Christmas Betrothals

Dinner consisted of two tiny cooked carcases he presumed to be wild fowl, a bowl full of boiled potatoes and a handful of greenery that looked like the watercress farmers in Virginia grew by the James.

‘The land provideth and the Lord taketh away,’ Mrs Poole told him sagely as they sat at a table in the kitchen, the fire in the oven behind a welcome asset to keep out the cold.

Hope was still outside, he presumed, as her place was empty. Charity sat next to him, her hands folded in her lap as she waited for grace to be said. A long and complex prayer of thanks it turned out to be too, a good five minutes having passed as Lizzie Poole gave acknowledgement for all the things that God had sent them, for their health and hearth and laughter, for the fuel which fed the fire and the earth which supported them. To Luc’s mind she seemed a trifle generous in her praise, the fowl in particular looking like they had seen but three months of life and barely eaten anything in that time. Still, it was refreshing to see gratefulness in small blessings and he wondered what she might say of the overladen London tables should she ever see them.

Just as they had finished the kitchen door banged open and an older child walked in. She looked nothing like her sister, except for her thin build, her hair a wild tangle of long deep brown curls and her skin darkened by the sun.

‘I am sorry to be so late, Lizzie,’ she said, stopping as bright emerald eyes met his own. Another beauty, but of a different mould.

‘This is Mr Lucas Clairmont, Hope. He has come from London today to see you and your sister.’

Hope’s eyes went to Charity’s and a communication passed between them. A silent language of perception and accord.

‘Very pleased to meet you, sir.’ She curtsied in a way reminiscent of another age.

‘Mrs Poole tells me you spend a lot of time outdoors. What things do you do there?’

‘We fish sometimes for the dinner table, and collect this cress. If we are lucky, we bag hares or wild birds and in the spring we steal the eggs from the nests that are low in the hedgerows.’

‘So this bounty is your doing?’ he replied, gesturing to the food on the table.

‘Some of it is, sir. Winter is the most difficult time to gather, but come spring we can find all sorts of berries and mushrooms and even wild tomatoes.’

‘So your sister helps you?’

‘Of course.’ She flashed a smile and the other nodded. Tonight Charity appeared a lot more worried than she had a few hours ago but Hope picked up quickly on her fright, settling herself on the other side of the girl and again that wordless communication that excluded everyone in the room.

‘They are very close, sir. If anyone were to split them up …’

‘I have not come here to do that.’

‘This house is the only home they have ever known and were they to be thrown out …’

‘I have not come to do that, either.’

‘Their mother was perhaps a trifle wild, I realise that, but Charity and Hope have never caused us even a moment’s worry.’

Luc placed his eating utensils down and laid his hands on the table. ‘Thackeray led me to believe the girls were being looked after in the manner my late wife would have wished them to be. If I had had any notion of the lack of finance you have put up with for the last God knows how many months—’ he stopped as the old lady winced at his profanity ‘—for the last months,’ he repeated, ‘then I would have been up here a lot sooner.’

‘So we can stay?’ Hope asked the question, the same emotion as her name easily heard in her voice.

‘Indeed you can, and I will see to it as soon as I return to London.’

He left Woodruff Abbey with all of its inhabitants waving him goodbye and a handful of warm potatoes wrapped in cloth that Charity had given him.

The first thing he did when he arrived in the city was to tell the elderly Horatio Thackeray that his services as his lawyer were no longer needed, and set an investigator on to the trail of finding where the money had gone. In his stead he hired a younger and more compassionate man whose reputation had been steadily rising in the city.

‘So you wish for Woodruff Abbey to be kept in trust for the children?’ David Kennedy’s voice contained a tone in it that could most succinctly be described as incredulous.

‘That is correct.’

‘You realise of course that once the deed is filed it is binding and you would have no hope of seeing your property back should you change your mind at a later date?’

‘I do.’

‘You also wish for the monies from the estate to be placed in a fund to see to the running of the Abbey, and for a specified number of servants to be hired to help the older couple?’

‘That is right.’

