A Matchmaker's Christmas

by Donna Lea Simpson

  There was general laughter.

  Chappell said, “Lady Silvia, I do believe you have hit on a truth. In this case, perhaps we should be interpreting what the tokens might mean to our true history and future?”

  “Not fair,” Vaughan said. “Tradition, and all that, you know. Besides,” he said, holding up a coin, “I got another sixpence. I prefer to think my next Derby wager is going to come in and land me the big payoff.”

  Beatrice gazed blankly down at her plate.

  “Miss Copland, you are quiet,” Chappell said. “What have you found?” When she didn’t answer, he leaned over the table. “Ah,” he said, with a knowing grin. “You have gotten the ring. Does that not mean an imminent marriage?”

  “So, Beatrice, are you going to be leaving me?” Lady Bournaud chuckled.

  Mrs. Stoure, usually silent except when sitting with her friend, spoke up, “If she does, you know I shall bear you company, my lady.”

  Beatrice looked up. “What have the rest of you got?” she asked, her eyes bright.

  “I, like Verity, have got a thimble,” Lady Bournaud said. “Lord knows, I would not know what to do with a husband at my age, so this is an enormous relief.”

  There was general laughter, as it was discovered that Mrs. Stoure had another of the plentiful sixpence. Finally Chappell said, “We have not heard from Lady Silvia yet. What have you got, my lady?”

  The girl frowned. “How odd. I do not remember ever finding this in a pudding before. This must be one of Cook’s innovations.”

  “What is it?” Verity said, leaning over and peering past the enormous silver epergnes.

  Lady Silvia held up the pretty silver piece. “It is a cross.” She glanced at Rowland and colored. “A silver and amber cross, as if off a necklace.”

  • • •

  It was later, and the company was gathered in the red saloon. Lady Silvia had fashioned for each lady, as a gift, a holly hair ornament. She had not omitted even Mrs. Stoure, who looked regal at the piano, with a spray of holly tied with gold ribbon in her silver and black hair.

  Lady Bournaud, comfortable near the fire with a new scarlet lap robe—knit by Beatrice—over her legs, watched the company with sleepy eyes. They played at silver loo for a while, but then Sir David rose and stretched his legs.

  “I do not know about the young people, but that heavy meal has made me sleepy. Therefore I suggest we all dance!”

  Beatrice felt treacherous heat rise in her cheeks. He had said there would be dancing, and he would instigate it himself, clearly. She watched him lean over and speak to Mrs. Stoure at the piano, and set to work with the gentlemen rolling back the heavy carpet from the broad open space between the fireside grouping and the instrument.

  Any tensions among the company seemed to have evaporated with Sir David’s determined good cheer. Rowland and Vaughan laughed together as they huffed and puffed to get the heavy carpet pushed to one side far enough and the furnishings safely stowed.

  Mrs. Stoure struck up a cheery Sir Roger de Coverley, and Rowland grabbed Beatrice’s hand and took her into the line as Vaughan took Lady Silvia and Chappell paired with Verity. More enthusiastic than skilled, half the company was very good and half very bad, but no one watching would have cared which was which. Lady Bournaud had awoken from a very brief nap with the sounds of the merriment and she clapped happily.

  It was an inspiration, and Sir David, with all the diplomatic skill of his considerable career, steered the company through a country dance, a mazurka, and finally named a waltz as a good way to catch their breaths. Somehow—no one apart from Sir David seemed to know how—Vaughan and Verity were paired, Lady Silvia was on Rowland’s arm, and Sir David claimed Beatrice, bowing to her deeply.

  “I told you there would be dancing, and that you would owe me a waltz,” he said, his eyes sparkling with light from the candelabra. This was the moment, he thought. All his life had been moving toward this, the one perfect night. After her confession of the previous night, and then sleeping and awakening with her in the red saloon, Chappell had been thinking of little else. Was it truly meant to be?

