Homespun Regency Christmas (9781101078716)

by Kelly, Carla; Jensen, Emma

  ‘‘You are assuming I am not Catholic, Captain.’’

  ‘‘Are you?’’

  ‘‘No, as it happens, I am not. But most of the nearby residents are. And they take the holidays quite seriously. There is a great deal more to the next fortnight than one long and hymn-filled church service.’’

  Andrew snorted again. ‘‘Don’t expect him to understand, Miss Fitzhollis. My uncle was off practicing military drills when they handed out holiday spirit.’’

  ‘‘Watch your tongue, puppy,’’ Rhys muttered resignedly. In a family that possessed an overabundance of every sort of spirit, he stood alone in his preference for contained emotions. And said family delighted in reminding him of that fact at every opportunity.

  ‘‘No one is immune to an Irish Christmas,’’ Elizabeth announced. Then, with a decisive nod, she gestured toward the muddy expanse before them, broken only by an oddly shaped copse of spiny holly bushes. ‘‘Shall we walk?’’

  She strode off down the rocky slope on her long legs, Andrew grinning at her side. Rhys followed with less cheer than his nephew, but with a far better view of Elizabeth’s pert bottom as it flashed in and out of view. The man’s wool coat she was wearing looked to have been mended one too many times. The split above the tails appeared destined to stay split.

  Cursing under his breath, he dragged his gaze away. Of all the views he should be studying, Elizabeth Fitzhollis’s posterior was not among them. With luck, she would complete her tour and take herself off to wherever she was residing and out of his sight. Rhys recalled something about a maiden auntie. He pictured a tidy, rose-covered cottage with a profusion of lace doilies and china shepherdesses. God only knew what sort of havoc Elizabeth would wreak on bric-a-brac with her brisk, arm-swinging movement.

  ‘‘There,’’ she announced, pointing to a listing stone bench, ‘‘is where Jonathan Swift is reputed to have first conceived of Gulliver’s Travels.’’

  ‘‘Attacked by resident leprechauns?’’ Rhys muttered under his breath.

  She heard him. ‘‘So he said, apparently,’’ she shot back smartly, ‘‘but I expect it was my great-grandfather’s whiskey.’’

  Here was the remnant of the moat into which King Henry II had taken an unexpected tumble. ‘‘He made a great joke of it,’’ Elizabeth informed them, as if the event had taken place last month, rather than seven centuries earlier, ‘‘demanding that a stone tablet be placed to mark the spot of Henry’s downfall.’’ She’d then glanced around bemusedly. ‘‘I have no idea where that went. The largest piece used to be around here somewhere.’’

  Andrew earned another brilliant smile when he promised to have a look around for it in the coming days. Rhys silently wished him the best of luck. There were enough treacherous looking stones lying about to make one seven-hundred-year-old fragment feel right at home.

  Here came the brackish fountain where the pirate Grace O’Malley had sailed a model of her ship and there the oak tree under which Wolfe Tone had planned his rebellion. Elizabeth’s father, as she explained it, had been instrumental in the strategy, but prevented from participating by her mother, who would not countenance the shedding of any blood, no matter how noble the cause.

  A fortunate decision, Rhys thought, as the blood would no doubt have been the baron’s.

  As they passed Wolfe Tone’s oak, Rhys shoved a moss-laden branch from in front of his face, and was promptly forced to scuttle forward in a hurry as the whole thing detached itself from the tree and crashed to the ground. Elizabeth gave him a brief backward glance. ‘‘Mind yourself,’’ she murmured, leaving him with the impression that she was scolding him for having attacked the precious tree.

  By the time they had done a circuit of the impenetrable maze—Elizabeth had insisted they just have a peek inside the entrance, and Rhys’s coat had suffered greatly from the brief experience—and rocky flower gardens and spectacularly muddy ha-ha, the winter light was all but gone and they had met the figurative ghosts of just about every late, illustrious Irish personage.

  ‘‘The outer grounds will have to wait until tomorrow,’’ Elizabeth announced as she guided them back up the hill, her stride as brisk as when they’d begun. ‘‘I shall see to readying a set of rooms for you.’’

  Rhys hoped she would then take herself off and leave them to whatever peace the house offered. ‘‘Are you in residence near here, Miss Fitzhollis?’’

