It Happened One Christmas: Christmas Eve ProposalThe Viscount's Christmas KissWallflower, Widow...Wife!

by Carla Kelly

  So much blame: if Lord Kelso had been a stronger man, he could have resisted old Lord Kelso’s decision to annul that Scottish wedding so many years ago. If the old earl hadn’t experienced some change of heart through the years, he would never have altered his will and raised even miniscule hopes. If Ben Muir hadn’t been looking in Euclid’s Elements he never would have found that scrap of paper and given the damned thing to Mr Cooper. If she had accepted her father’s humiliating terms, the matter would have rested, with her half-brother none the wiser.

  Without a word, she helped her sobbing aunt upstairs and set to work by herself. When the first diners arrived, Aunt Sal had joined her in the kitchen, her eyes red-rimmed and her lips pinched, but her fingers as sure as ever as she chopped and diced. Her love for her aunt nearly took Mandy’s breath away. They were in this mess together.

  * * *

  Mandy was almost on time to choir practice, even though she had to run. She slipped and slid along the snow-covered path, yearning for Ben Muir’s steady hand. She knew she would be late, but Aunt Sal lost all strength after the last dinner guest left. She helped her aunt upstairs to bed again, told the dishes just to rest for a while in the dishwater and hurried to church.

  She paused inside the chapel door to catch her breath. ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’ calmed her heart, even though she missed Ben Muir’s commanding second tenor, that voice he had assured her was only half the size of his voice in battle when his crew manoeuvred the Albemarle close to enemy guns and he kept his ship trim through turmoil she couldn’t imagine.

  * * *

  When the rehearsal ended, Mandy remained. The wind blew cold as the other choir members opened and closed the door. She likened the cold wind to the disaster soon to envelop Mandy’s Rose and knocked on the vicar’s study door.

  Reverend Winslow didn’t seem surprised to see her. She saw the worry on his face and knew that Mr Cooper must have whispered something to him during the rehearsal. She told him everything.

  The vicar paced the room much like Mr Cooper that morning. ‘Christmas Eve?’ he asked. She knew he had heard her, but she also understood his disbelief. Her disbelief had faded more quickly, but Mandy was only beginning to appreciate her own courage.

  ‘I fear so,’ she told him. ‘Sir, do you know of anyone in Venable who could use a cook and an assistant?’

  His tear-filled eyes dismayed her, but she kept her gaze clear. She had already cried every tear, but she wanted advice. ‘I need you to think of something,’ she said. ‘Please help us.’

  Her quiet words seemed to brace him. ‘Mrs Winslow and I need a cook and an assistant,’ he said, after long thought. ‘Her joint ache is growing worse by the day and you know how busy I am.’

  She nodded. ‘You needn’t pay us.’

  ‘We can’t afford to,’ he said with real apology in his voice and not a little shame. His expression hardened and, for just a moment, he was an angry man and not a servant of the Church of England.

  Mandy shook her head. ‘We’ll cook for you this winter, and maybe by spring we’ll think of something else.’ What, she couldn’t imagine, but her own grief hadn’t driven away all her optimism.

  He gave her a searching look then. ‘Would you consider writing a letter to Master Muir? He might take an interest.’

  She had mulled over the matter for a long time that afternoon, then tucked it away. ‘I’m not the brazen sort,’ she said. ‘I have no leave to write him a letter.’

  Reverend Winslow nodded. ‘Just a thought.’ His slight smile died on his lips. ‘I doubt the Royal Navy pays sailing masters much, if he took a tutoring job with Thomas Walthan.’

  He stood up as the clock chimed nine. It was time for Mandy to hurry home and lie in bed wide awake for another night.

  ‘Perhaps you and your aunt could come here before Christmas Eve.’ Anger gleamed in the vicar’s eyes again, plus something else, a stubbornness she had never noticed before. Evidently vicars were not perfect, either. ‘Let’s not give Lord Kelso the satisfaction of ordering the magistrate to evict you. There’s room here for you to store whatever you wish. I’ll send round a note to some of my able-bodied parishioners and we’ll move the matter along.’

