Christmas Delights (22 page)

“I’ve always received presents today.” Penelope bounced on the bed. “Do I get presents?”

Victoria yawned. “Your present is that I’ve agreed to marry John and you’re going to live in Edinburgh with us. No boarding school.”

Penelope threw her arms around her cousin, overbalancing them until they fell back on their pillows. She giggled and rested her head on Victoria’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“You are very welcome.”

“You’ll be happy with him, won’t you? Like Princess Everilda will be with Prince Hugh?”

“We don’t even know how that story ends.”

“Will you finish it? There isn’t much left. Just two croaking ravens and saving the merman from the sea, which is obviously Prince Hugh.” Penelope pulled the carved bird Eddy had made her from under her pillow and set it on her knee.

“Then you already know how the story ends. The two ravens are like your white storks, ready to make wishes come true. Of course, the princess wanted to wish for her prince to come. But the Normans were attacking and she couldn’t make a selfish wish.”

“No, she’s a princess,” Penelope agreed. “So what does she wish for?”

“That her people will be safe.”

“That priest died.”

“He died of shock when he saw the ships approaching shore. It wasn’t in the actual attack. As the princess cradled his dying body, the two ravens settled above them on the bells. She knew they were magical creatures and begged them to hide her people from the Normans.”

“Did they?”

“A thick fog swirled into the village, obscuring all the buildings. Then the earth moved, just like it did yesterday. Waves as high as the bell tower lashed at the ships and threw them off course. The Normans never landed at Everilda’s castle. She ran down from the tower toward the sea, stopping on a cliff to look into the white-capped waves.”

“What did she see?” Penelope asked, bouncing on the bed until her small bird tumbled to the sheet.

“A head bobbing, of course. Was it a man? Everilda saw a tail, though. What could it be? She’d heard of such things, of course, living so near the water. She ran to the secret path that went to the shore from the cliff. Few knew which of the spindly trees could hold a person’s weight as they climbed down, but she knew each one, and even in the fog she was sure-footed. When she reached the shore, the merman washed in on a huge wave. Though he could have dragged her out to sea forever, she charged forward, grabbing the merman by the shoulders and pulling him to safety.

“When she had him past the rock line, she turned him over, because he had been facedown in the waves. His face was blue and his hair was made of green seaweed. A soaking-wet shirt of white lawn covered his chest, but below that a long black tail stretched down where his legs should have been, until they became a wide broom of black fin. Despite the odd coloring and frightening tail, she recognized her true love.”

“It was Prince Hugh?”

“Oh, yes, under an enchantment. She had risked her life to save him from the sea’s clutches. But now he was a fish. Could he even breathe on land? She knew what she had to do.”

“She needed to give him a true-love kiss?” Penelope’s eyes were wide.

Victoria nodded. “Exactly. She bent down, put her warm lips to his cold ones, and breathed humanity back into him. She could feel his skin warm under her mouth. Soon, he was kissing her back enthusiastically. When she lifted her head, she saw his hair had gone back to his normal blond curls and his face had lost the strange blue tinge.”

“Was he wearing clothes?” Penelope put her hand to her mouth. Her cheeks were bright red.

Victoria laughed. “It didn’t matter to the princess. She and the prince ran hand in hand to the village, still worried about the Normans. But when they reached the top of the cliff, they could see all was well and the ships were gone. They went to the church to kneel down and thank God that they had been spared. And who should come in? A man in a shiny, supple black cassock. It was the priest, who had been resurrected by those magical crows. He married them immediately.”

“Did they ever see the evil queen again?”

“Of course they did, but that is another story.” Victoria grinned at the child, quite pleased with herself.

Penelope nodded. “I guess that is a good ending, all things considered. I’m glad the priest didn’t die.”

“Me, too. I know it’s probably just porridge for breakfast, thanks to the condition of the kitchens, but I find myself starving this morning.”

“No maid came with a tray.”

Victoria nodded. “Everything is still at sixes and sevens, I expect.”

