Carla Kelly's Christmas Collection

by Carla Kelly

  As he stood there that night, grateful in his love for his children, he was teased with another thought, one that had not crossed his mind in more years than he could name. I want a wife, he thought.

  The thought stayed with him as he checked all the doors, sent his old butler protesting off to bed, and sat down in the library, prepared to stare at the flames until they turned into coals. He spent more time at the window, watching the first snowfall of winter lay itself down in a thick blanket. When he finally lay down to sleep in the quiet house, he was at peace with himself. This was a good day, he thought. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

  Tomorrow brought a valet by the name of Owen Llewellyn, with a note from Colonel James Rhys of the Welsh Fusiliers, who knew a good joke when he heard one. “You may return him if you wish,” the note read, “but if he suits, keep him.” After a rather querulous paragraph about the vicissitudes of waging peace in the wilds of Kent, Colonel Rhys wrote farewell and wished to be remembered respectfully, etc., etc., to the Dowager Lady Wythe.

  Chard examined his new valet, noting his dark Welsh eyes and slight build. There remained only one question, and he asked it. “Tenor or bass?”

  “Tenor, sir!” the valet responded with a snap-to and clicking of heels. He burst into “Men of Harlech,” which even brought Chard’s old butler wheezing up the stairs to stand transfixed by the bookroom door until the recital ended.

  “Admirable, Llewellyn,” Chard said when the man finished, still standing at attention. “You will be a remarkable valet. Just keep my clothes clean, make sure my shaving water is hot, and… Llewellyn, are you paying close attention?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Under no circumstances are you to go outside without a muffler around your neck.”

  “No, sir!”

  As it turned out, he was too busy that day to worry much about Rosie Wetherby. He found himself welcoming a new under-bailiff, one Dafydd Williams from Cardiff, who by coincidence or divine intervention sang bass. It gave him not a qualm to see young Williams safely bestowed into respectable quarters and to hear the glad tidings of great joy that Williams was recently married to his lovely Meg of Llanduff near Cardiff.

  “And does she…?”

  “Alto, my lord.”

  “Send for her at once.”

  In fact, he would have gone to his mattress a happy man, except that Emmie was cross through dinner, refused her favorite baked apple with cream dessert, and was feverish by bedtime. He knew it was more than a crochet when Emma, most independent of his children, let him hold her on his lap until she fell into fitful slumber. He was not at all surprised when she came to his bed in the middle of the night, crying and clutching her throat. He kissed her, pulled her in close, and dozed and woke with her the rest of the night.

  Dr. Barker called it catarrh and ordered bed rest and warm liquids. “I see this so often when the season turns to winter,” he said with a hand on Chard’s shoulder. “I expect Emma will be grumpy and melancholy in equal parts. Give her these fever powders every four hours. Do you have someone to watch her?”

  He didn’t, actually. He knew better than to bother Mama, busy with chicken pox in Leeds. The housekeeper had left only yesterday morning to visit her ailing sister in Durham, and she had burdened the maids with a long list of assignments. His old bailiff’s wife was nursing lumbago, and the lovely Meg from Llanduff was not expected yet.

  Will sat with his sister that morning while Chard worked in the bookroom with his bailiff, completing plans for the new barn and settling housing arrangements for the construction crew he expected any day. By noon, Will was worried and Emma in tears.

  “Papa, she does not even argue with me,” Will said over luncheon. “I mean, I told her that I could beat her to flinders at jackstraws and she just nodded!”

  “This is serious, indeed.”

  He had a plan. In fact, as he stood at Emma’s window, he realized that this was only one of many plans he had been scheming ever since Mama shouldered him with the choir. It had occurred to him last night, and nothing since then had convinced him that it was a silly idea. Quite the contrary: the more he thought about it, the better it sounded. He told his footman to summon the carriage.

  The Wetherby estate was shrouded in fog as he drove up, and he liked it that way. The unspeakably stupid Greek temple was invisible, and the house itself, with its superabundance of trim and dormers, was mercifully indistinct.

