Regency Christmas Wishes (9781101220030)

by Layton, Edith; Jensen, Emma

  Charles raised his face to the storm, remembering how the uncertainty had returned again and again, gradually changing into an obsession. Oh, fool, fool! Why could he not have been content with the riches Fate had poured into his lap? He’d had everything, but had thrown it away because he was too immature to appreciate his good fortune.

  With a heavy heart he gazed ahead, wishing the crossing was over and done with, for he longed to rest his head on a pillow and sleep. After eating, of course. As he looked at the island, something suddenly occurred to him. The charmless postilion had been paid for his trouble, and the luggage already taken across to the Retreat, or so James had assured him, so it was a little puzzling that there were still no lights at the lodge. “James, shouldn’t there be lights on the island?” he shouted above the storm.

  “The servants are probably dozing in the kitchens, sir,” the footman called back between the grunts of pulling on the oars. “They’ll be hoping no one’s going to arrive at this late stage.”

  “How can they hope that if all my luggage has arrived there?” Charles’s voice was buffeted by the storm.

  James didn’t reply, but glanced over his shoulder to be sure of navigating the frail craft to the upstream side of the jetty, where another rowing boat tugged at a mooring rope. With a skill and dexterity born of years of practice, the footman edged to the jetty, and quickly grabbed another rope. Pulling mightily on it, he forced the rowing boat alongside the wooden structure. “Best jump while you have the chance, sir!” he yelled, straining to keep closed the gap between boat and landing.

  Charles obeyed without thinking, holding the lantern as carefully as he could as he scrambled thankfully onto the wet, slippery planks.

  “You go on up to the lodge, sir, while I make things secure here,” advised the footman.

  “Don’t you need a little help?”

  “No, I can manage well enough,” James reassured him.

  “As you wish.” Tugging his top hat low, and hunching his shoulders against the wind, Charles began to hurry along the jetty and on to the blessedly firm grass of the island. Something made him pause and look back, and to his astonishment he saw James reaching over to untie the second rowing boat. Then, with the other craft tied firmly to the stern of his own, the footman calmly pushed an oar against the jetty, and slid downstream on the current for a few yards before he was able to use the oars again.

  Dumbfounded, Charles stared after him, so surprised that for a moment he couldn’t move. Then he ran back onto the jetty. “Hey! What are you doing? You’re marooning me here!”

  “Lady Marchwell’s orders, sir,” James shouted back. “She said something about being your fairy godmother.”

  Charles was obliged to cup his hands to his mouth as the two boats edged farther and farther away. “I don’t give a damn what she said, I order you to come back here this instant!”

  “Happy Christmas, Sir Charles!” the footman yelled back a little cheekily.

  “Damn your insolent hide! When I get my hands on you next, I’ll—” But there was no point in elaborating upon the intricacies of James’s punishment, for the footman was almost out of earshot and clearly didn’t care anyway. He obeyed Lady Marchwell and only Lady Marchwell.

  Incensed that Juliet’s aunt should play such a trick upon him, Charles stood there in the windswept darkness. Well, she wanted to avoid the revival of old scandals, and this was one way of achieving it. With him safely on the island, her entertainment at the big house could proceed serenely without unwelcome interruption. The absence of lights at the Retreat now began to assume a different meaning. Dear grandniece Rebecca and her entourage had probably never been expected, therefore there weren’t any servants on the island, and if he wished to eat he would have to wrestle with the store of Durand’s canned food that he hoped was still kept in the kitchens. If not, he would be reduced to a diet of bottled fruit until her ladyship saw fit to set him free. Dear God, he was hungry enough to eat a mountain of the hottest curry Madras could provide, but he’d settle for anything to fill the yawning pit in his stomach. Resigned to his fate, he began to walk up the gently sloping grass toward the dark outline of the fishing lodge.

  Back at Marchwell Park, Lady Marchwell was using a spyglass to observe proceedings on the river from the window of her private apartment on the second floor. She smiled as James left Charles stranded on the island, and only straightened from the spyglass as the latter’s lantern began to bob slowly up the island lawn toward the Retreat.

