Marian's Christmas Wish (17 page)

He paused when Alistair returned balancing three bowls
of porridge on his arm. Without a word, they fell to breakfast.

Alistair finished first. He looked around him and then
wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He tossed Marian’s purse in her direction. “Mare,
you’d be dumbfounded to know the going rate for porridge when you stay at the
only inn in the village during a snowstorm.”

Ingraham reached into his pockets. “H’mm. I do believe
I donated all my change to the Picton church choir, or I would contribute.” He
brightened. “Did you happen to bring along my overnight case? I have a wallet
in there.”

Marian shook her head. “We brought your carpetbag. I
remember that your wallet lay on the bureau.”

“And why did you not bring it along?” Brother and
sister stared at him, their mouths open. The earl shook his head. “Would that
you were as scrupulous about harebrained schemes as you are about my wallet.”
He thought a moment. “Then I suppose you are spending your return mail-coach
fare.”

“Exactly so,” Alistair said.

Lord Ingraham grinned at them wickedly. “Then, when we
arrive in Bath, I will direct you to a public house where you can sweep floors,
Alistair, and Marian can wash dishes. When you have done sufficient penance,
you can earn a ride home to Picton.”

Alistair hung his head. “Sir, I do wish to apologize to
you for the inconvenience I have put you through.”

“Your apology is accepted, Alistair Wynswich,” said the
earl promptly. “I will exact my revenge soon enough.”

Brother and sister looked at each other, and Ingraham
laughed. “And I will not offer you any explanation now. Come, let us take a
look outdoors and consider our situation.”

The snow had ceased falling and the sky was a brilliant
blue. Smoke curled from the chimneys of the houses that clustered around the
inn, sending neat little plumes into the cold air. The snow shimmered like
broad-cast diamonds, scattered at random by a wintry sower.

Marian clapped her hands. “It is beautiful,” she said. “Look
how the snow clings to the branches.”

“Marian, do you wear your boots?” Lord Ingraham asked.

She nodded.

“And did you ever find your other mitten?” She shook
her head.

“Happens I have two, and by Jove, there is money in
one.” He took the mittens from his overcoat pocket, a puzzled look crossing his
face. “I seem to remember widows and orphans in Bristol, or is that part of my
morphine euphoria?”

Marian could not look him in the eye. “A parson took
pity upon your wretched situation, my lord,” she said with a straight face. “That
was his contribution to your future.”

He shook the coins from the mitten and smiled down at
the money in his hand. “It is my immediate future I am concerned with.” He
stared at the money thoughtfully, as if mulling something around in his mind.

Marian watched him closely, but had the wisdom to
remain silent. She crossed her fingers behind her back.

Finally he clapped his hands together, jingling the
coins between them. “Well, I suppose all the signs point toward Bath, my dear. Alistair, take this money into our friend the innkeeper and see how much
bread and cheese you can purchase with it.”

“I shall, my lord,” Alistair replied promptly. “And
wrap it in brown paper?”

“Oh, decidedly.” Lord Ingraham smiled at Marian. “The
bread and cheese is for your sister. You and I will chew on the brown paper.”

Marian laughed. “Wretch! I am not that hungry.”

“Oh, perhaps not, but you are the last person I would
wish to have starving with me on a deserted island. But since you have
apparently assured the parson that I have abandoned my adventuring, that
likelihood will never arise.” Marian sniffed and he laughed. “I have something
better in mind. We appear to be in Frome.”

“Frome?”

“It’s a village about ten miles distant from Bath. I would recognize that church steeple anywhere. I, er, climbed it one boring
November on a dare. In the buff, I might add.”

Marian stared at him, her eyes wide. “You?”

“Shocked, Marian?”

“No, not precisely. I am merely wondering if you caught
a dreadful cold.”

He shook his head. “It was a mild November, and I have
always possessed a robust constitution.”

“I don’t wonder that your mother was beside herself.”

“To this day, my mother does not know of it.” He
chuckled in remembrance, took her by the shoulders, and looked her square in
the face. “And remove that calculating look from your eyes, my dear. This is
not information to be squirreled away and used at a later date.”

Alistair returned with a cloth bag containing bread and
cheese. “Do you propose that we walk, my lord?” he asked.

“I do.”

Lord Ingraham placed a hand on Alistair and Marian’s
shoulders and steered them toward the inn again. “We cannot retrace our
journey; the roads are closed to Lyme Regis. We cannot go forward by coach, but
I would wager that we can walk the distance.” He gave them both a little shake.
“When it comes to that, I would wager my money—had I any—on the Wynswiches.”

Neither Wynswich had a reply.

