by Edith Layton
It was a horse that reminded them of where they were, what they were doing, and what they couldn’t do.
“‘Nay,’ is right,” Niall murmured in frustration, mimicking the horse. He looked into Joy’s dazed and delighted eyes and saw slow dawning dismay. He stepped back.
“Not here, not now,” he muttered, gathering his wits. “But understand that I’m not sorry for what just happened. I acted on impulse, and that’s not like me. But it’s very good that I did, now the matter is out in the open…if too literally,” he added, glancing back at Mrs. Holcombe, standing in her doorway, gaping at them.
He looked down at Joy. “What I have to say to you will be no impulse. But later. Not now, not with Mrs. Holcombe watching, not with half of London able to spy on us.” His expression grew grave. Their embrace had set her bonnet slightly askew. He stroked some stray strands of flaxen hair back from her wide blue, somber eyes.
His own eyes were sober, gray as sleet, his voice was deep and sad. He looked cool and unapproachable now, making her feel even more wanton and wrong.
“Joy,” he said, “please understand that though my impulse was spur of the moment, my intentions were not. I’ll speak of it later. That, I promise you. But for now, please forgive me and don’t fear me or my intentions, or regret what just happened.”
She read his face, scarcely listening to his words, because she was ashamed and upset with herself, not him. She ought never have thrown herself at him, but the taste of him, the closeness of him, intoxicated her. Holding his broad shoulders, having him hold her, feeling his warm mouth on hers had been wondrous. She’d thought it might be. But she could never have guessed how such closeness could fill her lonely heart. She felt empty now, as well as embarrassed. “It’s not necessary to apologize,” she said over the lump in her throat.
“Of course it is!” he said, looking as shocked as Mrs. Holcombe did.
“Nor will I hold you to it,” Joy said, fumbling in her recticule for something to do, to avoid his eyes.
“You had better!” he said. “You can’t pretend it didn’t happen. Joy,” he said in gentler tones. “I’m not trifling with you, I never meant to. I’m sorry for making such a spectacle. I meant to declare myself in a more approved fashion, at a more appropriate time.”
She found a handkerchief. “Ha!” she said on a mournful sniff.
“You doubt me?”
“But we’ve only known each other a matter of days,” she said, daring to look up at him again.
“That, I can do something about. I’ll see you tomorrow, the next day and the next. But, Joy,” he said as he paused in the street with her, one hand still on her waist, the other on his heart, “even if we’d met in a more conventional sense, we couldn’t keep seeing each other so steadily for much longer without causing gossip and giving rise to expectations. A fellow’s only permitted two dances with a woman at a ball, only a few meetings wherever they go, and those measured out like gold dust. Or else he must declare himself. And so I am. I mean that. I’m absolutely serious,” he said as her eyes widened. “I know what I’ve found. You do, too. You feel as I do, don’t you?”
She shook her head, in denial or wonder at what was happening, he couldn’t say. He couldn’t tell if the tears standing in her eyes were those of sorrow or gladness, either.
“Listen, my Joy,” he said urgently, “there’s every chance the absence of the damned thing in the book you lent will be discovered by its owner any hour now. That would end this. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want anything to ever end this. I was going to ask you to come home with me at Christmas, then and there was where I planned to ask you never to leave me again. But I ruined that,” he said ruefully. “It’s not just me. Didn’t you notice my aunt’s machinations? She’s been praising you day and night, throwing us together so blatantly it’s embarrassing. Or would be, if it weren’t just what I wanted. Oh, Lord, I thought I was glib, but this… Listen. I don’t read the books you lend, I don’t know exactly how to say this…”
So he didn’t. He pulled her to him and kissed her again.
“Now,” he said, breathing hard, “you will marry me, won’t you? Come home for Christmas with me, bring your cousin, your whole household, including the cat if you want. But I won’t be alone this Christmas, and I want you to be my wife in the new year. Come to my house, at least. You can always change your mind,” he added a little desperately.