  “Oh, Jack, I do hope I’m doing the right thing,” she murmured to the magpie on her shoulder, and the bird tilted his head to one side, as if listening. “I could not in conscience stand in Charles’s way, even though I know how Juliet feels. After all, a Christmas wish is a Christmas wish, is it not?”

  “Chak-chak.” The sounds were uttered sympathetically.

  “I know you understand,” she said with a smile, and put a hand up to touch the bird’s glossy plumage, but Jack fluttered down onto the window ledge and tapped at the glass. “You want to go out?” Lady Marchwell said in surprise. “But it’s hardly the night for a little stretch of the wings.”

  He tapped the window again and fixed her with his single eye, so with a shrug she leaned forward to open the window. “Very well, off you go, sir, but don’t you get up to any mischief, do you hear? Stay away from the Retreat, for I doubt if your presence will be welcomed.”

  With a staccato volley of cries, the magpie launched himself into the windswept night.

  Charles continued to make his way toward the lodge. How many times had he walked here in the past? How many times hand in hand with Juliet? Refreshing spring days of new green leaves and daffodils; lighthearted summer days of love, sunshine, and roses; crisp autumn days of gossamer and Michaelmas daisies; and joyful winter days of snow, Christmas, and holly berries. Yet here he was, lonely, cold, and empty, trudging through a vile December storm to a cottage orné that was also lonely, cold, and empty, and all without the guarantee of being able to see Juliet. Some Christmas this promised to be.

  Magpie chattering echoed through the air behind him, and Jack descended from nowhere to flutter onto his shoulder. The bird dug his claws into the greatcoat’s costly astrakhan collar, then huddled close to Charles’s head, as if to shelter beneath the brim of his top hat.

  “What are you doing out here?” Charles muttered, in half a mind to brush the bird away, but then taking pity on the shivering bundle of black-and-white feathers.

  “Chak-chak.” If a magpie could sigh, then Jack did.

  “The same to you,” Charles muttered. “Well, in spite of Lady M’s assertion to the contrary, it would seem you do indeed go abroad at night, but at least you’ll be company of a sort for me, I suppose, and if she forgets I’m here, I can always eat you.”

  “Chak-chak.”

  “Aha, my friend, you think I’m joking, but I’ll have you know that spitted magpie is a great delicacy.”

  Snowflakes patted Charles’s face as he continued toward the fishing lodge, and he marveled that he was actually glad of the bird’s presence. “You can be Man Friday to my Robinson Crusoe,” he informed the bird.

  As if not thinking much of the role expected of him, Jack uttered a loud squawk and flew off again. Charles did not see where.

  Meanwhile, Juliet continued to slumber on her warm sofa. Memories of Charles had slipped away, and she heard nothing as a log shifted in the fireplace and sent countless bright sparks up the chimney toward the stormy heavens. A glowing pinecone rolled onto the hearth and lodged against the polished brass fire screen just as Jack came to perch beside her. The empty chocolate cup rattled a little in the strong draft of the magpie’s wings, and Juliet sat up in confusion, still trammeled with sleep as she pushed her hair back from her face. “Jack? What on earth are you doing here?”

  “Chak-chak.” The bird shuffled around the table, then quite deliberately pecked at the cup until it fell over. Thankfully the costly Wedgwood didn’t sha
tter, but Juliet distinctly heard an odd tinkling noise, as if there were something small and metallic inside. Puzzled, she moved the cup, and there, shining in the firelight, was her long-lost wedding ring! Thunderstruck, she was about to pick it up when suddenly it vanished, and so did Jack.

  With a gasp Juliet awakened properly. The cup was standing as she’d left it, and she knew the magpie had never been there. She had been dreaming. Tears sprang to her eyes as she realized her wedding ring had not reappeared after all. Oh, eeyot, eeyot . . . Fighting back the tears that were always so close at Christmas, she got up and went to her bedroom.

