Goodwill for the Gentleman (Belles of Christmas Book 2)

by Martha Keyes

  Alfred stared at his mother for a moment, then looked out the windows to the foggy abyss beyond, his brows up.

  Emma followed his gaze, smiling slightly at Alfred’s reaction to his brother’s behavior. She found it very odd herself—one needn’t even step out of doors to get a taste of just how cold the temperatures were. The draft coming in through some of the windows and down the chimneys was chilling. She had also heard Lady Dayton speaking to the housekeeper about delaying the washing of linens, as there wasn’t enough access to unfrozen water.

  If Lieutenant Warrilow had left the house on Emma’s account—to spare her interaction with him—she would feel awful. Particularly if he were to come to any harm while away.

  If only she had left London a day earlier or perhaps insisted that her father himself take the engagement gift to Alfred and Miss Bolton after the holidays.

  But it was hardly useful to dwell on what ifs. She was at Norfield, and she had agreed to act toward the lieutenant with as much goodwill as she could muster.

  Emma stared at a blank spot on the painted wall, standing still as her maid did the last fastenings on her evening dress.

  Dinner wasn't for another two hours, but Lady Dayton had kindly asked if Emma wanted to assist with the Christmas decorations, to which Emma had responded heartily in the affirmative. They could begin the decorations, sit down for dinner, and then continue decorating in the drawing room while they awaited the men.

  Lieutenant Warrilow still hadn’t returned from his expedition out of doors, a fact which worried Emma more than she cared to admit.

  The maid’s voice broke in on her thoughts. “I brought some of the clippings of the boughs from below stairs, Miss. I was wondering if you would like me to put some in your hair perhaps?”

  Emma smiled and assented. She could always trust her maid to make her hair look precise.

  The room smelled of pine, and, with the fire in the grate, she felt a pang of sadness. Christmas Eve wouldn't be the same this year, missing out on decorating her own home with her family. The Warrilows certainly wouldn’t celebrate on the same scale Emma was accustomed to, but knowing she would be able to help with whatever decorations they did have was comforting. There was something enchanting about the smells and feelings of the Christmas season.

  Joan stuck a last pin in Emma’s hair, asked if she needed anything else, and then left the room. Emma lingered in front of the mirror for a moment, tweaking one of the pine clippings which protruded from the simple knot in her hair.

  She stared at her reflection critically, consciously smoothing out her furrowed brow. Lieutenant Warrilow had doubted her ability to treat him kindly, and for some reason, it had grated her to hear him say it. He had said it as if it were a conscious choice she was making rather than the natural, inevitable result of his deplorable conduct toward Lucy.

  And then he had smiled down at her, and she had found herself smiling back—not a forced smile as part of the truce they were making, but one of shared amusement.

  It had confused her, the thread of kinship linking them in that brief moment, even as her conscience convicted her of disloyalty to Lucy and volatility in her sentiments.

  She would have to make an effort to look at him with Lucy’s charity rather than the rancor that had characterized her feelings toward him for so long.

  A large gusty chill enveloped her at the base of the stairs, making the hairs stand up in the small patch of bare skin between her gloves and her sleeves. The sounds of a commotion in the entry hall met her ears, and she went toward it, her curiosity winning against the desire to make her way as quickly as possible to the nearest fire.

  “If we can get it through this doorway, I think we shall have no problem afterward. It was unwise to pass it through with the top first.” The voice of Lieutenant Warrilow carried through the entrance hall, drifting in on the icy breeze. His voice was husky, as if under exertion.

  Overcome with interest, Emma peeked through the doorway to the entry hall.

  The front door was open, letting in a glacial draught which slipped around a man whose face was covered by a large scarf. He held the bottom end of a snow-dusted tree, while Lieutenant Warrilow held the top end with his uninjured arm. They took two more steps in, and the man at the tree base lowered his end, reaching to close the front door behind him. Lieutenant Warrilow removed one of his supporting hands, rotating his shoulder.

