Christmas Belles

by Susan Carroll

  "Keep faith when there seems little reason to do so, believe that even the impossible can often be very possible. Be the Keeper of Dreams, Chloe.".

  "How am I supposed to do that, Papa?" Chloe lamented. "When my sisters persist in dreaming of the wrong things."

  There was Agnes, who seemed doomed to become a hermit, going blind over her books and Lucy, becoming so hard, almost mercenary. Yet Chloe could not spare a thought for them right now. Emma was the one in most immediate danger. But how was one to rescue a sister when she refused to cooperate?

  "You can't fling away your happiness in this fashion, Emma. I won't permit it." Yet even as Chloe formed this resolve, her heart misgave her. She would be putting herself into opposition against this unknown captain, who was fast assuming the dimensions of a Blackbeard in her mind.

  Well, she didn't care. Let him rattle his saber and bellow at her all he liked. If she had to move both heaven and earth to do so, she would find some way to prevent Emma's marriage to Captain William Trent.

  Chapter Three

  The winding drive came to an abrupt halt, and Windhaven Manor loomed out of the early-morning mist. With the fog so thick, it was as though one minute the house wasn't there and the next it was, in all its ramshackle splendor.

  Leaning forward, Trent peered out the window of the carriage for the first glimpse of his inheritance. He stifled a soft groan. It was worse than anything he could have imagined. He knew that most great houses were the work of many generations, but he had never seen one that was such a positive horror of Georgian and Gothic revival. Far from the additions blending harmoniously, Windhaven simply looked as if one mad architect couldn't make up his mind.

  The bailiff he had hired had warned Trent. In all his reports, Mr. Martin had found the house quite impossible. Of course, Trent meant to subject the place to a thorough inspection of his own, but he doubted he would waste much time or money on Windhaven. Very likely he would close up the house and seek to provide his new bride with some more suitable dwelling, perhaps closer to the port of London. Emma's sisters could continue to reside with her there until each of the girls had been married off in turn.

  As the coach lurched to a halt before the front steps leading past the colonnade, Trent did not wait for the postilion to come to his aid. Tucking his cockaded hat beneath his arm, he shoved open the door and leapt down to the gravel path.

  As he did so, the hilt of his dress sword tangled in his cloak. Trent straightened it, feeling more than a little foolish. He had given in to Doughty's cajolery and worn his uniform after all, although the Lord alone knew why. Perhaps because, although he was loath to admit it, he was experiencing just a hint of nervousness about meeting his bride. He was not attempting the role of a peacock, but surely it could do no harm to present himself in his best light, as an officer and a gentleman.

  While Trent stretched his legs, a little cramped from all those hours stuffed into the coach, Doughty climbed down from the box where he had been riding with the coachman. One would have thought that by this time a groom or some sort of servant would have come scurrying forward to help with the horses, but there was no sign of anyone.

  "Shall I start hauling down the baggage, Cap'n?" the steward asked.

  "Belay that a moment, Mr. Doughty." Frowning, Trent stared up at the house, mantled in its early-morning stillness. An unnatural silence seemed to hang over the place, but that might be owing to the mist. Fog had a way of lending an aura of unreality to things,

  "I don't see any sign of Mr. Lathrop, sir," Doughty said, attempting the hopeless task of peering back down the drive. "Do you suppose we lost 'im?"

  "Possibly, but Mr. Lathrop is more resourceful than he seems. I am sure he will catch up to us." All the same, Trent spared a glance in that direction himself. An excellent horseman, Charles had scorned making the journey closeted in the coach. An indifferent rider himself, Trent had not even been tempted to join him, especially not in this cold, damp weather.

  Although certain his friend was all right, if Charles did not appear soon, Trent would have to go look for him. For the present, he turned back to his immediate problem, his astonishing lack of any kind of reception. Granted, he had pressed on a little hard, arriving a day earlier than expected. Still, his appearance should not take the household that much by surprise.

  "Go knock on the door, Mr. Doughty," Trent commanded. "At least the butler must be up and stirring."

