A Cotillion Country Christmas

by Carolynn Carey

  “To do what? Play billiards?”

  “I mean leave Halford Hall.”

  “In this snow? I wonder if the Hulls will even get here tonight.”

  “I meant leave for good. I’m just making everyone uncomfortable.”

  Diana paused in arranging her paints, her dark brows drawn together in concentration.

  “But you are the heir. The rest of us should leave. Your father has spoken of buying a house for Lucy and Harry in the village. Certainly Mother and I have no real right to impose. We should set up our own house.”

  “Wonderful. Then my parents and I would rattle around in this mausoleum like acorns in an attic. No, I’m the one who doesn’t belong. What a time for the war to be drawing to a close. I’m no good in the cavalry now anyway but I might be able to get a political appointment. The occupation could last a year. Paris for a year, then who knows where else I’d be posted.” He stared out the steamed glass toward a future as indistinct as the white blur outside.

  Diana glared at him and shook her head. “What a lovely prospect, posted from one ague-ridden country to another. Unless you want to stand the whole time help me move this bench in front of the orange tree. The light is perfect.”

  “But I don’t want a portrait of me hanging about. I don’t even want to be hanging about in person.”

  “Feeling a little lost without your favorite occupation? Well, get used to it.”

  “I am hardly an object of beauty now?”

  She stood up and propped her hands on her hips. “So that’s it. Vanity? Don’t underrate yourself. That eye patch makes you looked mysteriously dashing and a manly scar is no impediment.”

  “To what?”

  She was going to say marriage but changed her mind. “To a normal life. You’re not as badly off as some of these fellows who have lost an arm or leg.” She started dragging the bench herself and he bent to help her, coming within the range of her perfume which reminded him of the mock orange bush in summer.

  He shook his head and seated himself on the bench. “You were never any good at offering consolation.”

  “I never had the chance. One day Harry was being measured for his uniform and you were engaged to my sister. The next morning you were gone and Harry was in the dumps. You never even said goodbye.” She started mixing her paints and the scent of linseed oil overrode the lighter odor of oranges. No matter how alluring Diana seemed, he must remember she was all business and no doubt regarded him as an older brother.

  “If you recall I was closeted with my father for several hours the previous night. I convinced him that I was the one who was army mad, that I wanted to go in Harry’s place.”

  “And not word one did we ever get out of Lord Halford, though he must have told your mother, for she did not seem at all surprised by your defection.”

  “Defection? I’ll have you know I did good work on Wellington’s staff.”

  She sighed. “Now I have offended you and we had promised not to fight. Why can’t you just take up again the life you left?” She slid a light green and yellow oil wash over the canvas, hinting at more sun than actually existed this time of year.

  “But this isn’t what was supposed to happen.”

  Diana hesitated with her brush in the air and stared into that one intense blue eye. “What do you mean?”

  “I was supposed to die in Spain and Harry was to supplant me.”

  She gaped at him a full minute until the import fully dawned on her. “Are you out of your mind? No one expected that sacrifice of you, least of all Harry. If I mistake not, he has been living in the gravest fear that he would have to step into his father’s shoes.”

  “But— Oh, just paint your picture.”

  Diana closed her lips and lost herself in the reverie of studying his face. She had positioned him so the black eye patch faced away from her. The left side of his face had always been his handsomer side anyway. She sketched in his chiseled features, that firm lower lip and prominent brow. His brown hair was unfashionably long, curling down into his collar and raking his brow in a sweep that begged to be brushed back by a feminine hand. She hoped she would be able to capture it before he had it trimmed. She felt differently about Richard now. He was still as handsome and wise as ever. But he’d been hurt and more than physically. He felt more approachable now, more reachable.

  She realized she had been wanting to paint Richard for ages. He had always seemed so strong to her, so immovable and in control. It shook her to realize that he had doubts as well and that he could be so wrong about what everyone thought. The whole family must admire him as much as she did.

  After painting a portrait of Lord Halford, she now realized how much Richard looked like him, especially that keen blue eye that seemed to read her very thoughts. She hoped Richard could not look into her head and read her mind. For she did have an idea why he had sacrificed himself.

  Five years ago she’d been doing a landscape study of the sundial behind the box hedge when Richard had come out that fateful evening with his cigar to blow a cloud on the other side of the hedge. Suddenly there was a woman whispering to him. His mother, she supposed at the time. Lady Halford must have asked Richard to take Harry’s place. It was the only explanation that made any sense and it had made it difficult for her to be kind to their hostess ever since.

  His voice, which was normally low and gentle, had been loud, drowning out the protest of the woman. “If that’s what you want, madam, then I will arrange it. I will go to Spain and Harry will remain.” His voice had been bitter and now she realized, fatalistic. He truly had not meant to come back. And she had not even said goodbye to him. She blinked away the tears and hoped he could not see her face behind the canvas. She should stop weeping for him finally. He was alive and that’s all that mattered. He still looked at her as though she was a child but she had time on her side now.

