And, in two days’ time, Lady Celia’s party would be arriving—now, there was a female who definitely doused any erotic imaginings. How Gilly would grin at his predicament.
Theo threw a stick or two for Bess, then whistled her to his side to go back down the hillside, considering himself suitably purged of lust. From up here, he suddenly realised, he could see the far side of the old turret, that Aggie had informed him was never used. But—there was a light gleaming from its single high window.
* * *
His first action on getting back was to take a candlestick up the twisting staircase to the turret, where he opened the heavy door at the top.
It was—or had been—someone’s study. The walls were lined with books and there was an old oak desk, complete with pens and a replenished ink well. It had been recently polished with beeswax; the fragrance still hung in the air. And there was another familiar scent, beside the beeswax. Hung on the back of the door was a small wreath of holly, woven with the delicate yellow flower-spikes of winter jasmine.
Theo went downstairs again. He put more logs on the fire and sat with Bess at his feet. He thought of London, of his friends there. But...London seemed a hell of a long way away. The girl Jenna was very near. Too near. And this place bewildered him more by the minute.
Chapter Seven
The next morning Theo worked steadily on the estate’s papers until Aggie told him, when she brought him coffee, that Jenna was about to set off to Buxton to collect the food she’d ordered yesterday.
Theo confronted her in the cobbled yard, where Rob was helping her get the gig ready.
‘Jenna. You’re not going by yourself, are you?’
‘And how else did you expect the food to get here, my lord?’ She said this in a mild voice that couldn’t be described as insolent, but...
‘I thought it would be delivered.’
‘Out here?’
Of course. Stupid idea, to expect small market traders to come all this way. His eyes narrowed. She was dressed as he’d seen her that first day, in a man’s scruffy coat, with boots and her long hair thrust under a cap. It was as if she was determined to show him she wasn’t seeking his, or anyone’s, attention. Except that somehow, with her small hands thrust in the pockets of that big old coat, and with her wide brown eyes blazing defiance, she looked more enticing than ever...
Hell, swore Theo. He’d asked after Hewitt in Buxton and been told he’d left the area; as well, or he’d have seen the wretch in gaol. Now he said, ‘Take Rob with you.’
‘Impossible! Rob has to collect firewood from the North Wood.’
‘Take Rob with you and stop arguing,’ ordered Theo.
Lips pressed tight, she climbed up on to the gig and took the reins; Rob clambered up beside her and they rattled out of the yard.
* * *
Theo went round the house room by room, making a list of repairs that needed doing, horribly aware that tomorrow—Christmas Eve—his guests would arrive. When he heard the sound of the gig clattering into the courtyard a couple of hours later, he made himself stay where he was for a while.
Then he went into the kitchen. The big table was laden with provisions and he examined each item with dawning incredulity. ‘What on earth...?’
Jenna had come in carrying one last big parcel. She’d taken off her coat and cap, and her long blonde hair hung loose. She saw his face, and her eyes grew stormy. ‘You said!’ she accused him. ‘You told me to get traditional Christmas fare!’
‘I know,’ Theo said. ‘But what on earth is it?’
She pointed at everything in turn. ‘This is brawn. Here are chitterlings and Derbyshire oatcakes. These are pigs’ heels. And here...’ she unwrapped her parcel ‘...is a boar’s head.’
‘A boar’s... Dear God, you’re joking.’
She stared at him a moment, then she started to gather it up again and push it into her assortment of wicker baskets. ‘Very well, my lord. I shall take it all back!’ The boar’s head was heavy; Theo saw her stagger and hurried to take it off her.
‘No,’ he said, ‘leave it.’ He was thinking of Celia’s face. She would most likely faint when she saw the boar’s head, and... Good God, the boar had little, puckered-up eyes like Celia’s mother’s!
He was trying not to laugh. ‘We’ll keep it,’ he said. ‘I think we’re going to give my visitors tomorrow an experience they won’t forget for a long, long time.’
Jenna’s face was shuttered. ‘I must go and get changed, my lord,’ she said very quietly and hurried off upstairs.
Damn it. He’d upset her again.