  Mouth open and eyes wide and blinking, Emma stared, backing up a pace.

  Lieutenant Warrilow turned at the sound. His nose and eyes were red, and he met Emma’s gaze with an unreadable expression that seemed to carry some hesitation.

  “What are you doing?” Emma blinked twice and looked down, realizing how uncivil her words sounded. “I am sorry,” she said, shaking her head in embarrassment. “I only meant to ask: is this what you have been doing all day?” Surely there was another reason for the tree than the one that first came to mind.

  Lieutenant Warrilow chuckled lightly, turning away to pull the tree further into the entrance hall. “Yes. It is what I believe your family would call a Christbaum.” He looked at it with a critical eye. “Though I admit it is in a sad state. The heavy snowfall has made all the pines and firs on the property droop pitifully.”

  Emma’s eyes slowly traveled to the tree without actually seeing it. “I think we are the only family in the county who follows such a tradition.”

  Lieutenant Warrilow set the top of the tree onto the floor below, removing his hat with a heavily-gloved hand and stepping toward Emma.

  His brows furrowed, and his lips pressed together. “I didn’t want you to have to forego anything simply because you are forced to spend Christmas away from your family.”

  Emma felt her eyes sting, and she blinked furiously, swallowing to suppress the emotion welling up.

  Lieutenant Warrilow watched her, and his hand moved toward hers before dropping to his side. “I have upset you,” he said softly.

  Emma shook her head, staring at the tree and the servant who stood next to it, chafing his hands and pointedly avoiding her gaze. “No,” she said. “Of course not. I simply don’t know what to say.” She looked up at the lieutenant, noting how his eyes gazed down at her in concern.

  Whenever she had thought about him since he’d left to war, she had imagined him with cold, calculating eyes, not the warm and attentive ones that looked down at her now. Her imagination must have rewritten her memory to conform to her opinion of him. Had he changed? Or was her opinion wrong all along?

  She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself as a chill ran down her spine. “What were you thinking, going outside when the world is frozen over? Particularly after you prohibited me from leaving the house.” She raised one brow.

  His face relaxed, and he laughed, loosening the scarf which was wrapped around his neck. “I didn’t prohibit you,” he said. “I merely requested that you not attempt a journey in this weather. But if you must know, I was thinking partly of my own sanity. I can’t abide being cooped up inside for too long. One of the effects of sleeping in a tent for three years, I suppose.”

  Emma smiled, still feeling bewildered. Her inclination was to express gratitude toward him. He had gone significantly out of his way to cater to her feelings. But how was she to square this behavior with what she had come to believe of him? This gesture was far and above what she’d had in mind when she suggested a truce.

  And why did she find it so hard to simply thank him? She couldn’t remember when anyone had done something so thoughtful for her—or at such a cost—and yet, her pride flared up whenever she tried to form words to express her thanks.

  What had she become that she couldn’t do such a simple, civil thing? Hadn’t she been the one to suggest that they put aside their differences for the time being?

  She looked up at him, at the brown eyes that watched her with none of the malice that she had harbored toward him for so long. She thought of her flippant comments to Lucy about him not coming home
from the war—this man who had just ventured into the frigid cold to cut down a Christmas tree so that she would feel more at home.

  “Thank you,” she said in a soft voice, her hands placed over her stomach, as though she needed to keep in the mess of thoughts and emotions swirling around inside her.

  He nodded gently. “It was my pleasure.”

  Emma felt out of her depth, deprived of the resentment which had for so long given her a sense of direction and grounding. She felt rudderless without it as she faced the lieutenant and his unaccountable kindness.

  “I should be helping your mother to decorate,” she said suddenly, glancing down the corridor behind her toward the drawing room. “Thank you again, lieutenant.” She turned on her heel and walked with quick steps, anxious to put distance between herself and Lieutenant Warrilow.

