Winter Wonderland

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Winter Wonderland

Elizabeth Mansfield

Prologue

Barnaby Traherne, A tall, gawky nineteen-year-old, stood at the entrance of the ballroom of Lord Lydell's town house and stared inside in horror. The cacophony of loud voices and loud music was alarming enough, but the crush of people within was worse than anything he'd imagined. “I never should have come,” he muttered in dismay.

Honoria, the Countess of Shallcross, who stood at his right, glanced up at her young brother-in-law worriedly. “Are you uneasy, my dear?” she asked kindly. “I know I would be, if this were
my
first ball.”

On her other side, her husband, although twenty years older than Barnaby and with the experience of hundreds of balls behind him, did not look any happier than his brother. “What a crush!” he exclaimed in disgust. “I'd wager there are a hundred and fifty fools crowded into this room—a space designed to hold no more than sixty!”

“Then let's turn tail and go home,” Barnaby urged, taking a backward step, quite ready to bolt.

Honoria grasped her husband's arm. “Perhaps, my love, the boy is right. We should go. His first ball should not be—”

But the butler was announcing their presence in a loud voice, and their hostess, Lady Lydell, was waving to them from the far side of the room.

“We
must
stay,” the Earl reminded her. “We have social obligations. How can we consider making an escape when this misbegotten affair is in my honor?” He took a firm hold of his brother's arm and pulled him over the threshold. “Barnaby, try to look a little less alarmed. It's only a ball, after all.”

But to the young Barnaby Traherne, who was truly, achingly, awkwardly, utterly shy, this was not “only” a ball. It was, in its way, a battlefield. He saw it as a test of his manhood, a test which, he belatedly realized, he was not yet prepared to face.

His brother, he knew, would not understand. It was hard for Lawrence Traherne, who'd lately come into his titles as the fourth Earl of Shallcross, to comprehend the feelings of a brother twenty years younger. Barnaby's father, the third Earl of Shallcross, had had four sons, of whom Barnaby was the youngest. Ten years separated him from his next-youngest brother, Harry. Because their mother had died shortly after Barnaby's first birthday, and the old Earl had been too bored with fatherhood to trouble himself with the newest baby, the brothers had taken it upon themselves to raise him. Though boisterous and domineering, they were also good-natured and kind, and they were delighted with this new responsibility. During all his formative years, Barnaby was cossetted and mollycoddled by three overprotective brothers and one motherly sister-in-law, Lawrence's wife Honoria.

During the years of his growing up, Barnaby had never been permitted to fight his own battles. One of the four was always on hand to defend him from any real or imagined attack. Even when he was a student at Oxford, one or another of his brothers managed to drop round often enough to keep a protective eye on him. The attention of his siblings was so pervasive that Barnaby's self-confidence could not properly develop. With so much custodial care, he was never permitted to stand up in his own defense, test his own courage, or even finish his own sentences. Shyness was the natural outcome. It was only recently that he'd begun to assert himself. Now, at nineteen, having won his degree and having returned from Oxford, it was finally time, he told himself, to fight his own battles.

This, however, was a battle he was not yet ready for. He should never have succumbed to Honoria's blandishments. She'd often tried to entice him to accompany them to the festivities being held in honor of the new Earl, but Barnaby had resisted her appeals with implacable resolve. “I'm not comfortable at social affairs,” he told her. “I'm tongue-tied in the presence of elegant females, I'm an awkward dancer, and, furthermore, I don't own a decent set of evening clothes.”

But yesterday, on the evening before the Lydell ball, he changed his mind. His brother Harry had spent the dinner hour bragging about the opera dancers and lightskirts with whom he'd been successful. The stories had filled young Barnaby with envy, for he himself had no experience of Womanhood. Moreover, it was a night when the air was fragrant and the moon cast a silver glow on all the world. What man could ignore the magnetic appeal of the female with such suggestive reminders all around him? Barnaby, feeling the blood of youth and health coursing through his veins, felt impelled to act. He admitted to his sister-in-law that he yearned to hold a pretty young woman in his arms. “So if you wish, Honoria,” he said in blushing surrender, “I'll go with you to your ball tomorrow.”

