Under a Christmas Sky

by Sharon Sobel

  She replaced her fork on her plate and waited until the serving man cleared her setting for the next course. A steaming bowl of soup was set before her, with cockles rising to the surface.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, through the steam, breathing deeply. “And after I supervise the work in the kitchen, I can provide the entertainment for the evening, assuming I am not needed to wash the dishes.”

  Will laughed out loud, attracting the attention of everyone near them.

  “Please share the joke with us, Lord Willem,” said Lady Jersey. “I am in the mood to be amused.”

  He was sure she was, but was sorry he had been so unstudied in his response to Julia. “Lady Leighton was mentioning her several talents, but neglected to mention her wit. However, I believe she is to entertain us all this evening.”

  The ladies all shook their head in unison, as if rehearsing a performance of a Greek chorus. They may have rehearsed it before, because they also seemed to know something he did not.

  “Oh, Lady Leighton shall not sing this night, Lord Willem. She is to save her voice for Christmas Eve,” announced Miss Rossiter. “The other ladies will have the opportunity to entertain us this evening. And the men may join them, as well.”

  As uttered by Miss Rossiter, the words were undoubtedly a direct invitation. Will felt Julia’s hand on his thigh, beneath the table. That was also an invitation, and a more tempting one.

  “I did not realize,” she murmured, “though I am somewhat relieved. The plan must have been hatched while I was rediscovering my lost possessions.”

  “We decided another day of rest would do Lady Leighton much good, after her ordeal on the road. Besides, the other ladies wished to have their opportunity to shine, and otherwise delight us,” Laurentia said, for Julia as well as everyone else.

  THE LADIES—AND some of the gentlemen—did otherwise delight them. Or delighted them in ways they did not intend. Julia knew that all eyes were upon her at the conclusion of each person’s song, and she behaved both generously and in a manner to do Laurentia proud. She clapped, she sighed and tapped her breast above her heart, gesturing towards heaven after a particularly heartfelt carol. Mr. Wolfe demonstrated why he was a renown violinist and another gentleman sang a song that suggested he was either drunk or completely forgot that there were ladies in the room. The ladies, however, did not complain.

  Miss Rossiter modestly protested when she was asked to sing, though everyone knew she wished nothing more than to do so. The fact that she held a sheet of music in her hand revealed the truth, but it wasn’t until Will made a particular request of her that she rose to her feet. “But you must join me, Lord Willem,” she asked plaintively.

  “Alas, Miss Rossiter, I must not,” he demurred. “That is, unless, Lord and Lady Howard’s guests wish to have digestive problems this night.”

  “Ah, and you call me a wit,” Julia said to him, as she clapped. “While you have the cleverness of a jester.”

  “That is faint praise, Lady Leighton,” he said, knowing they had an audience. He wondered if he was being overly sensitive to the fact, but they seemed to attract more than their share of attention.

  “Not at all, Lord Willem. The poor jester had to manage all the strategems of court life. Often, his life depended on it.”

  “So true, Lady Leighton,” pronounced the princess. “We are lucky to live in enlightened times. Though I suspect Lord Willem needed both diplomacy and wit to navigate himself about Mr. Raffles’s island colony.”

  Everyone laughed again, though the spirits they had imbibed probably had more to do with it than the princess’s observation. Julia glanced to where Lord Nicholas had been seated just moments before, but he was gone. As was Miss St. John.

  Julia was absurdly pleased by this, for at first they seemed as unlikely a pair as ever were promised to each other. Chary was a most unconventional sort, a woman who relied on her talents rather than a natural beauty or her father’s wealth to make her way through society. She dreamed of travel to places known to her only through the pages of a book. And Lord Nicholas had some of the pirate’s soul, a spirit of reckless adventure and bravery. But there was bravery in her, and great gentleness in him. Julia, perhaps already seduced by the spirit of romance, believed they would find much happiness with each other.

  Miss Rossiter waited politely at the pianoforte for the laughter to subside. When the princess nodded her assent, Miss Rossiter launched into Adeste Fideles, mercifully dropping her voice on the high notes. Julia, who had been genuinely surprised to learn that everyone would be singing this night without her, finally appreciated the wisdom of Laurentia’s plan. She was not so extraordinary a singer that she posed much competition for those who were well-trained, but she had a strong enough sense of herself to know that she could still outshine most ladies.

  Leighton once told her he was bewitched by her singing.

  And Will had said very much the same thing only a few nights before.

  Perhaps she wore her talent as other ladies their silk gowns, or their glowing beauty, for it seemed to serve her well.

  Will shifted heavily in his seat, and pressed his arm against hers. “I have a mighty headache,” he said.

  Julia nodded but waited until Miss Rossiter sang her prepared encore, and then gestured that they slip out of the room.

  They were not alone in the great hall, for others had chosen equally opportunistic moments to escape. Will did no more than nod to the assembled guests, when he pulled Julia off to a corner, as far from the music room as was possible.

  “Do you feel better?” she asked. “I admit the singing is a bit much this evening. You would have done better with a few more goblets of Geoff’s fine port.”