“I’ll help you dress,” Penelope said. “Even if it is only porridge, we should go down. It is our last day and I don’t want to miss anything.”

Victoria thought Penelope should be going to the nursery, not downstairs, but on this last day, what did it really matter?

They used what was left of the previous day’s water to wash up. She glanced at her face in the mirror. Did she look any different now that she was an engaged lady again, soon to be a Scottish baroness? No. Something troubled her, though, as she stared at her dark braid. Shouldn’t Prince Hugh have had black hair instead of blond curls? For her future’s sake—for John’s sake—she needed to banish Lewis from her every thought. She had to be honest with herself. Lewis didn’t care enough to offer for her, even if Rose schemed successfully and in time to stop her wedding to John.

After breakfast, they wandered through the public rooms. Penelope chattered away about the damage they found: cracked ceilings, broken moldings, shattered vases. Victoria remembered moments where she’d spoken to one of her suitors or shared pieces of her fairy tale in every one.

When they entered the mirrored gallery, Victoria expected to find cascades of shattered glass, but instead, the miniature Versailles was completely intact. The room was in the oldest part of the Fort. Perhaps this section had been spared. She hoped the beautiful rococo ballroom had been safe from damage as well.

As they walked down the ornately decorated gallery, they heard whispers in a corner near the carved wood fireplace at the end. Victoria put a finger to her lips and turned to leave, but Penelope grabbed her hand.

“It’s Uncle Rupert!”

Victoria peered into the gloom. Her father was kneeling in front of Rose. As she watched, her father took Rose’s delicate fingers in his bearlike paws and kissed the tips, then spoke in a low voice. She stood, entranced, as Rose’s lips trembled. Her father said something else and Rose responded; just one word it seemed, but the right one, for her father kissed Rose’s fingers again, then pulled the young woman onto his lap and kissed her soundly.

Penelope hopped and started clapping. “Huzzah! Many happy returns!”

Victoria hissed, “Shhh,” and grabbed for her, but the romantic spell had been broken. Both Rose and her father turned, blushing.

“I’m sorry, but Penelope is beside herself. Such a romantic proposal. I’m so pleased for you both!”

Her father lifted Rose back to her chair, a demonstration that despite his years, he still had the strength she had so admired as a child. Rose put her hands to her mouth, and Victoria could see how she trembled. Her friend must feel so much relief at finally finding a husband after years of loneliness, ill health, and despair.

She and Penelope came forward, offering congratulations.

“We could have a double wedding,” Rose said, smiling.

“I’m sure you want your own special day,” Victoria demurred. “My wedding will be a very restrained affair, since it is my second marriage.”

Rose nodded. “Will you have a short engagement? I must say, I do not want to wait very long!”

“Until spring at least, so you can have the best flowers,” Victoria said.

Rose shook her head. “It is better now.”

She didn’t say it, but Victoria guessed that flowers made Rose sneeze. “Then perhaps you will marry before I do.”

Rose squeezed her hands. “I cannot believe I’m going to be your stepmama, and Penelope’s aunt.”

Penelope jumped up on the bench and gave Rose a hug. Victoria turned and hugged her father, who was uncharacteristically shy.

“Congratulations, Papa,” she whispered.

The mirrors all around them reflected nothing but happy faces, but she knew what lay beneath. Why hadn’t her father done this a day earlier? If Rose had a child, her own responsibilities might be less onerous. Her father might be happy enough with his new fiancée to commute Penelope’s sentence to Miss Treadgold’s Academy. And Victoria might have had Lewis instead of John.

It was too late now. She had said yes. The weddings would proceed. She would be happy. That would be the best revenge on the Fates.

T
he earl had decided to hold the delayed bonfire near the site of the destroyed stable in order to easily burn some of the unusable wood. The enormous fire lit up the lake and the ruins, bathing the ancient stone structure in light and smoke.