  She gave her vicar the bob of a curtsy, feeling a weight leave her shoulders. Perhaps they could avoid the poorhouse, after all. Her heart full, she left the vicarage, relieved to have good news for Aunt Sal. It is good news, she thought, as she walked with her eyes down, since snow was falling again. Perhaps not as good as we would like, but better than destitution.

  She stopped by the bench where she and Ben had sat so close together. She brushed aside the snow and sat there again. She closed her eyes, thinking of what Christmas catering they could complete before Mandy’s Rose closed forever.

  Her heart nearly failed her at the thought of all the cooking equipment and furniture to pack and store in the shed behind the vicarage. If they could hold an auction, they might be able to eke out a few weeks or months of independence. Someone else would have to represent her and Aunt Sal, if there was an auction. The idea of watching her life and livelihood selling to the highest bidder was harsh and wrong. Her father would get what he wished—they would have to leave Venable and try their fortunes somewhere else, never to embarrass him again.

  Maybe Christmas truly was the season of forgiveness. As she sat there, Mandy began to feel sorry for Ben Muir, instead of distressed at him. If happiness with a tired and wrung-out but immensely capable sailing master had come to nothing, well, no one ever died of a broken heart.

  ‘I will keep Christmas,’ she whispered to the falling snow. She decided to knit that other sock and mail it care of the Albemarle in Plymouth. ‘I am better off than many.’

  Chapter Five

  As much as he would have preferred to avoid Plymouth, Ben Muir accepted the fact that the Royal Mail had its routes. He walked to the Drake, surprising Mrs Fillion, who knew he wasn’t due until after Christmas. She made no comment, but he hadn’t expected any, since he was wearing his sailing-master expression. His quick visit to Brustein and Carter should have sent him out smiling, because his prize money was doing nicely, but it didn’t.

  He walked to the dry dock in Devonport and looked up at the Albemarle as workers swarmed about. The masts were bare of yardarms and rigging, which made the frigate appear as vulnerable as an enemy hulk after Trafalgar. He would bide his time in Scotland for a week or so, then return to supervise what made him so valuable to the fleet. This time, no matter how hard he stared at his ship, all he saw was a barefoot woman standing in sleet.

  He shook his head over the continuous game of whist at the Drake that had been going on since at least the Peace of Amiens. He slept only because a man can’t stay awake more than three days in a row. He woke up tired, and began his mail-coach journey from one end of England to Kirkcudbright on the River Dee, hating himself with every mile.

  He arrived three days later, bleary-eyed and unshaven, at Selkirk Arms, the posting inn with such a view of the river. He wasn’t sure if the landlord recognised him, even though they had gone to grammar school together. Ben was not in the mood for conversation, so he shouldered his duffel like the common seaman he really was and walked home, past MacLellan’s Castle, by St Cuthbert’s and up Church Row to Number Nine.

  His Aunt Claudie opened the door. She stood a moment in shocked silence, then held out her arms to him. ‘Benny, Benny,’ she crooned, apparently not minding his travel smell. ‘I didn’t know you were coming.’

  He knew he had been away too long because he had trouble understanding what she had just said. With some regret, he knew he had tidied up his own brogue so he could be understood aboard ship. The gentle burr of his aunt’s welcome eased his Scotsman’s heart.

  ‘I hadn’t planned to come home,’ he explained, as he let her drag him inside. ‘Where’s t’auld
man?’

  ‘Ye’d better sit down, lad,’ she said and pushed him into a chair in the parlour.

  He gave Aunt Claudie a long look, but saw no sorrow there. ‘What has he done?’ he asked.

  ‘He went on a trip to that country,’ she said as she relieved him of his cloak and hat.

  ‘Good God, did he go to Canada and my brothers?’ He couldn’t help shouting.

  ‘Nay, lad, nay, England!’ she exclaimed, her hands over her ears.

  He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. ‘Why, in God’s name?’

  ‘It was something you wrote in your letter. He wouldn’t tell—such a stubborn man is my brother—but don’t you know he left immediately.’

  Ben sat back in the chair, aware of his deep-down exhaustion. What had he ever written in his two letters from Venable of such urgency that would make a seventy-year-old fisherman, retired and comfortable before his own fire, scarper off?

