by Edith Layton
“So,” she went on, her head tilted, trying to put the notion into words, “although they say dreams are brought about by late dinners or guilty consciences, I shouldn’t be surprised if sometimes they’re only memories trying to surface. Perhaps gingerbread reminds you of something important you did one Christmas, something you need to think or talk about. Or perhaps, it’s something that’s about to happen that you ought to think about. It could even be something someone else is concerned about that’s troubling you.
“Were I you”—she went on eagerly—“I’d ask everyone I know intimately, about gingerbread. Don’t smile. Maybe it’s something someone said in passing that’s bothering you, something you can’t remember that’s the problem. Bring up the subject in conversation and see what happens. No one has to know you’re plagued by dreams of it. Maybe something someone will say will jog the memory free, and you’ll be able to deal with it, and be done with it.
“Truthfully, thinking about gingerbread only makes me hungry,” she admitted, “Mind, I don’t like the stuff, but I can never resist eating it. It always looks as though it should taste good, and never does—like drinking vanilla.”
Now he laughed. She saw his fair head go back, his white teeth flash, and she sighed to herself when he subsided and said with a wry look, “Hmm. And now, why does the scent of vanilla always remind me of a certain young person who wasn’t old enough for perfume, and so doused herself in vanilla, like any farm girl would? Except she must have used the entire bottle. Gad! You must have had half the boys in Kent following you around licking their lips that day.”
“And for all the wrong reasons,” she said with an exaggerated sigh of sorrow.
“But it was innovative.” He grinned. “But then you always were. Poor tyke, I suppose you had to be, because if you didn’t amuse us we didn’t let you come with us on our adventures. What brutes we were!”
“Were?” she asked slyly.
He nodded to acknowledge the hit, then asked suddenly, “As to that—are you going home for Christmas?’
Her eyes widened, “Of course,” she said in surprise, “aren’t you?”
“Don’t know,” he said truthfully. “I always do but…I’m…truth to tell,” he said, leaning forward, elbows on knees, “I’m in the way of, ah, courting now. So, much as I love Kent and the manor, I may have to skip a homecoming this Christmas. Since my intentions are leaning in that direction, I may have to do the pretty and stay here in London with the lady for the holiday.”
“Oh,” she said, and blinked. “Oh,” she said recovering, “then am I to wish you happy?”
“Lord, no!” he said, startled, sitting back abruptly. “Not yet, at least. I said I’m considering the matter.”
“You never said that before,” she persisted.
“No, but you shouldn’t be so surprised, I am nearly thirty, my dear.”
“Who is she?” Elizabeth asked, “Lady Mary? But no, it can’t be.... That Davis chit? The little one, all blond, like you?”
“Not like me in the least, Gad! What a horrible thought,” he said, laughing. “No, her hair’s much lighter than mine, and she’s got brown eyes, besides—you know her.”
“Actually, no, I don’t,” she said softly.
“Why, she’s the Incomparable this Season,” he said, “of course you do.”
“Of course, I don’t,” she said too brightly. “I know of her, but I don’t know her. How could I? The girl is seventeen, Duke. I am seven-and-twenty: a vast gap separates us, my dear. I’m old enough to be her mother.”
“That you are not! You were never that precocious,” he said with a teasing smile. “I remember well—in fact, you were almost sixteen before that would have been…” he paused, unsure of how to say it.
But now that he thought of it, he remembered very well the day he’d realized she’d become a woman. It had been on a Christmas vacation, actually, he recalled now. He’d stopped off at his house, said hello to his family, and then headed out, on a horse, to get to his best friend Garrett’s house as quickly as he could. He’d found his friend, but there’d been a strange, lovely woman with him. He’d automatically straightened his neckcloth.... And then Garrett had laughed at him for it and for the suddenly intent expression on his face.
Still, even so, it had taken a moment for Owen to realize that the shyly smiling young beauty was his old friend Elizabeth, grown to a splendid nubility: high breasted and curvaceous. Owen had been stunned. He’d had to look away and readjust his sight before he looked back to see his old playmate the way he had to see her.