  Chapter Two

  Richard caviled at the formal clothes his valet had laid out but it was the same rig he would have worn to one of Wellington’s balls in Lisbon. So he put them on after his one grim remark. He spared himself a glance in the mirror and wondered if Diana was right. Did the eye patch make him dangerous-looking? Perhaps that’s what put Lucy off. He held the banister as he tramped down the stairs. He’d look a proper fool if he took a tumble.

  They had heard the Hulls arrive while they were in the orangery. Suddenly having his portrait taken seemed a good idea, a way of avoiding the inevitable introductions. By the time he got to the drawing room, introductions were all they had time for. Miss Hull was fair, blonde and avaricious, her brother a callow youth. The father was doting and the mother calculating. Richard thought Lord Hull was probably oblivious to the trap he was helping to lay. The man had traded livestock with his father for a decade but as far as he knew this was the first time they had stayed for the holidays. The look of hero worship in the son’s eyes could be an annoyance but at least the table would be even with the vicar in attendance, though why that mattered escaped him. It was the sort of thing his mother worried about.

  Vicar Dean was seated beside Ellen Tierney and someone had shifted places so that Diana got his blind side and Olivia was to his left. Poor Diana faced young Hull who kept bringing up the war. Since he never rose to the bait, Diana always answered for him and in enough detail for him to realize she had made an intensive study of all the newspapers. Now, why?

  The dinner was interminable. Almost as soon as his mother rose to lead the ladies out, he excused himself to have a smoke. When he returned he caught Diana coming down the stairs with some sheet music.

  “This is unbearable, to have survived the Peninsula and be run to ground in my own house by a fortune hunter and her sharp-eyed mother.”

  “What are you babbling about?”

  “Miss Hull.”

  “She’s not that bad but I fancy she is here for my sake rather than yours.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Her mother commissioned a miniature of
her and she has neglected to pay me these six months. Now she wants a portrait.”

  “And?”

  “And I will refuse the commission since they didn’t think enough of my first rendering to pay me.”

  “And then what?”

  “She will have to pay for the portrait in advance.”

  “Will that work?”

  “Why not? Young Colin is a loose cannon though. Ride with me in the morning. I must try to avoid him.”

  Richard felt himself on the point of laughter after two minutes conversation with this impossible girl. “Perhaps we can rescue each other.”

  “Sitting for me doesn’t seem such a waste, now does it?” She strode toward the drawing room looking back over her shoulder in a self-assured way. She was not trying to be seductive but she was all the same.

  “But how shall we get through the next three interminable hours?”

  “Music.”

  By rights they should take a groom with them when they rode tomorrow for propriety, but they never had before. What was so different now?

  Not to Richard’s surprise, Lucy was missing from the drawing room. She had not looked well at dinner.

  “Are you going to sing for us, Diana?” Lady Halford asked.

  “Oh, no, Lucy is our songbird but I will play and anyone who wishes can sing. Perhaps Miss Hull would honor us?”

  “I have nothing prepared.”

  “This is just a country house party, not a musicale. No one will gossip if we two make a few mistakes. Perhaps a carol.”

  Miss Hull did one carol by herself and when her soprano faltered in the final chorus, Diana chimed in with her supportive alto. After that she convinced them all to sing and Richard felt a strange thawing of his heart. Perhaps he could stand to live here if only this lively girl would stay put. She had always made life fun, ever since her father had died and the living at the vicarage had to be awarded to someone outside the Tierney family.

  As he sang the well-remembered words to “Good King Wenceslas” he reminded himself Diana was not a girl. Her figure was still small and lithe but something had changed besides her bosom. Her mouth was kissable now and her eyes deep and dark with emotion. Of course hers was religious fervor at the moment and his was…what? Lust? Obsession? He cared about this child, had thought of her a hundred times in the past half decade. He’d thought that if he died, at least Harry would be good to her. But something else was going on inside him now and he wasn’t sure it was a good thing. He was far too jaded to be anything to this child other than a friend. He must drive her from his mind if he was to get any sleep tonight. Perhaps a decanter of brandy would numb the effect of her.

  * * * * *

  Diana glanced at the morning sun glinting through the arboretum windows and then at the clock. She put her brushes to soak, threw a cloth over the unfinished canvas, then stripped off her painting smock as she ran up the stairs. She had ten minutes to change from her morning dress into her riding habit or she would be late. When she finally arrived at the stables, she said, “You have the horses saddled already,” as though she had been taking her time. “But three? Who is coming with us?”

  “A groom.”

  “Why?”

  “In case your small mare flounders in the snow he will be able to help rescue her.”

  She shrugged, stepped up onto the mounting block and hopped on unassisted.

  Richard glared at her show of independence. “I wanted nothing to hamper our exit.”

  “I fear it is for naught. They all seem to be late risers so we may have spent our one excuse to escape while they are all abed.” She trotted her mare down the drive, trying to decide which way to go in this snow. More had come down overnight and she did not want to ride her mare into a drift as Richard predicted she might.

  Richard caught up to them and she noticed how much quicker Timber parted the drifts than her mare. The groom trailed behind at a distance so they need not mind what they said to each other.