  She had prepared herself to set aside her feelings about the lieutenant’s past actions, to look past them for a few days. In her mind, the truce had been an act of shifting her feelings from full view to a safe but temporary hiding place behind her, much like a magician might do, only to take them up again, unchanged, once she knew she would not be tainting the otherwise-joyful reunion of the Warrilows.

  She had not anticipated that those feelings would begin to crumble through her fingers, leaving her hands grasping for the familiar but now-elusive shape she had come to know through years of handling it and inspecting it.

  She pushed open the drawing room door, feeling a gush of warmth on her skin and the scent of pine meet her nose. A fire crackled in the grate, and Lady Dayton sat in front of a table covered in garlands and fruit and boughs.

  She looked up at Emma’s entrance and her mouth stretched into a large smile. “Ah, there you are. Come help me with this, my dear. I can’t seem to make these branches cooperate.”

  Emma walked over to where Lady Dayton was surrounded by the makings of a kissing bough, the tabletop littered with needles from the evergreen clippings and holly, which she was trying to arrange into an orb.

  Emma took the branches from her, working deftly to interweave the prickly holly branches with their bright red berries into the sphere of pine.

  Lady Dayton looked on in admiration. “Thank heaven I had Mrs. Howell get all of this in town a few days ago, or else we should have nothing at all to decorate with. Don’t worry, though,” she said with a mischievous grin. “I took care that it shouldn’t be stored in the house—the last thing I wish is to bring bad luck upon us. It took three of the servants to push the kitchen door open so that Mrs. Howell could bring it inside this morning.”

  The drawing room door opened, and Lieutenant Warrilow stepped halfway into the room. His mouth broke into a wide smile upon seeing his mother. “Mama,” he said, his voice still slightly breathless.

  She stood up, two pears rolling onto the floor from her lap. “There you are! And safe!”

  “Of course I am,” he said with a teasing grin. “I left you under strict orders not to worry yourself over me.” He looked around the room. “Where would you like us to put it?”

  Lady Dayton followed his gaze around the room. “Put what, my dear?”

  He disappeared for a moment only to reappear, hoisting a large fir tree so that it stood straight, a full head taller than he. “This,” he said. “Your Christbaum.”

  Lady Dayton’s eyes widened, unblinking. “Good gracious! Is this what you were doing?”

  Hugh smiled and nodded, hoisting the tree further into the room where he set it against the wall and rested for a moment, his breath coming quickly and slight crease in his brow as he pressed on his shoulder.

  “But...” Lady Dayton said, fumbling over her words, “whatever for?”

  Emma felt that it was time to step in and explain. “It is my fault, my lady. My mother has always insisted that we follow her family’s German traditions for Weihnachten. This”— she nodded toward the tree —“is one of those traditions.”

  Lady Dayton’s eyes shifted to her son, resting on him with warmth and understanding. “Ah, of course.”

  Lady Dayton eagerly entered into the spirit of the Christbaum, asking Emma what was to be done with it and how it was to be decorated. She seemed particularly pleased upon discovering that it was to be lit with candles.

  Soon enough, Alfred and Miss Bolton arrived on the scene, and having had the presence of the large tree explained to them, the group began decorating the tree and the room together. Spirits were high as the lieutenant and Alfred tried to rally the group in singing long-since forgotten carols and as Emma instructed the group on how to decorate a Christbaum properly, channeling Oma’s precision and opinionated guidance from years ago.

  Emma hardly regarded the little twinge of sadness she felt at being absent from her own family’s festivities.

  She offered to take a small wreath of holly and ivy to the front door, where she shivered as she hung it, glancing at the snow which glittered in the moonlight. Upon her return, the sounds of merriment coming from within the drawing room greeted her, and she paused on the threshold to admire the scene.

  Miss Bolton and Alfred were working together, their heads close, as they placed boughs of evergreen above the fireplace, interspersed with candles and apples. Lady Dayton was laughing, a hand covering her mouth, as Lieutenant Warrilow draped a garland around her shoulders—one that matched the wreath he had placed on his own head like a crown. He twirled her around, and they laughed as the wreath fell down over his eyes.

