Christmas Surprises

by Patricia Rice

  This time the child didn’t protest, and Alan held him easily as he stood and waited for Marian to join him. The emotion she met in his eyes burned a pathway straight to her heart, and still blinking on her own tears, she hurried from the barn to the waiting cart. She hadn’t thought how all alone Alan would be if he stayed here in this great barn of a house, thousands of miles from his family. He had chosen to stay here to help people he scarcely knew, but at what cost to him?

  The trip back into town was a quiet one. Marian wrapped John in the blanket they had brought and fed him sandwiches from the basket, and he was nearly asleep by the time they returned. Beside her, she was conscious of the silent man expertly guiding the horse past the rough spots in the road. His hands were clad in expensive leather gloves, and his heavy greatcoat would protect him from all but the worst of winds, but inside the trappings of wealth, he was as human as her little brother. It had been simple when she thought of him only as a faceless nobleman who deserved her insults and tirades. But he wasn’t even the man she had cursed. He was someone else entirely, and she couldn’t lift her eyes to meet his gaze when he looked down on her.

  The New Year’s celebrations began when they drove up the drive with their sleepy burden. Women came streaming from neighboring houses, crying openly as they hugged each other and the Chadwicks. Men pulled off gloves and hats and shook hands with the new viscount and pounded each other on the back with an excess of cheer. The house opened to allow the tramp of feet into the warmth of open fireplaces and hot cider and the puddings and cakes that had been waiting for the round of New Year’s visits.

  Alan and Marian held back from it all. After the first round of explanations, the story repeated itself throughout the room, and there was no further need for them to tell it. But there was a need for them to be together, to explore the emotions they had just encountered, and no way in which it could be done in this room full of people.

  Alan finally took a deep breath and pulled her from the parlor, flinging the first cloak he found around her and drawing her out into the cold sunshine of the dying day. Marian followed eagerly, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he led her through the winter-barren garden toward the river.

  “I’m staying. The arrangements are under way. I’m going to have men up to look over the factory and make suggestions and others to undertake repairs. I’m going to have to hire people for the Hall. The money’s there; the solicitors simply didn’t want to spend it. Do you still hate me?”

  This all came out in one breathless sentence, but Marian understood every word of it. She came to a halt and stared up at Alan’s lean features, the thin, rather sensuous mouth twisted into a self-deprecating grimace, the dancing gray eyes warm and eager as they watched her. When a particularly strong gust of wind made her shiver, she immediately found herself wrapped in the immensity of his coat, caught against the heat of his chest, and she curled up there, oddly comfortable with the arrangement.

  “I can’t hate you,” she whispered against his heartbeat.

  “Is there any chance, if I behave particularly unlike a viscount, that you might come to more than not hate me?”

  Marian giggled at this odd phrasing. “I already not hate you.” More softly, she finished, “I think I already like you much too much.”

  Joy flowed through Alan’s veins and the winter berries bursting through their wrappers could have been roses for all his senses knew. The warmth he felt now was a summer warmth as he bent to ply eager lips with his.

  “By spring, perhaps you’ll like me even more,” Alan ventured as he brushed his mouth against the sweetness of hers.

  “I’m afraid so,” Marian answered, her hands creeping up his waistcoat to the vicinity of his neck.

  “Would that be so terrible a crime?” he murmured, pulling her closer. “If I can play daddy to puppies, maybe I can graduate to little boys after a while?”

  “You can’t forget little girls,” Marian whispered breathlessly as his hands began to do strange things to her through layers of clothing. “There is a great house full of us. You will want to run away in dismay before spring ever arrives.”

  “Not if the most troublesome one of them all keeps me in kisses. I don’t want to be your daddy, Marian. By spring, do you think you might be willing to reconsider your decision not to marry?”

  “I may have to,” she answered honestly as his hand touched a sensitive place. “Especially if you mean to keep doing that. Alan, we are behaving wickedly—”

  “Oh, no, we’re behaving naturally. Do you have any idea how glad I am that there was no room at the inn?”