  “Still it is good to be out,” he said. “The sun is shining. The snow has stopped and it looks like we may not be trapped here the whole holiday season.”

  “You really don’t mean to leave do you?” She had to look up to Richard on his taller horse.

  “To tell you the truth, Diana, I have no idea what I am going to do. But I can’t go on like this.”

  “A bolt to London then? There’s no one there but you would be closer to the war news.”

  “Father would never forgive me. Besides I have you to worry about now.”

  “Me? What are you talking about?”

  “Yes, surely we can find you a better match than young Hull.” He winked at her and he turned right onto the road.

  So he meant to ride toward the village. “He is my age but so immature.”

  “Still my parents did invite him for you, so they must be trying to marry you off.”

  “Your mother knows better than to interfere in my life to that extent and why would she after all these years?” She had to ride behind him so his larger horse could break trail for her until they came to a more traveled part of the road. Since she hated shouting she held silent for a bit, wondering if she should let Richard worry about her welfare. If it kept him at Halford Hall it might be worth the aggravation. Besides it was sweet of him to care. Finally she was able to trot up and ride abreast him. “Something else is bothering you. What is it?”

  “I wish it were not me to tell you but Father has confided that Vicar Dean has offered for your mother.”

  “What? Mother getting married after all these years. But she likes being a widow.”

  He failed to smother a laugh. “I hope you don’t say things like that in front of other people.”

  “And she has accepted him?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “When did all this happen? Why didn’t she tell me herself?”

  “Sometime during the caroling and probably to avoid a scene.”

  “Oh, bother. Now I will have to hire a traveling companion.”

  “Or stay here at Halford Hall.”

  She smiled at his hopeful tone. “It is a beautiful retreat but not a place where I can be long content.”

  “So I am right in thinking there is some constraint between you and Mother worse than the one between me and Father.”

  “Constraint? She has always been very kind to me.”

  “But you are not close.”

  “Only because she has always favored Harry over you.”

  He reined in his horse and stared at her. “I am not aware of it.”

  “I am.” There, she had said it when she had never intended to make that accusation. She rode on past him.

  “It’s because he’s always been so accident-prone. He needs more looking after. If he had gone to Spain…”

  Diana was watching the sun overtaken by a bank of clouds. “He would have died the first year. Whereas you thrived.”

  “Thrived? Well, I survived.”

  “It can’t be easy for you living here with Lucy after the way she jilted you.”

  “I feel no awkwardness attached to the situation.”

  “But she certainly does.”

  “That surprises me. We were never formally engaged.”

  “Really? Mother thought you were. She said it had been spoken of in the family for so long it was inevitable.”

  “But I never actually asked her to marry me.”

  “So that’s why you left for the Peninsula? So you would not have to ask her?”

  He snorted. “I had my reasons for going. Avoiding Lucy was not one of them.”

  Diana turned to stare at him but her attention was caught by Harry riding hell-for-leather toward them along the road.

  Richard swung his good eye toward the hoof beats. “Now where does he think he’s going?”

  “He must be riding to fetch the doctor. We had better start back.”

  “Maybe I should go with him. He is liable to break his neck or the horse’s t
he way he is going.”

  “Nothing would annoy him more. He is a man, not a boy and much more steady now that he has Lucy and the children to worry him.”

  “You make me feel so old.”

  “You should never have had to worry about Harry the way your mother did.”

  “So all those broken limbs and bloody falls he took as a child should have been of no concern to me at all.”

  “Nor this present start. Lucy always has false labor long before the babe is due.”

  They made a loop through the sheep pastures and around to the top of the hill, Timber breaking trail with ease the whole way. The swish of the horses’ tails, the squeak of their hooves in the snow and the jingle of the bridles was the only sound for many minutes. At the top of the hill, the sun burst from behind the clouds and lit the fields like acres of diamonds.

  Richard turned to her. “You should paint this.”

  “Impossible to capture.”

  When they got back to the stable and handed their horses over to the grooms to walk, Diana was glad they had ridden. The new snow seemed to wipe out past mistakes, to cover old wounds and scars. If only Richard thought so as well.

  As they walked back to the house she said, “You caused your father far more concern by being in the army five years than Harry ever has.”

  “And my mother. Yes, I know.”

  “It’s strange but I thought she was the one who wanted you to go instead of Harry.”

  He stared at her. “Never. She didn’t want either of us to go. She begged me to stay but Father had already negotiated the purchase of a commission.”

  Diana stopped so abruptly he ran into her and almost fell up the steps.

  “I thought you were in a hurry to get to Lucy.”

  She turned to him. “No, just to ease Mother’s mind I must be present. Lucy never asks for me. I doubt I would be any help or comfort for her. But you were never army mad. If not your mother, who…”

  “Who what?”

  When they entered the long hall on the first floor her mother strode toward them. “Diana, there you are. Please see if you can mind the babies, Diana. The governess had leave to go to the village and she is not returned. I have to be with Lucy.”