A few moments later Aggie came in, having clearly encountered Jenna. ‘Miss Jenna’s tired after her journey, my lord,’ she told Theo in a reproachful voice, ‘so I’ve told her to have a rest. Now, these pies can go in the pantry and the pig’s head, too. The brawn I’ll put in stone jars, to keep nice and moist... What’ve you done to upset our Miss Jenna, my lord?’
‘Nothing,’ lied Theo.
‘I just hope you haven’t made mockery of all this food she’s bought. ’Cos no one works harder than our Miss Jenna, my lord—and I should know!’
Theo heaved in a deep breath. ‘You’ve been here over twenty years, haven’t you? Jenna told me.’
‘Aye, my lord,’ Aggie said proudly, ‘twenty-four in all! I served the old lord fourteen years, and Maria—that’s Jenna’s poor mother, sir—had been here for almost ten when he died. So sad it was...’
Theo frowned. Almost ten years? But that would mean... ‘I thought,’ he said, ‘that Jenna’s mother arrived here with her baby?’
Aggie froze. ‘Of course, sir. Me and my silly head, I’ve got it all in a muddle—I’m no good with dates.’
Theo said sharply, ‘Aggie. Do you know who Jenna’s father was?’
Aggie was carrying a big pie towards the pantry, but she turned, still rather pink-cheeked, and said, ‘She shouldn’t be skivvying, sir. That’s all I know. The poor lass shouldn’t be skivvying.’
‘I can tell that,’ said Theo. ‘I want to help her.’
‘Do you, indeed?’ declared Aggie. ‘I’m sorry if I’m speaking out of turn, but she’s a lovely lass, is our Jenna—and is your help going to do the poor girl any good at all, my lord, when you go back to your fancy life in London?’
* * *
Theo had taken Bess out for a walk. All his best-laid plans—escaping from London and Lady Celia, offering Jenna and her mother security in their old home—were going badly wrong.
He’d only just got back, and was putting more logs on the fire, when Jenna came in.
She was wearing that shapeless grey gown and a huge apron. The drabness of her attire smote him.
‘My lord,’ she said quietly, ‘you asked me yesterday if I could find some musicians to entertain your guests tomorrow. There wasn’t much time, but while I was out this morning—’
He interrupted her, eager to show approval. ‘You’ve found some? Excellent, Jenna! Can they come tomorrow afternoon, when my guests are here?’
‘They’re here now. So you can listen to them.’ She hesitated. ‘But I’ll quite understand if they’re not suitable.’
‘Of course they will be!’ Theo said heartily. But his cheerfulness faded a little as they came in.
As entertainment for Lady Celia, her mother and friends, they looked—unpromising. There were five of them altogether. One had a fiddle, three carried wind instruments of some sort, and the fifth had—
Bagpipes. Lord help us.
‘Festive greetings to you, your lordship!’ said the burly man with the fiddle. ‘Now, then, what tune would you like?’ Jenna hovered by the door, looking apprehensive.
‘Oh, anything,’ said Theo, sitting down. ‘But make it seasonal, you know?’
They began. The noise they made was extraordinary, registered Theo in astonishment; sounded, in fact, as if a cat was being strangled, very slowly. And that was before they started singing.
It was dreadful. Just as as
tonishing as the food...
A rather wicked idea began to form in Theo’s mind. ‘That’s enough,’ he said, standing up. He was aware of Jenna watching him, dismayed. He went over to the man with the fiddle and shook his hand heartily. ‘Just the job. Can you come and play here tomorrow at around four o’clock?’
‘On Christmas Eve, your lordship?’
‘Exactly. I have some rather special visitors and I’ll pay you well.’
Broad beams spread across their faces. ‘Well, if you’re sure, your lordship! Some of them fancy London folk, they say Ned’s bagpipes do hurt their ears!’
‘Ned’s bagpipes are just fine,’ said Theo stoutly, escorting them to the door. He turned back to where Jenna hovered, uncertain.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘They were dreadful, weren’t they? I—’ She broke off suddenly. ‘You’re laughing! Why are you laughing?’
He shook his head, still smiling. ‘They’re perfect,’ he assured her. ‘Inspirational, in fact!’
She was backing away from him. ‘You’re making fun of us all again. Mocking us...’