  "Aye, aye, sir." Doughty bounded up the steps and beat an impatient tattoo with the brass door knocker. When moments passed and that drew no response, the steward used his brawny fist, hammering hard enough to set the portal atremble.

  His efforts were greeted with nothing but that unrelenting silence. When the burly man raised his fist again, Trent called, "Hold, Mr. Doughty. This is of no avail. You have already pounded loud enough to wake the dead."

  It was an unfortunate choice of words, for Doughty's eyes waxed large and round. "Aye, Cap'n, that's just what I was thinkin' meself. This be some sort o' ghost house."

  "Don't be absurd," Trent said. That was all he needed, Doughty suffering from one of his attacks of superstition run rampant.

  "D'ye want me to try peekin' in some o' the windows?" Doughty clearly made this offer with all the valor he could muster, but he swallowed deeply.

  "Of course not," Trent said. "Go around back of the house and see if you can roust out a groom or stableboy. I shall go try one of the other doors."

  "Aye, Cap'n." Doughty looked none too happy about it, but he shuffled off to obey.

  Trent stalked back along the drive, gravel crunching beneath his boots. The noise sounded unnaturally loud, as noises were wont to do in fog. He spied a path winding around the side of the house and took it, thinking it might lead to a garden entrance or perhaps the kitchen door.

  The path was thick with overgrown shrubberies, badly in want of a trimming. The sight of nature run wild only added to the house's air of desertion, of being lost to the enchantment of time.

  Trent was not often given to harboring fancies, but he began to feel as if he had strayed into some strange dream in which he had only imagined Sir Phineas Waverly, his four daughters, and the betrothal to Miss Emma. Perhaps the mists would close and the house would disappear in a minute.

  Trent brought himself up short, disgusted with himself for entertaining such foolish thoughts. At the next turn in the path, he would chance upon someone, some logical explanation for why no one had come forth to greet him.

  Yet what happened next seemed to defy all logic. One of the bushes at the corner of the house was seized with a violent fit of shaking. Then a laugh carried to Trent's ears. It was low, musical, and almost haunting. Trent started in spite of himself. He called out in his best quarterdeck roar, "Is someone hiding over there? Show yourself at once."

  He would not have been surprised if he had received no answer, given the strangeness of everything else about this place. But the next second, a girl emerged onto the path. Although she was garbed in a long, green coat, Trent could tell that she was as slender and graceful as a sylph. Her hood was flung back, revealing masses of golden brown hair, tumbling in waves about a delicate face with an ivory complexion blushed with rose.

  Because she came upon him as she did, so suddenly out of the mist, Trent was reminded of those legends his sailors wove on dark, lonely nights at watch. Legends of a nymph riding the ocean's foam, a lady of the sea, calling with her siren song, her arms outstretched. Trent himself had never been visited by such an apparition. Until now.

  The girl halted a few feet away from him on the path and dropped a curtsy. "Good day to you, sir," she said simply.

  It took Trent a moment to realize he was staring, frozen as though some spell had been cast upon him. He snapped himself out of it with a brisk shake.

  "Good day, Miss…" He paused, subjecting the girl to a quick assessment, deciding that whoever she was, she could not be his Miss Emma. "Are you one of the daughters of this house?"
>
  Before the girl could reply, a second figure darted out from nowhere. Erupting from behind the girl's skirts was a moppet of a child, a coarse woolen cap crushing her flyaway baby curls. She was bundled up in a thick coat that made her look round enough to roll.

  Yet the urchin managed to launch herself at Trent and fling her arms about his knees. He stiffened, considerably taken aback. His experience with small children was limited, but he followed one invariable formula. Admire their well-scrubbed appearance, give them a stern smile, and pat them on the head.

  But he had never had one leeched to his leg before. Moreover, besides appearing grubby, with blueberry stains about her mouth, this babe looked fierce enough to take off his hand should he attempt to touch her.

  "Kotcha, kotcha, kotcha," she called out in a singsong of triumph. "Bean'tu n'elf kin?"

  Trent felt very much as though he had wandered into a strange land whose inhabitants spoke some Lilliputian language he could not comprehend.

  "I am afraid I don't quite understand," he said.

