“You didn’t, not to put too fine a point on it, but you are sorely in need of one. I thought your lovely wife had divested you of your parsimonious ways.”
“What is he on about?” Sebastian asked.
“I think he wants to know why you are wearing old buckskins and an even older hunting jacket to greet your brother,” Creighton explained. “Especially as we both know how much you spent on a new wardrobe at Weston’s when you and Minerva went to Town after you married.”
“Precisely. You mentioned the sum in three separate letters to me, if I recall,” Fitzhugh said and gripped Sebastian’s arm at the top of the stairs. “Did you sleep in the kennels last night?” He picked several red hairs from Sebastian’s jacket and proceeded to circle him brushing, plucking, and straightening as he went.
“And in four letters to me,” Creighton added.
Sebastian snatched his arm away from Fitzhugh. “If you touch me one more time, I will toss you down these stairs.”
“You truly have no Christmas spirit, do you, Brightworth? Threatening to throw me down the stairs because I know your wife will not be happy to see you dressed like someone’s poor relation to greet your brother. Not in the Christmas spirit at all.”
“Very well. Fitzhugh, if you say one more word about my clothing I will beat you to death with a branch of holly. Is that Christmas enough for you?” Sebastian asked as he reached the first-floor landing. “You need not worry about Minerva’s opinion of my attire. She will not be here to see it.”
“Are you certain of that, Brightworth?” Creighton asked as he peered over the bannister to the ground floor.
Standing in the entrance hall below them, Minerva consulted with the housekeeper, Mrs. Figgs, who hurried off to do her bidding. Lady Aphrodite came out of the formal parlor and joined Minerva at the bottom of the stairs. Both ladies were stylishly dressed—Lady Aphrodite in a gown of bright gold wool and Minerva in a gown of green velvet.
What the devil was she doing?
The sound of running feet drew their attention behind them. Edward Faircloth, Sebastian’s stepson, pelted down the wide corridor, pausing only a moment to greet him, Creighton, and Fitzhugh.
“The coach is coming up the drive, Papa. It’s very grand. And there are outriders,” the boy called over his shoulder as he took the stairs two at the time. Once he reached his mother, Minerva settled him down and then glanced up towards the first-floor landing.
Amidst his anger, trepidation, and the thousand other things racing through his mind, Sebastian lost the ability to breathe at how incredibly beautiful Minerva was. The vivid green of the gown so complimented her glowing skin and golden bronzed hair she put him in mind of a Renaissance madonna. The drape and fall of the skirts softened the curves of her body. In less than two months’ time, she would bring his child into the world—a child who, if it was in Sebastian’s power, would never know want, or pain, or sorrow.
The clatter of horses’ hooves announced the arrival of the Earl of Haddonfield’s coach outside the front doors. Figgs moved into position. This was not what Sebastian had planned.
“Figgs, wait right there, if you please,” Sebastian ordered and started down the stairs, Creighton matched him step for step.
“I must warn you, Brightworth,” he said quietly enough that only Sebastian might hear. “If you embarrass Minerva I will be forced to draw your cork.”
By the time they descended into the entrance hall, Minerva had spoken with Figgs and now stood ready for the butler to open the tall double doors. Creighton gave Sebastian a shove and he had no choice but to join her.
“I told you not to do this,” he muttered under his breath.
“I am not a soldier under your command, Colonel. Do try and smile,” Minerva said and slipped her arm through his.
He gritted his teeth and curled his lips back.
“On second thoughts, don’t smile. You’ll frighten the poor man to death.”
“A smile is far less messy than pistols at dawn.” Sebastian grunted as his loving wife elbowed him in the ribs.
“You will not do your brother bodily harm two days before Christmas.”
“What about Boxing Day?”
Minerva sighed. “I am afraid I must forbid you spending so much time with Edward. You become more like him every day.”
