A Duke for Christmas

by Cynthia Bailey Pratt

  “Yes, we were fearless ... then.”

  They fell silent for a moment, each busy with thoughts that ranged over both past and future. Maris spoke first, with determined lightness. “I always thought it very brave of you, Sophie, to marry and live in a foreign country. Now that I know how often you were alone, I have even more respect for you.”

  “I was never afraid, not even after he left me. Well, afraid that nothing would ever change. But not afraid of poverty or of the strangers I’d meet. What had I that anyone could steal? That is why it was so strange ...”

  “What?”

  “A few days before I left, my rooms were broken into. ‘Broken into’ indeed. They yanked out the drawers, ripped up the cushions, even tore the pictures off the walls.”

  “My poor dear! That’s why you told mother your furniture wasn’t worth taking to the secondhand shops.”

  “That’s why. Odd that so terrible a thing should have happened after so many quiet days, and just before I left. It’s as though fate were confirming my decision. I couldn’t have slept comfortably there ever again, not without hearing every creak as the criminals returning.”

  “Did they steal anything?”

  Sophie smiled a little bitterly. “I had nothing whatever worth the stealing. My landlady thought that was why they ran riot—out of disappointment.”

  “Thank heaven you weren’t at home when it happened.”

  “No, I was at home very little those last days. So much to be done.” Truthfully, the attack on her home had proved to be an attack on all her memories. She’d been able to treasure a few happy ones there, like roses under glass domes, but once she’d seen the devastation left by brutal thieves, even the few happy memories left after Broderick’s desertion had been smeared and blackened.

  After a moment, Maris spoke again, very quietly. “I only wish that you could have had a child or two. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could bring our children up together?”

  Sophie pressed her fingers against her eyes, hoping Maris would think she was feeling nothing more taxing than tiredness. Hard as she found it to be brave in the daytime, night brought a new kind of attack against her bastions. Then to have her sister throw a bombshell over the walls, breaking them all to pieces, brought tears to long-dry eyes.

  “Sophie? Oh, don’t.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, sniffing, hoping she didn’t sound as pathetic as she felt. “I daresay Broderick would have felt even more tied down and worried if

  we’d had a child than he did with just me to burden him. After all, a child needs prudence and consistency and he

  believed that those things were death to the creative urge.”

  “I’m about to say something very rude.”

  “Don’t. He was what he was. If I’d had more sense, I wouldn’t have married him. Since I didn’t have any sense, I must take the consequences.”

  “But not for always. You’ll marry again. Then you’ll have a worthwhile man and children and happiness, all that you deserve.”

  “Of course,” Sophie said, only to comfort Maris. In her present state, she wouldn’t trouble her with the facts. Eventually, as the years passed, Maris would accept that her sister had no intention of taking that long leap in the dark a second time. By then, with luck, Maris would be so busy with a large family and all their troubles, in romance and without, that her eternally widowed sister would never impinge on her thoughts.

  With visible and vocal efforts, Maris leveraged herself off the bed. “I don’t know about you, but I simply crave some biscuits. There are some very special ones downstairs in the biscuit barrel. Mrs. Lemon might even make us cocoa, if we ask nicely. Want to come?” “Goodness, yes, I’m absolutely starving.”

  Chapter Six

  The next morning, Sophie awoke to the perfect silence of a snowy morning. She knew, even before she went to the window, that a deep batting had fallen over all, muffling sound and lending all things a pristine beauty. She threw aside the covers and scurried across the frigid floor. Throwing open the drapes, she glanced out and saw that what she’d imagined had come true.

  Standing on one foot, warming the other against her goose-pimpled calf, she gazed out with affection upon the garden. The fountain in the middle of the court looked like a tiered wedding cake with meringue-like swathes of snow hanging from the edges in the stillness of a windless morning. The stone cupid on the top looked very cold, with no covering save wings. His arrow pointed directly toward her window. Suddenly, absurdly nervous of that symbolism, Sophie stepped back, out of sight.