  The girl in the green coat broke into a trill of laughter. Her remarkable light blue eyes sparkled like sunshine on the water. "Peggety wants to know if you are the king of the elves," she said, amazingly able to translate the moppet's speech.

  "Certainly not!" Trent told the child gruffly.

  "Bean'tu kin o'ferries, 'en?" Peggety demanded, equally as gruff.

  "Be not you the king of the fairies, then?" the girl repeated.

  "No!" Trent bent down to pry the child away, but Peggety had already released him with a look of disgust.

  "C'mon, Klooey," she said, tugging at the older girl. "No ferries 'ere. 'Et's go back inner kittchin n'eat s'more pie."

  With that, the child ambled off down the path, vanishing round the corner of the house Trent almost reached out, fearing the girl would disappear as well.

  But she lingered to apologize. "I am sorry if Peggety startled you, sir. We have been searching in the bushes for fairies all morning without success, and she has grown impatient."

  Trent frowned. "Do you think that a proper game to play with the child, encouraging her to believe such nonsense?"

  "Why not? We might actually turn up an elf or two."

  "Of course you won't."

  "But we could."

  Trent raked the girl with an impatient stare. He realized she must be older than he had first imagined. Her lack of inches had deceived him, but the hinting of her curves did not. She must be eighteen, at the least.

  "Aren't you a little old," he said sternly, "to be thinking such things as fairies really do exist?"

  "Aren't you a little young to be so sure that they don't?"

  This absurd conversation was getting him nowhere. The young woman confounded him further by saying pleasantly, "You are a stranger to these parts, sir. Are you lost?"

  "I didn't think so," he muttered. "But now I am not so sure. Is this Windhaven Manor?"

  "Yes, certainly it is." She studied him thoughtfully, for the first time appearing to notice the cockaded hat tucked under his arm. Trent's cloak had shifted open enough to reveal the shaft of his sword and the gleam of his gold buttons.

  The young lady went pale, her eyes widening in dismay.

  "Oh, by my saints!" she whispered. "Blackbeard!"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "N-nothing," she stammered. Friendly enough only a moment ago, she now took a wary step backward. "Could you possibly be Captain Trent?"

  "I could—that is, I am. And you are?"

  "Chloe."

  This soft response conveyed nothing to Trent until he searched his memory. "Oh, you must be Miss Waverly's youngest sister."

  "Next to the youngest," she said. She started to offer her hand, withdrew it and curtsied again instead. "Welcome to Windhaven, Captain."

  "Thank you, Miss Chloe. Though I cannot say it has proved to be much of a welcome so far. Do you realize that no one came to answer the front door when I knocked?"

  "That is not surprising. Emma and Polly are likely in the kitchen with Old Meg. That's way at the back of the house. Lucy is still abed, and Agnes, when she is reading, would never bother herself about the door. And as for me, I was—"

  "Beating the bushes for fairies with Peggety. Yes, I know "

  She finally had the grace to blush.

  Trent continued, "I wasn't aware there were any children upon the estate."

  "There aren't. Peggety belongs to Sukey Green, who worked as a housemaid here until she married a sailor from Littledon. That's our village and near enough that Sukey still visits us. Our cook, Old Meg, makes the best possets, and Sukey is quite heavy with child and-- "Chloe paused, looking a little self-conscious. "Er- that is Lucy says that I should say Mrs. Green is 'in an interesting condition.' "

  "Well, ah, yes. Ahem." Trent gave a deep cough. He was accustomed to hearing seamen swear with fluency and crack the most lewd of jests, but he felt embarrassed to be discussing women "in interesting conditions." He made haste to turn the subject.

  "I did find it strange when we knocked so hard and got no response. I thought we might at least have raised your butler."

  The most enchanting dimple quivered in Chloe's cheek. "That would have been quite a feat, sir. Poor Giddings has been dead these many years, and we have never had another manservant. We always leave the front door unlatched during the day. Everyone hereabouts knows that."

  "What! Leave the door unlatched so any mendicant might wander in! And what about thieves?"

  "We have no thieves in this district. Besides, we have nothing to steal."