  “If I had anything more to drink, I might have been dancing a jig on the pianoforte,” he said. “I wonder if the cold air has finally affected me, for I have grown accustomed to the warm winds of the Pacific.”

  “Ah,” she said, “then I believe I have the perfect place for you.” And she did, if she remembered her way through this grand labyrinth to find it.

  She took his hand, warm and strong, and led him in the direction of the south wing.

  “Not the chapel, please,” he said as he pulled back. “There will be enough of that on Christmas Day.”

  “Wicked man,” she murmured. “I have in mind something more like a cathedral.”

  He looked mystified, as so he should, but said nothing else as they passed through halls and walked up stairways, and opened doors onto rooms that looked as if they had not been used for ages. Finally, Julia recognized their destination, and pushed against the great doors that she hoped had not been locked. They were not.

  She brought him into the great conservatory of Seabury, built for one of Geoff’s ancestors who fancied himself a botanist. It was used through the years by the large staff of gardeners, but Laurentia mentioned that it was a necessity during the cold and bleak summer they recently endured. Otherwise, the many exotic plantings cultivated over so many years in the garden would have been lost.

  “It is a greenhouse,” Will said, breathing in the slightly fetid air.

  “It is a conservatory,” Julia corrected. “A different thing altogether. But to the same effect, I think. I imagine it must remind you of Java.”

  He laughed, and she felt a bit foolish. “I thank you for this, for it may be the best gift I shall receive this season.”

  She knew it would be the best gift she could give him, in any case. For she had nothing. The many things she had knitted and embroidered through the year had been returned to her, but she could not have anticipated a lover for whom she had nothing to give but herself and a glass room filled with overgrown plantings.

  “I feel refreshed, but it is nothing like Java, dear Julia. But in either place, we are woefully overdressed in our winter garments.” He tugg
ed on his cravat, loosening it about his neck.

  “What does one wear in the East Indies?” she asked.

  “Not very much,” he said softly, and reached for her.

  “Will, I should remind you we are in a glass room, where anyone could see us.” She knew she was unconvincing, so she tried another diversion. “Did you intend to wear an island costume to the masquerade?”

  He dropped his arms. “Quite the opposite, in fact. I have brought a Sinterclaus costume, borrowed from my father in The Hague. I thought it quite clever of me, though your sister-in-law attempted to convince me otherwise.”

  “Laurentia? What has she to do with it?” Julia thought Laurentia had enough to do with organizing her party without worrying about the costume of each guest. Aside from herself, that is. “Oh, dear heavens. Please do not tell me she asked you to be Oberon.”

  “If Oberon is the great king of the wood sprites or something of that sort, then that is precisely what she intends.”

  Julia sat down on a stone bench beneath a spindly orange tree. “Of course. Oberon is the king of the fairies. Did you never see a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Mr. Shakespeare?”

  “I don’t believe I have. Shakespeare productions are in short supply in Holland. Why does it matter?”

  Julia wondered that herself, but knew that it did. Had this whole journey been a bit of trickery by her well-meaning sister-in-law? Was it possible that even the crash was planned, as was her rescue by the gallant Lord Willem Wakefield? No, that was absurd. She had almost died. Laurentia would not have gone so far. She couldn’t. It was impossible.

  “Julia?” Will asked. “Please tell me you aren’t going to shun me because I have neglected to see a play written two hundred years ago.”

  “No, this is not about you as much as it is about dear Laurentia. She has her dressmaker sewing a costume for me to be presented as Titania.”

  “And I gather Oberon and Titania are somehow related.” Will seemed amused about the whole thing.

  “She is his queen. Though as to that, she spends more time in the play in love with a donkey.”

  “I will be a donkey if you prefer it. It is Sinterclaus’s preferred mode of travel.”

  She looked up at him and at the dark sky above their glass ceiling. She saw the moon and the stars, as they had seen them that lovely night in Langerford, walking through the snow when they returned from the country ball. She had fancied herself a bit in love with him then, and now, with his artless words, she knew it was so. No ordinary gentleman would offer to present himself as an ass in such exalted company as assembled here at Seabury.

  “Yes?” he asked in a cheerful voice, though she guessed he might be having some second thoughts.

  “No,” she said and smiled. “Though such a costume might be equally suitable for a shepherdess, I think Sinterclaus would be a charming addition to our party. Should you ask me to dance, your choice will prove far more amiable for ducking beneath a tunnel of raised arms than if you wore a large papier mâché head with ears.”

  He sat next to her and pulled her close. “I gather your rustic costume has been restored to you?”

  Julia leaned her head against his shoulder, but still studied the sky. “It may be the very reason the jewels are intact. Poor deluded Mimma would not have bothered to unfold a simple gown such as that, for it would have reminded her of what she left behind. The jewels were in a small pouch nestled in the skirt of my costume.”

  “Why ‘poor, deluded Mimma?’” he asked. “In my experience, servants are often sharper than the rest of us.”

  “I hardly knew her, but she seemed very much under Hedges’s influence. She trusted him implicitly, and I suspect she avoided my fate by trying to escape the coach. She was on her way out the door when we crashed.”