  “I refuse to believe you’re a Christmas angel,” she murmured against the mouth warming hers.

  “Then believe there were angels watching over us. I almost never knew you were in this world.”

  “You may regret it later.” Laughing, Marian looked up into warm, gray eyes.

  “When Christmas falls in July.”

  With that firm announcement, Alan wrapped her in his arms and proceeded to show her how unangelic he could be. As the snowflakes finally began to fall, a small creature in the shrubs stuck out his tongue to taste them. Then deciding there was nothing more for him out here, he removed the hat from his tow head and ran back toward the house for the last of the Christmas pudding. The nice stranger was going to stay.

  Tin Angel

  October, 1855

  “I don’t care what party he claims to hail from, Palmerston is a damned dictator! We’re up to our fool necks in a war we have no business to be in in the first place, and they elect a power-hungry jackal to run it! Asses! The whole country is full of bloody asses.”

  The speaker slammed his glossy high-crowned hat down on the table, grabbed a tankard of ale from a waiter passing by, and flung himself into a booth across from the recipient of this tirade. He propped his elbows on the table and glared at the half-empty tankard after he drank from it.

  “Bulls, actually.” The speaker’s fair-haired companion already had several empty tankards lined up in front of him and signaled for another as he spoke. “John Bulls, Beefeaters, solid, complacent, narrow-minded isolationists. What else did you expect?”

  Jeffrey, Viscount Darcourt, lifted his glare from the tankard to the man across from him. “What else, indeed?” he asked sarcastically. “We are a nation of illiterate peasants, grasping shopkeepers, and bloodthirsty, stupid asses. The aristocracy is supposed to have more sense than this! That’s why we’re the ruling class. I tell you, the Americans have the right of it. Educate the masses and let them vote. Someone out there has to have more brains than those blithering idiots back there.”

  “Educate the masses, he says!” The fair-haired gentleman hiccupped and drank deeply from his fresh tankard, slapping the waiter’s hand away when he attempted to clear the table of empties. “Palmerston would have them chained to the land, if he could. Education reform is beyond our reach, old boy. Keep ‘em ignorant and we can all live to rule another day.”

  Darcourt gave his companion a look of disgust and drained his cup. “Don’t just keep them ignorant, send them to war. Fill the trenches with blood and bone for a stinking war for foreign Turks. I’ve had it, Henry. I’m tired of fighting the apathetic, the greedy, and the stupid. There isn’t a single man in government today worth supporting. And the public is so damn fool ignorant to put them in there, they’re not worth fighting for. I’m getting out, going home, and to hell with them all.” He rose from his seat and returned his hat to his thick dark curls.

  “Can’t do that.” Speech slurred, Henry barely raised his head from where it had fallen on his crossed arms. “Got to stay for the Season, find a wife. You’re the only heir now.”

  Jeffrey’s face darkened and his words were curt. “Good. The line can die out and there will be one less ass to run the country into the ground.”

  He practically ran from the tavern into the chilly streets. Even the London air repulsed him. Huge chimneys belching black coal smoke littered the
skyline. In this part of town, the smell of offal didn’t intrude, but he had traipsed the narrow, crooked streets of St. Giles and knew there were parts of the city no better than pigsties. Actually, a modern pigsty was more healthful than the crowded, filthy streets where pestilence bred in open sewers. He jammed his hat more tightly on his head and hurried toward his town house.

  He wished Henry hadn’t mentioned his duty as heir. It only served to remind him of George. He didn’t want to think of his younger brother on a day when he was already furious with the world. George had died in those foreign trenches, slaughtered like a sheep for carrying out the orders of a criminally incompetent officer. George should have been the one who stayed home. George loved his country, loved the people on his lands, loved his wife. George had an infinite capacity for love and patience. And now George was no better than pig fodder.

