Ghost of Christmas Past

by King, Rebecca

  “I am sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said and hesitated in the doorway.

  “You are not interrupting Thea,” John replied with a smile. He patted the bed beside him. “Come on over here and join us.”

  Realising that she would have to face Rupert at some point during the day, Thea left the doorway and slowly made her way across the room. As she approached Rupert pushed to his feet and moved around the bed toward her.

  “I take it that you are feeling better this morning?” She asked her uncle. She tried hard to keep her face impassive but couldn’t resist a sneaky peek at the man she had just spent a rather spine tingling night with.

  “You aren’t interrupting, Thea,” Rupert replied with a smile. “I am just asking your uncle if he is aware of anyone having any ill feeling toward him, that’s all. I have just finished my turn on watch and left Marcus to it. I have to go out to meet with my boss, but I thought I would just pop in and check up on a few things before I leave.”

  Thea nodded and studied her uncle closely. He was without doubt the kindest, sweetest man Thea had ever met, aside from Rupert of course. She couldn’t conceive of anyone having any ill regard toward him and that opinion was reaffirmed by Rupert’s next words.

  “It appears that your uncle was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “The bullet was meant for you,” she added quietly and turned to look at him. She felt slightly awkward and unsure of how to react to his presence. She didn’t want to be overly familiar with him, not in front of her uncle at any rate, but couldn’t ignore the fact that he had spent last night in her bed.

  Rupert seemed to have no qualms however and moved to stand so close beside her that he put a large hand on her waist in a natural gesture of affection that drew the attention of her uncle who thankfully, chose not to mention it. “I am off to the War Office to meet with my boss, but will be back later this afternoon,” he murmured quietly to her. He turned to John. “There is no knocker on the door so you should not have any visitors other than the doctor for the time being.” He turned to Thea. “Until then, please be careful and remember what I said about sitting in the window seats.”

  Thea nodded and felt slightly bereft at the thought that he wasn’t going to be in the house with them.

  “What about you though?” She turned to study him and couldn’t keep the worry off her face.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If the bullet was meant for you, aren’t you taking a horrible risk by leaving the house? I mean, won’t you be safer staying inside too?” It was on the tip of her tongue to demand that he not leave the house, but she knew that she couldn’t. Besides, Rupert wasn’t the kind of man to cower under anyone’s threat. Her suspicions were proven correct when he smiled gently at her and placed a gentle kiss on the back of her hand.

  “Thank you for your worry about my welfare. It means a lot to me that I should matter so much to you.”

  “Of course you do,” she burst out only to gasp when she realised what she had revealed. His smile merely grew wider and he seemed almost pleased with her outburst.

  “Please don’t worry about me Thea. It is what I do.” He glanced from her to John before turning his attention back to her. “There are several men watching the house and they will look after me when I leave. Don’t worry, we are all perfectly safe.”

  “Were they around last night?”

  Rupert knew what she was asking and gave her a warm look of intimacy that made her blush. “Yes they were. They had the description of the coach that passed the house the night that John was shot. My colleagues will have followed it but I won’t know what they have found until I go and meet with my boss.”

  “I am sorry. I am being a worry-wart. It is just that after -”

  “I know,” Rupert murmured quietly. “I do understand. I will tell you what they found out, I promise. Meantime, you can help us by keeping yourself safe and finding plenty of things to do that don’t require you going out of the house at all for the time being.”

  John frowned a little at the shimmering tension that had started to grow as soon as Thea had entered the room. Had they had a falling out? He couldn’t quite make his mind up if it was angry tension or anticipation but, if the studied way Rupert was watching her was anything to go by, there were lingering issues between his niece and Rupert that they needed to sort out. Rupert looked as though at any moment he was going to throw Thea over his shoulder and drag her back to his cave and, if the wary look on Thea’s face was anything to go by, she knew and wasn’t quite sure whether to run screaming or surrender.

  John was starting to feel like the odd one out. “I was just telling Rupert that I am going to see if I can sit before the fire for a while today. I have a new book that I purchased a few weeks ago and should like to make a start on it.”

  Thea nodded and took the opportunity to try to break the hold Rupert had on her. He seemed to have her in a trance that she couldn’t break out of. She stepped back a little and sucked in a deep breath in an attempt to steady her shaken world before her uncle’s declaration registered on her senses.

  With Rupert due to go about his Star Elite duties, and her uncle reading by the fire, what was she supposed to do to wile away the hours? She had been given only a few scant hours to pack and had not thought about anything more than bringing the essentials. She hadn’t stopped to consider the frivolities like sewing, mending or reading material. Now that she couldn’t leave the house, she couldn’t shop, so what else could she do?

  He seemed to sense her disquiet and the reason for it. “I know that it is going to be a little boring for the time being but, as soon as we can identify the person reasonable and the reason why they shot your uncle we can measure the level of risk to you and you may,” he held a hand up, “- and I mean may, be able to go on a trip out somewhere. Until then, avail yourself of your uncle’s library. If there is anything you would like me to pick up for you while I am out, I am happy to do so, otherwise I will take my leave and see you both later.”