  She stopped and regarded him with obvious surprise. ‘‘Not near,’’ she said. ‘‘Here.’’

  ‘‘You live at Hollymore?’’

  ‘‘Of course I do,’’ she said, starting off again. ‘‘Where else would I live?’’

  Where else indeed? Rhys wondered wearily as he pulled a holly spine from his lapel. And vowed to give Timothy’s incompetent man-of-affairs a good dressing-down when they got back to Wales.

  He had expected a skeleton staff. He most certainly had not expected a lady of the manor, especially not one with an angel face, racehorse legs, and rapier tongue. As far as he was concerned, matters could not get much worse.

  Of course he was wrong.

  ‘‘I think it marvelous,’’ Andrew announced two hours later when they had been settled into their respective moth-eaten chambers and completed their respective lukewarm baths. ‘‘Rather like having a holiday in a moldy old Highland castle.’’

  Rhys, eyeing the sagging tester bed on which he was supposed to sleep later, thought of the ancient Highland castle in which his brother and sister-in-law were having their holiday. He doubted it was half as moldy as this place. Nor could he find anything marvelous about the idea.

  Other than the faded bed drapes, which he could only hope did not house any owls or other unwelcome creatures, the room had little decoration. It didn’t have much in the way of furniture, either. But there were telltale marks on the floor and walls where various objects had once been. Sold off, he decided, like the contents of so many other estates. All that remained was the bed, a wardrobe that probably would have been sold—or fallen—had it not been firmly attached to the wall, a rickety washstand, and a single painting above the mantel. It depicted the front of the house itself, and was every bit as ugly as the subject.

  ‘‘God help us,’’ Rhys muttered as he wandered over to study the scraggy white dogs painted into the foreground. It took him a minute to realize they were meant to be sheep.

  ‘‘Are you still determined to correct them as to our identities?’’ Andrew asked from across the room. He was testing the back of the behemoth wardrobe for a secret door. He enjoyed such pursuits.

  ‘‘Why are you so determined that I not?’’

  Andrew tapped away. ‘‘Oh, I don’t know. I suppose there’s something very pleasant about being plain Andrew Jones for a change. Being Lord Tallasey, heir to the Duke of Llans, does get so heavy sometimes. Don’t you ever tire of being the ever-formal, ever-proper Captain Lord Rhys Edward-Jones?’’

  Rhys grunted. As a matter of fact, he was quite happy being the ever-formal, ever-proper Captain Lord Rhys Edward-Jones.

  He leaned in to have a closer look at the painting. Yes, definitely sheep.

  ‘‘A beloved family heirloom, no doubt,’’ his nephew suggested, joining him in front of the painting. ‘‘Stop scowling. It is merely old and lacking in taste.’’

  A bell rang faintly from the depths of the house.

  ‘‘For our sakes,’’ Rhys growled as he and Andrew headed from the room, ‘‘let us hope the same cannot be said of our dinner.’’

  Chapter Three

  Dinner was awful. The leek soup was cold, the roasted chicken singed to crispy. O’Reilly had done his best, Lizzie knew, but the fates had been working against him. The Joneses had not been expected, his rheumatism was giving him the devil of a time, and his help had been slightly incapacitated.

  In the absence of holly boughs to decorate the mantels, Meggie and Nuala had rushed out in search of an alternative. The pine and yew they’d gathered were certainly attra
ctive, bringing a lovely green scent into the rooms. But they’d inadvertently brought home an army of tiny spiders as well. Both women had been bitten from wrist to neck, necessitating salves and compresses and, in Meggie’s case, a large glass of restorative wine. The poor girl had still looked a fright as she moved wide-eyed and ointment-spotted around the table to remove the plates.

  Beyond all that, Percy had returned, and he had brought Aunt Gregoria with him. The two had not even taken their seats in the drawing room before they proceeded to do untold damage to Lizzie’s plan.

  ‘‘We nearly had our necks broken as we were coming up the drive,’’ Gregoria had snapped as she’d stalked into the drawing room, trailing yards of graying crocheted shawl and pinched disapproval. ‘‘Disgraceful, the state of it, all hillocks and holes!’’

  Scarcely had all the introductions been made when the lady continued sourly, ‘‘Honestly, Lizzie, your staff is robbing you blind and doing not a jot of the work for which you pay them their exorbitant wages!’’

