The Christmas Carrolls

by Barbara Metzger

“I could still teach you a thing or two, missy. Who was it tipped your father’s curricle in the ditch that time?”

  “You distracted me.”

  As she was distracting him now. Holly was happier that their relationship was back to its usual footing, but Evan wasn’t letting their familiar bickering stop him from showing his sire in a better light. When Holly took a dislike to someone, she never let up, which would be deuced awkward in a daughter-in-law.

  Running anxious fingers through his sandy hair, Evan said, “Dash it, Hol, that ain’t the point. M’father’s top of the trees, b’gad, and I’m sorry I gave you the wrong impression of him. Of course, I used to resent not going along on his jaunts, but a chap don’t take an infant to China, does he? He did write regularly from wherever he happened to be, and sent gifts from every port. Whenever he was in the country he visited me at school, on account of not being comfortable at Squire’s. Which ain’t to say he didn’t come down heavy to keep the place in repair. The manor would have crumbled into compost if m’father hadn’t spent his brass on it. And he had no reason to be so generous, not after what the Blakelys did to him.”

  “What exactly did they do?” Holly wanted to know, and not just to delay giving her old friend an answer. She’d been curious about the Rendells forever, it seemed. “No one would ever say.”

  Evan was pacing again. “I never had the straight of it myself. Couldn’t very well ask m’grandfather, could I? Or ask m’father in a letter. Bad form, that. Shouldn’t even be discussing it out of the family, but if you’re going to be part of it, you have a right to know. And I trust you, naturally. Fact is, the servants knew as much as anyone, so I got to hear how there was a ball at the Manor, and how m’father was invited over from Rendell Hall. He and m’mother were discovered in the summerhouse. They were sleeping all innocent-like, but the damage was done. M’father swore his wine had been drugged, but he still had to do the honorable thing.”

  “Your mother entrapped him?”

  Evan shrugged. “She might have been drugged, too, no one knows. Thing is, the manor house was falling down around Squire’s ears and he had four daughters with no dowries. The Rendells were wealthy. Not as deep-pocketed as now, but more than enough for Squire’s needs. M’father should have been downier, but he wasn’t more than eighteen. I suppose his parents shouldn’t have sent him to England on his own, but they wanted him to be a proper English gentleman.”

  “So he ended up with a not-quite-proper English wife.”

  He nodded. “Then I came along. Thing is, he’d grown suspicious fast, and wondered if I was part of the reason for the trap, to give Blakely’s daughter a name for her, ah, indiscretion. When she died he washed his hands of the whole family and went off to make his own fortune.”

  “But what about you? Didn’t he care that you were alone with those awful, deceitful people?” She’d never liked Squire Blakely. Now she knew why.

  “Don’t be a gudgeon, Holly. He didn’t think I was his.”

  “That’s nonsense. Anyone can see the resemblance about your eyes, and the shape of your head is the same.”

  “Yes, but no one could see it in a hairless, mewling infant, so he left. He didn’t renege on his responsibilities the way another man might have, thinking he’d been compromised and cuckolded. I understand all that now, Holly. And truly, it didn’t hurt me any.”

  But Holly knew it had, knew how the lonely little boy had envied her for her own father. And now he wanted to do the same to his son, to Holly’s son. He wanted to conceive a child only to leave him to go fight a war.

  “So what do you say, old girl? You know your father and mother approve. They’d have sent old Barty in here ages ago otherwise. Should we shake on it?”

  Shake on it? This was the only marriage proposal Holly might ever get—especially if she accepted it—and he wanted to shake hands. Shouldn’t marriage involve something more? she wondered. “I don’t know, Evan. We’ve been friends for so long, but marriage is different. I need to think about it.”

  “Dash it, Holly, what have you been thinking about for the last nineteen years?” That was a good question, too.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Holly wanted romance.

  Joia was the fairy princess and Merry was the madcap. Holly was supposed to be the daughter with her feet on the ground, the reliable one. But she read, she listened, she observed—and she knew there was a world apart from her own universe. She imagined, too, all the different sights and smells, the new languages to be learned, the strange customs to be observed besides the proper depth of a curtsy at Almack’s. Holly wanted to live, before she lived the rest of her placid, reliable life.