  Thea assured him that she didn’t need anything right at that moment and watched him quietly leave the room. It seemed empty without him, and she turned to her uncle with a frown.

  It wasn’t the morning after the night before that she had been expecting but then she wasn’t entirely sure what she had been expecting. She had at least anticipated waking up in her lover’s arms, but then he had his work with the Star Elite to do. It would be folly to leave everyone in the house at risk because he was busy holding Thea in bed, and it was entirely selfish of her to expect him to focus his attentions on her when there was a potential killer on the loose.

  “I take it that you two have started to settle your differences?” Her uncle’s voice broke into her thoughts and she turned to look at him. It took a moment for her to absorb what he had just said.

  “Differences? If we had any differences, yes,” Thea replied with a sigh. “He seems so different to the person he was back then.”

  “He will be, Thea. He has joined the army and been to war, and it has made a man out of him. We have all changed, Thea. All of us.”

  “You? How?”

  John sighed deeply and patted the side of the bed. When she perched on the edge he carefully picked her hand up in his and studied the fragile bones for several minutes while he gathered his thoughts.

  “I played my part in keeping you two apart. Although it was what you wanted at the time, I don’t mind admitting to you now that from the very moment I agreed to prevent him from seeing you I have often wondered if I made the right decision. Now that I have met him again and seen the man he has turned into, a small part of me cannot help but wonder whether it is better that things have turned out as they have. I don’t know if you would have been all that happy with the man he was back then.”

  “I know and completely agree. With Frances around, and the marriage based on contracts, I think that we would have been doomed from the start.”

  “I know, but
if I hadn’t supported your desire never to see him again after the accident, you would at least have been able to talk and he wouldn’t have vanished off to war.”

  “I don’t see that talking would have solved anything after the accident, uncle.” Thea tried to keep her voice calm but he had touched on a nerve that was still very raw and she still struggled to contain the wild surge of emotions that even thinking about that difficult time always brought her. “There were too many people in our relationship.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that I believed that Rupert was in love with his mistress, Barbara Penbury. Not only was everyone talking about it, but I heard confirmation of it from him the night before the wedding. I had decided not to go through with the wedding but, on the morning itself, I just couldn’t bear the thought of embarrassing him by leaving him standing at the altar, so found myself on the way to the wedding even though I had no intention of actually saying ‘I do’.”

  “Was that why you sent me the note? Did you not intend to go through with it?” John demanded in a voice that was stronger than he really felt. He shifted impatiently on the bed and fought to keep the concern off his face. This was the first time they had ever opened up the subject and he didn’t want to let the moment end until they had matters out into the open.

  He had nearly died from the bullet wound and had lain for days waiting for her to arrive, not even knowing himself if he would live to mention his regrets to her. He just wished Rupert could be there to talk with them about it because he felt fairly certain that the man needed to hear what was being said.

  “I didn’t know what I was going to do to be honest with you uncle.” Thea sighed and tried not to think too carefully about that fateful carriage ride. “I sent you the note in case I found myself walking up the aisle and unable to say the words I needed to say when I was in front of the vicar. I was pressured and horrified, and knew Rupert wanted to be with someone else. Unfortunately, by refusing to marry him, I would have incurred the wrath of Frances and Isaiah, and would have left myself wide open to being cast of Weatherby, or most probably forced into marriage to someone else. You know what their financial situation was at the time; they needed funds and were quite prepared to trade me so they could live their profligate lifestyle. They would not have taken my refusal to marry well. I sent you the note because I had nowhere else to go if I couldn’t go through with it. I would have needed your help to get out of the church.”

  John sighed and stared at the ceiling. “I would have done everything possible to protect you as much as I could, even from your own father, Thea, you should know that. It is my fault that you were forced into marriage in the first place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  John dropped his gaze to hers and patted the back of her hand. He took a deep breath and knew that what he was about to say in the next few minutes would either make or break their relationship.

  “I mean that my relationship with your father had always been strained to say the least, you know that.”

  Thea nodded. “Father was always griping about you because he was jealous of your success.”

  “Well, after the last major confrontation with your father, I went my own way and made my fortune. Unfortunately, your father inherited Weatherby and the estates. Well, I don’t need to tell you about your parents’ penchant for living beyond their means and doing everything they could to social climb. They would stop at nothing to entertain with the finest foods and wines just to show that they could, in spite of the fact that they couldn’t afford it. The estates were plundered basically. Gnawed down to the bare bones, and yet Isaiah and Frances still wanted more. Your father mortgaged the property to the point that the banks were threatening to foreclose. At first he came to me for a loan, but I refused. He had been less than hospitable toward me over the years and I could see no reason why I should accommodate his thirst for status far beyond his means. He was a laughing stock in London, purely because of his bad investments and debts he was struggling to repay. I do not need to tell you that Frances’ social climbing only alienated her to the upper echelons of the Ton.”

  “I think it is safe to say that they were endured,” Thea sighed sadly.