  Aunt Claudie returned his stare with one of her own. ‘Are ye ill, Ben Muir? Is that why?’

  ‘No. Good God, he has never even left the district!’

  ‘Don’t I know? As I remember, he got your last letter, muttered something like, “He’s never done this before and he’s messing up.” He was aboard the mail coach in the morning.’ She gazed at him with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Laddie, ye probably passed each other on the road!’

  * * *

  In the morning Ben secured a seat on the outgoing mail coach to Plymouth. He had a few minutes, so he reacquainted himself with the innkeeper and sat down to sweetened porridge and tea, vexed and troubled that his sole remaining parent had a peculiar bee in his bonnet.

  He had just finished his tea when the innkeeper brought a letter to his table.

  ‘Ben, last night’s Royal Mail dropped off the mail sack. There’s one addressed to you.’ He chuckled. ‘Likely you rode all the way here with this letter in the mail coach.’

  Mystified, Ben took the letter. As he read, he felt his whole body go numb. Reverend Winslow had begun by apologising for his presumption, then spent a close-written page telling what had happened to the proprietor of Mandy’s Rose and her niece. I thought you should know, the vicar concluded. If I am mistaken in your affections, I do apologise. Yours sincerely...

  Horrified, Ben realised he had badly underestimated Lord Kelso. The mail coach stopping at every town would never be fast enough. He put both hands on the innkeeper’s shoulders. ‘What’s the fastest way I can get to Devon?’

  The innkeeper didn’t flinch. ‘This is a matter of grave national emergency, isn’t it?’

  ‘Without question,’ Ben lied. ‘I’ll trust you not to mention that you even saw me here. Suppose Napoleon’s agents find out? What can I do?’

  ‘Post-chaise,’ the keep replied. ‘Barring snow, you’ll be there in two days.’

  * * *

  He arrived in three days. No amount of willing the horses to go faster could defeat snow around Carlisle, and then at York. The worst moment came as they rolled into Venable, past a darkened Mandy’s Rose. Bright lights burned everywhere else, making the closed and shuttered tea room appear long-abandoned, as though the last proprietors had left during the War of the Roses. Funny how quickly old buildings—and old ships, for that matter—could appear almost haunted.

  He knew his postmen had tried to do what he demanded, so he paid them liberally and wished them merry Christmas. He stowed his duffel at the posting house and walked to St Luke’s. The vicar would know where Amanda and Sal Mathison had taken themselves. He cursed his stupidity again, resolving to do what he could for the woman he loved, who by now probably wouldn’t speak to him until the twentieth century, if either of them lived that long. And then he had to find his father. For the first time, the blockade of France and Spain sounded almost like going on holiday.

  He heard the choir singing as he opened the church door. All of Venable must have chosen to forget work and worry and petty strife to celebrate the birth of Our Lord, the Prince of Peace in a world sorely in need of peace. Well, why not? It was Christmas Eve. He had forgotten.

  Tired, discouraged, Ben shucked his cloak and hat and stood there watching the choir. The choirmaster was waving his arms about with his usual fervour, as if his exertions would get more tune and music from his amateurs.

  There she was. He saw her when the choirmaster swayed to one side, carried away by his efforts. ‘Amanda,’ he said, so softly that no one looked around. ‘Please don’t hate me.’

  He stood there in the aisle, unable to move forward or leave, or do anything except stare at her like a drowning man desperate for a life preserver.

  The choir had begun a series of crescendoing ‘Hallelujahs’ when Amanda noticed him. The love of his life threw down her choir book and wormed her way past a row of astonished sopranos. She ran down the aisle as the choir kept singing and threw herself into his arms.

  She nearly bowled him over, but he grabbed her and steadied them both, he who knew something about ballast and balance on a pitching deck. ‘Hallelujah!’ sang the choir as he kissed her.

  ‘Ben, we are idiots,’ she whispered in his ear.

  ‘I know. Do you love me?’ he whispered back, acutely mindful that the anthem had ended and no one was paying attention to the vicar. He glanced at Reverend Winslow, cheered to see that the vicar didn’t appear overly concerned.

