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To Susan Huggett Williams, for all you do.
And to Ursula Vernon, the daughter I never had—
this is as close as I get to exploding carriages.
Chapter One
Yorkshire
December 1823
Dear Charlotte,
The school must be an empty place with your pupils gone for the Christmas season. I hope you have friends nearby to look in on you. A woman alone is never entirely safe.
Your concerned cousin,
Michael
No more marriage mart. That would be Elinor Bancroft’s Christmas gift to herself this year.
Ignoring the antics of her bored young cousins and their friend as the Bancroft carriage hurtled toward Sheffield for the holiday, Ellie gave a heartfelt sigh. She’d rather be a spinster at home in Sheffield than endure another humiliating Season in London. Just the thought of being launched into the social whirl again in a mere three months made her stomach churn.
Now all she had to do was convince Aunt Alys and Papa to give up on marrying her off. She frowned. That was unlikely.
“The Christmas goose at Uncle Joseph’s house is the best,” eleven-year-old Percy Metcalf told his quiet school chum, Charlie Dickens, who’d come with them for the holidays. “He buys the biggest one in town.”
“Will there be plum pudding?” five-year-old Meg Metcalf mumbled around the thumb she had stuck in her mouth. “I like plum pudding.”
“I hope we play snapdragon,” eight-year-old Timothy Metcalf said.
“I wish we could,” Ellie said, “but I doubt Papa will allow it. He’ll say snatching raisins from a burning bowl of brandy is too dangerous.”
“But snapdragon is a Christmas tradition!” Percy protested.
“If Mama lets us play it, why should Uncle Joseph refuse?” Tim said with a pout. “Stop the carriage, and we’ll tell her to convince him. I want to ride with her, anyway. Percy keeps hogging the seat.”
“If you hadn’t already driven her mad this morning,” Ellie countered, “you could be riding with her now. Let her nap—alone—and I’m sure she’ll be happy to have you and Meg back in her carriage when we reach the next town.”
After arriving in Hull by ship from London, they’d found one of Papa’s coaches waiting to take them the day’s drive to Sheffield. Business had called him to Lancashire, but he’d promised to be back before Christmas. Sadly the coach hadn’t been large enough for them all, despite the children’s nurse being delayed in London with a bad fever. They’d had to hire a post chaise just for their trunks.
“Can we sing Christmas carols?” Meg asked.
“If you want,” Ellie said. “What about ‘On Christmas Day in the Morn’?”
“Let’s sing ‘A Jolly Wassail Bowl,’ ” Tim put in. He seemed to have bowls of spirits on the mind today.
“That one’s too long,” Percy protested. “I want ‘The Holly and the Ivy.’ ”
“You picked the story yesterday—I should get to pick the carol,” Tim complained, thrusting his elbow into Percy’s side.
Percy reacted by shoving Tim, which sent Tim into Charlie, who said, “Stop that, you nodcocks!” and shoved them both. Within seconds, the rough-and-tumble boys were brawling. Again.
“Enough!” Ellie protested, leaning forward to separate them. “Stop this nonsense!”
The next thing she knew, Percy accidentally jabbed his elbow into her breast.
“Ow!” Ellie cried, and drew back.
Meg, who worshipped her nineteen-year-old cousin with a passion generally only reserved for kittens and lemon drops, threw herself into the fray. “You hurt her! Mustn’t hurt my Ellie!”
She then burst promptly into tears, which brought the fight to a screeching halt, since the boys coddled Meg as if she were a fairy princess.
“There now, don’t cry.” Percy clumsily patted her shoulder to comfort her.
“Go ’way!” Meg protested, shoving at his hand. “You were mean to Ellie!”
Biting back a smile at Meg’s fierce defense, Ellie dragged her onto her lap. “It’s all right, moppet.” She nuzzled the girl’s fragrant blond curls. “I’m fine, really. No one hurt me.” She frowned at Percy over Meg’s head. “Not much, anyway.”