  Was this the man Lucy had fallen in love with? The one who went out of his way to make Emma feel comfortable? Who made his mother laugh and dance? The one whose grave countenance broke into a smile until he was hardly recognizable?

  But then where was the man who had left Lucy heartbroken and alone? The one who had done it without regard for the shame she would face—the whispers and stares; the pity? The one who had the audacity to ask Emma for a dance after jilting her sister?

  Surely that man was there somewhere, but Emma was finding it harder and harder to recognize any vestige of such a person in the lieutenant she was coming to know.

  6

  Hugh stepped into the breakfast room on Christmas morning with a skipping heartbeat. A night of decorating with his family and Emma had given him more hope than he dared allow himself. He hadn’t thought it possible to see Emma smile in his presence, much less smile at him. But she had.

  And yet there had also been moments of disappointment—moments where he saw a trace of anger rekindled in Emma’s eyes. She never treated him uncivilly—apparently, she took her part in the truce seriously—but he had recognized easily enough whenever the shift in her mood had occurred, when her good humor had taken on a more forced quality.

  His mother had seemed not to notice, though. She had looked to be in a state of blissful contentment, having her two oldest sons with her for the first time in years.

  She had taken to the idea of the tree with great vivacity, and Hugh had watched her with enjoyment as she presented decoration ideas to Emma, who laughed appreciatively and explained what ones were most commonly seen on the Christbaums of her youth, when her grandmother had been alive to direct the affair properly.

  Hugh had caught himself more than once, holding a decoration suspended as he watched Emma take each folded paper flower from Miss Bolton and place them carefully between the boughs of the tree. Her cheeks were becomingly flushed, and her light brown hair glinted in the light of the fire and candles, reminding Hugh of the gold ornamentation he had seen in many of the Spanish cathedrals he had seen while on campaign.

  As he had watched Emma patiently teach Miss Bolton how to cut and fold paper into the likeness of a rose, he had felt eyes on him. Alfred’s gaze was trained on him with an evaluative expression, but he turned away after catching eyes with Hugh.

  Hugh’s neck had infused with warmth, and he had adjusted one of the candles in the window frame incrementally, avoiding his brother’s gaze. Had Alfred seen through Hugh—guessed at the state of his
heart?

  No one but Hugh knew the precise reasons behind his refusal to marry Lucy. It had been inconceivable to most—abandoning a long-expected match between the two oldest in families with neighboring lands, both of genteel means and amiable dispositions.

  When asked by his father to account for his inexcusable behavior, Hugh had only apologized and maintained his position obstinately.

  He had second-guessed himself a hundred times since then, regretting the heartache he had caused. He hadn't realized just how intense Lucy’s feelings had been, and he hated to be the cause of her agony—strange as it was to think he could evoke such emotion within someone. If she had truly known him, she would not have felt such strong attachment to him.

  But time and time again, he ended in asking himself the same question. What was more honorable: meeting the expectations of society by marrying someone in name while his heart belonged to her sister? Or causing misery and heartache for a time while ultimately freeing her from a future of pain and disappointment with a man she had wrongly exalted, one who would be fighting against his heart’s wishes in secret?

  Besides his father, Hugh was the last one to the breakfast table, and the conversation was focused on the expected events of the day. The cold had not abated, nor had the fog lifted. Where the day would normally be spent receiving tokens of appreciation from their tenant families, there was little likelihood of it this year, given the weather.

  “I can only imagine,” said Emma, “how the villagers must be faring in this frigid weather.” She shuddered lightly, her hands cupped around her hot tea.

  Hugh looked at her thoughtfully as he sat down and placed his napkin on his lap. He had been so caught up in the situation with Emma and in Alfred’s predicament that he hadn’t even thought of the effect of weather on the tenants. It seemed selfish and silly now; irresponsible, even.

  “I know of one house,” he said, “that is particularly ill-equipped to guard against cold like this. Unless improvements have been made since I was here last?” He looked to Alfred who shook his head.