Wren was lovely despite the purple marks down the left side of her face where the strawberry swelling had been when she was a child. And she was looking more beautiful than ever these days. Alexander had lost no time in getting her with child.
“Was Christmas a happy time for you when you were a boy, Colin?” Her face turned a little wistful as she gazed into his.
He had grown up as part of a family—there were his mother and father, an elder brother, and three older sisters. Roxingley Park was a grand property where there had always been an abundance of the good things in life. The material things, that was. His father had been a wealthy man, just as Colin was now. Christmases had come and gone, even after the supposed death of Rowena, the youngest of his sisters, and the real death of his brother Justin nine years later. But he did not remember them as warm family occasions. Not like this one. Not even close.
“I am sorry,” she said. “You are looking suddenly melancholy. Aunt Megan and Uncle Reggie always made Christmas very special for me and for each other. Not like this, of course. There were just the three of us. But very lovely nevertheless and abounding with love. Life will get better for you, Colin. I promise. And you will be staying tonight. You will be here all day tomorrow and probably all of Boxing Day too.Definitely, in fact, for we will press ahead with the plans for our Boxing Day evening party even if some of our invited guests find it impossible to get here. This is going to be the best Christmas ever. I have decided, and I will not take no for an answer. It already is the best, in fact, though I do wish Aunt Megan and Uncle Reggie were still alive to be a part of it. You would have loved them, and they would have loved you.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but Alexander had caught her eye from his position behind the refreshments and she excused herself to weave her way back toward him in order to distribute more of the wassail to the carolers before they left.
Colin looked about the hall again, still feeling warm and happy—and a bit melancholy at having been reminded of the brokenness that was and always had been his own family. And perhaps too at the admission that, though he was now Baron Hodges himself and therefore head of his family, and though he was twenty-six years old and no longer had the excuse of being a mere boy, he had done nothing to draw its remaining members together—his mother and his three sisters and their spouses and children. He had not been to Roxingley since he was eighteen, when he had gone for his father’s funeral. He had done nothing to perpetuate his line, to create his own family, something more like this one. The Westcotts had suffered troubles enough in the last few years and no doubt before that too. Life was like that. But their troubles had seemed to strengthen rather than loosen the bonds that held them.
Not so with the Handrich family.
Could it be done? Was it possible? Was he ready at least to try? To do something positive with his life instead of just drifting from day to day and more or less hiding from the enormity of what doing something would entail? His eyes alit again upon the group across the hall. The young ladies had been joined by the three schoolboy sons of Lord and Lady Molenor. Winifred Cunningham, Abigail’s young niece, was with them too, as were a couple of the younger carolers. They were all merrily chatting and laughing and behaving as though this Christmas Eve was the very happiest of days—as indeed it was.
Colin felt suddenly as though he were a hundred years older than the oldest of them.
“A penny for them,” a voice said from close by, and he turned toward the speaker.
Ah. Lady Overfield.
Just the sight of her lifted his mood and brought a smile to his face. He liked and admired her more than any other woman of his acquaintance, perhaps more than any other person of either gender. For him she lived on a sort of pedestal, above the level of other mortals. He might have been quite in love with her if she had been of an age with him or younger. Though even then it would have seemed somehow disrespectful. She was his ideal of womanhood.
She was Alexander’s elder sister, Wren’s sister-in-law, and beautiful through and through. He was well aware that other people might not agree. She was fair haired and trim of figure and had a face that was amiable more than it was obviously lovely. But his life experiences had taught him to look deeper than surface appearances to discover beauty or its lack. Lady Overfield was perhaps the most beautiful woman he had ever met. There was something about her manner that exuded a seemingly unshakable tranquility combined with a twinkling eye. But she did not hoard it. Rather, she turned it outward to touch other people. She did not draw attention to herself but bestowed it upon others. She was everyone’s best friend in the family, the one with whom all felt appreciated and comfortable, the one who would always listen and never judge. She had been Wren’s first friend ever—Wren had been close to thirty at the time—and had remained steadfast. Colin would have loved her for that alone.