  Nuala, to her vast credit, did not pour the lady’s sherry over her tight gray topknot. Nor did she so much as blink when Gregoria snapped, ‘‘You have barely covered the bottom of the glass, stupid creature! Lizzie might not be aware of her portion going down your throat, but I am on to you!’’

  Upon arrival, Percy had promptly settled his rotund bottom onto the settee beside Lizzie. ‘‘What are we doing in here?’’ he asked, gesturing around the drawing room with his own glass, and slopping a generous amount of his own sherry onto one of Lizzie’s two semifashionable white dresses. ‘‘Thought you’d closed it up.’’

  She had, the winter before. There was no use, after all, in maintaining rooms that were never used. But shabby state aside, the Grand Drawing Room, with its Chinese silk walls and painted ceiling, was one of Hollymore’s gems. In honor of the Joneses, Meggie and Nuala had swept, scrubbed, and dusted, and laid a fire in the pine-festooned hearth. Lizzie tried to be optimistic. No spiders and no chimney fires. She couldn’t recall when last there had been a fire in that grate. Certainly not since last autumn when Kelly had opened the flue and nearly been brained by a pair of falling bricks.

  ‘‘This is a lovely room,’’ young Andrew announced sincerely.

  ‘‘What is that noise?’’ his uncle demanded.

  Lizzie listened. All she could hear was Kelly whistling outside the window. ‘‘That,’’ she replied tightly, ‘‘is the ‘Wexford Carol.’ It is one of Ireland’s most famous Christmas tunes.’’

  Captain Jones looked down his long nose. His nephew chuckled. ‘‘Christmas, Uncle Lawrence. You know, the season to be jolly. A very pretty tune indeed,’’ he said to Lizzie.

  What would have been her warm reply was forestalled by Gregoria, demanding, ‘‘What wine are we to have with dinner, girl?’’

  ‘‘A nice Burgundy from Lambe’s,’’ Lizzie answered. She’d sent Kelly quietly haring into town with a few precious shillings they could scarce afford to spend on something so frivolous as wine. But the Joneses needed to be impressed.

  Gregoria snorted. ‘‘Washed up on the beach, no doubt, and sold at a tidy price by that reprobate of a wine merchant. Nasty, watery stuff, Burgundy,’’ she remarked to Captain Jones. ‘‘Never take it myself, if I can possibly help it.’’ Before the Captain could respond, Gregoria turned on Lizzie again. ‘‘Your father had some very nice claret put by. I cannot imagine why you would not be serving that to your guests. Burgundy,’’ she huffed. ‘‘An insult, I say.’’

  The truth of the matter was that the very last of the late baron’s reserve—which really had been no more than several dozen bottles rendered unsalable by the loss of all means of identifying their type or vintage—had been lost three weeks earlier when the ceiling of the wine cellar had collapsed. Lizzie had no intention of revealing that in front of the Joneses.

  Percy did it for her. ‘‘Gone under a pile of rubble,’’ he sighed. ‘‘Whole bloody ceiling came tumbling down on m’head. Could’ve done me serious ill.’’

  Unlikely, Lizzie thought. Her cousin’s head was hard as marble and just as dense.

  And so it had gone on, Gregoria and Percy doing their best, intentional or not, to reveal the state of all but Lizzie’s undergarments. Captain and young Mr. Jones had sat politely through it all. Even had he been able to get a word in, Captain Jones seemed disinclined to chat. His nephew had made a few charming efforts to engage Lizzie in stories of Hollymore’s less-damaged days. Percy or Gregoria had been there each time to spoil the moment. So the story of the Charles I windows, the mahogany paneling, the Parma marble had gone untold. Instead, the Joneses heard about Percy’s unfortunate encounter with a falling window-sill and the time a trio of mice had scuttled from behind the dining room wall and across Gregoria’s feet.

  Lizzie had resorted to a second sherry. And she loathed sherry. She might have had a third had Gregoria not effectively drained the bottle.

  The meal itself had been worse.

  The picture of the polite gentleman, Captain Jones had waited, stiff and expressionless while the ladies had taken their seats around the table. Lizzie felt a surge of pride at the sight: several chairs had been scavenged from around the house to make five, the remnants of her mother’s china and Kerry lace tablecloth had been laid—with various candlesticks and dishes covering the holes. There were tapers in all the remaining wall sconces and among the pine and yew boughs.