Figgs cleared his throat and opened the doors to Chesnick Wharton wide. “His lordship, the Earl of Haddonfield,” the butler announced with a dignity far more appropriate to a London townhouse. Minerva fully intended Sebastian’s brother to feel at home.
The earl removed his hat and stepped into the entrance hall. Minerva gave Sebastian’s arm a squeeze and stepped forward, her hands outstretched in welcome. He looked like their father, more so than Sebastian ever did. The hair at his temples was greying. His eyes were a sort of hazel green. And it was those eyes that did it.
Twenty years disappeared as nothing. Sebastian was eight years old and standing in this exact spot as his then ten-year-old brother stood at the top of the stairs and banished him and his mother from the only home Sebastian had ever known. Their father had been dead less than a day.
“You cannot do this, Anthony,” his mother whispered, tears standing in her eyes. “I am your mother. Sebastian is your brother.”
“I am the Earl of Haddonfield now, madam, and my mother is long dead.”
“Where will we go? What will we do? You cannot send us away with no money, with no means to make our way.”
“Goodbye, madam. I wish you and your son well.”
Sebastian still remembered the boy’s stoic face and their grandmother’s triumphant visage as she stood with her hand on Anthony’s shoulder. The servants’ faces, stricken and pitying. The dust of the road as he and his mother walked five miles to the village. They’d spent the first night in the local church. Four years later his mother was dead and Sebastian was alone.
“Sebastian, will you not greet your brother?” Minerva’s voice sounded so far away. She stood with her arm through his brother’s and the man smiled. He actually smiled and extended his hand.
“It is good to see you again, Sebastian.” He even sounded like their father, damn him. Damn him to hell.
Sebastian, his head swimming, turned and walked away. He commanded his feet to move, one foot in front of the other. He wanted to run. He wanted to scream. He wanted the images in his head—his mother growing thinner and more ill, Anthony standing at the top of those stairs, and Minerva, her face stricken as he walked away—to fade away and leave him. Someone was calling his name and he kept walking towards the back of the house. He reached the French windows into the conservatory and stopped, his hand on the latch.
“Papa!” The thick Turkish carpets muffled his stepson’s footsteps as he ran towards him. Sebastian turned to be pummeled by a series of small punches to his stomach. “You made Mama cry. You promised. You promised never to make Mama cry.”
He stared into Edward’s face, tearstained and determined. He had promised the boy. And he’d broken that promise. No words came to him. Sebastian was lost, lost in memory and guilt and shame.
“Edward.” Minerva, her eyes bright with furious tears, stood in the middle of the corridor and beckoned to her son. “Go with Uncle Fitzhugh. He wishes to see your pony.”
Edward dragged his sleeve across his face. “You will make it right?”
“I will try, Edward,” Sebastian replied, his chest aching so badly he could hardly speak.
Fitzhugh, standing just behind Minerva extended his hand. “Come along, Master Faircloth. I dare not visit the stables without you to protect me from that vicious horse of his.”
“Lovey isn’t vicious,” Edward declared as they walked away, hand in hand. “She is merely misunderstood.”
“She is a menace.” Fitzhugh looked back at Sebastian and mouthed “Don’t muck this up!”
Minerva, as glorious as redemption and as fierce as an avenging angel, stared at Sebastian even as she spoke to Creighton
who had followed them all from the entrance hall. “I have left Lord Haddonfield in Aphrodite’s care, Harry. Could you make certain she hasn’t driven him to distraction so early in his visit? I wish to speak to my husband.”
“If you are certain, Minerva.” Creighton glanced at Sebastian. “You do not want me to stay?”
She touched her hand to Creighton’s sleeve. “I will be fine, Harry.”
“It isn’t you I am worried about, my dear.”
Once they were truly alone in the corridor, Minerva marched to the conservatory entrance, grabbed Sebastian’s arm and pulled him inside. She dragged him through the thick avenue of banana trees and towering ferns until they reached an arrangement of chairs in an alcove surrounded by towering potted laburnum.