‘No!’ His hands were suddenly on her shoulders. ‘No, Jenna, it’s my guests I’m laughing at, not you!’
She’d frozen beneath his touch, but he could feel the warmth of her beneath that drab dress; could see a faint pulse flickering in her slender white throat.
‘Your guests? But—’ her voice was little more than a whisper ‘—your guests are rich, fashionable people from London, and you surely want to impress them.’
‘No,’ he said earnestly. His fingers were moving down her arms now, in an instinctive caressing movement. I’m just comforting her, he told himself. Reassuring her. ‘Listen to me, Jenna. I don’t even want them here, but I couldn’t say no.’
‘You—’
‘I don’t like Christmas. In fact, I detest Christmas—but everything you’ve done, the decorations, the food, and now this music—will mean my guests can’t get out of here fast enough! You’re—inspirational, Jenna!’
With his hands round her waist, Theo picked her up without thinking and swung her round—she was so light in his arms, so slender—then he put her down. She was trembling; he could feel it, because his hands still spanned her waist. Her eyes were lifted to his, with something he didn’t understand in their depths; her face was very pale.
She twisted from his grasp and fled from the room.
Theo sighed and slumped in the armchair by the fire with Bess at his feet. What had he done now?
Nothing, except pick her up in my arms and feel the soft slenderness of her, the delicious curves hidden beneath her ridiculous clothes. She’s done something to me that I damned well shouldn’t have allowed to happen.
Tomorrow, Lady Celia and her party would spend a brief interlude here and hurry on their way. Then he, Theo, could prepare to leave—and the sooner the better for everyone, clearly.
* * *
Jenna’s mother was sewing by the light of a candle in her room next to her daughter’s. ‘Is everything ready, my darling,’ she asked, ‘for Christmas? It will be like the old days—do you remember? Sit here beside me, and we can talk of the old days.’
Jenna forced a smile and pulled a small chair close to her mother’s. ‘You must not tire yourself, Mama.’
‘I’m not tired at all. Because everything is going to be all right!’
She talked on, in her softly accented voice, of the Christmases when Jenna was little, and of the happy times when she herself was a child in Germany, before the war came. Jenna listened, but inside her heart was a knot of pain.
To Lord Dalbury, she was nothing, but Jenna had let Lord Dalbury come to mean far too much to her. Seeing him under the water pump that day, half-stripped and splendid, had sent riotous emotions through her that she hadn’t known existed. All her emotions—all her senses—were fine-tuned to his voice, his movements. To the way he dragged his hand through his dark hair when exasperated, or burst into reluctant laughter when his irritation turned to amusement...
Soon he would leave and forget her completely. But—when he’d swung her round in his arms just now, she’d wanted to melt into his warmth and strength, and lift her face for his kiss, and beg him for...
No. Impossible!
And Lord Dalbury wasn’t her only problem. When she’d set off to Buxton this morning his lordship had ordered her to take Rob, which she did—but only as far as the North Wood, where she’d left him, despite his protests, to get on with chopping the firewood needed for the Hall over Christmas.
Soon she was regretting her decision bitterly, because on her way back from Buxton with all the food, she’d been accosted by Hewitt and a couple of his rough friends on horseback, who’d pulled out in front of her on a lonely stretch of road.
‘Well, well. If it ain’t our jumped-up little Miss Jenna,’ Hewitt had said nastily. ‘I’ve come to ask you how you’re going to pay me back for makin’ me lose my nice comfortable job!’
‘You deserved to lose your job years ago, Hewitt,’ said Jenna steadily. ‘Move aside.’
‘Or you’ll what?’ He was edging his horse closer. ‘Set his lordship on me? Then I’d tell him the truth. That you’re the local whore’s daughter...’
‘Don’t!’ she cried. ‘Don’t you dare to tell him such falsehoods about my mother!’
‘Aha! Is that the way the land lies?’ crowed Hewitt. ‘Opened your legs already for Dalbury, have you? Then I guess we’ll have to leave things alone for a while.’ He drew very near, so she could smell the stink of his breath. ‘But just wait till his fancy lordship’s gone. Then me and the lads, we’ll come creepin’ up to the Hall one night and give you a time you’ll never forget...’