Lewis held a cup of hot spiced punch and ignored the crowd gathered together for the last night of the house party. Twelfth Night had been the night before, but the festivities had been all but obliterated by the earthquake. Now the wine, punch, and spirits flowed freely and everyone was in the mood to celebrate. The temperature had warmed to something approaching normal. Many of the guests had even abandoned their extra layers of clothing and mufflers and shawls, despite the cloying damp.

The air had a putrid scent, partially from the paint that was burning on the coated wood but also from the muck at the bottom of the lake, which had been churned up by the earth’s movement. Who knew what else had been there, along with the ruins of the putative church? He wondered if the lake had once been an inlet connected to the sea. Had the church been on an island?

This house party seemed to have been adrift in legend and folklore from the first, between the stories the workmen told during the long days in the stable, Victoria’s fairy tale, and Rose’s legends. And meeting Victoria herself. He’d never thought he, Lewis Noble, would be an aristocrat’s lover. This Christmas season had been a dream, and never more so than now, when he regarded his lover bathed by the flickering bonfire, next to another man.

He watched with a curious sense of detachment as the earl called the assembled guests to attention with a small gong and announced the arrival of champagne.

Footmen wandered through the crowd with trays of the beverage served in an assortment of containers. Flutes, wineglasses, even teacups—whatever they had undamaged in the Fort—until everyone had champagne.

Then the Baron of Alix announced his engagement to Lady Allen-Hill. Lewis heard Victoria’s name with a sense of unreality, as if it was part of a tale and not his actual life. He understood her reasons. After all, he had given her nothing and her father had made his position clear. So the lady wasn’t strong enough to fight Rupert Courtnay. He hadn’t wanted to spend the next twenty years or so battling him either, so he understood.

But then he lost all comprehension of her action. Rupert Courtnay himself took a position in front of the leaping flames and, instead of restating the baron’s words, announced his own engagement. Cousin Rose came to stand with him, blushing furiously as the guests pressed forward, offering congratulations to the foursome.

The countess laughed and held her son’s arm when the local vicar made a joke about this being the most successful house party in the history of house parties and that he hoped to have the honor of marrying every one of the newly engaged couples. Bullen merely looked bored.

Lewis turned away, his ears tuning the noise down to nothing but the furious buzzing of bees. Victoria had accepted the baron when she might have been released from her father’s demands. Why hadn’t she waited to marry, at least for a year or two? Rose might not be strong, but she was young. They would know soon enough if she could bear a child.

Betrayal
. Victoria had betrayed what they had felt for each other. If she could have slipped out from under her father’s thumb, they could have been together.

He turned away from the festivities in disgust. A footman had left a tray on a tree stump and he placed his teacup of champagne there, untouched. The cup of punch, however, he drained in one long gulp; then he went to the refreshed bowl of steaming brew and ladled more into his cup. He had no need to stay sober in anticipation of pleasing a lover tonight.

He had resolved to take a long walk in the firelight, just him and his punch, when Penelope skipped up to him. Her light step indicated a different girl than the moody nine-year-old of days gone by.

“Why are you so happy?” he growled when she stopped in front of him.

She did a little dance. “I’m to live with Victoria forever.”

“How is that any different than before?”

Her eyes grew wide. “My uncle was going to send me to Manchester, to a dreadful school where the students often die, it is said.”

He snorted. “I don’t believe you.”

“It’s true. One of the maids said she overheard Uncle Rupert telling Victoria that if she didn’t become engaged by today, I was going to the school. That’s not exactly what Victoria told me, of course, but I don’t think the maid was lying.”

What could have prompted Courtnay to be so cruel? Lewis squeezed the handle of his cup until it broke in his hand. The bowl of the cup fell, his steaming punch swallowed by the thirsty earth.

Surely the man knew he was about to propose; why put his daughter in such a position? It defied logic. But he had done it, and the baron had announced the engagement, and either way, Lewis’s happiness had been destroyed. Rupert Courtnay now had himself another titled son-in-law.