“Almost sixteen before it—or I—would have been…if you’ll forgive the pun—conceivable?” she asked gently.
“Just so, you little wretch,” he said, putting down his teacup. “Well, charming as this may have been, taking tea with you, telling you about a lady I wish to court and being subtly told I might be old enough to be her father—no, no it’s true, I suppose, but it’s the way of the world, so you shan’t shame me this time, witch. I really do have things to be done today,” he said as he uncoiled his long body from his chair. “I think I will take your advice, though. Gingerbread memories—yes, I think I’ll be off to actively seek some out.”
They walked to her door together.
“Shall I see you tonight at the Swansons’ party?” he asked, pausing after her footman had helped him shrug into his greatcoat and handed him his high beaver hat.
She tilted her head again. “I don’t think so,” she said slowly, “I’ve been asked to a musicale. I believe I’ll go there, instead.”
“Somewhere, Monsieur Regardez must be smiling,” Owen said. He laid the tip of his gloved fingers alongside her cheek, and smiled down at her. Then he left.
Elizabeth went into the parlor and stood by the window, resting her hot forehead against the cool windowpane, watching until the tall, straight figure was long out of sight. She was not weeping just yet, because she had got so used to yearning, after all, that finally being told it no longer mattered, that it was already too late, hurt far too much for simple tears.
*
He had only to mention gingerbread, Owen thought. But it was not so simple. After all, although it seemed like the most innocuous topic in the world, it was not so easy for a gentleman known as a Corinthian to slip such a word into everyday discussion. The first place he went after he left Elizabeth was to Mantons, to practice his shooting. But although he had many friends there, all they wanted to talk about was guns, their scores at shooting, and their plans for shooting better next time. There was no way he could think to slip the subject of gingerbread into their conversation.
“Don’t need to look so pained, old man,” one of his friends commented, seeing his impatience with their chatter, “not everyone’s got an eagle eye, like you. No, most of us have to work to even wing a target, so we talk it up and down and try to find a better way. Well, I can see you’re bored to finders. Me too. Hey! I’m off to Tatt’s, they’ve got in some beauties, I hear. Care to tag along?”
Ordinarily, Owen would have. He never missed a chance to see some new horseflesh, and Tattersall’s had the finest in London. But the duke’s ready smile flattened. All they would talk about there would be horses. Damned if a fellow could slip a comment about gingerbread into that either. “Fine hocks, good chest, but do you know, it’s the oddest thing but the color reminds me of gingerbr—” No. It could be done, but it wouldn’t do. He didn’t want to ask in such a way as to make a point of it.
He was vaguely ashamed of his recurrent dream. It was really so childish. If he’d been troubled by terrifying nightmares or visited by obscene dreams, he might not feel that way. It might even be amusing to share such things. But the truth was that it was embarrassing for a grown man to be dreaming about gingerbread, and even more so because he couldn’t stop doing it. Elizabeth understood, but few others would. But then, Elizabeth was a remarkable girl.
Owen sighed. He was determined to get to the bottom of his dreams before
they disturbed another night. So he declined the invitation to view horses, and walked off alone. No sense going for a bout of fencing at Monsieur Perrot’s Fencing Academy either, as he’d planned, he thought glumly, though that was always fine sport. No, the one place he might be able to talk about whatever he chose with his friends could only be at his club at this hour.
His Grace, the Duke of Blackburn passed a pleasant moment deciding on which club to visit, and then strode off down the street. He stopped only once, at a bakeshop. He hesitated at the doorway, his nose slightly elevated, sniffing. He went in, and soon came out with his purchase. When he thought no one was looking, he took a tiny bite, and then sighed and slipped the small brown figure of a man into his greatcoat pocket. It tasted like wood. He wasn’t surprised. It had smelled reminiscent, but not like the gingerbread of his dreams: rich and spicy, and wholly delectable.