  Lady Wetherby insisted on plying him with éclairs and macaroons in her sitting room, even though he really wanted hot coffee. She listened to his recitation—practiced in the carriage on the drive over—and shook her head.

  “Rosie is really quite common,” she said, leaning closer and licking the chocolate from the éclairs off her fingers. “I should wonder that you don’t worry it will rub off.”

  “I will take that chance, ma’am,” he replied, focusing his attention on a hideous vase of peacock feathers as Lady Wetherby dabbed at the crumbs on her chest. “I need her help with Emma for a few days, if you think you can spare her.”

  “As to that, of course,” Lady Wetherby said. “Truth to tell, I was wondering what to do with her this week.” To his dismay, she edged even closer. “My darling Claude’s fiancée is coming for a visit, and I do not want her to have to rub shoulders with someone from such a low class as Rosie!” She shuddered, and her greasy curls shook. “She tells a story about being wellborn, and her manners are pretty enough, but I cannot believe any of it. I wonder what Junius was thinking?”

  Junius never thought much that I recall, Chard reflected to himself. Serves him right for getting drunk and falling out a window. If I had been but four days married to Rosie, I wouldn’t have been sucking on sour mash with my comrades.

  “Well, madam?” he asked finally, hoping to put enough curl in two words to remind her—somewhere below the level of her dim awareness—that he was a marquis.

  It must have worked. She rose, curtsied until he feared for her corset stays, and left the room. In remarkably short order, Rosie Wetherby appeared in the doorway, satchel in hand, her cloak over her arm.

  He rose quickly, pleased all over again at the sight of her. “So you will help me, Mrs. Wetherby?” he asked simply.

  “You know I will,” Rosie replied. She dabbed her hand across her eyes, and he noticed as he came closer to help her with her cloak that there were tears in them.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, speaking close to her ear as he put her cloak around her slender shoulders.

  “Never better,” she assured him. “I told Lady Wetherby I would return when you no longer needed me.”

  He knew that he would embarrass her if he uttered the first reply that rose to his active brain, but he was beginning to surprise himself with the fertility of his imagination. “It shouldn’t be above a week. On behalf of my child, I do appreciate your help.”

  Lady Wetherby returned, all smiles, to see them out of the house. More particularly, she patted his arm, ignored her daughter-in-law, and made so much of him that he wanted to snatch Rosie in his arms and run screaming from the house. As it was, he closed the door on Lady Wetherby before she was entirely finished speaking, took a firm grasp on Rosie because the steps were icy, and escorted her carefully to his conveyance.

  “I really don’t have very good balance these days,” she confessed as he helped her into the carriage. “Do you know, Lord Wythe, sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder where Rosie Morgan has got to.”

  “Would you change things?” he asked, berating himself silently that he had never managed to learn the art of small talk.

  “Some things,” she admitted. She rested her hand on her belly. “Not all. But that’s the way life is, isn’t it? I learned that in the regiment, and it was a good school.”

  He nodded, made sure of the warming pan at her feet, and tucked a blanket around her. She smiled her thanks at him and then looked out the window. He noticed that she dabbed at her eyes once or twice in the s
hort drive, but he knew he had not earned the liberty to ask her how he could help.

  “Emma is six,” he said finally, as the carriage turned into his estate. “She is independent, outspoken, and rather thinks she commands her brother and me.”

  “Does she?” Rosie asked.

  “Oh, probably,” he agreed, noting again that he was not embarrassed to show his complaisance to Rosie Wetherby. “I would do anything for her.” He touched her arm. “If she knows that, at least she has the grace not to hold it over me like a sword.”

  “Lord Wythe, do you not have a wife?” she asked finally.

  He was surprised that Lady Wetherby—she who could spread stories like farmers spread manure—had not unrolled his whole genealogy before her. I wonder if they even talk, except when that harpy berates her daughter-in-law and tells her how common she is.

  “She died when Emma was born. I was serving in India. I returned home and resigned my commission.” He stopped, dissatisfied with how brusque he sounded. He was silent as the carriage rolled to a stop. He contrasted the welcome of his home—large to be sure, and gray like the Wetherbys’—with the estate he had come from, and found it wanting in no way.