Percy thrust out his dimpled chin. “I didn’t mean to poke you in the . . . you know where.”
“The bubby?” Tim supplied helpfully.
“Tim!” Ellie chided. “You shouldn’t use such vulgar language!”
“ ‘Such vulgar language,’ ” he repeated in a prissy tone, sticking his nose up in the air to mimic her. He snorted in disgust. “You’ve sure become prim and proper lately. You were more fun before you went off to that school.”
“She’s trying to catch a husband, you chawbacons,” Percy said. “That’s what they teach them at the School for Heiresses.”
Ellie glared at Percy. “Don’t call it that. Besides, they taught us etiquette and literature and science, too. It wasn’t just about catching a husband, you know.”
But it really was, and she was destined for failure. She was no beauty, like her friend Lucy Seton or Mrs. Harris, owner of the School for Young Ladies, which Ellie and Lucy had attended until their coming-out. Ellie was plain and slightly plump. Her unfashionably straight black hair defied any attempt at curling, so she had to wear it plaited in a coil atop her head.
Lucy praised her green eyes, but since Ellie’s spectacles hid them, they did her little good. She’d tried leaving the spectacles off, only to discover that it made it hard to do anything. Beauty might indeed be but “a flower,/Which wrinkles will devour,” according to Thomas Nashe, one of her favorite poets, but she would still like to have been given the flower—at least for a while.
And what did a man know about it, anyway? Nashe had no idea what it was like to lack any of the physical attributes that might attract a husband.
“What do you need a husband for?” Charlie said. He wasn’t very talkative, but he could be quite sweet. “You’ve got us to look after you.”
“Yes, Ellie,” Tim put in. “I’ll marry you.”
Arching one eyebrow, she cleaned her spectacles. “I thought you said girls were stupid.”
“But you’re not a girl. You’re Ellie.” Tim’s face brightened. “Think what jolly fun we could have climbing trees and fishing and riding to hounds.”
She flashed on an image of her standing at the altar beside the towheaded Tim while he held a fishing pole at attention, and a smile curved her lips.
“Of course, you’d have to wear something sturdier than that silly froofy thing.” Tim pointed to her redingote.
“Froofy isn’t a word,” she shot back. “And I like this gown.” It was the only one that made her look halfway pretty.
“You can’t clean fish in it, you know,” Tim remarked.
“I don’t intend to clean fish ever, not even for you. Besides, what would we live on while we’re busy fishing?”
“You’ve got a fortune, haven’t you?” Tim said with the matter-of-fact practicality of the young. “We’ll live on that.”
Her smile faltered, and she donned her spectacles to hide her sudden tears. Even Tim knew that her greatest ass
et lay in her money. At least he was honest about it, which was more than she could say for most gentlemen. Fortunately, she could spot a fortune hunter from ten paces, thanks to her training at the school, not to mention the information proffered through letters from the school’s anonymous benefactor, “Cousin Michael.” And fortune hunters were all she ever attracted.
As the richest heiress in north England, Ellie was the most eligible female on the marriage mart—and the least desired.
How naïve she’d been before her coming-out, dreaming of marrying a wildly poetic fellow like Lord Byron—but without his vexing character flaws. Instead, there’d been a steady parade of men who not only lacked poetry in their souls, but possessed the one flaw she couldn’t abide—greed. They eyed her as if she were a cow brought to market. They made her feel like a cow, too.
She’d had enough. Once at home with Papa, playing his hostess, she meant to stay there. Forever. Her aunt and her cousins would be returning to London alone.
“You’re too young for Ellie,” Percy told his younger brother with an air of superiority. “Ellie could marry me, except that I don’t mean to marry. Charlie and I mean to be soldiers, and she would just get in the way.”