At least he now understood why Victoria had made her decision, and this knowledge made him even more certain that he had done the right thing in refusing her. Being under Rupert Courtnay’s thumb would be intolerable.

“I need another cup,” he muttered and stalked back toward the punch bowl. Penelope’s mouth dropped open. Surely she didn’t think he was going to congratulate her on her good fortune? He was happy she was spared the apparently dreadful school, but he’d lost something precious in the bargain. Enough lovers littered his past for him to know how rare Victoria’s passion had been, how sweet. Even if he hadn’t fallen in love with her.

If he even had. How could he love her when he’d never stopped loving Alys? Either way, his love seemed doomed to only bring him unhappiness.

He heard a sniff behind him and turned to see Penelope, her good mood quite gone, sniffling back tears. Swearing to himself, he moved back to her just as she bent to pick up his broken cup.

“Don’t touch that; you’ll cut yourself,” he barked. He took her arm to pull her away from the shards.

A footman rushed up and cleared the mess away with an apology.

“I didn’t want someone to step in it.” The girl sniffled again.

“It isn’t your problem,” Lewis said.

“Have you been to Edinburgh?” she asked tremulously. “Is it nice?”

“I believe it is rainy.”

“And everyone talks with a different accent. What if I don’t understand them?” Penelope’s voice rose, and Lewis was suddenly chilled with the knowledge that she was going to fly into one of her rages.

He glanced toward the bonfire, toward Victoria, who could calm the girl like no one else. Penelope broke into loud, ringing sobs and tucked her eyes into her sleeve. At least they seemed desperately loud to him, but no one in the crowd around the bonfire even looked away. He patted Penelope’s shoulder, trying to soothe her.

“Come, Penelope. Change is always hard, but it isn’t as if you aren’t far better off than you might have been. You need to look forward with hope, not fear.”

She rubbed her nose and did a nervous jig. “What if she has a baby and forgets about me? She might send me to the school after all.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t send you to that school,” Lewis said. “Don’t waste your time worrying about the distant future. Just think about now. A jolly time planning weddings, then moving to an exciting new city. New friends, new adventures.”

“Why didn’t you propose to my cousin? I thought you liked her.” Penelope’s tears stopped and she looked at him sharply.

Too sharply for a nine-year-old. What had she seen? They had never been as careful as they should have been. “I wasn’t for her, Penelope. It’s as simple as that.”

“Do you like the baron?”

“I do. He’s a good man. He will treat your cousin well.”

She frowned. “I’d rather it was you.”

He wanted to tell her that he felt the same way, but that would have been childish, and he was anything but a child. “Your uncle is marrying my cousin, so I’m sure we’ll see each other again someday. Until then, I wish you the very best.”

She stared at him, her lower lip pursed into a pout.

“Give me your hand,” he said.

She held one tiny mittened hand out to him and he took it in his own, then kissed the back of it. “Fare-thee-well, Miss Courtnay, and happy travels. You are a strong girl and you are going to be fine.” He smiled at her, then added, “Go back to your family now.”

She turned away obediently. The momentary urge to get very drunk had passed. Instead, Lewis decided to pack. He was leaving very early the next morning, well before breakfast. It was best to be gone before anyone else was awake. He didn’t want to see Victoria again.

It seemed they were the last to leave the next afternoon. All the horses had been engaged in transporting the house party to various way stations, homes, and train stations in the area, and they had managed to be just a little too behind to catch any of them.

When Victoria entered a sitting room to wait for a footman to appear with news that a carriage was available, she was surprised to find John sitting near the fire with a letter. Having not seen him at all that morning, she’d thought he had already departed. Which would have been odd, of course, now that she had time to reflect. Although Rose had returned to Redcake Manor, her family seat, for the time being. But she was planning a trip to London soon to purchase her trousseau, and they had made plans to shop together. Her father was in the library, discussing something with the earl, who was leaving for London in a couple of days, after he’d helped his mother order the rest of the repairs that were needed at the Fort.