  The footman was there in the drive to help Rosie from the carriage, but Chard assumed that responsibility, letting her lean for a moment against his shoulder as she got her balance. She gripped his hand and relaxed when she saw that the walk was shoveled and no ice was on the steps. He felt a twinge of pride as she looked about her, a smile on her face.

  “I like the white trim,” she said and looked up at him, her eyes bright. “Tell me, sir, does the stone turn pink when the sun sets?”

  “More of a lavender,” he replied as he helped her up the steps. “You should see it in the spring when the flowers are up in the window boxes.” And when the lawn is green and seems to roll right down to the stream, and the lambs are stiff-legged and bonking about, and the orchard is a dazzle of apple blossoms. “I love it here.” What a clunchy thing to say, he berated himself, but she smiled at him, and there was nothing but kindness in her brown eyes.

  He took her right upstairs to Emma’s room. Will sat there, his chin on his palm, watching his sister. Emma opened her eyes when she heard him enter the room.

  Rosie did not know his children, but she did not hang back in the doorway. She came forward right beside him, first to stop at Will’s chair. “You must be Will. How lucky Emma is to have a brother who will watch her.”

  Will leaped to his feet and Chard had to turn away to hide his smile. Oh, Rosie, think of the conquests you have made, he thought.

  “Wou—would you like this seat?” Will asked.

  She smiled at him, but shook her head and turned to Emma. “Not now, my dear, but thank you. I rather think I will sit with Emma.”

  “Emma, this is Mrs. Wetherby,” he said softly as Rosie settled herself on the bed. “She’s here as long as you need her.”

  To his amazement, independent Emma heaved a sigh and reached for Rosie, who gathered her close. “My throat hurts,” she whispered and then burst into tears.

  Chard blinked and felt his face redden with embarrassment. “Mrs. Wetherby, you must think we are unfeeling brutes here,” he said. “Truly, we have seen to her care.”

  She glanced at him over her shoulder as she smoothed Emmie’s tangled hair. “Never mind that, sir. Sometimes a little lady just needs a mother.” She wiped Emmie’s face with the damp cloth that Will handed her. “And what a fine brother she has! My dear, could you go downstairs and talk your cook out of a half-cup of treacle, some mint, and a spoon? Emmie, with Will’s help, your throat will be better in two shakes. My lord, please hand me the hairbrush over there. Nothing does a body better than a good hair brushing.”

  They both did as she said. When he closed the door quietly, Emmie’s eyes were closed and Rosie was brushing her hair and humming to her.

  “Papa, she’s good,” Will said as they went downstairs together. “Did Mama do things like that?”

  Probably not, he thought. Lucy had told him on several occasions how much she disliked the sickroom, and mewling, puking babies. “Of course she did,” he lied. “You’re just too young to remember.” He touched his son’s shoulder. “You’re going to discharge your duty with the cook? Good.” He rested his hand on Will’s head for a brief moment. “Just think, son; maybe you could come down with something, too.”

  Will grinned at him. “Or you, Papa.”

  How tempting that would be, he thought later that afternoon when he let himself into Emma’s room. Dressed in a fresh nightgown, his daughter slept. The room smelled of lavender and clean sheets. Rosie sat in the chair with her feet resting on the bed, an open book on what remained of her lap, her eyes closed, too. She opened them, even though he was sure he had not made any noise.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I did not mean to wake you.”

  She sat up, her neat hair coming out of its pins, and to his mind, incredibly appealing. “I should be awake, my lord,” she whispered back. “You will think me none too attentive.”

  He sat carefully on the bed so as not to disturb his daughter, but also not to miss a single opportunity to admire Rosie Wetherby. “I… Will and I are convinced that you really must be an angel.”

  She put her hand over her mouth so she would not laugh out loud, but her eyes were merry. “I doubt that in my present condition I could fly too well, sir!” she looked at her charge. “She is better, isn’t she? You have a lovely daughter. Does she look like her mother?”