‘You are scum, Hewitt,’ breathed Jenna. ‘Get out of my way.’
Hewitt pulled back his horse, laughing. ‘Just wait till your lordling’s gone. Oh, aye, just wait...’
As she drove on home she’d kept her head high. But her hands had been trembling.
No wonder her mother’s mind was fragile—for scarcely a week after Lord Northcote’s funeral Hewitt had pressed himself upon her mother and warned her that it was no good at all complaining to the authorities, because she was a foreigner and a whore.
Jenna had been a child—eight years old—but she’d remembered her mother’s terrible, terrible silence: a silence that endured for months. And she’d learned the lesson, loud and clear, that men brought you heartbreak if you loved them and ruin if you refused them.
Wait till he’s gone. Hewitt’s words sent sick shivers up and down her spine.
* * *
The next day—Christmas Eve, Aggie reminded Theo, as if he could forget—passed slowly. Jenna was quite clearly avoiding him, though he glimpsed her from time to time, busy around the house with the two Harris girls. By midday Theo was expecting any minute to see two, possibly three carriages containing Lady Celia and her companions coming down the rough road to the Hall. But midday came and went.
* * *
At two Theo ate a cold lunch. He did some more work on the estate accounts. When daylight began to fade, he started to feel—what? Relief?
No, because if they were much later, they’d have to stay overnight—a truly awful thought. Then the musicians arrived, just as he’d told them to.
‘I’m afraid I don’t need you after all,’ Theo told them.
‘You mean—you don’t want us to play, my lord?’ Joe, with his fiddle, was crestfallen.
‘No, because my guests aren’t here yet. I’ll pay you, of course.’ Already he was reaching in his pocket, handing out coins.
The festive decorations mocked him.
* * *
When Theo heard the sound of a horse’s hooves clattering into the courtyard a couple of hours later, he hurried outside to find a liveried groom. ‘Message from Chatsworth House, my lord!’
The groom held out a note from the Duke’s secretary. The Duke had received a letter today telling him that Lady Celia’s part
y hadn’t even set off yet from London, because Lady Celia’s mother had a sore throat! Talking too much, thought Theo. They would, however, commence their journey north on the twenty-sixth, spend two nights on the way and would hope to call at Northcote Hall on the afternoon of the twenty-eighth of December, if that was convenient.
Theo ground his teeth. No. Not convenient at all. He’d hoped to be off just as soon as Christmas was over and travel was feasible again. But—what could he do? If he sent a letter today, it wouldn’t reach them until after they’d set off!
Damn.
The groom departed.
* * *
An hour later Theo was sitting at the dining-room table, the steak-and-ale pie Aggie had served him going cold at his side, when Jenna came silently in.
He looked up at her. ‘They’re not coming,’ he said flatly. ‘Not for another four days.’
Jenna felt her heart jolt. That meant he would have to stay.
But—he hated it here. She could see it in his face.
‘I’m sorry, my lord,’ she said quietly. ‘To spend Christmas on your own here cannot be what you would have wished. You must be used to celebrating the festive season with all your family, all your friends—’
He interrupted her. ‘Christmas is about as enticing to me as it is to a Norfolk turkey,’ he said.
She shook her head in bewilderment. ‘As enticing...’
He pulled out the chair next to his. ‘Have you a moment?’
‘Of course, my lord.’
‘Then please—sit down.’
And he told her. He didn’t know why he told her, this woman whom he scarcely knew; he didn’t know why he should confess to her what he’d told nobody else. He hadn’t even been drinking, for God’s sake. But he told her basically how, as a child, he’d been left at his boarding school every Christmas because his father didn’t want him at home.
‘How old were you, my lord?’
‘I scarce remember. I think I was seven when I was sent away.’
She listened, her lovely face lambent with sympathy. ‘Didn’t your father love you? Didn’t your mother?’
‘My mother died when I was four. My father was busy being a rakehell, gambling away what was left of his estate. I didn’t fit in with his plans.’
Snowbound Wedding Wishes: An Earl Beneath the MistletoeTwelfth Night ProposalChristmas at Oakhurst Manor (Harlequin Historical) Page 14
