The Christmas Carrolls

by Barbara Metzger

  “Papa, here is Sir Maxwell. Evan says he is going to need advice about some land he’s going to try to make productive.”

  Lord Carroll’s gout was bothering him. So was the duke, who wouldn’t reconcile with his wife, not even for the duration of the wedding party. Poor Bess had the headache from trying to keep Their Graces apart and entertained. The earl could tell she was suffering from across the room. Which meant he’d be sleeping in his own bed tonight, damn them all. Evan’s friend could grow kippered herring for all the earl cared right now. “Go find him Coke’s pamphlets, missy. That’s the best place to start. And then, young sir, you might as well listen to Merry’s opinions. The gal knows more about estate management and good husbandry than half the bailiffs I’ve employed.”

  Max bowed and left, smiling. He might just survive the whole two-week house party.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lady Carroll was not about to let her daughters go off without the proper monograms on their linens. So what if both of their husbands-to-be could purchase entire haberdasheries? A lady was known by her fancy needlework, and hurried weddings or not, Joia and Hollice would have their embroidered handkerchiefs and pillowslips. Besides, sewing in the countess’s sitting room, they could all hide from the difficult duchess and her crosspatch companion. Bess gave another silent prayer of gratitude that Aunt Irmentrude wasn’t coming for the weddings. That old crone would think nothing of invading the countess’s private chambers.

  Those rooms overlooked the sweeping lawns and carriage drive of Winterpark, so Merry, in the window seat, could watch the gentlemen set off for a ride. “Isn’t he divine?” she asked no one in particular because she knew the answer.

  “Who, Merry?” Joia asked, looking up from her stitching, sure her youngest sister meant Viscount Comfort.

  Knowing that her own handsome fiancé had driven over to Rendell Hall to start the renovations, Holly said, “I hope you don’t mean Evan, Merry. I know he looks dashing in his uniform, but it wouldn’t do for you to form a tendre for him. He may be one of my oldest friends and my stepson in two weeks, which I have a hard time comprehending myself, but I do have to admit that he’s as unsteady as ever.”

  “Not Evan, silly.” Merry looked back into the room, now that the gentlemen had ridden out of sight. “The lieutenant. Sir Maxwell. You should see how well he sits a horse. He’s a much better rider than Evan.”

  “You’re a better rider than Evan, mitten,” Joia teased, using their old pet name for the baby of the family. “But surely you cannot be serious about the officer.”

  “Why not? He’s everything marvelous.” She began a catalog of Sir Max’s endowments with his attractive looks.

  Joia laughed. “Only you would think so, mitten, with that gingery mop.”

  Merry tossed her head, red curls flying. “And he’s got lovely broad shoulders and elegant legs.”

  “Not as broad as Craighton’s.”

  “Not as well muscled as Ren’s.”

  “Girls!” their mother scolded. “We are not judging a horse fair.”

  The others answered, “Yes, Mama,” and went back to their sewing, but Merry didn’t, which was no great loss to the trousseaux as her stitches were uneven and her threads were always breaking. She was determined to defend the lieutenant. “Evan says he suffered grievous injuries and fevers. That’s why he’s not up to his usual weight, so his clothes hang loosely. We have to fatten him up again.”

  “What, is he to be the Christmas goose?” Holly teased.

  “He could be,” Joia added, “for all his social graces. I’m sorry, mitten, but I’ve had better conversations with the clothespress.”

  Merry was scowling. “How can you both make fun of one of our nation’s bravest soldiers? Did you see all of his medals and commendations? He was wounded in our defense. Why, our own Prince Regent knighted him for valor.”

  “Don’t be a widgeon,” Holly said with a laugh. “Evan told me the right of that story. Your valiant warrior didn’t perform any great feat of derring-do; he saved Prinny’s favorite hound from being run over by a carriage. The prince was above par, as per usual, and wanted to promote your lieutenant on the spot, but Grey had already submitted his resignation papers. Prinny had to knight him because he’d promised a reward in front of the entire parade ground, and of course, His Majesty doesn’t have a groat to his name.”

  “Well, I still think he was brave. A man who will risk his life for a dog is to be admired. Your gentlemen”—she glared at her sisters—”can barely risk the tassels on their Hessians with Downsy.”