  It was a lovely, cheery scene. Until Captain Jones sat down.

  His chair collapsed under him with the speed of a blink. There was a crack, a thump, and there he was, seated perfectly upright against the intact chair back, his own legs straight out in front of him and the four chair legs sticking out from beneath him like the limbs of one of Meggie’s spiders.

  He didn’t say a word, merely sat for a long moment, staring stonily in front of him. Then, slowly, he gathered in his long legs and started to lever himself off the floor. At the sound of the crash, Kelly had rushed into the room. He hurried forward to help, and there was a tense minute as he appeared to wrestle with the captain. Then the wooden splat broke away with a crunch, and Captain Jones was flat on his back.

  ‘‘Thank you,’’ he muttered upward to the hovering Kelly, sharply waving away the younger man’s extended hand, ‘‘but I believe it will be best if I manage this myself.’’

  He rose as elegantly as the situation allowed. Kelly, red-faced and wild-haired, rushed off to find another chair. When it arrived, Captain Jones lowered himself rather gingerly. Everyone present held their breath while this chair creaked, shifted, but remained intact. Everyone, that is, except Andrew, who was making faint gasping noises. A quick glimpse in his direction told Lizzie he was making a valiant effort not to laugh. For her own part, she was ready to cry.

  ‘‘Captain,’’ she managed, voice tight, ‘‘I am so very—’’

  ‘‘Miss Fitzhollis.’’ He met her gaze with hard eyes.

  ‘‘Do not mention it.’’

  Just then, Meggie and Nuala bustled in with the cold soup. Percy and Gregoria started flapping their tongues again. Lizzie felt her heart sinking inch by desolate inch.

  It didn’t take long for both Joneses to give up on their meal, the captain with a deepening scowl and his nephew with an apologetic smile in Lizzie’s direction. Then, charming creature that he was, he tried again to engage her in conversation.

  ‘‘I have been admiring the artwork, Miss Fitzhollis.’’

  Lizzie didn’t need to look at the pair of hunting scenes on the wall. Both were atrocious. She didn’t need to answer, either.

  ‘‘My brother’s work,’’ Gregoria announced. ‘‘It’s all over the house.’’

  ‘‘Ah,’’ Mr. Jones said. ‘‘A family tribute.’’

  Percy let out a braying laugh. ‘‘Not half. Stuff ain’t good for anything but covering the holes in the walls. Good stuff’s all been sold.’’

  Lizzie’s heart took another sad little dip.

 
; ‘‘I . . . er . . . I see.’’ Poor Andrew really was doing his best, she knew. What could he possibly say? He cleared his throat and turned to Gregoria, who was tapping an irritable finger against her empty glass. ‘‘I understand Miss Fitzhollis will soon be residing under your roof, madam. That must be a comfort to you.’’

  Gregoria snorted. ‘‘As if she’ll be with me for any length of time. No, no, off she’ll go to take her place in Percy’s home, leaving me all alone.’’

  Lizzie closed her eyes for a weary moment. Gregoria didn’t want her, never had. Nor was she at all in favor of Percy throwing himself away on his cousin. The splendid boy, she’d declared more than once, could do far better. Meaning, of course, that he ought to be wedding a quiet, malleable heiress. But then, his choosing Lizzie would save him having to make any settlements of his own, so Gregoria had grumblingly resigned herself to the match. Which, of course, was not likely to happen if Lizzie had anything to say about it. If he set his feeble mind to it and was very, very fortunate, Percy might be able to find a woman willing to trade her money for his title. Heaven help her.

  ‘‘When is the happy event to take place?’’ Andrew inquired politely.

  ‘‘Next spring,’’ Percy replied, puffing out his new waistcoat, this one a striped yellow and turquoise.

  When swine fly, Lizzie thought. ‘‘I do not—’’

  ‘‘Boy!’’ Gregoria bellowed. She’d never bothered to learn Kelly’s name.

  He had been standing at rigid attention near the door, no doubt waiting to catch the captain should the second chair go the way of the first. He stepped forward. ‘‘Yes, ma’am?’’

  ‘‘My glass is empty.’’

  ‘‘Yes, ma’am.’’

  Gregoria’s ever-pinched face grew more so. ‘‘Well, bring me more wine!’’