  “Was she indeed? Do you think it was not an accident?”

  “I have wondered it, but how could such a dreadful thing be planned? I suspect she was desperate to be with him, and thought she could climb outside and up into the box.”

  “Then she was not deluded, but merely insane,” he said succinctly. He lifted her onto his lap.

  “She was in love. Perhaps that’s what love does to one,” she said. And yet, she was sure she was in love with Leighton, and didn’t remember feeling that way. After his death, she was sad and lonely, but not desperate with grief. “What did you feel after Leena died?”

  She felt him pull away, just slightly. Perhaps she had startled him with her question or perhaps he had never considered the answer.

  “I felt I would have mourned her more, had circumstances been different,” he said after a few minutes had passed.

  “As you have already confessed that you are not overly familiar with Shakespeare’s plays, I ought to point out that Macbeth said a similar thing when his lady died.”

  “I seem to recall she was insane, and not for love.”

  “One could say she was insane for power.” Julia thought about marriages of people she knew, of family alliances, and arranged marriages. “Perhaps it’s not always possible to tell the difference.”

  Will shook his head. “We are a cynical pair. Here we are, under a Christmas sky, safe from volcanoes, snowstorms, and thieving servants, and we can be doing something so much more pleasing than discussing Lady Macbeth and the nature of her delusion.”

  “I thought we were discussing the nature of love,” she whispered.

  “Even better,” he said, and finally kissed her.

  For several blissful moments, Julia allowed herself to forget everything else, about the circumstances that brought them together, about the day in the near future when they would inevitably part, about the fact that he had never answered her question about Leena. On this clear December night, surrounded by trees and lush flowers, they were together and there was no one else.

  Except for whomever trod on the stone path.

  “Will!” Julia said, pushing against him. “We are not alone.”

  He was alert at once, his eyes bright as he sought to locate the sound. He put a finger to his lips.

  “It is Hawkely,” he said after an eternity. Julia held her breath. “And I believe it is the bird lady.”

  “Miss St. John?” Julia felt a thrill of delight. “How wonderful.”

  “For them,” Will grumbled. “Let us escape before they see us.”

  And so they sat, side by side, for several moments while the other couple walked to the far end of the conservatory, unaware of their presence. When they could no longer hear the murmur of conversation, Will raised his brows and helped her to her feet. Slowly, they made their way to the heavy doors that separated the winter garden from the ancient, drafty house.

  “YOU MOST CERTAINLY will not be a shepherdess tomorrow night,” Laurentia said dismissively. “Mrs. Gaylord has been working day and night on your Titania costume, and it will suit you admirably.”

  Julia decided that for all Laurentia did for her, it was nevertheless time to stand her own ground. “It would suit you admirably, my dear sister, for you have more the elegance and beauty of the Queen of the Fairies than I ever could.”

  “Oh, please. Do not bring up your old argument that you are not a lady, not worthy to be a queen, or anything of that sort. My brother married you, chose you above all the Lady This and Lady Thats, and now you are a lady, too. You have never acted like anything else.”

  “Lord Willem thought I was a common actress when we met, a singer on the stage.”

  “Oh, certainly, though you were senseless at the time and barely knew if you were coming and going. I daresay that whatever he thought, he was enough of a gentleman to be entirely honorable, and not compromise you in any way.”

  Julia said nothing. She was not certain that little matter of his undressing her that first night ought to count.r />
  “Well, it is of no matter,” Laurentia went on quickly. “You are a widow, after all. It is the best thing for a woman.”

  “Laurentia! How can you say such a thing! I miss Leighton all the time.”

  “Yes, I know,” Laurentia sighed. “I have asked you about it often enough. But I meant that you now have the freedom to do as you will, and the coin to do it with.”

  Julia stepped down from the chair on which she had been standing all during their discussion. With a hundred servants milling about, she was not sure why Laurentia insisted they hang the last boughs of fir from the drapery poles, unless it was to discourage anyone else from joining them in conversation. If that had been the plan, it had certainly worked. They had the entire back parlor to themselves, and only occasionally were they interrupted by a servant’s question, or someone delivering yet another string of berries to festoon the mantle.

  “Inasmuch as I have all that freedom, I think I am quite able to decide what I wish to wear to a masquerade,” Julia said. “It was always my intent to come as a shepherdess, and I see no reason to change, now that my costume has been restored to me. I am sure the other costume won’t go to waste, for there must be another lady who would be delighted to dress as Titania.”

  Julia hoped Laurentia intended to dress as Medusa for, at this moment, with fire in her eyes, she perfectly looked the part.

  “Do you have another lady in mind?” Laurentia asked softly.

  “Certainly. I suppose Miss Rossiter would jump at the chance. Especially if Lord Willem is dressed as Oberon.”

  “You know about that, do you?”

  “He and I speak, occasionally,” Julia said provocatively. “Perhaps we do other things as well, which are no one’s concern but our own. But you might have told the poor man that you were setting him up to be a match for Titania.”

  “You are driving me mad, Julia, you truly are. But Lord Willem knew perfectly well I wished for him to be here so he could meet you.”