  “Goodness, I believe our mitten is smitten,” Joia said, and Holly joined in her laughter. Their mother, however, was not smiling. Her youngest daughter could not be old enough for calf love.

  “Sir Maxwell is of good family,” she said, when Meredyth appeared ready to toss her sewing at the two grinning girls. “Although he is from the cadet branch.”

  “And he is well enough looking, I suppose,” Holly admitted, also to placate her sister. “If you don’t mind red hair.”

  “He must have performed bravely in the Peninsula to have won all those ribbons,” Joia contributed. She couldn’t be less than truthful, however, so she had to add, “But I’m sorry, mitten. The man is a block.”

  Before Merry could jump to her knight’s defense, Holly quickly put in, “Evan swears the man isn’t stupid. He’s simply backward in company.”

  As a child, Merry was the happiest creature around. When she wasn’t happy, however, everyone knew it. Lady Carroll could feel the headache coming on just thinking about one of her baby’s rages. To this day, Aunt Irmentrude was a picnic in the park compared to Meredyth in a miff. “Enough, girls. We’ll never get the sewing finished at this rate. Meredyth, you are far behind. Joia, Hollice, do please remember that it is impolite to belittle another’s handicap. Sir Maxwell is neither bacon-brained nor badly behaved. He stutters, is all.”

  Merry looked from one to the other. “He does?”

  * * * *

  Max couldn’t keep up with Evan on the morning’s ride. He could, that is, if he didn’t mind setting his recovery back a week. So he returned to Winterpark with the borrowed horse, a prime goer and a real pleasure, he told the men in the stables, with no hesitation. He could have ridden on to Blakely Manor on his own mount, but didn’t fancy the chill reception he’d get there. Instead he asked one of the grooms to direct him to Lord Carroll’s library via a rear door, thinking he could hide out there until Evan returned.

  The door was open, so he walked in, to the surprise of Evan’s father and his betrothed, who were doing something on top of the architectural plans on the desk, and it wasn’t making notations.

  Oh Lud. Max couldn’t simply back out, for they’d seen him, and Mr. Rendell was looking thunderclouds. Max couldn’t blame the man, but dash it, they could have closed the door. He did stare at the shelves of books nearest him while Lady Holly straightened her spectacles and her bodice. She didn’t bother with her hair. “Were you looking for someone?” she asked in a kindly tone, taking pity on him for her sister’s sake.

  “C-Coke.”

  “Oh yes, the agronomist. I think Papa keeps those volumes over here. Evan said you inherited a bit of property you wanted to farm. Where is it?”

  “K-Kent.”

  “And you were hoping to grow ... ?”

  “C-cows.” Because her laughing eyes seemed friendly enough, Max took a deep breath and added, “And mangel-wurzels.” They both sighed in relief when he got that out. By now, however, beads of perspiration were forming on Max’s forehead. All he wanted to do was get the book and leave these two to their privacy before Evan’s father skewered him for the interruption.

  Misunderstanding his distress and concerned over his pallor, Holly took a book down from the shelf and urged him into a chair. “You sit here, sir. I’ll go fetch help.”

  Help would have been two miles between Max and the mogul. Instead Holly fetched Lady Merry, who sent for
a footman, who brought a tray of scones and biscuits. “Here, I’ll read while you eat, Sir Max,” the auburn-haired angel said. “Just nod if you have a question.”

  The question was whether his horse was going to be able to carry him back to Blakely’s.

  * * * *

  Informal dancing was to be that evening’s entertainment at Winterpark. Additional young people, friends of the various Carroll daughters, had been invited from nearby to make up the sets. The friends’ parents joined the elders at cards, helping to amuse Their Graces. The duchess was pleased as punch to lord it over the local gentry, while the duke set up a flirt with a plump widow. Lady Carroll having refused his advances, the duke had been at loose ends. He’d almost been at the end of Lord Carroll’s steel, long friendship, gouty foot, children’s marriage, and all. Now Carlisle was happier about being stuck in the country, especially since his wife was watching, and the widow was ten years younger than Her Grace. He made sure he led the cozy armful out for a waltz between card games, too.