“Well? Does this meet with your approval? Or would you
prefer to celebrate Christmas at the tender mercies of this particular
landlord? Let me refresh your memory: landlords are notoriously ill-equipped on
Christmas Eve.”

Alistair laughed. “Well said, my lord.”

Gilbert bowed in his direction. “I would rather face my
relatives—oh, there’s a dreadful pun—than spend another night under the
stairwell.” He bowed to Marian. “Even with such charming company. Shall we go
forward, then, comrades?”

Marian nodded. “Only let me fetch my bandbox.”

“Excellent. If you would permit me to add a shirt or
two to your bandbox? I don’t remember what is in my room in Bath.” He sighed,
and the look in his eyes was faraway. “It has been a long while between visits.
Maybe I had forgotten just how long.”

They set out for Bath shortly after noon, with the
blessing and best wishes of the coachman, who insisted on pressing a coin in
the earl’s hand. “Laddie, I would only spend it on Blue Ruin, and mayhap you
can buy your dear mother a little gift. You’ve been a long time gone.”

“I shall do that, sir, and thank you,” said Ingraham.

Marian allowed the coachman to give her a kiss on the
cheek. “You’re a remarkable lassie,” he told her. “If you’re ever in need of
help, Jeremy Towser’s the name, and the other mail-coach drivers know me. The
world’s wide and deep, and there are rascals afoot in plenty.”

“How well I know,” murmured Lord Ingraham under his
breath.

Marian gave him a speaking look, twinkled her eyes one
last time at the coachman, who stood in the snow, hat in hand. He remained
there, watching them, until they left the inn behind.

“Perhaps we are rascals,” she decided, speaking more to
herself than to the man who walked beside her. “But you must own that this
Christmas has likely exceeded all your expectations.”

She couldn’t fathom the look he gave her. Something
about his expression both disturbed and moved her at the same time. He was not
walking close to her, but that look seemed to slice the distance between them
and take her breath away. All the more remarkable to her, he seemed not to be
even aware of it.

He stopped walking. “You have it there, Marian,” he
said quietly, as if he were suddenly out of breath. “I was beginning to wonder
if . . .” He paused, and then the look was gone from his face and the familiar
good-natured expression restored. “If I would ever have such a good time.”

“That was not what you started to say, my lord,” Marian
said, her own voice as quiet as his had been.

“It will do . . . for now, brat,” he teased, and
waggled his finger at her. “Pay attention now, or you will land yourself in a
ditch. And my loyalty does not extend far enough to follow.”

I would wager that it does, she thought as she
navigated through the drift toward the center of the snow-packed lane. It was
an odd thought, one that she would have quickly dismissed only yesterday. But
she had spent the night holding Lord Ingraham in her arms, watching him sleep,
worrying about him, listening to his breathing, touching the scar on his face,
wishing she could take on some of the pain they had so lately caused him.
Something was different; whether it originated from Lord Ingraham or from her,
she could not tell.

Lord Ingraham walked on ahead with Alistair. She
sighed. What is the matter with me? I wish I were home in Picton. She watched
Lord Ingraham, and smiled at his confident stride, even through snow, and noted
how nicely his overcoat hung from his broad shoulders. She closed her eyes,
committed the image to memory, and then laughed to herself and hurried to catch
up with her men.

“What, ho? We are beginning to resemble Napoleon’s
retreat from Moscow.”

Marian looked up from the snow-covered tree stump where
she had planted herself, and squinted into the white and glaring distance. The
walk had seemed like a novel idea only an hour before. The early part of the
adventure had taken them down a road sufficiently tamped by local wagons and
horses. Then the tracks stopped; soon there was nothing before them but
snow-covered road that had drifted until it was difficult to tell where the
road edged. It wound on and out of sight through country that she knew she could
appreciate in the spring. All was white and still.

Drat these skirts, she thought as she shook the snow
from the folds of her woolen dress. It was growing wetter and heavier by the
minute. Each floundering footstep in the snow seemed to sink her deeper and
deeper.

Lord Ingraham made his way back to her and took her by
the hand, to pull her to her feet. “I am sorry I was not paying attention,” he
apologized. “There’s something about being here again. Makes me forget I am not
alone.”

“Or do you dream you are in Moscow, watching Napoleon
struggle through such drifts?” she teased, less out-of-sorts.

“Oh, that was no dream, my dear,” he said quickly. Some
memory darted across his eyes and he opened his mouth to speak, but
reconsidered.

She looked at him and pursed her
lips. “Something tells me you did not mean to say that.”

He bowed over her hand. “I did not.
Please forget I mentioned it.”

“I gather from your secrecy there
was no official English delegation in Moscow?” she asked, and watched his
expression.