Honoria, delighted at this turn of events, set about at once to see that her brother-in-law was properly turned out. With an evening coat borrowed from Harry's wardrobe, trousers from Terence's, and a lace-trimmed neckcloth and striped satin waistcoat from the collection of the Earl himself, she and Lawrence's valet managed to outfit him. Barnaby, studying himself in the mirror, suspected that the waistcoat hung too loosely about his chest even after being taken in at the back, and that the sleeves of Harry's coat were a bit too short, but Honoria, looking him over with affectionate eyes, declared firmly that his appearance was perfectly satisfactory.

Now, however, standing here in the ballroom doorway and eyeing all those well-dressed men within, poor Barnaby was suddenly filled with misgivings. Moreover, the noise of the milling throng within was an assault on his senses. The nine musicians sawing away on their strings were no match for the chatter and laughter that reverberated through the room. Not only were one's ears assaulted but one's eyes. It was a scene of glinting, confusing movement: glasses clinked, jewels twinkled in the light of three enormous chandeliers, footmen maneuvered their way through the crowd carrying trays of canapes over their heads, and one hundred and fifty ladies and gentlemen jostled for space and attention. The turmoil made Barnaby wince. The impulse that had made him wish to attend this affair immediately vanished. All he wanted now was to shake himself loose from his brother's hold and break for the door. It had been stupid to come, he berated himself. He should never have agreed to—

But at that moment, his attention was caught by a scene at his left. He could not have missed it, for it took place on a staircase-landing in the far corner, a landing raised three steps above the level of the ballroom floor like the stage in a theater. On that raised landing, in the midst of a clutch of admirers, a young woman had just thrown her head back in laughter.

Barnaby blinked. His Adam's apple bobbed as he took in a gulp of air. The sound of that laughter was attractive enough all by itself—a light, musical laugh that tinkled above the noise with the crystalline clarity of a glass bell—but it was the
appearance
of the lady that held his attention once it was caught. She was the most beautiful creature he'd ever beheld. Tall and lithe, draped in green silk that clung to every curve of breast, hip and thigh, she took his breath away. Her skin gleamed, and her auburn hair glinted with gold in the light of the chandelier above her head. And at this moment, her throat, stretched taut by the angle of her head and pulsing with laughter, looked so lovely it caused a clench of pain in Barnaby's chest. He was smitten, as only a very young man can be. “Who
is
she?” he croaked as soon as he could manage his voice.

The Earl grinned broadly. “Why, that's Miranda Pardew!” he chortled. “You've got taste, Barnaby, I'll say that for you.”

“Good God, she's lovely,” Barnaby breathed.

“No argument there. She's a distant cousin of ours, you know. Would you like to meet her?”

Honoria threw her husband a look of alarmed disapproval. “Meet her? Are you mad?” she demanded.

“Why?” the Earl asked his wife, befuddled. “Why shouldn't he—?”

“Do you want the boy eaten alive? Miranda Pardew is not the right sort for Barnaby. Not at all. Why, this is only her second season, and she's already earned a reputation. During her first, she jilted two men and caused a third to take monastic vows. Is that the sort of girl you want to introduce to our Barnaby?”

Barnaby, his eyes still fixed on the breathtaking creature, hardly heard what his sister-in-law was saying. “Look at her,” he sighed, entranced. “She can smile with only her eyes!”

Honoria rolled her eyes heavenward. “Listen to me, Lawrence,” she hissed in her husband's ear. “My friends tell me that Miss Pardew has rejected more than a dozen offers of marriage and set her cap for Sir Rodney Velacott. He's the fellow, you know, who's bragged for years that he'll never succumb to matrimony. The betting book at White's has set odds of nine to one that ‘the Magnificent Miranda'—yes, that's what they call her!—will manage to catch him. And Sir Rodney is standing right up there beside her. Look at him in that circle of her admirers, looking smug! With that fish to fry, Miranda Pardew will take no interest in Barnaby! He should be meeting a sweet, quiet girl who'd fawn on him, not a heartless flibbertigibbet who'll toss him aside like an old shoe!”

“I only want him to dance with her,” the Earl retorted, “not marry her.”

Honoria turned to her brother-in-law. “Barnaby, my dear,” she said in what seemed to Barnaby to be real distress, “Miss Pardew is not the sort—”

But before she could finish, their hostess, having successfully made her way through the press, came up to them. Showering them with effusive greetings, she linked her arm to Honoria's and, without giving her a chance to object, bore her off to make the social rounds. Barnaby saw Honoria look over her shoulder worriedly, as if she wanted to warn him of something, but before she could make herself heard, she was swallowed up by the crowd.