‘Then if you are certain that that is what you want and you have understood the finality of such a generous gesture, you must sign here. To begin the process, you understand. I shall get back to you within the month when the deeds are written.’

A quick scrawl and it was done. Luc replaced the ink pen in its pot and gathered his hat.

‘There is one proviso, Mr Kennedy.’

The lawyer looked startled.

‘The proviso is that you tell no one of this.’

‘You do not wish others to know of your generosity?’

‘I do not.’

‘Very well, sir. Will that be all today?’

‘No, there is another thing. I am transferring funds from an account I hold here in London, which shall stay in place in case of any shortfall. Under no circumstance at all do I wish for the inhabitants of the Abbey to go without again. If indeed there is any problem at all, I expect to be contacted with as much haste as you could muster to remedy the matter.’

‘That shall be done, sir. Might I also say how pleased I am to have the chance to do business with you—’

‘Thank you,’ Luc cut him short. He had a card game he could not miss that was due to start in just over two hours and he needed to take the omnibus to Piccadilly.

Lillian tucked her diary away in the small console by her bed and told herself that she should not write of her thoughts of Lucas Clairmont.

She had heard that he had been away from London for the past five days, travelling according to Nathaniel Lindsay’s wife, Cassandra, who was the sister of Anne Weatherby. Where, she had no clue, though according to Anne he had left his lodgings and given no idea of when he expected to return.

Presumably it would be before the house party on Friday. She wondered who he knew in England to take him away for such a period and remembered the Countess of Horsham’s scandalous gossip. Lillian shook her head. Surely a man of little means and newly come from the Americas would not have the wherewithal to house any children, let alone those born out of wedlock?

Lucas Clairmont was a mystery, she thought, his accent changing each time she saw him and some dark menace in his golden eyes. Not a man to be trifled with, she decided, and not a man whom others might persuade to take any course he did not wish to, either.

She made her way down to the library on the first floor of the town house and dislodged a book on the Americas that her father had bought a few years earlier. Virginia and Hampton and the wide ragged outline of Chesapeake Bay was easily traced by her fingers and there along a blue line signifying the James River lay Richmond, surrounded by green and at the edge of long tongues of water that wound their way up towards it. What hills and dales did he know? What towns to the east and west had he visited? Charlottesville. Arlington. Williamsburg and Hopewell. All names that she had no knowledge of and only the propensity to imagine.

A knock on the door brought her from her reveries and she called an entry.

‘Lord Wilcox-Rice is here, ma’am, with his sister, Lady Eleanor. He said something of a shopping expedition.’

‘What time is it?’ Lillian asked the question in trepidation.

‘Half past three, miss. Just turned.’

Rising quickly, she was glad that her day dress was one that would not need changing and pleased, too, for the bright sky she could now see outside.

‘Of course. Would you show them through to the blue salon and let them know that I shall be but a moment whilst I fetch my bonnet and coat.’

Ellie Wilcox-Rice was one of Lillian’s favourite acquaintances; in fact, it was probably due to her influence that Lillian had allowed even the talk of an engagement to her friend’s brother to be mooted.

As they walked along Park Lane she laughed at Ellie’s rendition of her Saturday evening at a ball in Kensington, a wearying sort of affair, it seemed.

‘I should have much rather been at the crush of James Cholmondely’s ball.’ Ellie sighed. ‘Jennifer Parker said she had the most wonderful time and that she had danced with an American with whom she fell in love on the spot.’

‘Probably Mr Lucas Clairmont,’ John said, waiting as the girls looked at a shop window, beautifully decorated for the approaching Christmas season. ‘He has all the ladies’ hearts a-racing, I hear, and no one has any idea of who exactly he is.’

‘Does he have your heart a-racing, Lillian?’ Ellie’s laughter was shrill.

‘Of course he doesn’t,’ John answered for her. ‘Lillian is far too sensible to be swayed by the man.’

‘Jennifer thinks he is rich. She thinks he has land in the Americas that rival that of the Ancaster estate. Hundreds and thousands of acres.’