  Quickly she skittered over the floor to the fireplace, the whitewashed wooden floor cold as marble under her feet. When she picked up the poker, it felt like an icicle. Nevertheless, she stabbed at the logs, banked and covered in black and ash, until a red glow awoke in the charred wood and flames began to revive. Then she fed it with a new log, nearly dropping it on her toes. Another jab with the poker and a bright blaze began to warm the room. Sophie watched it for a moment, to be sure all had caught, then made a flying ran across the floor to burrow deep under her goose-feather coverlet once more.

  She watched the flames reaching up as if to claw back and devour the cold as her cold feet sought for the flannel-wrapped brick in the depths. Its heat was long gone. Her eyelids began to drift closed again and she did not fight the sensation. When she awoke the second time, it was to the sound of the curtain rings shaking and the scent of tea. Tea!

  Sophie struggled free of her enveloping covers, sitting up. A neatly mobcapped maid had her arms up as she adjusted the hang of the curtains. Another stood by, a supervising light in her eye, her hands full of a tea tray with a most intriguing set of covers upon it.

  “Good morning, madam,” this one said. “Did you sleep well?”

  “Like a top,” Sophie replied. “I made up the fire.”

  “Yes, madam. You should have rang.”

  “Oh, but it was so early. At least, it felt early. I don’t think that clock is right,” she added, pointing to the wooden-case clock on the mantel between two Chinese vases. It said half-past ten.

  “I’ll ask the butler to look at it, madam,” the maid said as she set the tray across Sophie’s knees. “Mr. Tremlow is a dab hand with a clock. Sets and winds them all himself.”

  The other maid, satisfied at last with the curtains, turned about. Sophie glanced at her discreetly, then stared. “Che bella giornata, Lucia!” she said.

  The girl’s large brown eyes flicked to the English maid. “Good...” she prompted.

  “Good mor-ing, Signora Banner.”

  “Morn-ing. Morning.”

  Lucia gave one of those incredibly impressive shrugs by which a Roman says so much more than mere words can express. The English girl gave her own nation’s contribution to silent scorn—an exaggerated eye roll.

  Sophie called her back just before she closed the door. “What’s your name?”

  “Parker, madam,” she answered, looking slightly worried.

  “Parker, I want something from you.”

  “Madam?” Her vague worry solidified into an expression of considerable alarm, as if she were

  examining her conscience and finding it foil of gaping

  holes.

  “Could you imagine that you have just been dropped down in a strange country, where you hardly speak a word of the language and haven’t seen a friendly face yet?”

  “Madam?”

  “Would you be very kind to that young lady and her sister? They have a hard time ahead of them just in learning English, let alone discovering all their duties.”

  “Yes, madam. Though that Angelina girl seems to understand more than this one does.”

  “Does she? Well, be kind to them, if you please. Don’t laugh at them or make the mistake of thinking that because they speak no English that they must necessarily be fools. I’m sure that with your example, the other servants will follow along.”

  “Yes, madam,” she said. Sophie was perf
ectly well aware that Parker couldn’t very well have said anything else. However, she felt confident that some of her meaning had reached the maid.

  After half an hour, Sophie trotted down the stairs, adjusting her shawl about her shoulders. She didn’t see Dominic until she all but ran into him at the bottom of the staircase.

  His hands came up to fend her off, winding up catching her against his chest instead. For one instant, breathing in sharply, Sophie flushed with a remembrance that was more of the body than of the mind. She had the impression that she stared up at him like a frightened doe for a long time. In reality, it couldn’t have been more than a second or two before he stepped away, his hands falling to his sides.

  “You look, if I may say so, much more rested this morning.”

  “Is it still morning?”

  “Well then, this afternoon.” He offered his arm. Somewhat gingerly, Sophie took it, aware of the muscle beneath the sleeve. “I’m afraid you’ve missed church.”