  6

  Charles paused before stepping up onto the verandah that encompassed the entire ground floor of the Retreat. What he’d said so bravely to Lady M about staying here was one thing, the qualms of the secret Charles Neville something else entirely. Juliet had seemed to be everywhere from the moment he set foot on the island. She sighed through the trees, trod the grass beside him, or watched from the jetty. Now it was as if she were hiding in the lodge, peeping from a darkened window, dreaming in the bed they had once shared, or perhaps waiting reproachfully behind the door through which he must enter.

  Guilt, as immediate and painful as it had ever been, had him in its grip as he made himself go inside. The small lobby was lit only by the faint glow of a fire that had been banked up for the night and protected by a screen. His eyes, already accustomed to darkness, immediately perceived that nothing had been changed since last he was here. Even the Christmas decorations were arranged the same way, bunched and festooned as Juliet had always liked them. The red-tiled floor was scattered with finely woven rush mats, and the whitewashed walls still boasted the same dreamy Thames fishing scenes, the river caught forever at moments of late summer sunset.

  His glance returned to the fire, for the fact that it was lit at all suggested to him that Lady Marchwell had not fibbed about guests having been expected. He was relieved, for that meant there was bound to be more to eat than Durand’s cans or bottled fruit. Oh, to enjoy a fine rare beefsteak, a liberal dollop of Tewkesbury mustard, and a chunk of fresh crusty bread, all washed down with a brimming tankard of sharp cider from his family’s Somerset orchards. How he had dreamed of that particular meal, which was what had been set before him at the harvest supper the night when he first realized he was in love with his childhood friend and neighbor, Juliet.

  Well, best to alert the servants to his presence, he decided, entering the drawing room where he knew there was a rope-pull that rang a bell in the kitchens. Firelight danced here, the flames for some reason not banked as in the lobby, and as he strode toward the rope that hung beside the mantel he was conscious of the much-loved room around him. There was also a sweet perfume in the air. What was it? Chocolate? Yes, that was it, the delicious fragrance of chocolate recently consumed from the cup on the table by the fireside sofa. How impertinent of Lady M’s servants to not only drink such a costly beverage at her expense, but to do so in the drawing room out of her best Wedgwood!

  Reaching the fireplace, he jerked the rope, then held his hands to the fire. He yawned, the long day on the road, to say nothing of the months of travel since quitting Madras, suddenly catching up with him. He removed his greatcoat and tossed it over the back of a nearby chair, then sat on one of the blue-and-white sofas to tug off his boots, there seeming little point in ceremony. That done, he glanced around. His reflection glanced back at him from the mirror panels on the walls, reminding him of how strange it was to be here again, where there had once been such happiness, laughter . . . and love.

  He loosened his neckcloth and shirt, and removed the wedding ring on its purple ribbon. The gold shone in the firelight, and the metal was warm from his body. Drawing it to his lips he kissed it gently, vowing that heaven and earth itself would be moved in his efforts to replace the precious band of gold on Juliet’s finger. Still holding the ribbon, he put his head back and closed his eyes. It vaguely occurred to him that the servants were an unconscionably long time answering his summons, but sleep was overcoming him swiftly now. He yawned again, then again, and before long he was in a deep slumber.

  He didn’t hear distant church bells greeting midnight, nor did he see the leap of candlelight as a sleepless Juliet came downstairs to make herself a drink of hot milk in the kitchens. She didn’t look into the drawing room as she passed the door, and soon there was no movement in the lodge as the estranged husband and wife slumbered separately. They were as unaware of each other’s close proximity as they were of the storm dying away outside, nor did they see the silver light of the Christmas Day dawn steal across the heavens.

  Stillness settled over the countryside as snow began to fall in earnest, covering everything with truly seasonal white. But a certain magpie was not asleep. Far from it. Finding his way in through the ill-fitting space between washhouse wall and eaves, he fluttered at leisure from room to room, perch to perch, checking this and that, to be sure all was as it had been when last he was here. He soon came to the drawing room, where his acquisitive gaze was drawn as if by a magnet to the wedding ring Charles still held as he slept.