He had liked her since his rediscovery of his sister, but he had felt particularly warm toward her since yesterday. He had felt a bit awkward being among the members of a close family, though everyone had made him welcome. Lady Overfield had singled him out, though, for special attention. She had talked with him all evening from her perch on the window seat in the room where they were all gathered, drawing him out on topics he would not normally have raised with a woman, talking just enough herself to make it a conversation. He had soon relaxed. He had also felt honored, for to her he must appear little more than a gauche boy. He guessed she must be somewhere in her mid-thirties to his twenty-six. He did not know how long she had been a widow, but she must have been quite young when she lost her husband, poor lady. She had no children. She lived with Mrs. Westcott, her mother, at Alexander’s former home in Kent.
She had asked him a question.
“I was trying to decide,” he said, nodding in the direction of the group of young people, “which of the three ladies I should marry.”
She looked startled for a moment and then laughed with him as she glanced across the room.
“Oh, indeed?” she said. “But have you not heard, Lord Hodges, that when one gazes across a crowded room at the one and only person destined to be the love of one’s life, one feels no doubt whatsoever? If you look and seethreepossible candidates for the position, then it is highly probable that none of them is the right choice.”
“Alas,” he said. “Are you quite sure?”
“Well, notquite,” she admitted. “They are all remarkably pretty, are they not? I must applaud your taste. I have observed too that they are not indifferent to your charms. They have been stealing glances at you and exchanging nudges and giggles since yesterday—at least Abby and Jessica have. Estelle came only today after the wedding, but she seems equally struck by you. But Lord Hodges,areyou in search of a wife?”
“No,” he said after a slight hesitation. “Not really. I am not, but I am beginning to feel that perhaps I ought to be. Sometime. Maybe soon. Maybe not for a few years yet. And how is that for a firm, decisive answer?”
“Admirable,” she said, and laughed again. “I expect the young female world and that of its mamas will go into raptures when you do begin the search in earnest. You must know that you are one of England’s most eligible bachelors and not at all hard on the eyes either. Wren is over the moon with delight that you will be staying here tonight, by the way. She was disappointed last evening when you insisted upon returning home.”
“I believe the snow is still coming down out there, Lady Overfield,” he said. “If I tried to get home, there might be nothing more than my eyebrows showing above the snow when someone came in search of me. It would appear that I am stuck here for at least a couple of days.”
“Better here than there even if you could get safely home,” she said. “You would be stuck there and all alone for Christmas. The very thought makes me want to weep. But will you call me Elizabeth? Or even Lizzie? My brother is, after all, married to your sister, which fact makes us virtually brother and sister, does it not? May I call you Colin?”
“Please do, Elizabeth,” he said, feeling a bit awkward at saying her name. It seemed an imposition. But she had requested it, a particular mark of acceptance. What a very happy Christmas this was turning out to be—and it was not even Christmas Day yet. How could he even consider feeling melancholy?
“You ought to be very thankful for the snow,” she said. “Now you will not have to waste part of the morning in travel. Christmas morning is always one of my favorites of the year, if not myveryfavorite. Is it not a rare treat indeed to have a white Christmas? And has that been remarked upon a time or two already today? But I cannot remember the last time it happened. And it is not even a light dusting to tease the hopes of children everywhere, but a massive fall. I would wager upon the sudden appearance of an army of snowmen and perhaps snowladies tomorrow, as well as a heavenly host of snow angels. And snowball fights and sleigh rides—there is an ancient sleigh in the carriage house, apparently. And sledding down the hill. There are sleds too, which really ought to be in a museum somewhere, according to Alex, but which will doubtless work just as well as new ones would. There is even a hill, though not a very mountainous one, alas. It will do, however. You will not be sorry you stayed.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “I will choose to spend a more traditional Christmas in a comfortable chair by the fire, eating rich foods and imbibing spiced wine and napping.”
She looked at him, startled again. “Oh, you could not possibly be so poor spirited,” she said, noticing the twinkle in his eye. “You would be the laughingstock. A pariah. Expelled from Brambledean in deep disgrace, never to be admitted within its portals again even if youareWren’s brother.”
“Does that also mean none of your young cousins would be willing to marry me?” he asked.
“It absolutely means just that,” she assured him. “Even I would not.”
