Helen Dickson - Lord Lansbury's Christmas Wedding

Observing Octavia who was watching her brother, Jane noticed her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were larger and brighter than she had seen them. ‘Are you all right, Lady Octavia?’

She nodded. ‘Can we go and get something to eat? I’m hungry.’

‘Of course we can. If you will excuse us, Lady Lansbury.’

‘Of course, my dear. Run along,’ she said, looking with concern at her daughter as she fidgeted from one foot to the other. ‘Octavia is looking a little flushed. Perhaps it’s the sun.’

‘I’ll get her a glass of iced lemonade—and I’m sure an ice cream would not go amiss,’ she suggested, knowing of Octavia’s love of that particular desert.

‘I don’t like Christopher’s friend,’ Octavia said, in a childishly conspiratorial whisper when they were far enough away from her mother to be overheard.

‘But why? Why don’t you like her, Lady Octavia?’

‘She’s always cross. I just don’t like her. She isn’t my friend.’

And just as suddenly her agitation was gone and she looked up and searched Jane’s face with her soft blue gaze. There was a gentle elusiveness about her that declared her to be as fragile and vulnerable as a summer flower and she possessed a strange, tragic quality that always touched Jane deeply.

‘We shall always be friends, won’t we, Jane?’

‘Yes, Lady Octavia, I will always be your friend,’ Jane said with genuine warmth.

Octavia continued to search Jane’s face. ‘Truly? Cross your heart?’

Jane smiled, then with her forefinger she made a sign over her own heart. ‘Cross my heart,’ she promised.

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