Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Love at Christmas
I’m bringing you.
Violet re-read the words. He was bringing her love—not sending it, as he had said in the previous seven messages she had received in the last few years. What did he mean?
She must check the other verses.
Violet hurried upstairs to her bedchamber. She pulled out the bottom drawer of her writing bureau and released its secret drawer. Inside nestled the bundle of papers that represented the entirety of the correspondence from her secret admirer.
She tugged on the blue bow that secured them and sat on her bed to read them again in the order of receipt. The first verse, from Valentine’s Day, ended with “Kisses are sweet and so are you”. Since then, his tone had become increasingly affectionate, until last Valentine’s Day he had concluded with “Heartfelt yearnings I’m sending you”.
She re-read the latest missive then flapped the stiff paper in front of her face to cool her cheeks. Then she noticed a few words in a corner of the other side of the paper. I have much to say to you at the Yule ball.
Violet’s heart stuttered. He was finally going to reveal himself.
She wrenched her glasses from her face and polished them with the skirt of her woolen dress. What should she do? How could she meet him? What if he was one of the four local gentlemen who had paid her attention over the last few years? Her heart lurched at the thought of one of that assemblage being her admirer.
Barnaby Swithin was her father’s curate, who hoped to assume his living upon her father’s retirement. He had hinted that marriage to her beforehand would be a plus in his favor. Was she shallow to be put off, not only by his cold-blooded idea of marriage to further his career, but also by his wall-eyed, pasty face?
Violet secured the cleaned glasses on her face, but still she couldn’t see her way clear.
William Shorncliffe served as Lord Whitton’s estate manager. He was a hearty middle-aged man of reasonable countenance, who maintained his nose was an equal of Lord Wellington’s. Alas, he needed a mother for his six children to replace his dear departed wife.
Violet worried some pilling on her blue dress with a fingernail.
Edward Reynolds was a solicitor based in nearby Winchester. Of a similar age to her, he was an ambitious man who knew a valuable acquisition when he saw one, or so he claimed. And he obviously saw Violet as a good deal. Whenever they met, his shrewd eyes roamed over her like a man assessing horseflesh at Tattersalls and turned her stomach to ice.
Violet kneaded the knot in her midriff.
Her latest suitor was young Thomas Jenson, the eldest son of a local yeoman farmer. Violet had overheard his father promote their match because “she was a true lady, albeit a plain one, and would be a feather in the family’s cap”. Thomas, being a good-natured and obliging son, went along with his father’s plan, but with the look of a cornered rabbit about him.
So far, she had evaded all their advances.
None of them had mentioned love to her. If one of them was her secret admirer, wouldn’t he have hinted about his poetic attempts to express his feelings? It had to be one of them, but Violet dreaded the end to her daydreams of love with a handsome and sincere gentleman—preferably Sebastian, Viscount Stanworth. None of them compared to him.
If she couldn’t have Sebastian, she didn’t want to marry anyone. For her it must be marriage with love or no marriage at all. After all, she had plenty to occupy her life—her scientific studies and her botanical painting, keeping house for her father and helping him in the parish. The satisfaction she gained from her many absorbing interests was far preferable to a loveless marriage.
Violet straightened her shoulders. If she was to learn the identity of her secret admirer, she could no longer avoid her suitors. With a brisk dip of her chin, she stood, smoothed her hands over the skirt of her dress and returned to her neglected painting.
By the end of the night, she would know the answer.
But could she endure the disappointment?
Chapter Two
Sebastian set his horse homeward along the muddy road. The bare branches of the trees lining the country road dripped fat droplets on the hedgerows beneath them. Fallow fields of sodden soil lay beyond.
He saw no reason to hurry to Whitton Grange. Home meant being on show for guests and engaging in facile conversation about the changeable weather. Most of all, it meant avoiding the latest debutant being paraded before him as a suitable candidate for his Viscountess, mother of his children, and the future Countess of Whitton.
Sebastian shuddered and let the reins droop lower on his horse’s neck. Hector slowed to an amble.
Sebastian had come home to his father’s estate for Christmas to find that his parents had almost engaged him to their choice of marriage partner for him and invited the girl and her family for the Christmas season. Others would arrive today, in good time for tonight’s Yule ball. Anger burned in Sebastian’s gut because his parents were still trying to shepherd him into a marriage he didn’t want.
Their reasoning was completely flawed, of course. An arranged marriage hadn’t worked for them. They had married at their parents’ bidding after being assured that love for each other would grow following their marriage and the arrival of children.