  Trent's disapproval must have been obvious, for she tossed her head slightly. "We trust our neighbors enough to leave the door unlocked. That is just our way here, Captain." She seemed to be defying him to change the custom, which Trent had every intention of doing.

  He decided that he had been quite wrong to entertain any notion of Miss Chloe resembling a sea sprite. No nymph would ever be possessed of such a stubborn chin. But Trent was not seeking any confrontation at the moment.

  He let the matter of the door pass, saying, "I did not mean to sound critical, Miss Chloe. I fear I am a little tired from my journey, and I would like to pay my respects to your sister."

  "Which one? Oh, you must mean Emma." She looked a little glum as she reached this conclusion.

  "I suppose your sister has told you that—"

  Chloe cut him off. "Yes, she told us all about that."

  If Trent had expected any felicitations on his forthcoming marriage from Miss Chloe, it was obvious he wasn't going to get them.

  "I'll show you into the house now, shall I?" She brushed past him and set off down the path at an astonishing pace, leaving Trent to follow as he would.

  She was a very odd young woman, Trent decided as he strode after her. But he was too relieved at the prospect of finally being ushered into the house to give her abrupt behavior much further consideration.

  Round the front of the house, it appeared that Doughty had managed to at least locate a groom. The young man was helping the steward unload the baggage. Chloe paused to stare at the burly seaman with such fascination that Trent felt obliged to introduce him.

  "This is my steward, Miss Chloe. Mr. Doughty."

  "Oh, he is much more what I had imagined that you—" Whatever she had been about to say, she swallowed it with a guilty look.

  Burdened as he was by Trent's trunk, Doughty managed a bow of sorts and flashed his infamous grin. "Morning, miss "

  After staring a moment more, Chloe smiled back, a most dazzling smile. Trent discovered that she had two dimples. He also reflected that she had not given him such a smile of welcome. Though he did not know why that should bother him, it did. He growled at Doughty to stop grinning and get the baggage stowed inside.

  "And after that, snag hold of that groom and see where the deuce Mr. Lathrop has disappeared to!"

  The event Chloe had so dreaded had come to pass. The captain had arrived. Although she was
ashamed to admit it and even felt it was wicked, she had been offering up silent prayers since Emma had made her announcement yesterday. Prayers that something might happen to keep Captain Trent's shadow from their door, some adverse wind, some change in his orders. Better yet, some change in his mind.

  But those prayers must indeed have been wrong, for they had gone unanswered. Here was the captain, striding across Windhaven's threshold, and Chloe's acquaintance with him had not gotten off to the most auspicious beginning.

  If she had only recognized him at once, she could have saved herself a deal of embarrassment. That was all Agnes's fault, spouting a bunch of nonsense about rum-soaked tyrants who bellowed and waved cat-o'-nine-tails.

  Captain Trent did not in the least resemble the fierce sailor Chloe had been expecting. In fact, he appeared very much the gentleman, from his fine-chiseled features to the gleaming tips of his boots. She would not have taken him to be a seaman at all except for his deep tan and the slightly rolling gait to his walk

  When she ushered him into the drawing room, he glanced about him with a slight frown. Never had the flaws in the chamber seemed so glaring to Chloe, from the stain on the carpet to the splintered woodwork on the window.

  Although the captain hadn't said a word, Chloe felt obliged to speak up, hating the defensive note in her own voice. "It's a well-proportioned room, isn't it? And if you look out that window over there, there is a lovely view."

  "I am sure there is," the captain said politely. He stripped off his cape, and Chloe could not restrain a small gasp. He looked very much like a modern-day knight in his uniform, except that instead of the shine of armor, he had gold epaulets affixed to a pair of broad shoulders. The blue broadcloth jacket tapered to a trim waistline, a score of bright buttons drawing attention to the breadth of his chest.

  Seeming self-conscious beneath Chloe's stare, Trent straightened his cuffs. "I suppose the uniform does look a little strange in a lady's drawing room," he said.

  "Oh, no. You look very handsome. That is, it does. I mean the uniform—" She broke off, recollecting that this was the enemy she was admiring, the man who had come to Windhaven to take their Emma away, to cut up all their peace.