  Jeffrey refused to give in to the tears burning his eyes. He’d consumed too much ale. He was too furious to be coherent. His passions didn’t tend to be the gentler ones of love and patience. Temper and arrogance ruled him. He missed George devilishly, but he was furious with him for dying. He had no business over there. His business was here, creating an heir with his lovely wife. His widow now.

  As if just the thought of George’s wife conjured her in front of him, she stepped from the carriage in front of his town house. Jeffrey cursed his blindness in not noting the carriage earlier. He could have escaped down a side alley. Now it was too late. His mother and sister were climbing down, assisted by a footman.

  Bloody hell, he didn’t need their interference on a day like this one.

  The women greeted him cheerfully, and he growled in return. He waited impatiently for them to enter the house, but acres of skirts and crinolines and half a town full of packages had to be maneuvered up the stairs and through the doors. Their birdlike chattering drove him to the brink, but he gritted his teeth and endured with the hope of encountering a warm fireside and a bottle of brandy in the solitude of his study.

  The discovery that he had been nominated to escort his female relations to the opera destroyed what remained of Darcourt’s composure. He supposed all women weren’t silly chits, but this particular flock apparently had no sense at all. They had no understanding of the elections, of the war, of the incompetence surrounding them. They chattered of clothes and operas while George lay in a muddy grave on foreign soil and children starved and died in filthy streets just around the corner. He couldn’t bear another minute of it, but thirty years of training prevented him from screaming his fury.

  Instead, in carefully controlled tones, Darcourt disabused them of his availability.

  “I intend to go up to Dorset this evening, Mother. Send a note around to Uncle Martin and see if he might go with you.”

  “Dorset!” Shocked, his mother turned concerned eyes to him. Jeffrey felt the full brunt of those bruised violet eyes, but he resisted. “Whyever would you need to go there? The harvest is in fine hands. You have an excellent steward. You have your seat in Parliament, Jeffrey. You can’t go to Dorset now.”

  “I can, and I will, Mother,” Jeffrey stated firmly. “As a matter of fact, I have no intention of returning here or taking my seat. If I never hear another blithering idiot again, I will be perfectly content. And you will be much better off without me to dampen your spirits.”

  “Jeffrey!” she wailed, but he was already halfway up the stairs.

  December, 1855

  Darcourt sat before the dying fire, sipping at the glowing brandy in the crystal snifter. All around him rose richly paneled walls and towering bookcases, shadowed in the light of a single lamp. The room gleamed of wealth and security, as did the rest of his Dorset estate. He had acres of arable land and fields of livestock, enough to support him and his family for the next few generations without lifting a hand. He should be feeling snug and comfortable, away from the squalid poverty of the city, the strident arguments of Parliament, the frivolity of society.

  Instead, he felt frustrated and miserable. He wanted to smash the crystal snifter against the wall and bellow with rage. He wanted to pace the expensive Oriental rug and rant and rave. He wanted to smash things. He’d never been allowed to smash things. He’d always kept his temper pent up inside him, where it lashed at his insides instead of flailing at its cause. Right now, he’d be hard-pressed to decide on a cause.

  A footman tiptoed into the room bearing an awkward burden. At the sight of Darcourt glaring at him from the fireside, the servant visibly quailed, but resolutely, he proceeded to the corner library table. Darcourt watched as he set up a pail full of sand from which a freshly cut evergreen tree protruded.

  “What do you think you are doing?” he inquired in falsely calm tones.

  “A Christmas tree, my lord,” the servant stammered. “The family will be arriving shortly, and my lady insisted we must have a tree. She always likes one in here, my lord. She says they are too messy for the salon.”

  Darcourt sank into a gloomy silence as the servant straightened the tree and added more sand. He couldn’t very well counter his mother’s orders. This house had always been hers, even if the ownership belonged to him now. There hadn’t been Christmas trees when he’d been growing up, but his mother had introduced the idea the year after his father’s death. They had been all the rage in London, and it had made her happy to hang trinkets and invite the village children. She’d needed a little happiness back then. Undoubtedly, she’d hoped to have a half-dozen grandchildren of her own by now to entertain with the tree. Her wishes weren’t going to be granted in the matter of grandchildren. He couldn’t object to her wishes on the matter of the tree.