  Max wasn’t dancing. He could dance, but he couldn’t dance and make conversation at the same time, as expected by the giddy debs he’d partnered in the past. He’d borrowed a page from Lord Carroll’s book, therefore, and brought his cane along, the cane he hadn’t used or needed for over a fortnight. Then he wrote a chapter of his own by tapping his chest and coughing whenever someone approached him and asked why he wasn’t dancing. Lady Joia thought to introduce him to some of the local lasses, who were clearly delighted that the comeliest competition in the neighborhood was finally being taken out of the lists. Max coughed.

  Evan swirled by, a pretty girl in his arm. She was wearing a pink gown with too many bows, Max decided, like a gift package tied by a War Office committee. The Carroll ladies all wore simple gowns that fell straight from high waistlines, adorned with bits of lace and ribbon. When Evan led the confection his way at the end of the set, Max coughed.

  He would have sat by Lady Holly at the pianoforte, turning her pages, but Mr. Rendell was there, demanding a dance, so Miss Almira Krupp, the duchess’s companion, took her place. Max backed away, coughing. The butler kept sending footmen his way with glasses of lemonade. Max hated lemonade, but he felt better with something in his hand, not so conspicuously shirking his social duties, so he drank it anyway. Then he could waste some more time visiting the necessary.

  When he returned, however, Miss Krupp was playing a waltz. The duke was dancing with his new light-o’-love. Viscount Comfort and Mr. Rendell partnered their betrotheds. Evan twirled around another fussily dressed female who was obviously enamored of his uniform. And Merry, Lady Meredyth, was being held in a too tight embrace by a gangly youth in high shirt points and padded shoulders. She was talking nineteen to the dozen and the juvenile—Max could see his spotty complexion—was laughing back as they swooped and swirled the length of the drawing room. Max choked, for real.

  “May I fetch you something, Sir Maxwell?” the butler asked, appearing at Max’s side on the instant. “Hot tea? Perhaps one of Cook’s tisanes?”

  Next the old fellow would be asking if he needed a mustard plaster for his chest, by Jupiter, Max fretted, and loudly enough for the company to hear over Miss Krupp’s playing. But the downy old butler’s eyes were twinkling, Max noted, so he nodded. Yes, there was something Mr. Bartholomew could do for him. Max tipped his head in the companion’s direction. “Another w-waltz?” he asked, half pleading.

  Bartholomew whispered to Lady Joia, who, with a glance in Max’s direction, relieved Miss Krupp at the pianoforte. “I’ve been wanting to play this new score I just purchased,” he heard her tell the scrawny spinster. “I hope no one minds that it’s another waltz.”

  Having seen some of the byplay, Mr. Rendell minded that he couldn’t hold his beloved for one more dance, to please some plaguey stray pup Evan had dragged home. Then Holly patted the bench beside her and smiled up at him. Ren relaxed. This was better than a dance. The whelp was forgiven and forgotten.

  Max didn’t notice. He was making his way across the room to where Merry stood among a circle of befrilled females and their feckless swains. “M-my dance?” he asked, holding his hand out to her in front of them all, proving he really was a brave soul.

  If she glowed like candlelight before, Max thought, Merry’s answering grin was a whole bonfire, warming him to the bones.

  “I thought you weren’t dancing because of your chest, old man.” Evan was trying to be helpful. Max kicked him, behind his partner’s skirts.

  “I’m sure one dance won’t hurt, will it?” Merry asked hopefully.

  No, it wouldn’t hurt. Holding Merry in his arms, feeling her touch on his shoulder, Max couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t feel his game leg, and his heart seemed to be beating louder than the music. It felt glorious.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I am worried about that man, Bradford.”

  Lord Carroll patted his wife’s knee, there on the sofa beside him late that night. “What are you worried about, Bess, that the duke will cause a scandal in the neighborhood with Thaddeus Brady’s widow? Don’t fatch yourself, my love. Carlisle is only acting the rake to rile that sour prune he’s married to. He knows what’s due his name and distinction, and his son’s bride. Just today Carlisle told me that he thinks our Joia is the perfect wife for the viscount. No niminy-piminy miss, he called her,” the earl related proudly. “ ‘Od’s truth, she’ll keep Comfort from following in his father’s wandering footsteps, if that’s the man you’re fussing about.”