  A pensive glint entered the magpie’s eyes, and not even a tiny sound passed his beak as he glided quietly to the sofa. For a longing moment he eyed the decanters on the table, but he knew an impossibly tight stopper when he saw it. No amount of pecking would shift either of these, so her ladyship’s sherry and brandy were safe enough. After deftly disentangling the purple ribbon from Charles’s fingers, the bird held it tightly in his beak, and flew off with his loot. He searched high and low in the lodge for a suitable hiding place, and when he found it he congratulated himself on his cleverness, although to be sure he ended up more or less back where he started, and might have saved himself a great deal of wasted effort.

  A mixture of bright sunshine and magpie din aroused Charles the next morning. Jack was in fine feather, squawking loud felicitations as he shuffled obviously around the sherry decanter, hoping that as a measure had been put at his disposal the night before, the same might happen again now.

  “The first tot of the day, eh?” Charles murmured, tugging the virtually jammed stopper free. There wasn’t a glass to hand, but the Wedgwood cup was still there so he used that instead. “God rest ye merry, Magpie,” he said as he got up to stretch.

  The groan of his stomach reminded him that food was now a much more pressing problem, and he had better rectify the situation tout de suite if he wished to physically survive this Christmas, if not mentally. It was then that he noticed the fire had gone out, leaving just ashes in the hearth. If it weren’t for the sunshine flooding in, the room would be cold. What were the damned servants about? If they’d come to his call last night they certainly hadn’t awakened him, and now they had omitted to attend the fire. He listened for a moment, expecting to hear something that might indicate the activity of a housemaid. But there was nothing, except for the busy tapping of Jack’s beak in the Wedgwood.

  Frowning, Charles went to jerk the rope-pull, but just as his fingers closed around it he caught sight of the reflections in the mirror panels, and froze. There in the doorway, staring at him as if at a ghost, was Juliet. She was wearing a fur-trimmed emerald green cloak over a crimson merino gown, and her hood was raised over her pinned-up curls. It had been her intention to walk in the sunshine and snow, instead she had been arrested by what she saw in the drawing room. Lips parted and eyes wide, she could only stand there.

  He was equally robbed of wit, but at last managed to face her properly. “Juliet, I—” Instinctively he took a step toward her, but she recoiled.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  “I need to see you.” He feasted his gaze upon her. How little she had changed, but how little encouragement there was in her eyes . . . He felt a fool, standing there bootless, in crumpled clothes, his hair an uncombed thatch that probably made him look half wild. What must she think?

  “Why have you come?” she asked again.


  “I came because I love you, Juliet. You are all I’ve thought of these past six years.”

  She hesitated, a flush of color touching her cheeks.

  “Can we at least talk?” he begged, sensing that she was within a heartbeat of turning on her heel.

  Somehow his words decided her against him. “If you imagine you have me cornered here you are very much mistaken. The servants may have been dismissed for Christmas, but I am quite capable of returning to Marchwell Park on my own. Aunt M will have you thrown off her land.”

  She fled before he could answer. Her little ankle boots sounded on the lobby floor, then the main door slammed, the noise resounding through the lodge as if through a castle. In spite of having anticipated her flight only moments before, Charles was caught completely off guard, so dumbfounded that for several moments he couldn’t move. Then he was galvanized into action. “No, Juliet, you can’t get across the river!” he shouted, grabbing his boots and hopping around frantically as he hauled them on. Then he snatched his greatcoat from the back of the chair and ran after her, still putting it on.

  The cold air caught his lungs as he dashed outside and over the snow-covered lawn. He could see her ahead of him, her green cloak flapping to reveal the crimson gown beneath. Her hood had fallen back, and her brown curls had fought free of their pins. “Juliet! There isn’t a boat!” he shouted.

  But she took no notice, and in another minute had reached the jetty, where she stopped in confusion as she found no boat. Charles ran on to the jetty just as she tried to leave, and she lost her balance. With a frightened scream she teetered above the swift gray Thames, and would have fallen in had not Charles’s hand shot out to seize her wrist. He pulled her back from the brink, and crushed her into his arms.