  She stayed on in the library, smoothing the edges of the special license Evan had left behind. That was also typical of Evan, she thought, carelessly misplacing such an important prize. He knew she’d look after it for him as always, even if the scrap of paper was her death sentence, just as he expected her to look after his home and his son. Evan would have his Grand Adventure. Holly would have his grandparents.

  Everyone seemed to want Holly to say yes, to get the deed done so they could move on with their own lives. Merry thought the uniforms were dashing; an officer for a brother-in-law would suit her to the ground. Mama would like to see her settled nearby. And Papa, well, Papa seemed to have sensed his own mortality all of a sudden. That folderol with Oliver had sorely affected him. Holly wondered if the earl had some scheme afoot to replace Oliver in the succession with his first grandson, the way he was so eager to get her and Joia fired off. Lud, what a coil that would be! He’d have to petition the courts and the College of Records, possibly Parliament. And he’d have to have Oliver declared incompetent to take over the earldom, which he was, of course, but no more so than half the members of Parliament who would be voting. Mama would hate the scandalbroth being stirred that way.

  And Evan wanted Holly to agree to the marriage. He was such a good friend that she wanted to see him happy, and knew she could do it, first by standing up with him, then by standing aside while he pursued his dream. Later he’d be content with his fields and his horses, with the occasional jaunt to London, where he wouldn’t want to attend lectures, musicales, or museums. Would that make her content? Holly wondered.

  As she made her way back to the drawing room, she passed Bartholemew in the hall, directing the footmen who were wheeling in the tea cart. The butler gave her a sharp look, then nodded to himself as if his question had been answered.

  “What are the odds, Barty?” she asked softly, outside the door.

  Bartholemew didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “They were dead even, Lady Holly, but now it’s more of a pool. Not a matter of whether, but when.”

  “I see,” she said, feeling another door close as she stepped into the drawing room ahead of the servants.

  She didn’t hear Bartholemew mutter to himself: “When hell freezes over ought to be the safest bet.”

  Lord and Lady Carroll were sitting to one end of the double-square parlor with the Blakelys, who’d driven over after dinner to see Evan. Joia and the viscount were in the corner, in their own private world. At the other end of the room, Merry had organized Evan and his friends into two teams for a game of charades that was getting more uproarious with every missed clue. Mr. Rendell sat by himself near the windows, a book in his hands, a still, dark presence, neither seeking company nor inviting it.

  Half the heads in the room swiveled in her direction, looking for the answer to the question they all knew had been asked. Holly made her mouth curve into a noncommittal smile as she stepped farther into the room, her slippers making no sound on the thick carpet. The conversations and contest resumed.

  Holly should have joined the youngest members of the gathering at their game. Merry shouldn’t have been alone in the center of a handful of carefree youths who, unless Holly missed her guess, had sampled too liberally of her father’s port after dinner. Instead she retreated to her own sanctuary, the pianoforte along the
far wall.

  Holly lost herself in the music, where she didn’t have to think, until a soft voice beside her said, “You play very well. I thought the whelp was boasting of some schoolgirlish talent when he said you could play. I see that he spoke the truth.”

  Mr. Rendell was there, with a cup of tea for her. Holly nodded her thanks, and when he seemed to be expecting more, she added, “I am surprised Evan mentioned a thing like that. He isn’t very musical himself, you know.”

  Still standing—Holly hadn’t invited him to join her on the bench—Rendell glanced over to the rowdy bunch still involved in their game. “He’s just a pup. He’ll grow up.”

  Which was just what her father had said. But Evan wouldn’t grow up, not if he became cannon fodder. “He respects you,” Holly said. “Why don’t you take him in hand?”

  Mr. Rendell still watched Evan acting out some nonsense while his friends hooted at him. “I believe I gave up that right.”

  Holly stood, leaving her cup on the bench beside her. “And I do not believe I want the responsibility.” She turned to leave, but felt a touch on her arm.