‘Did he say so to her?’ Lillian was intrigued by this new development.

‘No. It is just she has a penchant for Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and imagines Lucas Clairmont in much the same mould.’

‘A peagoose, then, and more stupid than I had imagined her.’ John’s outburst was unexpected. Usually he saw the best in all people.

‘Jennifer also said that you had a waltz with this man, Lillian.’

‘Indeed I did, and he is a competent dancer, if I recall.’

‘But he made no impression upon you?’

Looking away, Lillian hated her breathlessness and her racing heart. To even talk of him here …

‘Why, speaking of the devil, I do believe that is him coming towards us now. With Lord Hawkhurst, is it not?’

His sister laid her hand upon his. ‘John, you absolutely must introduce me to him and let me make up my own mind.’

The two men walked towards them, both tall and dark, though today it appeared as though Luc Clairmont laboured in his gait and when they came up close Lillian could well see why. Today he looked little like he had last time she had met him, his left eye swollen shut and a cut across the bridge of his nose. When her glance flickered to his hands she saw that he wore gloves. To cover the damage to his knuckles, she supposed, and frowned.

‘Wilcox-Rice.’ Lord Hawkhurst bowed his head and the exchanges of names were made. When it was her turn for introduction, however, Luc Clairmont made no mention of the intimacy of their meetings so far, tipping his hat in much the same way as he did for Eleanor.

Today the light in his one good eye was dulled considerably, his glance almost bashful as she looked upon him. He barely spoke, waiting until Hawkhurst had finished and then moving along with him.

‘Well,’ said Eleanor as they went out of earshot, ‘it looks as if Jennifer’s prince has had an accident.’

‘Been in another fight, more like it,’ John interjected. ‘There was talk of a scuffle at the Lenningtons’ the other week.’

‘Really.’ Ellie turned to look back and Lillian wished that she would not.

‘Who would he fight?’

‘The gambling tables have their own complications.’ John was quick to answer his sister’s question. ‘Your cousin, by the way, Lillian, is numbered amongst those who have had more than a light dab at the faces of others.’

‘Daniel?’ Ellie questioned, grimacing at the name. ‘But he dresses far too well to fight.’

Despite herself Lillian laughed at the sheer absurdity of her friend’s statement as they made their way into Oxford Street.

‘I can well see why Jennifer Parker is so besotted. Have you ever seen a more dangerous-looking man than Lucas Clairmont?’

When John frowned heavily, they decided that it was prudent to drop the subject altogether.

Christmas decorations were beginning to appear in more of the shops and a child and an elderly woman stood by the roadside selling bunches of mistletoe from a barrow.

Ellie rushed over dragging Lillian with her, carefully separating the foliage until she found a piece that she wanted.

‘They say if you kiss a man under mistletoe you will find your one true love. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Perhaps you might kiss my brother? Here, Lillian, I will buy a sprig for you.’

Eleanor gave the woman some money and was handed two brown parcels, the greenery contained in thick paper and string. As they went to leave a young couple came up to the barrow. They were not well-to-do or dressed in anything near the latest of fashion, but when the man held the mistletoe up to the woman there was something in their eyes that simply transfixed Lillian.

Laughter and warmth and a shining intensity that was bewitching! She saw love in the way their hands brushed close as he handed her the packet and in the breathless smile the woman gave back to him as she received her gift. Only them in the world, only the small circle of their joy and happiness, for the bliss between them was tangible to everyone that watched.

Yearning overcame Lillian. Yearning for what she had just seen, the mistletoe a reminder of what she had never found and would probably never have. She glanced at John, who was castigating his sister for wasting her money on such frippery and a heavy sadness settled over her.

Christmas with its hope and promise had a way of undermining rationality and logic, replacing it with this mistletoe magic and a great dollop of hunger for something completely untenable.

‘I do hope you are not swayed by my sister’s nonsense, too?’ John said, and with the shake of her head Lillian placed the brown packet in her bag and averted her eyes from the couple now walking on the other side of the street.

Chapter Six

Her cousin Daniel was in the library the next morning when she went down to find again the book on the Americas and he did not look pleased.