Aunt Alys would never let him go off to war. Despite her sweet temper and her young age of thirty-two, their mother had a spine of steel, and her children were her life. So was Ellie, as the beloved daughter of Aunt Alys’s only sister. It had been Aunt Alys who’d urged Papa to enroll Ellie in Mrs. Harris’s school after Mama died, Aunt Alys who’d sponsored Ellie during her coming-out. She was sure Ellie would find the perfect husband in time. She wouldn’t approve of Ellie’s plan to give up on marriage.
But Ellie had been preparing for that. She’d been practicing with Lucy, learning to speak her mind and stick to her resolve. She’d never had trouble being firm with the children—she just had to learn to do it with . . . much bigger children.
The thought of children made her sigh. That was a disadvantage to her plan—she’d never have a darling Meg or a clever Percy of her own.
She clutched Meg close. Never mind that. She had her cousins and, eventually, their children. Better that than being locked in matrimony to a man who took a mistress because his wife’s only attraction was her money.
“Have you looked outside, Ellie?” Percy was watching out the window, deep concern on his plump face. “It’s sleeting.”
“What?” She pulled aside the curtain nearest her, dismayed to find the trees dripping with icicles. They had no hope of reaching Sheffield by nightfall now.
She heard Papa’s coachman, Jarvis, shout something to the postboy driving the hired post chaise ahead of them. She strained to see what was going on, but they were rounding a curve near some woods, and she wasn’t at the right angle.
Suddenly a scream sounded from somewhere on the road ahead, and their own carriage skidded. Meg was thrown from Ellie’s lap, and the boys were tossed about like matchsticks.
“Damnation!” Jarvis brought the coach to a shuddering halt, then jumped down. After securing the horses, he trudged off across the ice-scarred grass, using his cane for balance.
“Stay here,” Ellie ordered the children, then left the carriage to follow him.
Outside, she spotted the bridge where he was headed. The sleet swiftly coated her spectacles, forcing her to tuck them into her redingote pocket. Now she could barely see, although Jarvis seemed to have disappeared over the embankment beside the bridge.
A sudden foreboding seized her as she hurried after him to peer over. Jarvis picked his way down the slope, and very near the river’s rushing waters lay the post chaise, crammed up against a thick oak.
“Aunt Alys!” Ellie cried.
“Stay back, miss,” Jarvis ordered. “I can’t be having you land in the river.”
What about Jarvis? His bad leg would make it difficult for him to manage, especially now that snow mingled with the ice to form a treacherous crust over the ground. The postboy had his hands full with the struggling horses.
Jarvis hailed her aunt, but there was no answer, and panic swept Ellie.
“What’s going on?” Percy called out behind her.
She turned to find the three boys climbing from the carriage as Meg peeped out the window. “Stay right there, boys.”
“Where’s Mama?” Tim asked plaintively.
Her heart twisted to see them ranged there, all blue-eyed and blond except for the darker Charlie Dickens. They looked so small and helpless—the slender Tim pulling at his wrinkled breeches, the heavier Percy shoving his curls back with impatience, and their sickly friend Charlie, blinking at the sleet.
Should she tell them the truth? No—they mustn’t go near the river, and they surely would if they guessed that their mother was in trouble.
She marched to meet them, pasting a reassuring smile on her face. “Jarvis is relieving himself, that’s all. Get back in the carriage.”
“I’m tired of the carriage,” Percy whined. “I want to go with Jarvis.”
“You can’t!”
He eyed her suspiciously.
Desperate to distract him and the others, she said, “Weren’t we going to sing carols? Come on, let’s do ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ and ‘The Jolly Wassail Bowl.’ Meg would like that.” Trying to shoo them toward the carriage, she began to sing, “ ‘The holly and the ivy/When they are both full grown . . .’ ” until the others joined in.
Within moments the children entered into the spirit of things, but she kept glancing back, wondering if Jarvis was all right, or if she should slip away to help.
Then a voice boomed out from the road. “For God’s sake, what’s all the caterwauling about?”
Their singing died in their throats. Relieved that help had arrived, Ellie whirled around, ready to commission their rescuer’s aid.