  Stoically, Darcourt refilled his snifter and watched as the maids tiptoed in and scattered a few ornaments among the branches. His mother would bring more trinkets from London, but over the last few years they had gathered a few oddments that had meaning to various members of the household. And his sister had taken to collecting the brightly colored tin ornaments that came stuffed with sugarplums, a different one for each year. There had been the year she had adorned the tree with jolly elves, and another when she had fancied drums. The sugarplums were gone, distributed to the village children, but she had kept one of each box to hang on the tree every year.

  Whispering among themselves, the maids wired the tiny candle holders to the tips of each branch. They treated the tree reverently, as if it were a thing of magic. Jeffrey grunted cynically. Instead of a thing of magic, it would be dropping pine needles all over the carpet in a few days. Pine sap would drip on the table and require hours of scrubbing. Nothing magical about that mess. It was a bloody nuisance.

  He supposed he would have to forgo his fire and find another room to sit in for the evenings or the blasted thing would dry out even faster. He didn’t know why they were putting it up so early when his mother wasn’t expected for days. He didn’t know why they were putting it up now, when they could have done it during the day. He supposed the dragon lady of a housekeeper had insisted they keep to their regular duties and they were doing this after hours. He didn’t know much about the running of the household. As long as he was fed and warm and had clean clothes, they could all go to perdition for all he cared.

  Jeffrey returned his gaze to the book he was trying to read, but the words blurred together on the page. He’d drunk too much brandy again tonight. That would have to stop. He couldn’t keep drinking himself into a stupor every night. But as long as he was half seas over anyway, it wouldn’t hurt to have another sip before he went up to bed.

  Somewhere between the book and the brandy, he must have dozed. When next he opened his eyes, the maids had gone. The fire had died down until the Christmas tree was little more than a shadow against the night. The air was already redolent of evergreen. Darcourt reached for his snifter, but found it empty. He contemplated pouring another drink, but a trick of firelight made him glance back at the tree again.

  A single tiny candle gleamed among the branches.

 
Darcourt stared blankly. Did the maids mean to burn the house down around their heads? The whole bloody tree could catch fire if that candle burned down, left unattended like that. What did they mean lighting a candle now, anyway? They never lit the candles until Christmas Eve.

  He couldn’t make himself stir from the chair. A wintry chill filled the room as the fire died, but he had enough brandy in him to combat the cold. The flickering candle held him fascinated. It gleamed off one of Susan’s sugarplum boxes. He couldn’t make out which one in the dark, but he could see flashes of white and gold. He wondered what would happen if he let the candle burn down to the branch. Would the tree catch fire immediately, or smolder awhile? If he fell asleep, would he even notice when the flames swept across the room? Perhaps he was cold enough that he wouldn’t even feel the heat. He had enough brandy in him to go up in flames like a plum pudding.

  “That’s a revolting way to die,” a crystalline clear voice intruded rudely on his wandering thoughts. “Not only would it be painful, but the disaster left behind would destroy the lives of everyone in the household. The whole place would undoubtedly burn to ashes, throwing dozens of servants out of work just at Christmas. Your family would be utterly devastated. They would have no means of coping with such a disaster. Unscrupulous lawyers would come in and milk the estate beyond retrieving while searching for the next heir. Your sister would probably have to marry some wealthy Cit to keep herself and your mother from starving. And your sister-in-law would no doubt have to become someone’s mistress, since she is entirely dependent on your generosity and has no portion of her own.”

  Darcourt began to laugh. The image of his silly little sister doting on some fat wealthy Cit was bad enough, but the doom-filled dramatics of this little speech smacked so much of the ridiculous that he couldn’t help himself. Even in his blackest glooms he had never imagined such a fate for the bevy of foolish women in his life. He’d seen them all well provided for in case of his untimely demise. They were more likely to go on much happier without him.