There was no change of expression.
He had recovered himself completely. “Indeed, there was not.” The earl laughed
and inclined himself closer to her, as if they shared a secret. “And yet, I
appear to have difficulty dissembling in front of you. Move over, brat.”

He sat beside her. Marian looked
about her. Alistair had gone on ahead, whistling to himself.

“Were you really and truly there?”
she whispered.

“I was. Really and truly,” he
replied, his voice no louder. “This is not a matter generally known outside of
the Foreign Office, my dear.”

“Then I shall say no more.” Marian
looked sideways at him. “Only tell me. Were you afraid?”

“Oh, yes. The city was burning
around us as our delegation tossed state papers into our own fireplace, flung a
firebrand into the offices, and closed the doors behind us.”

“And did you watch Moscow burn?”

His hand went involuntarily to his
scar. He traced its pattern and then looked beyond the white-covered fields,
cordoned by tidy fences. “We fled the city and swam the river. The bridges were
crammed with refugees. We watched from the far shore. Ah, God, such a pagan
city. Such a beautiful city. I shall never forget the sight.”

After another moment’s reflection,
he slapped his gloves on his knee and put them on again. “But this gets us no
closer to Bath. And since you are determined that I should arrive there, let us
be off.” He held out his hand to her again, but she declined to take it.

“If there was no diplomatic mission,
Gil, what were you doing there?”

He made no reply for a moment. “There
are events that I
am not at liberty to share with anyone,” he said quietly. “Even with
you.”

She smiled at his words, but they saddened her. She put
her hand in his and let him help her to her feet. “Could it be, Gilbert
Ingraham, that you are not what you seem?”

Again he was a long time in answering. “It could be.”
He let go of her hand and shook out her skirt. “No wonder you are such a
laggard! I did not consider the difficulty of long skirts through wet snow.
This could weigh down much heftier women than you. Do trust me, Marian, above
all things, trust me,” he said urgently, even as he pointed her toward the roadway
again.

She took him by the arm. “Tell me one thing more: did
you watch Napoleon leave the city?”

“I cannot tell you anything else.”

She shook his arm, agitated in a way that surprised
them both. “But you must! You must! In a few months, I will go to live in the
vicarage with my sister and mother probably, and I will never, ever, see anyone
like you again. I’ll never see Moscow,” she said passionately. “I’ll probably
never even get up to London. Our horse you have purchased will see more of the
world than I will.”

There were tears in her eyes. She stopped and put her
hand to her mouth. Alistair, far ahead, was looking back at her. Was I so loud?
she asked herself. “Whatever am I saying?” Marian said out loud as she dashed
her hand across her eyes. “I am sorry. So sorry.”

She tried to brush past him and regain the road again,
but he took her by the arm this time. “Marian, you are destined to see much,
much more of the world,” he said, and smiled at her in a way that she found
intensely irritating.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she protested. “I
know I am being out-of-reason foolish.”

“You are no such thing,” he said. “In fact . . .” He
did not complete his thought. “Marian, let me break a trail in front of you.
That will help. Stay close, and I will tell you about the retreat from Moscow.”

He waved Alistair on ahead, and Marian followed close
on his heels, hopping in his tracks. “I rode with Kutusov and his Cossacks and—”

“How did you ever manage that?” she interrupted breathlessly.

“Hush, brat! They rode like demons. I could scarcely
keep up, and I am no poor shakes on horseback. But we followed Napoleon day
after freezing day, like fleas on a dog.” He looked around him at the white
world. “This is nothing to it, nothing to it at all. And then we would wait
until nightfall and swoop down to plunder and kill.”

Marian shuddered. “Beastly.”

“Well, do I go on?” he demanded.

“Perhaps not,” Marian said.

He continued in silence, and she longed to know more,
but had the good sense not to prod him. She started counting fence posts. After
sixteen, she heard him sigh.

“Do you know the saddest thing?”

“I cannot imagine.”

“I think it was the priceless furniture and the icons
and the jewels those bandits in soldiers’ garb abandoned with every step they
took. And some of them, some no older than you, just curled up and died beside
their loot, their faces frozen to the cold metal. Poor wretches! So much for empire
. . .”

She said nothing.

He reached back again and held out his hand, and she
took it. “So this is the world you want to see, Marian?”

“Oh, it is,” she replied, her voice subdued, but the
passion still there like a banked fire.

“Perhaps
...
it can be arranged.”

She did not know what he meant. She wanted to ask him,
but found herself suddenly shy. She let go of his hand. How strange it is, she
thought as she hurried along in Gilbert Ingraham’s tracks. Up until this two
days ago, I thought it was exciting to drive into Lyme Regis and pick out
ribbon. How little I know about anything, for all that I have read Papa’s
library backward and forward.