  “Like Lucy? No,” he replied, amused by his own thoughts. “She is her own person.” He admired Emma’s serenity after a night of restless sleep. Hers and mine, he thought, suddenly tired.

  He was aware that Rosie Wetherby was watching him with that same look she had earlier trained on Emma. “I am fine!” he protested, to her unspoken question. “Just a little tired.”

  “And you were likely up all night with Emma, weren’t you?” she asked. “I hope you are not planning to sit up with her tonight, my lord.”

  “Well, yes, actually.”

  “No,” she said. “I am going to be sharing Emma’s room, and whatever she needs I can give her. I have already spoken to the footman and he is arranging a cot for me.”

  “That is truly too much trouble for you,” he said, but it sounded weak to his own ears.

  “It is no trouble,” she replied. “I cannot tell you what a relief it is to be useful to someone. Thank you for asking me, my lord.”

  The pleasure truly is mine, he thought as he nodded to her, took another look at Emma, and left the room. There is something so restful about Rosie Wetherby, he decided as he went slowly down the stairs to the bookroom. It may have been her condition that made her so. He liked the deliberate way she did things, from brushing Emma’s hair, to touching Will’s shoulder when he brought her what she needed from Cook. She seems to be studying our comfort, he thought, and what a pleasant thing that is. I wish she would touch me, he thought suddenly. He blushed and set his mind firmly on the ledgers on his desk.

  God, please take me away from these, he thought later as the afternoon waned. He made a face and closed the ledger, adding it to the stack on the desk. My barns are full, my stocks are high, I could probably buy Paris if I wanted it. Why the restlessness? “Lord, grant me a diversion from stodgy prosperity,” he said, and he looked out the window and smiled.

  They were coming. It could only be his construction crew for the new barn, hired by his old one-armed colonel, retired now in Wales. One, two, three, four, he counted as he stood by the window, and they have brought all their tools. He glanced at his desk, with its drawing of the barn he needed, and then the copy of Franz Josef Hadyn’s “The Heavens Are Telling” lying next to it. “But more to the point,” he said out loud as he took a tug at his neck cloth and looked for his coat, “can these builders sing?”

  They could and did, he discovered, and with the same enthusiasm that his new valet had shown. It
was starting to snow again, and the temperature was dropping even as he stood there in the driveway, hands in his pockets as the men gathered around. To his unutterable joy, they looked at each other, someone hummed a note, and they sang “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night.” The song rang with all the fervor that he remembered from the Welsh Fusiliers in India, singing in spite of—or perhaps because of—the worst conditions.

  How is it that the Welsh can even make the closing notes hang in the air as though they sing in a cathedral? He sighed with pleasure. One of the men stepped forward, didn’t quite bow (which pleased Chard even more), and introduced himself as Daniel ap Jones, late sergeant of the Fusiliers and a graduate, like himself, of the hard school of Assaye. “I outrank them others, sir,” he said, indicating the other singers. “Your old friend in Swansea indicated that you might like that song, considering that it’s a local favorite.”

  “Aye, it is, Jones, think on,” he replied, lapsing gracefully into the color of local speech. He looked down the lane again as another conveyance approached, and then back at Jones, a question in his eyes.

  “Our wives,” Jones said. “The colonel thought you could use them, too.”

  “I am in heaven, Jones,” he replied simply. “And do they sing as divinely as you?”

  The men looked at each other. “All except Lloyd’s wife, sir,” Jones explained, the remorse deep in his voice. The other builders chuckled and nudged the one who must be Lloyd. “He married Gracie Biddle from Devon, and she can’t even carry a note to the corner and back.”

  “Ah, lad! Me auld lady can cook!”

  Lord bless the military, he thought. The whole unloading of wives, children, household goods, and tools was accomplished with a certain precision that made him proud, even though he was six years removed from the army. “Just long enough, I suppose, for me to forget what a tedious, nasty business it really was,” he said to Rosie that night, his feet propped on Emma’s bed as he relaxed in a chair he drew up close.