Harriet and the Colonel

Harriet and the Colonel, Ch. 1 (part 2)

“Pardon me, ma’am.” The butler stepped into the room. “An express has just arrived.”

“At this time of day?” Samantha said in surprise.

“It was not the regular express rider, ma’am.” The butler’s eyebrows rose over a speaking look.

“One of my brother’s men?”

The seasoned servant gave a tiny tilt of his head in affirmation while saying, “He did not wear the Lillesley livery, but he was familiar. Therefore, it might be as you said.”

The man was good at his job, and likely had been visited more than once by Edmund to make sure that he was impeccably discreet.

“It is from the colonel,” Samantha said as she scanned the letter. “He regrets to inform me that he will not be able to attend tonight’s soiree.” She refolded the sheet of paper from which she had read the words. “It is as you expected. He is unable to leave his friends in Hertfordshire even for a ball as lovely as the one he knows I will host.” She smiled. “He is a dear man, is he not?”

Harriet and the Colonel, Ch. 1 (part 1)

Harriet Phillips ran a hand lovingly over the piano in her sister’s music room as a memory from last year’s ball flitted in three-four time through her mind. Had it truly been a year already since she had waltzed with the man she loved in this very room? What a wonderful night that had been!

Well, not all of it had been delightful. There had been all those other gentlemen to dance with. She blew out a soft breath. There still were many hopeful suitors who spoke prettily to her and requested dances and drives and the like. However, they had no hope. Even before she had danced with Colonel Fitzwilliam and discovered he loved her, her heart had not been available to them. It had always and only ever belonged to her colonel.

“Are you going to play for us tonight?” Her sister Samantha’s question was asked with a laugh. Anyone who knew Harriet knew that she did not play the piano.

A Music Room Meeting

This story is a prequel to Harriet and the Colonel and also an Oxford Cottage companion story. It was formerly published as part of a short story collection called Teatime Tales. Many of the other Teatime Tale short stories have been lengthened to be novelettes, but this one will remain a short story and stand as a prequel to Harriet and the Colonel.

A melody, haunting and beautiful, drew Harriet down the hall. Quietly, she opened the door and slipped silently into the room, taking a seat directly behind the player.

His body moved with the emotion of the music, falling forward, raising back, following his hands as they moved up or down the instrument. The melody seemed to flow from him as if it were a part of him, being breathed into existence.

She dashed away a tear. How was it that a man such as he could make the air swirl with emotion? She had not even known he played. The gentleman before her clashed with the person she had always known. He was the one everyone looked to for strength. He was the one to lighten the mood with a well-placed, though not always proper, joke. Unless severely provoked, he was always a picture of cheerful composure.