  “It never spilled over to you. Everyone knew how atrocious your parents were but you were different. You were more like me,” John argued. “I was happy to let your father sink Weatherby into the ground. I planned to eventually buy the place off him at a ridiculously low price, throw him out on his heels and turn the estate into a profitable business again just to show him that I could. That was my plan at any rate. However, Isaiah began to make noises around Whites that he was looking for a husband for you, only it had to be a husband of repute, not some dissolute wastrel, and there was a contract in it for anyone who came forward.”

  Thea felt physically sick at the thought of her own father touting her around the clubs of London, and fought to keep the tears at bay while John spoke. They began to trickle down her cheeks anyway as horror swept through her at just how close her future had been to complete ruination.

  “God, I am sorry, Thea.”

  Thea gave him a shaky smile and swiped at her cheeks. “No, it is alright. I have to hear this.”

  John knew she was right. A movement at the door caught his attention and his gaze landed on the shadowy figure visible through the small gap between the door and the frame. He knew that it was Rupert, and briefly contemplated asking him to come in and join them but suspected that Thea would be less likely to keep talking if she knew that he was there.

  “I knew Rupert’s father from my childhood. Our parents had hunting lodges near to each other when I was growing up and we used to spend a lot of the hunting seasons together. Rochester and I were at White’s when your father mentioned he wanted to marry you off to a reputable suitor and that contracts were on offer if anyone came forward. I told Rochester that I couldn’t stand the thought of you marrying any disreputable old sod your father summoned up and some of the people he mentioned you to were three times your age, and then some.” He mentally winced when Thea went pale.

  “God, I never realised just how low they would stoop,” she whispered.

  “I know. He was unstoppable and wouldn’t listen to reason when I told him that he was merely embarrassing himself. He ignored me of course and seemed completely ignorant of the reasons why nobody came forward to snap up his generous offer.”

  “It was because of you.”

  “I had enough clout with most people to warn them off. At the time, Rupert’s father, Rochester was worried about Rupert’s affections being engaged by that awful Penbury woman. She was just as bad as your parents; everyone loathed her and she was as much a social climber as your mother. Unfortunately, Rupert didn’t seem to see it, or didn’t mind the fact that she had latched on to him. Whatever the circumstance, nobody in polite society liked her but she always seemed to turn up anyway. When rumours started that he was going to offer for her,” John sighed and gave Thea a pointed look. “I have no proof about that by the way. However, when the rumours started that he was going to offer for her, Rochester began to fret that the wretched woman would become part of the Samuels family.”

  Thea actually felt the penny drop. “You got together,” Thea replied softly with no hint of rancour. “You, match makers that you are, sought to solve both of your problems by bringing us together.”

  John nodded. “I hated to see how Frances and Isaiah treated you. The things they said about you were so unfair, so unlike the Thea I knew and adored that when Isaiah started bandying you around town like a piece of meat, I had to step in. I put it to Rochester that we could resolve both of our problems if we got ourselves involved. He approached Isaiah and sorted out a contract whereby the Weatherby estate would become your husband’s property on your marriage, and in exchange Isaiah and Frances would have use of the Dower House and a large stipend each month. The marriage would align their branch of the Weatherby family with the Samuels family an
d elevate them socially, which fed Frances’ thirst to be better than she really was.”

  Thea groaned and shook her head. The Samuels family were centuries old and were known as haute Ton. She could just imagine Frances’ avaricious nature being fed such a prospect as to join such lofty ranks if Thea married Rupert. No wonder she had been so determined that the marriage go ahead.

  “By drawing up such a contract, Rochester could ensure that Rupert married someone who was more his age, who he could have a future with and who would provide him with children. You would be given a loving home of your own far away from your parents. Although your parents didn’t know it at the time, Rochester had no intention of associating with them in polite society. His affiliation was toward me, and I was not going to have any of it. They may have prevented me from seeing much of you as you were growing up, but I was going to be damned if they would stop me seeing you as often as I wanted to once you were married. Rupert was going to be sat down and made to listen to all of this after the wedding. Even back then he was sufficiently averse to your parents that he would have protected you from them, you should know that Thea. Whether he wanted to be married to you or not is something that you need to discuss with him but, as your husband, it was his duty to protect you from harm, even if that meant from your own parents.”

  “Rochester was going to help.” It wasn’t a statement.

  “He was more than happy to. You were to be a welcome addition to the family.”

  “So Rupert was supposed to take over Weatherby house and we were to reside there,” Thea sighed with a frown. The thought of living so close to her parents was something that still made her uncomfortable even though they were no longer around.

  “Rupert would have protected you, Thea. He was your husband and it was his duty to do so.”

  “Not if he was in London with his mistress,” Thea retorted vehemently. “He would have been down here and I would have been up, up, up there with those two.” She shuddered at the thought and realised then that the marriage might have solved Rochester’s problem and indeed John’s with regard to the Weatherby estate, but it would have done little to benefit her or Rupert, who would have gone back to London and his mistress.