‘Lillian. It has been a while since we have talked.’ His face was marked by the underlying anger she had got used to seeing there.

For the past few years Daniel had been away from England and the ease of conversation that they had at one time had was now replaced by distance. Some other more nebulous wildness was also evident.

‘Does my father know that you are here?’

‘Yes. He is just retrieving a document that my mother has asked me to find for her.’

‘I see.’

He flipped at the pages of the book on America as it lay open on the table next to him. ‘It’s a big land. I was there on the east coast. Washington, mainly, and New York.’

‘Is that where you met Mr Clairmont?’

He frowned and then realisation dawned. ‘Ah, you saw us the other night at the Lenningtons’.’

‘I met him in the street yesterday with Hawkhurst. He had the appearance of being in another fight and I thought perhaps—’ But he did not let her finish!

‘Stay away from him, Lillian, for he is trouble.’

She nodded, and, pleased to hear her father’s footsteps in the hall, excused herself.

John Wilcox-Rice arrived alone in the afternoon and he had brought her a bunch of winter cheer. Blooms that would sit well in her room and she thanked him.

Today he was dressed in a dark blue frock coat, brown trousers and a waistcoat of lighter blue. His taste was impeccable, she thought, his Hessians well polished and fashionable.

After her talk with her cousin that morning she was in a mood to just let life take her where it would. Thoughts of children and a home of her own were becoming more formed. Perhaps a life with John would be a lot more than tolerable? Her father liked him, her aunt liked him and she liked his sister very much. The young couple from yesterday came briefly to mind, but the time between then and now had dulled her sense of yearning, her more normal sensibleness taking precedence.

So when he took her hand in his she did not pull away, but savoured the feeling of gentle warmth.

‘We have known each other for a passably long time, Lillian, and I think that if we gave it the chance …’

When she nodded, he looked heartened.

‘I have asked your father if I could court you and he has given his permission. Now I need the same permission from you.’

The warning from Daniel and the Countess of Horsham’s gossip welled in her mind.

Stay away from Lucas Clairmont. Stay away from trouble.

‘It is six weeks until Christmas. Perhaps we could use this time to see if …?’ She could not finish. To see what? To see if she felt passion or fervour or frenzy?

When he drew her up with him in response she stood, and when his lips glided across her own she did try to answer him back, did attempt to summon the hope of joy and benefit.

But she felt nothing!

The shock of it hit her and she pulled away, amazed at the singular smile of ardour on John’s face.

‘I will consider that as a troth, my love, and I will treasure the beauty of it for ever.’

The sound of a maid coming with tea had him moving away and taking his place on a chair opposite her. Yet still he grinned.

A gentleman, a nice man, a good man. And a man whose kisses made her feel nothing.

She lay in bed that night and cried. Cried for her mother and her father and for herself, trapped as she was by rules and rituals and etiquette.

John’s fragrant flowers were on the table beside her bed, but she missed the ugly single orange bloom. Missed its vigour and its irreverence and its unapologetic raw colour. Missed the company of the man who had given it to her.

He had had a wife who had died quite recently according to the gossip. Lord, how had he dealt with that? Badly, by all accounts, as she thought of his gambling and his obvious lack of funds.

Closing her eyes, she brought her hand to her mouth and kissed the back of it as John Wilcox-Rice had kissed her lips today. There was something wrong with the way that he had not moved, the static stillness of the action negating all the emotion that should have been within it.

Lord, she had never in her life been kissed before and so she was hardly an expert, but a part of her brain refused to believe that that was all that it was, all that was whispered about and written of. No, there had to be more to it than what she had felt today, but with Christmas on its way and the honouring of a promise to find a spouse, she was running out of time to be able to truly discover just what it was.

A new and more daring thought struck her suddenly.

Perhaps she could find out? Perhaps if she invited Lucas Clairmont to call and offered him a sum of money for both his service and his silence, she might discover what she did not now know.

To buy a single kiss!