When he entered the sunny dining room at his favorite club, he saw several of his friends at luncheon. They waved at him, and called him to their tables. He chose the one that had called to him first. Owen was a popular man: known to be witty, and yet kind enough to have many friends, even so. Many gentlemen in London were pleased to call the tall, slender soft-spoken duke “friend.”
“Hey, Duke,” Rupert Alden, an old school friend said, when Owen had seated himself and ordered his luncheon, “we were just talking about Christmas. Going to be in town this year? Or are you off to the countryside as usual?”
“Town,” Owen answered absently, sipping at his wine.
“Aha”—Rupert winked at the others—“put me down for a guinea then,” he told them. “If Blackburn’s staying here for Christmas, instead of going to his beloved manor, then I say the deed is done by the New Year.”
“What deed?” Owen asked.
“Your engagement to the Davis chit,” Rupert answered readily. “Now, don’t blast me,” he said, pushing back his chair and holding up his hands, “we’ve a bet going, and you know how it is.”
Owen bit back what he was going to say, because he did know. London gentlemen bet on everything from the length of a rainstorm to a lady’s virtue. The best thing to do was to divert their interest. “I was going home, but I’m feeling lazy this year,” he said.
They all hooted, “Lazy? You? Pull the other,” George Harris said with a laugh, “you’re a dervish, my boy. No, it’s the yaller-haired chit, all right: double my bet, gentlemen!”
“Don’t be so sure,” Owen said softly, “after all, there’s no one at home for me this year, you know.”
They stilled at that and looked at each other, abashed. It was too true, and they’d forgotten, but the duke’s aged father had died early in the year. And they all knew that his mother had been gone for years. They looked at each other guiltily, at a loss for words, because they realized the new duke’s wounds must indeed be raw. Well, so they were, but so they’d always be, Owen thought. But that was exactly why he was staying in town. He needed a warm family Christmas more than ever, only this year he’d decided it was time to begin his own family.
The table was silent, with everyone applying themselves to their meal with too much gusto. Owen relented. “No, the manor will be quiet this year and that’s how I prefer it,” he said. “I’ve family feelings, but no desire to be up to my chin in children.”
A few of the men chuckled, and Owen added wryly, “My oldest sister has too many brats to haul down from the North, five at last count—and my other sister’s increasing. And though it’s early days, I hear she’s complaining about walking so far as the dinner table. Yes, you all remember Georgette; she wanted a sedan chair to get to the carriage whenever we had to go anywhere. She was the toast of the Season, because everyone said she was so ‘restful.’” As they all laughed, he added, “Brother John’s with Wellington, in my stead, now that Father’s gone and the duke considers me too vital to the name to be of any use to him. Brother Tom is sailing at His Majesty’s command, and brother James is visiting with a friend in Hampshire. No, it must be London for me this year. I mean, can you see me dandling babes on my knee or fetching for Georgette?”
They laughed, relieved. And while all of that was true, none of it was, because Owen knew that if he asked, any of his siblings would be happy to join him at the manor. But he was in the market for a wife; and the marketplace was in London, he thought wryly. Still, it wouldn’t do for anyone to know that.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Owen said, and then on sudden inspiration added, “I won’t miss much—except…except my cook in Kent makes the most wonderful gingerbread. I shall miss that.”
They roared with laughter.
Owen looked hurt. “No,” he said, “I meant that. Don’t any of you remember how good gingerbread was when you were young?”
“D’ja know?” Henry Caldicott, a plumpish young gentleman, commented, “Always loved the thought of it, but it didn’t taste like nothing. I mean, now, Christmastime, give me a pudding or a mince tart, or a—”
“Or a syllabub or a trifle or a plum pie or a bucket of sweet cream—never met a dessert you didn’t like,” one of his friends hooted, and they all laughed.
“Ain’t so,” Henry said stubbornly, “I always looked forward to gingerbread. My mouth was all set for it, it looked and smelled so good. But when I had it, it wasn’t nothing like what I expected.”
