Just a quick note, sister, as John is in a rush to return. He tells me the Abbey is being transformed for the holidays and oh, how I wish I might see it! You must write and describe every last detail, promise, for then I shall be able to picture it perfectly. He says there is even mistletoe hung about. Make sure you’re not caught and kissed. Though I should like to be kissed someday. Every girl ought to be kissed once before she marries, don’t you think?
Charles harrumphed. Not a good sign Ellie was penning words about kissing.
But enough silliness. Father sends his love and best wishes for Christmas, not in so many words but in my translation. You understand. I shall make our little dinner here the best it can be, and a far better dinner than last year’s, thanks to you, sister. We grow round here now, I swear I’ve put on weight. John says it suits me, which made me blush that he should notice. But never fear, I’ve not made eyes at him. Though he is easy on the eyes, I admit. I am allowed to look, am I not? I can see you frowning as you read this, Charles, but I shall not be made to feel guilty for merely looking at a man. There. I can be stubborn, too.
Yet John is watching from the door and eager to be off. If you cannot come till January we shall simply look forward to you then. I love you, Charles, and miss you terribly.
Your Eleanor
Charles folded the letter. Her sister was most definitely making eyes at Cuthbert, for the more she proclaimed the opposite, the more it was surely true. She must ask Lord Wells to send a different man with baskets. She’d insist. For even though John was a decent enough fellow, he was no proper gentleman. A London street urchin for God’s sake! Mother would never have allowed such a match for Eleanor, and it was Charles’s duty to ensure her sister married well. Which she would. Just as soon as she had enough saved to launch Eleanor herself.
She sat a moment longer in her cold closet room and let her thoughts stray to his lordship in bed this morning. He, too, was easy on the eyes and her body flushed just picturing him. She still struggled to reconcile the woman she had been with the wanton she’d become, for like his rowdy band of men, she, too, now craved bodily comfort. It did not align with who her parentshad intended her to be, but she could not deny how it made her feel to join her person to Roland Wellesley.
And why should anything that felt so good be in truth so great a sin? Having long trusted experience over rhetoric, she began to consider that perhaps her mother’s grand pronouncements—the very rules of fine society itself—were askew. Perhaps both London and Cumberland were wrong to insist a woman’s unspoiled virtue was her greatest asset. Perhaps the body, more than the mind, knew a great deal more.
She got up from her seat, eager for his lordship’s touch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Despite Charles’s best efforts, Christmas, it seemed, was anythingbutthe celebration she had so carefully planned.
All that could go wrong, did. First there was the blasted goose—no goose at all but a pheasant, for which Cuthbert had nearly gotten his ears boxed by Jenkins. And then there was the snow, which had dropped so fast and furious that morning that the steward had been trapped by it, spending Christmas and the foreseeable future with Charles’s sister and father rather than at the Abbey, where he was sorely needed. Sorely needed because then there was the wassail, which the girls had filled generously with apples but which Pinky, in his lunacy, had neglected to place upon a table strong enough to bear the great bowl’s weight.
The day had been a disaster.
Charles had kept her chin up but was inwardly distraught. Like a string of dominoes collapsing—not least the wassail bowl—one after another of her preparations had gone awry. So when Clarice tripped and sent the Christmas pudding crashing, Charles lost her temper, laying into the girl a tad harshly. In that moment she felt she’d failed so miserably as housekeeper, she’d never hear the end of it from Lord Wellesley.
Only his lordship did not even raise his voice, surprising everyone by swiftly helping Clarice collect the spilled pudding like it was the most natural thing in the world for a duke’s son to assist his housemaid.
“Angus, Bartram, and Henry, fetch drums and whistles, boys. It’s time we had some music in this house, quick now,” Lord Wells ordered, arranging what was left of the pudding into a pile upon the plate. And then to everyone’s further amazement, he licked his fingers clean.
“Astounding, Mrs. Jenkins. No, stupendous. I must have the finest cook in all of Cumberland that a dessert should taste so good, even from off the floor.” He grinned. “Well dig in then, don’t be shy.”
Fergus, at least, did not hesitate to grab a fistful of the stuff.
Lord Wellesley turned to Charles. “You too, Miss Merrinan. I’ll not let a wee food fall, wassail spill, or otherfowl upsetruin our Christmas Eve.” He winked at her before addressing present company, leaving Charles speechless.
“When you’ve spent years at sea, ladies,” his lordship proceeded, “you learn to appreciate what you have, rather than what you lack, right boys?” His gaze swept over his men. “Now drink and be merry, all of you!” He raised his glass.
“Here, Here!” came loud shouts, the men beginning to pound their mugs upon the table. “T’ Capt’n Wells! Long live His Grace!”
In no time, tin whistle and bodhran began a brisk jig, with Angus’s voice fast filling the hall. And before she knew it, every maid—including Charles—had been pulled to her feet as the unruly crew all stomped and kicked their thick-soled boots. The jig spun faster, hands clapping in increasing rhythm, girls swirling and twirling until Angus let out a resounding last whoop, the echo of his voice ringing loudly in the hall.
Thanks to Lord Wellesley, the mood had instantly, dramatically changed.
***
“Follow me, Fox.” Hand held tight, Wells slipped Charles away from the merriment, pulling his mistress behind him down the hall, far from the dancing, until she abruptly stopped.
“My lord, I should like to show you something first, if I may?” She appeared almost shy.
“As you wish, Miss Merrinan.” He allowed her to lead him up more stairs and down a dark hallway, then down another passage too, until they came to a door he knew well.
“Wait here, my lord,” she told him, “and close your eyes, no peeking.” Wells shut them tight, smiling at her order. He’d not let on he knew what lay beyond this door.
He could hear her steal about the room to light the sconces in all four corners, could picture her stoking the fire so that it blazed bright as a log shifted and flames crackled. When she returned to fetch him from the hallway, he still did not peek as she guided him inside.
“I wish to give you a gift, sir. You may open your eyes.”