  ‘Yes, I love you, you ninny,’ his dear one said. ‘You should be kept on a short chain.’

  Someone else caught his eye. Grinning as broadly as the others, his father sat next to Aunt Sal. Ben took Amanda by the hand as they walked down the aisle. Aunt Sal obliged by moving over and he squeezed in next to his father. There was nowhere for Amanda to go except on his lap, which appeared to bother no one.

  ‘I need an explanation, Da,’ he whispered.

  ‘In good time,’ Maxwell Muir whispered back.

  Reverend Winslow beamed at them. ‘Are we all settled?’ he asked and the congregation laughed.

  The service continued. The choir sang again, after a reading of Luke 2, but nothing could induce Amanda to leave his lap and rejoin the singers. With a sigh that went right to his heart, she rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. Her even breathing told him that she slept. That was just before his eyes closed, too.

  At least the congregation didn’t tiptoe out and leave them slumbering. Ben’s father prodded him in the ribs before the recessional and they both stood, holding tight to each other, as the vicar and his acolytes walked down the aisle and into a snowy night.

  Ordinarily, the gathering that followed the midnight service would have been a small one, as parents carried sleepy children home and elderly parishioners followed. No one left early this time. There was wassail for the adults and punch for the children, and Mrs Winslow’s exquisite desserts, made more special because Sal Mathison and Mandy had added their talents. Mandy’s Rose might be shuttered and dark, but it was plain to see that the real heart of the tea room carried on in the vicarage.

  As much as he wanted to cuddle Amanda and work up the nerve to declare himself, Ben had another matter to discuss. ‘Da, what was it in my letters that sent you barrelling down the pike to Venable?’

  His father traded glances with the suddenly shy lady who was probably going to become Ben’s wife. ‘Laddie, your letters were full of Amanda this and Amanda that. I wanted to see her for myself,’ he said simply. ‘At each change, the coachmen made certain I got on the right coach.’

  Did I speak only of Amanda? he asked himself, his arm around her again. ‘And you wanted to make sure I stepped up to the mark,’ he said to his father.

  ‘For all that you sail in a dangerous occupation, you are the most cautious of my sons,’ his father informed him. He leaned forward to look at Amanda. ‘My dear, I thought he might try to talk himself out of a very good
idea. Besides, I wanted to meet you. Ben said you needed a father. Here I am.’

  Ben couldn’t help his tears when Amanda gave her father a deep curtsy. ‘And here I am, Father,’ she whispered.

  Touched beyond words, Ben raised her to her feet. ‘Ben, we have had a pleasant visit, these past few days,’ she told him. ‘I have heard some diverting stories about your childhood.’

  Ben rolled his eyes. He saw Aunt Sal’s smile and knew nothing had been settled. ‘Sal, I owe both of you an apology. This whole bad business with the loss of Mandy’s Rose wouldn’t have happened if I had kept my mouth shut. Can you forgive me?’

  ‘I can and will,’ she said in her forthright way. ‘Mandy and I are working for the Winslows now, and I—’

  ‘Pardon me, dear, but perhaps the curtain has not quite closed on this whole mess,’ Reverend Winslow said. The vicar ushered a little man forward, someone Ben had seen in Mandy’s Rose for a few meals, but unknown to him.

  ‘May I introduce Andrew Pickering?’

  Ben made his bow.

  ‘Mr Pickering owns that row of buildings that our esteemed Lord Kelso has decided to purchase.’

  ‘A good row, sir, a good row,’ the little fellow said. He frowned. ‘The vicar tells me I have done a hasty thing, but perhaps we can make all right again.’

  ‘I believe you gave your word, Mr Pickering,’ Ben reminded him.

  Mr Pickering shook his head. ‘I was duped.’ He gave a snort of indignation. ‘Promised me, he did, that there would be a signed contract by half-six on Christmas Eve.’ He shrugged until his high collar rode up past his ears. ‘It is midnight.’

  Mr Cooper continued the narrative. ‘Lord Kelso had me prepare the contract, but he sent word this afternoon that he was too ill to do business until the first of the year.’

  Serious nods all around. Ben felt his spirits begin to rise.