  “Wait, please. Lady Hollice, you don’t seem to like me. I would know why.”

  She looked at the gloved hand on her elbow, wondering if it was as brown as the man’s face. “I do not know you, sir, so I would not presume to pass judgment. I do not, however, like the way you raised your son.”

  His brows rose and he turned his head to the side, a gesture Evan had always employed. “But, Lady Hollice, I did not raise Evan.”

  “Exactly.” She dipped the shallowest of curtsies. “Pray excuse me, my mother needs help with the tea things.”

  * * * *

  The following day Evan took his friends out with Lord Carroll’s hunters and hounds, but not with his daughters. The lads rode too hard, the earl decreed, with a look to Evan that warned of dire consequences should one of the horses arrive home lame. They were all like-minded sportsmen, though, to whom fine horseflesh was more important than their own necks.

  Merry was sulking in the barn with her dog because she couldn’t ride along; Joia and Mama were working on the wedding invitations lists; and the earl and his prospective son-in-law were at the solicitor’s office in Carrolton, finalizing the marriage settlement documents.

  Holly couldn’t concentrate on her music, her drawing, or her attempts to learn German from the guidebook Joia had purchased, then discarded. She decided to poke through the library, to see if anything there could hold her interest.

  The last thing she wanted was another conversation with Evan’s father. She hastily backed toward the door when she saw him sitting at one of the desks, papers spread around him. His neckcloth was loosened and his sun-streaked hair, longer than the current fashion, had come loose of its queue.

  He looked up at the sound, quickly stood, and said, “Please don’t go.”

  “No, I am sorry for disturbing you.” She was half out me door.

  “Please, Lady Hollice, you would be doing me a favor. I have been at this all morning and could use a respite.” He waved an ink-stained hand at the papers on the desk-

  “I’ll... I’ll have Bartholemew bring in a tea tray, sir.”

  “But you won’t stay?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but walked toward her and the exit. “Then let me be the one to leave. This is your house and I do not wish to displace you, especially from such a magnificent library. I only wish I had time to explore the shelves myself. I see some familiar friends, and some interesting titles that haven’t come my way.”

  A compliment to the library was one of the quickest ways to win Holly’s rare smile. “It is a wonderful place, isn’t it? But please, sir, I am being impolite. We can share the library.” She gestured Rendell back to the desk, but he grimaced.

  “No, I need a rest. I have a report from one of my shipping companies, but I swear the fellow writing the accounting never learned to hold a pen. I cannot tell if he’s trying to hide irregularities, or trying to hide the fact that he cannot spell. Deuce take it if I can make heads or tails of the clunch’s hen-scratches.”

  “Would you like me to try? I’ve been deciphering Papa’s scrawls for years.”

  “Would you? And yes, I think I need some tea. You will need sustenance, too, after you see what the paperskull’s done to the King’s English.”

  Holly took the spectacles out of her pocket. What could her looks matter here? Mr. Rendell stared at her in his quietly appraising way, not precisely discourteous, but disconcerting. Then he nodded and pulled glasses out of his own pocket. “See here, this line?” he pointed out without further comment. “Either I had three ships sink, or I purchased thirty-two bottles of ink.”

  Holly was able to help Evan’s father decipher most of the blotches, and devour most of a tray of Cook’s fresh scones. She’d found the report fascinating, so was able to tell him in all honesty that his thank-yous were unnecessary, that she’d been happy to help.

  “But I would have had to send the thing back to my secretaries in London, then wait for its return. Surely there must be some way I can show my gratitude, Lady Hollice.”

  “First, you can start calling me Holly. Only Mama uses my real name.”

  “If you will call me Ren. No one calls me by my real name, Hammond, thank goodness, for they’d shorten it to Ham, and your ‘Mr. Rendell’ makes me feel ancient. What is second?”

  “Do you speak German? I am trying to learn, and I understand you are going to Austria on business.”

  “I do. I’d be useless to my enterprises there, otherwise. I find it absurd how many of our countrymen feel that it’s the world’s duty to learn English. I would be happy to help you with your pronunciation, if that’s what’s bothering you, on the condition that I can call on your assistance again if I hear from this cretin in Cairo.”