“Minerva, I—”
“Sit.”
Sebastian did as he was told. Sometimes discretion was the better part of valor. When it came to women, it was always the better part.
She took a moment to settle herself into the comfortable damask-covered chair opposite him. “You are not leaving this room until you make me understand why you would humiliate me, insult your brother who has made a long journey to be here, made my son cry, and distressed our friends to the point even Fitzhugh is serious and all the day before Christmas Eve.” She folded her arms across her chest. No woman had a right to such beauty when consumed by righteous indignation.
“Stop it,” she snapped.
“Stop what? I didn’t say anything.”
“Stop looking at me like that, as if I am the most beautiful woman in the world. I have been crying. I am fat. My ankles are swollen. And I am so angry with you I want to punch you in the nose.”
“You are the most beautiful woman in the world, Minerva.” He reached across and took her hands. “I know that, even if I don’t know anything else.”
“What happened, Sebastian? We cannot go on like this. I won’t go on like this. I have given myself to you—mind, body, heart, and soul. Until you free yourself of these demons, you will never be wholly mine.” Her face in all of its anger, pain, patience, and love was his refuge. She was his refuge. She always had been. And suddenly he was so very tired of bearing this last burden alone.
“He sent us away, Minerva. The fever that took your father and half the village took my father, and the next day Anthony stood in that hall and sent my mother and me away with nothing. She raised him until he went to live with our grandmother. Mama was his mother for eight years and he looked her in the eye and sent her away to starve to death. I cannot forgive him. I can’t.”
“Oh, Sebastian.” She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. “I knew you were sent away. I had no idea how awful it was. I had no idea it happened here. Why would you ever come back?”
He stood and let her hands slip from his. Outside the glass panes of the conservatory it had started to snow. The sky was grey and still. “It is the only place I remember my father. It was the perfect place to be a boy. I met you in the village, remember? And there is the library. I don’t know. It was the first property my brother offered and I took it.”
She laughed at his mention of the library and then grew serious. “Why do you think he offered you Chesnick Wharton first?”
“What?” Her question had startled him. Minerva was thinking. Never a good thing for him.
“He has half a dozen unentailed properties, several smaller than this one. Why did he offer you this one?”
“How the devil do you know… I take it your letters have not only been discussions of the weather.”
“I am not only a pretty face, Colonel.”
Sebastian let loose a bark of laughter. “No one knows that better than I do, Mrs. Brightworth.”
“How old was Lord Haddonfield when your father died?” This was typical Minerva. She distracted him with humor and gentle cajoling and then returned to her point. A point that pricked at his memory, and worse, his conscience.
“He was ten. He went to live with Grandmama after our grandfather died and Papa became the earl. He lived with her two years and then Papa died and Anthony became the earl. What difference does it make?” Irritation walked across the back of his neck like the brush of nettles.
“Why? Why did he go to live with that horrible woman?”
“I don’t remember. He wanted to, I suppose. God knows, he has always done as she commands.”
“And he was ten when he sent you and your mother away.” She folded her hands in her lap, her face a composed mask of simple inquiry. Minerva was many things. Simple was never one of them.
“Yes, old enough to know what he was doing.” Sebastian turned to gaze out over the wintery back lawn.
“How do you know, Sebastian? Were you old enough to know what you were doing when you were ten?”
“I don’t know, Minerva. I was too busy gathering firewood at the side of the road and trying to find food enough for Mother and me to eat. He knew what he was doing. He knew he was sending us away to die.”
“At what rank in Wellington’s cavalry does an officer obtain omniscience? You will never know what your brother was thinking until you ask him. Your grandmother is one of the most formidable and evil women in England. What chance did a ten-year-old boy have against her?”
“You don’t understand.” Even as he said it, Sebastian marveled at Minerva’s willingness to see the best in people. It frightened him to think where he would be now if she didn’t.
