A Love Once Lost – Jennie Goutet

It had come upon him slowly in the weeks Amy had been in Spa and had been strengthened when he had seen her in the Parc de Quatre-Heures. He was coming to the conviction that he had not done right by her all those years ago. After the shock of their first meetings, he was left to sort through what could have brought her to Spa and back into his sphere.

In those encounters, he had viewed himself in the light of the party wronged. After all, it was what he had strongly believed the night of Mrs. Waiting’s ball, and nothing in the course of the years following it had altered his perception. Had he not proposed to her? Had he not defied his father and offered Amy his heart and his hand despite all obstacles? He had! And she had repaid him by calling his plan foolish and then publicly accepting to marry another man.

However, James was becoming increasingly dissatisfied over the way he had handled the affair of his youth. There was an element of injustice, he found, when he looked back on his accusation and treatment of her. He could now own that she had been waylaid by the announcement the night of Mrs. Waiting’s ball.

Even a woman twice as forthright as she would have found such public pressure difficult to counter, and Amy had always possessed a reserved nature. James had never admitted to her, or even to himself, that the predicament she had found herself in had been difficult to overcome. And he had never apologized for giving up so easily. The hurt he felt six years ago had caused him to act in a hotheaded manner, and in the impetuousness of youth, he had shoved her entirely out of his mind.

Now, having had some years to mature, he had come to view the situation differently. It would be good to apologize to Amy, he decided. He could not repair the past, but it would bring a sense of closure to the attachment he had shared with her. With this done, he could move forward and build a life in Spa with his betrothed. Isabel wore his pendant whenever he saw her, but the memory of their conversation in the Capuchin garden removed any contentment he might otherwise feel. Her supposed jest that she was waiting for his great-aunt Mary to die had been the most offensive, but even her request for another piece of jewelry after he had just bestowed one upon her had been difficult to swallow.

He had to remember that she was still young and deserved forbearance until she matured. The fact that she scarcely traveled outside of Spa had left her with insecurity, he reasoned, which likely caused her to act in such a way. If he treated her with more attention, she was likely to outgrow this.

Books by Jennie Goutet The Bridwells’ Grand Tour A Love Once Lost 1kitap1.com/en THE BRIDWELLS’ GRAND TOUR 1 A LOVE Once LOST JENNIE GOUTET ! 1kitap1.com/en © 2026 by Jennie Goutet Published by Haven Grand Rapids, MI HavenFiction.com Haven is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan Ebook edition created 2026 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. ISBN 9780764245497 (paper) ISBN 9781493454280 (ebook) This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Cover image by Crow’s Eye Productions / Arcangel Images Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and postconsumer waste whenever possible. 1kitap1.com/en To my husband, Matthieu, and my three children, Juliet, Gabriel, and William, who came with me to Spa to drink the waters. 1kitap1.com/en Dear Reader, This little preface is for those of you who love to have some basic historical information before you begin a novel so you can situate the story and pronounce some of the (very few) foreign terms.

For those of you who don’t require those details, feel free to turn the page and plunge right in! A Love Once Lost takes place in Spa, Belgium, in 1770. Although the French-speaking people were called Belgians, Belgium as a country did not exist until 1830.

At the time, the area surrounding Spa was known as the Austrian Netherlands—distinguishable from the Dutch Republic. The Netherlands, meaning Low Countries, refers to the relative lack of hills and mountains. Spa itself, however, was ruled by the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, a nearby city, as part of the Holy Roman Empire. Spa is located on the east side of the country, less than an hour’s drive from the German border.

Regarding habits of dress: In 1770, gentlemen wore coats called justaucorps (pronounced joost-oh-core; this basically means “just-to- the-body” since it fits snugly). This coat is long in the back and curves up in the front, where it buttons. They accompanied this with stockings, breeches, a waistcoat, and a lace jabot worn about the neck in place of a tie. The women wore gowns with panniers underneath, which were loose, mobile, cloth-covered “baskets” that extended the silhouette of the hips. This created space for your tie-on pockets on either side, and the over-petticoat had slits in the skirt to give you access to the pockets.

Not bad, huh? And the whole outfit was quite comfortable.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 52528d753474d731
• File Extension: .pdf
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• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780764245497, 9781493454280
• Pages: 285
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 485.68 minutes
• Total Words: 97,135
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