“Cat got your tongue?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied, and said nothing more as they
followed the snowed-in road up a small hill and then looked into the valley far
below.

Alistair already stood there, hands on his hips. “Such
a view, my lord,” he said, and pointed toward several large gray stone
buildings that seemed to sprout from the snow and then sprawl before their
eyes. “What is it?”

“Ah, how good that you should ask,” the earl replied.
He pulled Marian up beside him. “Take a good look, Alistair. You are gazing
upon your future.”

“Eh?”

“I can see that you do not fully appreciate the moment,”
said Lord Ingraham. He spread out his hand before him in a grand, Napoleonic gesture.
“That is St. Stephen the Martyr’s.”

Alistair looked from the stone conglomeration to Lord
Ingraham and back again. “A prison? A workhouse?”

The earl grinned, and Marian noted a malicious glint in
his eyes. “Very like, my lad, very like. It is my alma mater, my nourishing
mother, my school of schools. And soon, I might add, to become your school,
too.”

Alistair said nothing for a long moment. He frowned and
ran a finger inside his ear. “I don’t follow. Perhaps I didn’t even hear you
right. Weren’t you an Eton man?”

“Oh, glory, no,” said Lord Ingraham with a look of
distaste on his face. “My late father was concerned that his only son and
budding prospect for the diplomatic corps should get an actual—let me steady
myself—education.” He clapped a hand on Alistair’s shoulder and drew him close.
“How pleased I am to offer this all to you now.”

“I still do not follow you,” Alistair said, but there
was a note of caution in his voice. He tried to edge away, but the earl
tightened his grip.

“My dear Alistair, I have arranged with your
much-put-upon brother to see that you will be enrolled in St. Stephen’s, why,
just practically before the cock crows. And you need not thank me. I was
pleased beyond words to do it.”

Alistair whirled about to stare, goggle-eyed, at Lord
Ingraham. “Do you mean, I am to go . . . Oh, surely, not!”

“Yes, Alistair, I mean precisely that. I left no stone
unturned.”

“But, sir! Surely I cannot be enrolled at this time of
the year.” Alistair’s voice was less a protest than a squeak, the tortured
sound of someone with his neck in a vise.

“Alistair, do not fret. You will be relieved to know
that I am a trustee of this noble institution. If I were to write the warden
and tell him that Attila the Hun was desirous of enrollment, he would have a
letter in the box by nightfall, begging Lord and Lady Hun to bring little
Attila by the school for a stroll about the grounds. It was no trouble.”

The silence hummed. Alistair swallowed a few times and
his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Marian stared at it. fascinated. She held
her breath.

“You see, Alistair,” said Lord Ingraham in a quiet
voice. “I have answered your Christmas wish, have I not?”

“Dash it! No, you have not, my lord,” Alistair burst
out as he wrenched himself from Lord Ingraham’s grasp. “This was the very last
thing I asked for!”

Gilbert took him by the shoulders and would not turn
him loose. “On the contrary, my lad. it is precisely what you want. If—just
if—by some stroke of merit or genius, or maybe just damned hard work, you
manage to acquit yourself well at St. Stephen’s between now and Christmas next,
I have it in my power to see you berthed aboard a ship as a midshipman. A dear
friend of mine commands a beauty of a ship in the West Indies.” When Alistair
made no reply, the earl continued. “You’ll find no distractions at St. Stephen’s
beyond oatmeal every morning and cold baths. And when you have proven to my
satisfaction that you just might be developing some discipline and are ready
for the life you long for, I’ll spring you from this pile. But not one moment
before.”

He released Alistair, who was white about the mouth and
darting angry glances at his sister.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked when he had
some small control over himself.

“I do it for you, and not to you, lad. I do it for your
father, Bertram Wynswich, too,” he added, and his voice took on a metallic
tone. “He was a scamp and everyone loved him—and his horses. But. Alistair, no
one took him seriously, and he left your family in tatters. Percy has to work
twice as hard to overcome whatever reputation his father left dangling. I’d
like to see you become the man Lord Wynswich could have been but never was. I
want you to make Percy proud of you.”

Without a word of warning, Alistair swung at Lord
Ingraham. Marian stifled a scream as the earl stepped aside and grabbed
Alistair’s arm, pinning it against his back. He pushed him to the ground and
let him stay there a moment, his face in the snow. Ingraham knelt down and put
his face close to Alistair’s.

“You could have killed me with that morphine, Alistair,”
the earl said so quietly that Marian had to strain forward to hear him. “It was
the kind of disjointed, freakish thing that is hardly worthy of you. Percy and
I have already agreed upon it: you will dance to my tune for a while.”