“You look very serious,” she said to John as she unraveled her muffler.

“It’s just luck that this letter reached me,” he said. “I had thought we’d be gone by now.”

“I couldn’t find my favorite boots. The boot boy had left them somewhere. The entire day has gone like that.”

“Ah.” His eyes flashed back to the paper.

“We’re just waiting for a carriage now.”

He nodded, not looking up. “Ye will not mind if I stay here until tomorrow?”

She tilted her head. Something about his demeanor had changed since the previous night. She tried to peek at the letter, but by accident or design, he had his hand over the majority of the writing. Still, she thought it was female handwriting. “Of course not, John. If you have business . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she hoped he would explain.

He scratched his chin. “Thank ye, my dear. Your father will be going with ye, so ye ladies will not have tae travel alone.”

“We would be fine alone. We came down here ourselves. Though Rose was with us, but that was a mere accident.”

He nodded again, even more absently. A footman poked his head into the doorway.

“The carriage is here, Lady Allen-Hill.”

Victoria wondered how long it would be until she was referred to as Baroness Alix. Or if it would even happen, given John’s sudden change in behavior. However, the engagement had been announced, and if he cried off, there would be a scandal, at least in this corner of Sussex.

“Well.” She forced a smile. “We will see you in London in a few days.”

“Of course, my dear.” John stood and kissed her cheek, a dutiful peck that felt as dry as sawdust.

She sighed. “Good-bye for now.” She followed the footman out the door, leaving John to his letter.

Lewis left the Fort on horseback, a mode of transportation that had become highly unusual for him. Eddy, a former London newsboy, had ridden even less, but he exulted in the experience, riding his horse so recklessly that Lewis was afraid the lad would provoke his horse into rearing.

He urged his horse into a canter and flew down the muddy lane after the boy. Eddy crowed that reckless laugh of youth, and Lewis, getting into the spirit of things, whooped as they raced. It felt good to have the wind in his face and blowing in his ears. For a time, all through their ride to Heathfield, he didn’t have a care in the world. He could have been a boy again, back before his parents died, when his Grandmother Noble still lived in the country and kept horses. How long ago it had been, and how thoroughly everything had changed.

They did manage to make Hatbrook Farm in one piece. By the time Lewis left his horse at the stable, he was quite sober again: the inventor, the thinker, the loner. He sent Eddy on ahead, wanting to take a quick look around to make sure the earthquake hadn’t done any damage to his tool shed on the property.

He had agreed to take dinner with the Shield family before going to Battersea in the morning. The marquess had some business to discuss with him regarding improvements to his winery. After Lewis checked his equipment, he drove the marquess’s horseless carriage to the vineyard outbuildings and acquainted himself with the layout, so that Hatbrook wouldn’t have to explain the basics. He spent an hour with the manager, grateful he’d cleared his head with the ride so that he could focus on business and put Victoria behind him.

By the time he’d driven back to the carriage house, he felt his usual self. Lewis Noble, inventor and satellite member of the Marquess of Hatbrook’s family, had returned. He’d left his dream world behind along with Christmas.

Lewis changed in the room Hatbrook had told him to call his own, feeling melancholy. He left off the frivolous waistcoats and ties in the tartans, rubies, and greens of the holiday season and dressed soberly in black. Why had he even packed such items when he’d gone to the Fort mostly to work? He supposed he’d felt some need to get use out of the clothing, handmade gifts from his cousins the year before.

Until he had left the Fort today, there had been a slight sensation of magic buzzing in the back of his brain, some sense of life not being lived quite normally. It had begun on the side of the road, when he had seen Victoria before Christmas, and had stayed ever since. Would he forget her now, in an effortless fashion born of lack of proximity? Could he throw himself back into his inventions, his overabundance of work? He had his horseless carriage business, the submarine, the winery project. Work was always available with the Redcake factories and bakeries. He had no time to ruminate over the lover he’d lost to the Baron of Alix.