The murky image before her struck her dumb with fear. A creature over six feet tall sat atop a massive horse, only the red of his eyes breaking the unrelieved black of his lean figure. For a second, she was reminded of Papa’s tales about strange beasts roaming the forests near Sheffield.
Then she squinted and realized that the creature was a man. An inky greatcoat enveloped him, and his ice-encased beaver hat sat perched atop incongruous raven curls. His face was black, except for where the sleet had created smears in what looked like soot. And he smelled of cinders.
A miner? It had to be. Who else would travel the roads looking like that?
She stepped forward to speak to him, but Percy grabbed her arm. “Careful, Ellie. Any chap who doesn’t like Christmas carols is bound to be a scoundrel.”
The man trotted his horse closer. “Any chap who inflicts them on passing strangers is clearly a royal pain in the a—”
“Sir!” she cried, covering her cousin’s ears against whatever profanities the man might spew in his Yorkshire accent. “There are children here!”
“Aye, and a worse place to let them run I never saw. Best be on your way, madam, before the ice makes travel impossible.” With a click of his tongue, he prodded his horse on.
“Wait, sir, please!” she cried.
When he drew up with a foul oath, she briefly considered the wisdom of involving this ill-mannered fellow, who might be a thief or worse. But Jarvis would never get Aunt Alys free without help, and the miner seemed to have brawn enough to manage that. She dared not look a gift rescuer in the mouth.
“There’s been an accident,” she said in a rush. “My aunt’s carriage went off the road—”
“Where?” he barked before she could finish getting the words out.
She pointed at the embankment, struck silent by his surly manner. He dismounted and hurried for the river. “Just keep those brats out of my way.”
Though the harsh words took her aback, she sprang into action. “Come, children,” she said, ushering them toward the c
oach.
But Percy blocked her path, his face pale. “Mama is hurt?”
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Jarvis is still trying to reach the carriage.”
“Then I have to go help!” Percy exclaimed, starting past her.
She grabbed his arm. “Let Jarvis and the stranger handle it.”
“But we don’t even know if we can trust that fellow!”
“It’ll be fine, don’t worry.” If he’d meant them harm, surely he would have already tried to take advantage of them. His gruffness perversely reassured her, especially after months in society, where the men she could least trust were always the most charming.
When Percy still hesitated, she added, “We have to prepare a place for your mother in the coach. She’ll need blankets and cushions, in case she is hurt.”
That sent the boys scurrying to arrange a comfy bed on one of the seats, while Meg shrank into a corner, sucking her thumb and crying softly.
“It’s all right, Meg,” Percy told her as he plumped up a cushion. “As soon as Mama is here, we’ll go to an inn and get chocolate, won’t we, Ellie?”
“Certainly.” Giving the boys something to do had been the right approach.
“That man called us brats,” Tim complained as he spread a blanket. “He doesn’t even know us!”
“I’m sure if he did, he wouldn’t call you that,” Ellie said soothingly as she climbed out to hunt for Jarvis’s flask of whisky. Aunt Alys might need it.
Hearing a noise, she squinted at the embankment and spotted the stranger headed toward her, carrying Aunt Alys. The postboy and Jarvis were at his heels, leading the horses from the post chaise.
“Is my aunt all right?” Ellie asked, her heart in her throat.
“She’s alive,” the man responded, “but unconscious. I think her leg is broken, and she’s taken quite a knock to the head. She needs a doctor right away.”
Ellie hurried to open the carriage door. “Is there one in the next town?”
The man leaned inside to set Aunt Alys upon the seat with an odd gentleness for a man so gruff. Then he faced her with a scowl. “As I told your coachman, you won’t make it to Hensley. It’s eight miles off, even if you could maneuver up that icy hill beyond the bridge. My house is nearby—you can sit out the weather there. I’ll send someone to fetch a doctor.”
When Sparks Fly Page 1