  “Did I? I’m sorry to hear it. I was hoping to go but I was so very tired.”

  “So was I,” he said. “I always sleep better in the country. So much quieter than town.”

  “Especially with the snowfall. What a delightful surprise for my first day here.”

  “I’m so happy you are pleased with it.”

  “Did you do it?” she asked with a smile. She remembered how she and Broderick used to joke like this, and her smile wavered like a flickering candle.

  Dominic didn’t seem to notice. “Of course. I’m on the best of terms with the snow elves.”

  “Snow elves?” Sophie almost laughed out loud.

  “Absolutely. Didn’t you know they make the snow? My good girl, what sort of upbringing have you had? Never heard of the snow elves?”

  Sophie saw that the curtains had been thrown open along the far wall, disclosing a striped cushion set in a bow window seat. She walked toward it at once, to sit with her feet tucked up and her back against the wall. A breath of cold air poured along the window but the view was so marvelous down the snow-covered lawn that she couldn’t resist sitting there. “I’m sadly ignorant of meteorology. It wasn’t considered a necessary study for females.”

  “How unfair.” He seated himself to lean against the other wall, his long legs over the edge of the cushion.

  “Yes. For instance, I never knew elves controlled the weather. How shockingly ignorant you must think me.”

  “It’s not your fault. Shall I teach you all about them? Maybe you can learn to see them if you study very hard.”

  “You must think me about ten years old, Your Grace.”

  “I? I assure you, quite the contrary.” He had such bright eyes, with so penetrating a gaze that she could not meet it for very long. He made her very self-conscious. She could turn her head to gaze out the window whenever his gaze grew too concentrated for her to sustain.

  “Let us speak seriously, if we can.”

  “If you wish, though I’d rather talk piffle, just to see you smile again.”

  “Oh, now that I’m home again, I’m sure I will smile a great deal. But what I wanted to ask you is this: Do you still have friends among writers?”

  “Yes, quite a few. Some I even support with funds from time to time. Why? Are you thinking about your husband’s poems?”

  “I’m determined to see them published. I have no doubt that these are poems that will speak to thousands of men and women all over this country.”

  “You have such faith in your husband’s voice?”

  “Yes,” she said, giving a short, decisive nod. “Any advice you can offer me will be most gratefully accepted. I only know what Broderick himself told me about selling poems.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That compared with selling a poem, writing one is easy.”

  Dominic chuckled. “He had a point.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “The struggle? No. I could sell anything now. I receive offers by every post, pleading with the Duke of Saltaire to grant them the opportunity to publish whatever I choose to send them. But they wouldn’t look twice at the writings of Dominic Swift.”

  “So you don’t write at all now?”

  “Once in a while. When something strikes me as interesting or important.”

  Sophie leaned forward, resting her chin on her fist. “What do you find interesting and important?”

  “People, mostly. Sometimes an idea or, more often, a fragment of an idea.”

  “Not poetry, though?”

  “No, never poetry,” he said, raising one hand as if taking a vow. “Just between us, I can’t rhyme hat with cat.”

  “Broderick used to say that rhyme was too easily devolved into mere doggerel. He felt the future of poetry was in rhythm, not rhyme. Though, I must confess, he still clung to rhyme. He wrote a very pretty one once to the ribbons in my hair.” Sophie tried to remember how it began.

  Dominic cleared his throat rather stagily. “Of course, now is an excellent time to sell a collection of poems. Ever since Byron hit such a smite, all the publishers have been seeking the ‘next Byron.’“

  “Broderick had no opinion of Byron. He thought most of his lordship’s popularity came from his appearance.”

  “Quite,” Dominic said.

  “It wasn’t entirely jealousy,” Sophie reassured him. “Broderick was handsome, but not in quite so showy a

  way.”

  “I suppose you must have thought him tolerably good-looking...”