He saw the beginnings of her smile. “But later,” he said with more confidence. “Much later. Give me—give this, a try. Marry me, Joy. I’ll be the best husband you could ever want, because you’re the only woman for me. I don’t need time to know my heart. It’s yours.
“Joy, my Joy, say yes, please.”
So she did.
*
There was a celebration at Minch’s bookshop that day. A toast from a bottle of fine champagne that the baron brought, drunk to the health of the young couple. Then another celebration at Lady Gray’s house later. The excitement was enough to get her up out of her bed to receive guests and make plans.
“So all ends well for you,” Arthur told his cousin Niall enviously. “Someone lost a treasure, and you end up with one.”
“I don’t know what was lost, but I know what I found,” Niall said softly, watching his fiancée.
“I promised not to say what was lost until someone claims it,” Joy said, smiling up at him, “but I, too, know what I found, and believe me, it’s worth so very much more.”
*
Late that night, when both households were asleep—Joy in her bed dreaming of when she would no longer sleep alone, and Niall tossing and turning as he burned for his chosen bride—Alfred Minch moved through his bookshop like a wraith. Silent as dust, swift as night falling, he stole downstairs to his shop and went soft-footed to his safe, where he knelt in the dark like a man at an altar.
There, by the light of a single candle, he withdrew the notes from his waistcoat and laid them tenderly with their brothers and sisters, alongside their cousin coins, amid the gold and with the silver. He blinked back happy tears.
“So. There, you are, my fine fellows,” he crooned, patting them into place. “Home again. Such a wise investment I made with you,” he whispered. “The best kind. For I didn’t have to part with one of you, and look at the return I got! They were made for each other, but how else could I throw them together? And they say money can’t buy happiness,” he scoffed.
“Sleep well, my pretties.”
He started to rise, stopped, and stiffened. “Yes, well,” he murmured to himself, “there is the question of a dowry, isn’t there? Of a settlement, for a certainty.” He crouched, lost in thought.
Then Alfred Minch smiled. “But he’s rich and I’m just a poor bookseller, and everyone knows it. He’ll waive the settlement, and she’ll be so delighted to go with him that she won’t care. Oh, well,” he said in a voice full of surrender, as though he heard argument. “Yes. Very well, then. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event, is it not? I won’t be mean. I’ll give them a handsome present. A volume on home management and a family Bible, and they’ll be very grateful, I’m sure. Why not? Used volumes hold the same wisdom as new ones. And, after all, I’ve already given them the best gifts: each other.”
His voice gentled. “Rest well, my honeys,” he breathed as he slowly rose to his feet. “And have a happy Christmas. Be sure, I will. For it’s more blessed to give than to receive, and I gave you back, didn’t I? Nor did I make one penny on the arrangement…yet. But with a cousin wed to a top-of-the-trees gent, and a nobleman at that, who knows what else will result, eh? Perhaps you, my dearlings, will have more company, and soon!” He closed the safe on a happy sigh, and locked it tight.
Then he crept up the stairs to sleep, and dream of a happy Christmas, the best kind of Christmas, one he didn’t have to pay for.
The Dogstar
For Georgie Girl, my own tricolored miracle, forever in my heart as I was in hers.
They w
ere born in a tumble of rags at the back of J., an alley in the oldest section of London town. They didn’t notice their low surroundings. They had a devoted mother and enough sweet milk to drink, and when they weren’t eating or sleeping, the pups played. That is, they did until one morning when they woke to find their mother gone. They looked for her, and then they played, and then they stopped and sat and waited, ears pricked up and tongues hanging out. They didn’t have long to wait.
Before the sun had set each of them knew, in the way this uncanny litter had of knowing what was important, that it was time to move on. So they parted. One made his wobbly way west; one went south. One meandered toward the park. One went due north to where the remnants of the old gates to the city still stood. Two played together until they cocked their heads as though they heard far-off whistles. Then they went on alone down separate, new, but certain paths.