“Are we discussing desserts, or females?” Lord Daventry asked with an uplifted eyebrow, which made them all laugh harder. “But now you’ve mentioned it,” that gentleman added, “I find myself actually wanting a taste of gingerbread, at that. Ho! Philips!” he called to their waiter. “Is there any gingerbread in the larder?”
Of course there wasn’t, it was an exclusive gentleman’s club in the heart of London. But because it was, the waiter nodded, and said, “Of course, gentlemen,” and scurried out of the room to find a footman to send to the nearest bakeshop.
“There is something about gingerbread”—Owen spoke in what he hoped was a casual tone—“something that stays in the mind, isn’t there? It’s like it’s all of childhood in one simple sweet.”
They were considering that when the waiter came hurrying back, looking threatened. “Gentlemen,” he said quickly, “would that be gingerbread cake?” Or gingerbread men?”
“Both, I suppose,” said Lord Daventry with a wave of his slender hand. Then he told Owen with a smile, “There. A decision to make right off. Not so simple then, is it?”
“I liked the little manikins with raisin eyes,” the Viscount Rockingham said suddenly, and they all turned to stare at him because he sounded so serious, and yet they all knew him to be a cynical and closemouthed man. “I looked forward to Christmas because of them—I saw them in the shops and always wanted one. I wondered what one tasted like. Yes, I’d like to try one now.”
“‘Wondered’?” one of the men asked with a frown. “Gads, Rockingham, they were a ha’penny or some-such trifle. Cheap as they could be. Never say you never had the blunt to buy one?”
“I didn’t,” the dark-faced lord said simply, “my father didn’t believe in worldly excesses. Money was one of the things he denied us. Christmas was another. I thought I had indulged myself in everything I had been deprived of when I came into the title,” he said with a wry smile. “Seems I forgot something. Yes, I should like to try a gingerbread man today, I think.”
Owen had known the Viscount Rockingham for years, and yet now realized he’d never known much more about him than the fact that he was good company: a rakish fellow with a mordant wit. From the expressions on the faces of the other men he supposed they had not known more than that either. He made a note to actually talk with Rockingham more often in the future; he regretted that he never had before, because the man seemed to have depths he hadn’t known.
“Funny, that,” one of the other gentlemen mused, “my father was a strict and humorless man too, always awkward with us children. But now I recall he’d buy gingerbread men at the holiday for us, saying they were tra
ditional and educational—for the story I suppose. You know, ‘...run and run fast as you can, you’ll never catch me, I’m the gingerbread man…’ At any rate, he’d bring us some. Aye, and tell us the story, very seriously, and then hand us the gingerbread men as though he was giving out edifying tracts. But then he’d always nibble a bit of ours, saying he was testing to see if they were sound. Poor fellow, I imagine now it was the only way he could excuse his pleasure in them.”
“My father dotes on Christmas,” another gentleman said. “It’s my mother who does the nibbling though. She’s always saying this is too rich and that’s too sugary, and what about my form? So she never took a dessert when we were young, but always finished ours! Yes, but now I recall, she never turned down a gingerbread man, because it wasn’t a sweet to her, so much as a toy, I think. She’d nibble a head, and an arm, and when she got to a leg my father would shout, ‘Hey, easy there, my love, the children are watching.’ Lud! I never knew what that meant until now!” he said in amazement as they all laughed with him.
Soon, they were all telling gingerbread tales: stories from their childhood, both sweet and sad to hear, exposing themselves and their pasts as they’d never done before. Owen was astonished; it seemed gingerbread was the very key to a man’s memories. But although he laughed as he listened to them, or grew silent with compassion, he realized he’d never heard any of the stories before. And so, no matter how warm or chilling they were, none of them could have been the reason for his own dreams.
As a cap on their storytelling, footmen arrived with trays of gingerbread men, and gingerbread cakes. The men fell on them with cries of delight, as though they were children and not some of the most influential statesmen, bravest bucks, finest dandies, and most rakish lords in all England. Seeing their delight, other tables clamored for gingerbread as well, as the roomful of men began to swap childhood reminiscences of gingerbread. None of which helped Owen at all.