  “No, not Comfort and not his father. The man I referred to is the friend of Evan’s who has our Meredyth moonstruck, that young officer.”

  Lord Carroll sipped at his wine. He was allowed one glass these days, so he would be in condition to walk his daughters down the aisle without his cane. He meant to make that glass last, and this, too, his favorite time of day with Bess—unless he counted the moments after, when he followed her to her bedroom, or she to his. Or when he woke in the morning with her head on his shoulder, all warm and rosy. These days she was out of his bed at dawn, it seemed, she was so busy with the wedding plans, the house party, and preparations for Christmas. Bess might be marrying not one but two daughters off to nonpareils, but the tenants would have their baskets, the servants would have their Boxing Day gifts, the children of their dependents would have their treats. Lord Carroll patted Bess’s leg again. What a good wife she was, what a good friend. He’d give her the stars and moon if he had them. He did have the son....

  “Bradford, this is no time for wool-gathering. What are you going to do about that man, Sir Maxwell Grey?”

  “What would you have me do, my love, tell Comfort to toss him out into the cold? Ask Rendell to challenge the boy to a duel? Good thing to have around, sons-in-law, when a suitor goes beyond the line. Thing is, young Grey hasn’t overstepped himself, has he, Bess?”

  “Of course not, Bradford. I’m not implying Sir Maxwell is not a gentleman.”

  “I’m glad, for I’d hate to see the last of him. He seems a decent lad to me. Good head on his shoulders, good seat on a horse, and good, solid plans for his future. He’s a steadying influence on that firebrand Evan.”

  “I am not concerned with the man’s influence on Evan. It’s his effect on Meredyth that has me worried. You said yourself she’s too young to think of marrying.”

  “Calf love, my dear. No one is talking about marrying them off.”

  “Talking’s another thing. The man is so ... shy.”

  “Is he?” Lord Carroll took another sip. “He didn’t seem so to me. We had a long coze about sheep and hogs after you ladies left the dining room.”

  The countess tried not to frown—she didn’t want more wrinkles before the wedding—but she knew what her husband was like when on one of his hobbyhorses. “Did you let the man get a word in edgewise?”

  “Of course. It was Grey asking the questions, after all. He seems to be a quick learner, asked intelligent questions. No, I wouldn’t say he
was shy. Mayhaps he’s only that way around the ladies. Been raised by uncles, don’t you know, then school and the army. Can’t hold it against a cove if he’s not a ladies’ man.”

  “No, but—”

  “And he’s bold enough when he needs to be. Did you see the way he waded through mitten’s circle of beaux to claim her for that waltz?”

  That was what had Lady Carroll in a flutter. It was one thing for her baby to indulge in hero worship, quite another when the unlikely hero returned the compliment. “Everyone saw it. Even the duchess commented.”

  “Well, a good soldier knows when to go on the offense. He had a fine leg, too, for a wounded soldier. I thought you said he limped.”

  “He did,” Bess answered wryly, “before that waltz.”

  The earl chuckled. “So that’s the way of it, eh? Our little tomboy has an admirer. She had to make the jump into a woman sometime, Bess.”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid she’ll throw her heart over the first fence. You know how she’s always bringing home unfortunate creatures? I fear she thinks of Sir Maxwell as another of her strays.”

  The earl patted his wife’s hand once more and kissed the worry lines on her forehead. “If it will make you feel any better, I’ll take the boy around the estate with me this week. I’ll tell him he’ll learn more from the tenant farmers than from books, which is God’s own truth. Between that and riding out with Evan, the lad’ll be too tuckered out to get up to trouble when he is around. Besides, my love, it’s only for another two weeks.”

  “A lot can happen in two weeks.”

  * * * *

  Max was gratified when a messenger from the earl arrived at Blakely Manor during breakfast the next morning. He’d feared to appear too inquisitive, too encroaching, but now the earl was inviting him to ride along on his rounds of Winterpark’s fields and farms. Max was fascinated by what he saw: the modern equipment, the variety of livestock, the respect the tenants had for their lord. Sometimes in Spain he’d wondered just what he was fighting to preserve. This was it.