Soon they were all gone from the only home they’d ever known. It was time for them to do the tasks they were born to; it was time to meet their destinies. After all, Christmas was coming to London, and everyone else in town was headed home too.
*
Alexander Malcolm Grenville, fifth Marquess Grenville, Baron Trent, last in a proud line of aristocrats, had everything a young gentleman could want: looks, money, and position. Everything, that was, except a place to go for Christmas.
He sat by the window and brooded. He would not cry. He was, after all, seven years old now, and if his jolly classmates didn’t pummel him for weeping, they’d certainly mock him. At least, those few who were still at school would. Still, a young gentleman had his pride to consider. It was a good thing an early winter’s dusk was coming on. That way, if treacherous tears did happen to appear the way the evening stars were doing, slowly, one by one, the room was so dim no one would see it. Alex was feeling wretched and alone, and would have wished for happiness upon the brightest star he saw now, but he was too old for that, and anyway, his wishes never came true.
“Alex? Is that you?” a nervous voice inquired.
Alex sat up straight. He could see only a dim outline in the gathering gloom. Nevertheless, he hastily wiped away treacherous tears.
“Alex?” the voice asked again, hesitantly.
Only one boy Alex knew had a voice that quavered that way. “Simon? That you?” he asked in return.
“Yes. It is,” the other boy said in a rush. He stepped into the room and came closer to the window. He was a slight lad, with a pale freckled face. “I’m so glad you’re still here. Almost everyone’s gone. The place is so empty, it echoes. I don’t leave until the morning, but I must know…are you coming home with me?”
Alex hesitated. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, and hoped it looked like it was itching. “Well, I dunno,” he said, because, in truth, he didn’t. Simon was a friend, but a friend made the way strangers get to know each other when they’re taking shelter from a storm together. In their case, the storm was the attitude of the other boys at the school. Simon was a weakling, and a fearful one. Alex was only a newcomer. He’d been ill and so had come to this new school two months late. That was all it took to make a fellow an outcast.
“Y’know,” Alex added with what he hoped sounded like the casual drawls his mama’s elegant gentlemen friends affected, “Perry asked me too.”
“Oh, Perry,” Simon said with a sneer. It was unpleasant to hear an outcast sneer at someone even lower in status, but that was how everyone reacted to Perry. Fat fellows could have friends, but not fat lads with ghastly manners and a total disregard for cleanliness. Soap was the common enemy here. But to Perry, it was entirely alien.
“Well, let me know before bedtime,” Simon said. He hesitated. “Actually, you can let me know in the morning too. I’d love for you to come,” he went on eagerly. “You could see my collection of tin soldiers. I have battalions, and we could play Waterloo. Of course,” he said, in a quick recovery, because though he was a pariah, he wasn’t stupid and had learned a thing or two at school this first year—“I’m far too old for them now. But you might find them interesting.”
“Might,” Alex agreed. He could think of few things more deadly, but he was a kindhearted boy. Still, it would be better than staying with Perry and watching him eat. But apart from those two invitations, there was only the unknown. He squared his narrow shoulders. He would face the unknown. “But, y’see,” he said, deciding on the spot, “I think I’d better go where my mama wishes. Or, maybe, where my papa did.”
He unclenched a hand and showed Simon the two crumpled pieces of paper he’d been rereading until the light went. “My mama asked her old friend to watch over me for Christmas, seein’ as how she can’t be home in time for it. So her old friend wrote and asked me to stay with her, in London. She wasn’t planning much otherwise, and she lives alone anyhow.”
It wasn’t a thrilling invitation, but sounded like a sincere one. It would be better than staying at home alone except for the servants, as he’d done so many times in the past. Alex’s mother seldom came home. Now it looked as if she never would again. Presently she was in Italy with her new lover, who didn’t speak much English. And so she’d written that she didn’t know when she’d get back home again, and wished Alex a happy Christmas. They’d never been close, but Alex remembered Christmases at home before his father had gone riding off to war, never to return. He remembered the house dressed in evergreens, lots of company coming to stay, festive dinners and dances, and being allowed to stay up at the top of the stairs with his nurse to watch the festivities until his bedtime.