  “I admired him for his mind. I never thought of him in any physical way.” Sophie felt her face heat and leaned back into her corner. What on earth had she just said? That moment when Dominic had held her, however accidentally, must have confused her more than she’d realized. She had only enough sense not to fuddle the issue further by making explanations or excuses. Let what she had said stand.

  “A marriage of minds can be the most satisfying,” he said sententiously.

  Sophie tilted her head to study him. Did he believe that? “Would you settle for such a marriage?”

  “We are not talking about me.”

  “No, of course not. Do you think...”

  “However, as you mention the matter, no. Such a marriage would not satisfy any man who truly loved a woman. When I marry, I will choose a woman whom I desire on every possible level. I will cherish her, mind, soul, and body.”

  If she blushed before, it was no more than a tinge of pink on a white rose. She felt her face flame, yet managed a steady voice. “She will be a most fortunate woman. Do you think you will ever find such a one?”

  “I live in hope.”

  Until that moment, he’d been sitting in one of his usual postures of all but boneless relaxation. Now, he

  straightened, a look of determination hardening his pleasant features. “My dear...”

  Sophie turned her head to look out the window. A strange excitement began to flutter behind her breastbone. “Is that the carriage I hear returning?”

  “I don’t know.” He reached across to take her hand in his own. Sophie had to look at him, perforce. “My dear, will you let me help you?”

  “Help me? How?”

  “As you have asked. And more. I will help you edit and sell those poems.”

  “You will? I confess I am dreading making some horrible mistake with them. Mr. Knox asked if I would consider his aid, you know.”

  “Mr. Knox,” Dominic repeated, releasing her hand. “That fellow who sailed home with you?”

  “Yes. He was Broderick’s dear friend. He traveled with him, visited him so often that he knew his thoughts intimately.”

  “He sounds ideal. But you refused his offer of assistance?”

  “I felt it wiser not to encourage the acquaintance. You see... he claims that he wishes to marry me, and I simply cannot consider such a thing.”

  “You’ve had enough of poets.”

  “I’ve had enough of love.”

  A noise and bustle in the hall he
ralded the return of the church party. Maris inquired of the butler where her sister might be. Naturally, the butler knew.

  Maris, still swaddled in her fur-lined robes, came in and saw them sitting together in the window seat. “Here you are,” she caroled,

  Sophie swung her feet to the floor and came to kiss her sister and take her wraps. “Good sermon?”

  “Excellent. I wish you could have heard it.”

  “So do I. Dr. Pike is always so inspiring.”

  “Oh, didn’t Mother write you? The Pikes are no longer in residence.”

  “Gone? I thought they were an institution.” Sophie looked toward her mother for an explanation.

  “Once their oldest boy left to be a teacher and took Lucy with him as a housekeeper, the vicarage was too big for the remaining family. Then Dr. Pike’s health began to betray him. They are very happily settled on the Isle of Wight, of all places. For the sea air.”

  “I see. Who is vicar now?”

  “A very nice man, Mr. Ward.”

  “Too charming to be a clergyman,” Maris added. “You’ll meet him this evening, if you feel up to it. I would have him here to dinner but I shouldn’t be much of a hostess at the moment.” She eased herself into the chair her husband had sat in the night before. “I don’t mind a family party, but not neighbors. Not until after I’m churched.”

  Mrs. Lindel spent a moment making Maris more comfortable, then excused herself. From the doorway, out of Maris’s sight, she beckoned to Sophie.

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “I was happy to let you sleep in, Sophie, but many of our friends were asking after you. Would you consider accompanying me on some calls in the next few days?”

  “Certainly. I should be very happy to.”

  “Our friends have been most anxious about you since I told them of your husband’s unfortunate passing. Yet, though I hesitate to mention it...”

  “What concerns you, Mother?”

  “Don’t mention your troubles to anyone but me. Maris has done enough lately to shock the village.”

  “Maris? What can she have done?” Sophie asked, following her mother up the stairs.