliged to offer for me to appease him.”
    Now Toby laughed as well. “I’m sure it would have taken a lot less than the threat of your cousin to get me to propose in those days. But life moves on. I’ve a missus about somewhere.” He glanced around the churchyard and beckoned to someone. “We can’t all wait for Lady Everard, eh, Lord Wentworth?”
    Jamie turned a darker red than Toby’s hair.
    Samantha nudged him with her elbow. “Lord Wentworth isn’t waiting for me either. I’m sure he has his sights on the perfect young lady.”
    Jamie gazed at her. “I recently made such a decision, actually.”
    “And here are Mrs. Giles and her delightful children,” Lord Kendrick put in smoothly, stepping back to make room for the brood. Samantha counted at least six, but she could easily have been mistaken, for the group cavorted around her like a pack of hounds, and it was difficult to estimate the number.
    “There’s