  But he was sure. Beatrice Copland, née Gordon, would be his wife. He took her in his arms and they swept around the floor. She was not too sure of the waltz, as in her only Season it had not been danced yet, and she had had precious little opportunity in all the years since for lighthearted enjoyment.

  He would change all that; he would take her to London and she would sparkle, her wit, intelligence and grace making him proud of his new wife a hundred times a day. “Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked softly.

  She glanced around the room at the couples and the candles and Lady Bournaud smiling on them all. “I am,” she said. “Thank you for your part in all of this.”

  “Young people must always want to dance,” he said. “I remember when I was twenty . . . but we did not have such a marvelous invention as this waltz then, nor even when you made your bow.”

  “No.”

  He led her, as they whirled, to a quieter corner just beyond Lady Bournaud’s seat. Beatrice looked up at him with a question in her eyes, but when they stopped twirling, he answered it by pulling her closer and kissing her gently.

  “My dear, I do not think I can imagine going on, going back to London and to work and life, and leave you here.”

  She said nothing, her eyes wide and sparkling in the dim light from a wall sconce.

  “Beatrice, my dear, I cannot imagine any part of my life without you. Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but lowered his face to hers and pressed her lips, tasting her with hunger surging through him. This was the moment he had been waiting for.

  Chapter Twenty

  Beatrice tore away from Chappell and stood staring at him, shaking her head. Then, without another word she raced away; he could hear her footsteps in the hall and then up the staircase.

  “What in heaven’s name is wrong with her, Davey?”

  Lady Bournaud’s forceful words brought him back to where he was, standing gape-mouthed and staring off at the doorway. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, go after her!”

  Chappell strode from the room, through the chilly great hall and up the stairs, but as he approached Beatrice’s suite, close to Lady Bournaud’s room, he slowed. Had he mistaken what was between them? Was the kissing and closeness of the previous night just the emotional detritus left over from a lifetime of guilt for her? He could not think it was so, but why would she run from him when he only wanted to be with her?

  He lingered by her door. If he had expected to hear a storm of tears or wailing, he would have been disappointed. There was no sound at all, and perhaps she was not even within, but had retreated to some other part of the house. In the end he was puzzled and left her door without knocking. But he could not return to the red saloon. He strode off down the hall toward the library and liquid solace.

  • • •

  Lady Bournaud, noting Verity’s pale, drawn face, called an end to the Christmas festivities. Besides, Silvia and Rowland were getting entirely too close for her liking, and there was no reason to let that happen now. Lady Silvia must leave for her home heart-whole so she could make an eligible marriage with someone of her own station. And she would not have Rowland hurt, not if she could help it.

  She could send them all off to bed, but she could not control their movements once there.

  • • •

  Lady Silvia, unable to sleep, stole to her door and opened it, looking down the dimly lit hallway both ways. Satisfied that there was no one to see her, she slipped out and tiptoed down the chilly hall, pausing before one door. She put her ear closer to it.

  Weeping. Hmm. She would have thought this was Miss Copland’s door, but a woman of the companion’s age would surely not be crying. She shook her head and tiptoed further, stopping by a door directly beside the servants’ staircase.

  This was it, she was sure of it. She tapped on the
door. A muffled voice said either “come in” or “go away,” she could not tell which, but chose to interpret it as a summons. She opened the door and quietly slipped in, closing it behind her securely.

  The room was so dark! There was only one taper lit, and it guttered fitfully on the table by the gloomy full-tester bed. Hesitantly, Silvia took one step forward, and then another. There was a figure sprawled across the bed, but no movement.

  Making her way across the room, she approached the bed and whispered, “Are you awake?”

  “Mfmm,” was the only answer, but it was enough.

  Silvia climbed up on the edge of the bed and tucked her toes underneath her snowy nightrail. “We have to talk. We must make a plan. Neither one of us is happy, but I hope at least one of us can find that elusive goal. It is within your own hands to reach out and grab happiness, you know.”