She struggled to push out of the chair. He stepped to her side and took her arm to help her. “I do understand, Sebastian.” She touched her fingertips to the side of his face and kissed him gently. “Talk to him. This is hurting you both. And you need to remember, what hurts you, hurts me as well. This is the perfect time of year to make things right. Please try.”
“Why is it women think Christmas can change everything?”
“Because it is the season of miracles. Anything can happen. Even if that thing is for a stubborn beyond reason man to attempt to talk to his brother after all these years.
“What if I can’t? He had to know, Minerva. He had to know.”
“Well then, apparently your omniscience is selective, Colonel Brightworth. For if you knew what I was thinking at this moment you would not be standing here.” She delivered a loud smack of a kiss to his cheek. “I expect you to be charming and polite at dinner tonight. And I expect you to think about what I have said.” Far too quickly for a woman in her condition she disappeared through the foliage.
“Do I have a choice?” Sebastian asked the nearest banana tree.
“Probably not,” Creighton said as he strolled into view from the other side of the conservatory. “I am pleased to see you are unscathed for the most part.”
“Is everyone else settled?” Sebastian flushed slightly. He’d made a hash of the morning’s festivities to be sure. And Creighton had ever been the one to clean up their messes.
“Of course. Your brother seems quite smitten with Aphrodite. Should I warn him about Mama now or wait to see if my dear sister frightens him away?”
“Haddonfield can take care of himself. He always has.” Sebastian indicated the path back to the French windows and Creighton joined him as they walked the colorfully paved path.
“So, you have no intention of taking your wife’s suggestion.”
“How long were you lurking in the ferns listening to my conversation with Minerva?”
“Long enough.” Creighton stopped just short of the entrance back into the house. “I am the last person in the world to lecture anyone on forgiveness. Over the last ten years my hatred of my parents for what they have done is often the only thing that keeps me alive.”
“You will find her, Creighton. One day, you will find her.” Sebastian did not want to think what his life would be if someone had hidden Minerva away from him for ten years with no hope of ever seeing her again. Creighton had been searching for the love of his life for all these years, knowing all the while his late father had sent her away, and his
all-too-alive mother knew where she was.
“I don’t know anymore, Brightworth. But this I do know. As the years go by… with no hint of a sign she is even alive, I find I need my friends—you, Fitzhugh, your loved ones, and even my hoyden of a sister more and more. Can any of us afford to throw away even one person who wants to love us?”
Sebastian snorted. “After all this time what makes you think Anthony gives a damn about me?”
“He’s here. Why don’t you ask him?”
They left the conservatory and made their way into the library.
“Oh, and Brightworth?” Creighton said as Sebastian turned to ask him if he cared for a brandy.
“Yes?” The next thing he knew, he was on the floor with a bloody nose.
“I told you if you embarrassed her I would draw your cork. Do you want some ice for that?”
Christmas Eve
Somehow, they’d made it through the last two days with no violence and an inordinate amount of painfully polite conversation. Lord Haddonfield was an amusing and considerate guest. Minerva had not failed to notice his interest in Aphrodite. Unfortunately, no one knew what Aphrodite was thinking from one moment to the next. Poor Lord Haddonfield was in for it.
And Sebastian? Sebastian had kept his peace and spent a great deal of time in the library or the billiards room. Alone. She’d allowed him back into her bed for her sake as much as for his. She did not sleep well away from him, and the man’s body and kisses were warmer than any coal-fueled stove.
But he did not sleep well, in spite of his protestations to the contrary. He rose in the middle of the night when he believed her to be asleep. Sometimes he stood at the window and looked out over the snow-covered lawns in the moonlight. Sometimes he left their chambers and wandered the corridors. She feared his brother’s arrival had not put any ghosts to rest, but had rather drawn them out of the very walls. Any other woman would have begged him to share his troubles with her. Minerva knew this man intimately. Some things he had to work out for himself. Her interference would only make matters worse.
'Tis the Season: Regency Yuletide Short Stories Page 19