  “That would be my pleasure.” Holly thought she really would enjoy learning more about business matters.

  “Excellent. Shall we say tomorrow at this time?”

  “Do you not intend to ride tomorrow? Papa would be happy to lend you a mount.”

  “If by riding you mean the neck-or-nothing, cross-country free-for-alls, no, I leave that sport to Evan and his friends. But a pleasant ride in the country sounds appealing if the weather holds. Perhaps you and Evan would accompany me tomorrow afternoon to Rendell Hall. We should be coming to a decision about its future.”

  Holly’s future, he meant. She swallowed. “I’m sure that’s for you and Evan to consider, sir.”

  Ren raised one eloquent eyebrow, but he didn’t say anything. Unlike Papa, this man hid his thoughts and his emotions. He was not, at least, pushing Holly into accepting Evan. Reassured by that, she felt comfortable enough with him to ask, “Why did you finally relent and give your permission for Evan to join the army? You cannot wish your only child to go off to war.”

  “Hardly. I have seen enough conflicts throughout the world to know that wars are won by wealthy old men; they are lost by poor young ones. But it was his fondest wish.” Ren didn’t say that he found it hard to deny Evan, that a guilty heart was in conflict with a wiser head. “I felt I had to give my consent, but I didn’t make it easy for him.”

  “No, you’ve made it harder for me,” Holly objected. “If I wed Evan, he’s thrown into danger. If I don’t, he’s thwarted in his ambition. I don’t want to hold anyone’s life in my hands that way.”

  “I’m sorry, Holly, I never thought of your place in this. In truth, I thought my terms would keep him out of the army. I believed he’d be like other young men, too loath to give up his freedom to exchange it for an officer’s uniform. I assumed the idea of parson’s mousetrap would have him hying back to school in a wink. I hadn’t counted on his great affection for you. Then I hoped that a wife might set his mind to other avenues than war, but as you say, that would cost his dreams. I... I do not know him well enough.”

  Holly heard so much regret in Ren’s voice that she told him, “He doesn’t hold that ag
ainst you, you know.”

  But she did, and he blamed himself. Deuce take it, Ren thought, how could he know what was best for his son when years went by without his remembering he had a son? Now this lovely young woman was caught in the same snare.

  “What do you think he will do,” she was asking, “if I don’t marry him?”

  “You mean do I think he’ll find some Covent Garden doxy to wed? No, I was clever enough to stipulate he had to make an acceptable marriage. And I don’t think even he is army-mad enough to take the King’s shilling. I had hoped to offer him a position at one of my businesses, to see if he’d be interested enough to stay.”

  The idea of Evan in business, sitting behind a desk, made Holly chuckle. “He’ll never sit still long enough. Besides, if you think your Cairo correspondent has poor penmanship, you should see Evan’s.”

  “I have and you’re right. I’d have to hire the bantling a secretary of his own. Then, too, the single-minded brat would only save his wages to buy a commission. Or else he’ll do it when he comes into Squire’s property. Blakely can’t live forever, and it’s the old man who’s insisting on an heir, not myself.”

  “So he’ll go off to war sooner or later, no matter what we do?”

  “We could pray that Bonaparte is defeated tomorrow, but that’s not likely. And there is always a war going on somewhere for valiant fools to fight.” He put his spectacles back in his pocket and sighed. “At least the army will make a man out of him. Nothing ages a lad quicker than his first battle. Maybe he’ll have his fill of adventure then, and be ready to come home and settle down.”

  “You never did.”

  Ren looked at her, his head to one side. “I never had a reason to.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Flowers and fields thrived in the rain. Gatherings of restless young men did not. When a storm arrived, bringing winds that felled trees and downpours that flooded roads, the mostly male house party started to decamp. Without the hunting, they may as well be back in London where they could visit the clubs and ogle the opera dancers. Evan was left with no like-minded company and no occupation. He did visit his grandparents and he did practice his billiards, but mostly he followed Holly around, expecting her to devise entertainment for them as she always did.