  “What the devil are you talking about?” Verity Allen rose from her prone position and stared at Silvia.

  “I am talking about the future!”

  “My future,” Verity said, “is going home, to Canada. Spring shall see me on a boat leaving Bristol.”

  Silvia, her lips primmed into a straight line, tried hard not to laugh at the sight before her. Verity had not changed from her dress, nor had she altered her hair. So her holly crown was askew, leaning drunkenly over one ear, and auburn tresses stuck out at odd angles. Finally, giggling, Silvia said, “You look a sight. Here,” she continued, her competent fingers pulling the holly from its tangled nest. “Let’s make you at least a little respectable.”

  Verity waited, glancing up at her new friend, who knelt over her, making her tidy. “What brought you down here?”

  “Told you,” the younger girl said through a mouthful of hairpins that she was removing from the Christmassy hair ornament. “Time to figure things out between us.”

  Verity was silent. When Silvia was done, she tossed the holly ornament onto the table and sat back down on the bed, curling her toes back up under her nightrail.

  Seeing how cold she was, Verity pushed a blanket over to her and threw it around her shoulders. “Don’t want you to freeze,” she said gruffly.

  “Time for confessions,” Silvia said, staring at Verity. “How do you feel about Lord Vaughan?”

  The other girl shrugged.

  “He asked you to marry him and you said no.”

  “Didn’t ask, commanded! And only because I had been compromised. Sounded dreadful, like I had been spoiled or disfigured. He must nobly save me from a fate worse than death.” Verity put one hand to her forehead in a languishing pose, like a Gothic heroine, and fell back on the bed.

  Silvia giggled and pulled the blanket around her shoulders. “No, truly though. It is just us. You can be honest.”

  “Don’t know how I feel,” Verity said, still lying on her back and staring up at the lofty heights of the ancient bed tester. It was a monstrosity from hundreds of years before, dark wood and carved.

  “Yes, you do,” Silvia said impatiently. “How does he make you feel?”

  Sighing, Verity pushed herself up onto her elbow and stared at Silvia. “I like him when he is nice to me. He came all the way out alone to find me, only to spend the first five minutes yelling at me about what a fool I was.”

  “He must have been terribly worried. He gave the other men the slip and went out alone. I think that is noble.”

  “Idiotic, really. Wouldn’t he have kicked up a fuss if I had done the same thing!”

  “What did you do all night? What did you talk about?”

  Verity sat up. “Didn’t talk all night. We kissed for a great deal of it, you know.”

  Silvia, astonished, stared wide-eyed at Verity. “You kissed all night?”

  “Vaughan said it was just to keep warm, you know. Didn’t mean anything on his side.” She sighed. “Though it was mighty pleasant, I thought. Made me feel . . . tingly. Prickly.”

  “He told you it was just to keep warm? You idiot, why would it keep either of you warm if you didn’t . . . if he wasn’t . . . well, if you didn’t feel something for each other. Dolt.”

  “Are you saying—”

  “I am. Both of you idiots are in love with each other, and neither of you willing to admit it. Stubborn dolts!”

  Verity shook her head. “He favors girls like you. Pretty. Sweet-natured.”

  Silvia stared at the lovely young woman in front of her. “You are far more beautiful than I am. Striking. You’ll age well, where I shall look like an apple doll when I am old, all pudgy and wrinkly.”

  “Doesn’t matter anyway. Even if we did love each other, marrying him would mean staying in England, and, not to be offensive, I don’t think I could stand that.”

  Silvia was silent.

  “What about you? You fancy the reverend, don’t you?”

  Tears threatened, but Silvia would not end their lovely Christmas day with weeping. She sniffed them back. “I think I have fallen in love, and you know, I meant to be so sensible about love. I thought I could control it.”

  “But he’s mad about you, too. It is quite plain.”

  “Do you really think so? He is so reticent, and I can’t really tell how he feels.”

  “It’s obvious. He maybe just needs a shove in the right direction.”