“An’ I’ve got this invitation from my papa’s old friend,” Alex said, producing the other rumpled letter. “He says he got a letter from my man-at-law, saying as to how it was time for him to take up some of his responsibilities for me. He’s my guardian. I mean, he would be if something happened to my mama, because my papa wanted him to be. I guess he didn’t know it ’til now, no more than I did. So he invited me to stay at his London town house. He says he’s got lots of servants to look after me, and he lives near the park.”
Alex looked at the two letters. In spite of his resolve, he sniffled. “So,” he said with forced heartiness, “seein’ as how both of ’em asked me to meet them at the Bull and Mouth—that’s a coaching stop in London—and as to how they both sent me tickets to get there, I s’pose I will.”
“How can you use two tickets?” Simon asked.
“Won’t,” Alex said quickly, hoping Simon wasn’t hinting about how a trip to London would be a deal better than staying home and playing Waterloo with his tin soldiers. “I’ll go by mail coach ’cause it’s faster. They set their horses to a prime clip. Those are the tickets Viscount Falconer sent. I’ll give Miss Lockwood her tickets back when I get there.”
“Who will you stay with?” Simon asked, fascinated.
“I’ll let them decide,” Alex said with a shrug.
Because in truth, he didn’t much care. And if his two hosts were anything like most adults he’d met, he doubted they did either.
*
Alex enjoyed the ride down to London enormously. The headmaster saw him into the mail coach, instructed the driver and the guard to keep an eye out and let no one interfere with Alex, and then left him. It was a bit daunting. But then the sheer speed of the coach as it bucketed down the roads, the spanking teams of horses, the chance to get off at stops and drink hot cider and then swagger back to the coach in perfect imitation of the lordly driver and guard, all served to chase away his fears and doubts. It was grand.
He wished he could speak to the coachman or the guard, or some of the other passengers, but he’d been trained not to talk to strangers. Still, he was too excited to feel lonely.
Now he was approaching London, driving under a gray stone arch, slowing as the coach clattered over cobbles and into a wide inn yard. The Bull and Mouth, his destination. The coach rolled to a stop. The other passengers readied themselves to leave, and all Alex’s worries came flooding back like stormclouds b
efore a high wind. He was in a strange place, going to stay the Christmas holidays with strange people.
Having been left with a succession of nurses and governesses all his life and then sent to school was one thing—or rather, several awful things. But this! Alex’s courage faltered.
But he wasn’t a Grenville for nothing. His ancestors had faced wild barbarians and greedy kings, or so he’d heard. He could do this. He gathered his carpetbag, waited for everyone else in the coach to leave, and then stepped down into the weak winter sunlight, and blinked.
The inn yard was vast, noisy, crowded, and so colorful he was dazzled. It was filled with people greeting new arrivals, and those waiting to board. Alex heard shouts and conversations, the neighing of horses and the rattling of their brasses. He stood near the mail coach and waited. The passengers who had been with him left. It didn’t get less crowded.
Alex stood and watched. There was no one waiting for him. Or so it seemed. He realized he didn’t know what either Miss Lockwood or Viscount Falconer looked like. Nor did they know what he looked like. And there was always the possibility that they might have forgotten him. In fact, he might be entirely on his own in London. Surprisingly, this didn’t worry him as much as being with his hosts did.
He was trying to decide what to do, trying to gather up courage to do something, when a coaching guard approached and hunkered down to speak to him. “Be you the Marquess Grenville, lad? I mean, my lord?” he asked.
Alex nodded. “I am.”
“Well, there’s a relief. You’re to wait inside the inn. We got word.” He squinted at a note he held. “Viscount Falconer, well, he’s late, and this Miss Lockwood, she sent to say she’d be here presently. I’ll show you a place to wait, and you’re to stick there until they comes for you, understand?”