She smiled, imagining such a wild and dangerous scheme. Of course she could not do that! Lucas Clairmont was hardly a man to bargain with and any trust she might give him would be sorely misplaced. Or would it? He had melted into the background at the Lennington ball and she had heard no gossip of her conversation on the Belgrave Square balcony. Indeed, when she had seen him in the street yesterday he had barely acknowledged her. But was that from carefulness or just plain indifference?

She moved her hand and slanted her lips, increasing the pressure in a way that felt right. A bloom of want wound thin in her stomach, the warm promise of it bringing to mind the dangerous American.

Quickly she sat up, hard against the backboard of the bed, pulling the bedding about her shoulders to try to keep the cold at bay.

This was her only chance to find out. She had been in society for nearly eight years and not once in all that time had she lain here imagining the things she did now about any man.

Forty-two days until she would give a promise of eternal obedience and chastity to a man whose kisses left her with … nothing.

Her teeth worried her top lip as she tried to imagine the conversation preceding the experiment. It hardly seemed loyal to tell him of her reaction to John’s kiss and her need to see if others would be the same, and yet if she did not he might think her wanton. A new thought struck her. Could men kiss well if they thought that they were being compared in some way? Would it not dampen a natural tendency?

And how much should she pay him? Would he be offended by fifty pounds or thankful for it? Would he want a hundred if he kissed her twice?

The hours closed in on her, as did the fact that Luc Clairmont would be gone after Christmas. A useful knowledge that, for he would be a temporary embarrassment only, should her whole scheme founder!

The thought of Christmas turned her thoughts in another direction.

Mistletoe!

That was it. If she hung the mistletoe Ellie had bought her yesterday above the doorway and angled herself so that she stood beneath the lintel in front of him … Just an accident, a pleasant interlude that would mean nothing should his kiss rouse as little feeling in her as John’s had.

She sat up further.

Would he know of the traditions here in England? Would he even see it?

Could she mention the custom if he did not? Her brain turned this way and that, and the clock in the corner struck the hour of two. Outside the echo of the other clocks lingered.

Did Luc Clairmont hear them too? Was he awake with his swollen eye and wounded leg?

She slipped from her bed and walked to the window, pulling back her heavy cream curtains and looking out into the darkness.

Park Lane was quiet and the trees across the way were bleak against a sodden sky. Tonight the moon did not show its face, but was hidden behind low clouds of rolling greyness, gathering in the west.

A nothing kiss in a rain-filled night and the weight of twenty-five years upon her shoulders.

If she did not take this one chance, she might never know, but always wonder …

Sitting at her desk, she pulled out a piece of paper and an envelope and, dipping her pen in ink, began to write.

The letter had come a few minutes ago and Luc could make no sense of it. Lillian Davenport had something of importance to ask him and would like his company at three o’clock. The servant who had brought the message was one of Stephen’s so he presumed it to have gone to the Hawkhurst town house first. The lad also seemed to be waiting for a reply.

Scrawling an answer on a separate sheet of parchment, he reached for his seal. Out of habit, he was to think as he placed it back down, for of course he could not use it here. ‘Could you deliver this to Miss Davenport?’

The young servant nodded and hurried away, and when he had gone Luc lifted Lillian’s missive into the light and read it again.

She wanted to speak to him about something important. She hoped he would come alone. She wondered about the Christmas traditions in America and whether mistletoe and holly were plants he was familiar with.

He frowned. Though he grew trees for timber in Virginia, the subject of botany had never been his strongpoint. Holly he knew as a prickly red-berried plant but mistletoe … Was that not the sprig that young ladies liked to hang in the Yuletide salons to catch kisses? A different thought struck him. What would it be like to kiss Lillian Davenport?

He chastised himself at the very idea. Lord, she seemed to be very familiar with Wilcox-Rice and he was leaving in little more than a month.

But the thought lingered, a tantalising conjecture that lay in the memory of holding her fingers in his own and feeling the hurried beat of her heart. He guessed that Lillian Davenport was a warm and responsive woman beneath the outward composure, a lady who would be pleasantly surprised by the wonders of the flesh.