  “No, he’ll never ask me to marry him. Nor will he ever tell me how he feels, if he does love me. There is no hope for us, you see, and he is too honorable to lead me into a declaration of love when both of us know it can never be.”

  “But why?”

  “Verity, you have been here long enough to know the answer to that.” Silvia drew her knees up and laid her head on them.

  “Money?”

  “Wealth, yes, but position, too. Mark is not titled, nor does he have anything but his pay as vicar. He has made it clear that when he weds it will be to a suitably industrious young lady. A squire’s daughter, or merchant’s daughter.”

  “That makes no sense at all, when you both are mad about each other. You’ve got pots of money; what’s stopping you from living on that?”

  “It is only my money at my father’s discretion,” Silvia explained patiently. “My father can provide or withhold my dowry. Besides, Mark would never be able to live like that, viewed as a fortune hunter. And I could never ask him to.”

  Silence fell in the gloomy room.

  Silvia spoke again. “Funny, you know, if I had fallen in love with Lord Vaughan and you with Mark, things would have been so simple.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Verity said. “Seems to me nothing about this love stuff is ever simple.”

  • • •

  Lady Bournaud’s room was comparatively bright, lit with a dozen candles and a blaze in the hearth. She would not sleep for hours yet, she knew from long experience. She had napped during the evening, her need for sleep now, at eighty, limited to short bursts.

  Her elderly maid was much the same, which was useful in the middle of the night when one needed a tisane or a chat. She tried not to abuse that, though, as Partridge was willing but sometimes not able to get up and down the stairs as in the past.

  This time, though, it had been a message the woman carried, and that just down the hall. A summons, really, not a message. There was a tap on the door, and Sir David entered without waiting for an answer.

  “There you are, my boy,” she said affectionately. Davey was the closest thing she had ever had to a child of her own, and she loved him dearly, thinking he was the brightest, the best, the smartest. Almost deserving of her darling Beatrice.

  He kissed her cheek and sat up on the edge of the bed, taking her hand in his.

  “You’re not dressed for bed yet,” she said.

  “I was working. I brought papers with me and more came by post. The business of our country never rests, my lady.”

  “Well, it is in good hands,” she said, looking down at theirs, linked.

  “You do me too much credit. I am still just a minor bureaucrat in a complex w
eb.”

  “And that is why you were given a knighthood,” she said with a scoffing tone.

  “That year they were giving out knighthoods like sugarplums, my lady.”

  “You are too modest. But I did not call you here for idle chat. Did you find Beatrice?”

  He frowned down at their linked hands. “I did not look for her.”

  “Why not?”

  He sighed. “Much has happened between us that you do not know about, but suffice it to say if she does not wish to marry me after what we have been to each other, then there is nothing further to say. I am too old to beg.”

  “Goose.”

  “Her or me?” he said, startled.

  “Both of you. Plain as day you are meant to be together. Reason I tricked you into coming up here.”

  “I ought to be very angry with you about that, but I am not. Curiously enough, it has helped me make peace with the past. And I hope it has done the same for Beatrice.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Chappell felt sure that Beatrice’s story was safe with Lady Bournaud, and that it would help the old girl understand her reticent companion, even if nothing further ever happened between him and her. And so he explained everything.

  “Poor girl,” Lady Bournaud muttered, tears in her rheumy eyes. “I never knew. Strange the workings of fate. An elderly relative of your father’s was how I first heard about Beatrice; I think I told you about that. I suppose that is how she met you those long years ago in London; you and Melanie were on her list as contacts in the great city.”

  “Ah, yes, I had forgotten about that.”

  “But why? Why is she so guilt-ridden?”

  Chappell stared off at the hearth. “I have been thinking of it all day. You know her better than I. Does she not expect rather a lot of herself?”

  “Always. Everything she does must be perfect, you know. Unfailingly kind to the staff. They answer to her now, not me, which suits both of us. One of the reasons, given your diplomatic position, I thought she would make you the ideal wife.”