She pursed her lips, a question forming and dying at the same moment. What could she ask? How could she respond?
How could anyone?
Hugh watched her for a moment, then exhaled faintly, straightening. “I know you might not believe this, Elinor, but I mean you no harm. I mean your family no harm. I mean to redeem myself in the eyes of the world, and if I have to start with yours, so be it. Consider what I’ve asked, if you will. See if you can manage that much kindness for a man like me.”
He bowed surprisingly deeply, then moved to the drawing room without another word.
Elinor watched him go, utterly bewildered now.
An emotion was welling, surging within her, and it turned her cheeks hot and made her eyes burn. She felt almost twitchy, her fingers tightening against each other in strained convulsions.
Shame. It was shame that burned down her neck and along her ears. It was shame that made her stomach clench and her knees tremble. Shame that brought tears to her eyes and shook her lungs on each breath.
Shame? How could she feel shame with regards to Hugh Sterling?
She pressed her hand to her quaking heart. She didn’t understand it, but she dared not deny it.
It was shame that she felt, and the need to repent of… something.
She swallowed hard. See him for the man he was, he asked.
Well, she wasn’t sure that was possible, but she could try.
For some bizarre reason, at this moment, she actually wanted to.
She also wanted to throw mistletoe at his head for turning her emotions on her, but there was no mistletoe at hand.
More’s the pity.
Elinor cleared her suddenly clogged throat and brushed at her skirts, then did her best to sweep into the drawing room without any signs of strain.
Hugh was already deep in conversation with Lawrence, one of the more tolerable cousin husbands, apparently none the worse for wear after his outburst.
Acting now or acting then? Or accustomed to quickly recovering? There was no telling with him, and she wasn’t sure why it mattered.
But it did.
“Ah, my dear girl, so delighted to have you here at last,” her father blustered as he came over, his cheeks rosy, possibly from too much port.
“Papa?” Elinor tried to smile as he took her hands exuberantly. “I did not realize I had kept you waiting.”
Her father shook his head with just as much bluster. “Not at all, love, not at all. We only needed you to complete the quartet.”
“Quartet?” she repeated. She looked across the room in confusion, then saw her sisters standing by the pianoforte, looking back at her.
Oh. That quartet.
She’d completely forgotten about that little tradition.
She blanched at the thought. “Papa, we have not rehearsed at all. And normally, we don’t perform until…”
“Yes, yes, my dear, but we have guests this year, and we must allow for adjustments.” He patted her hand and smiled with all the fatherly fondness he possessed. “Just sing a song you already know, and we’ll excuse any lack of harmonies.”
Oh, was that all? None of them were particularly gifted singers, but they were accomplished enough, and when joined together, sounded better than any of them alone.
They were used to performing for family.
They never performed for guests.
Grumbling under her breath, Elinor moved towards her sisters, feeling the eyes of the room on her.
“Sorry!” Emma whispered when she reached them. “We didn’t have a choice!”
Elinor shook her head. “What are we singing?”
“Adeste Fideles?” Elizabeth suggested, looking just as panicked, though she was far and away the best singer of the sisters. “We did all right when we sang that one.”
“I didn’t,” Ellen pointed out sourly.
The sisters glared at her. “You were ill that year,” Elinor reminded her. “You remember your part?”
Her youngest sister nodded, still looking sullen.
“Fine. Let’s get this over with.” Elinor sighed and turned to face the room, all of whom had gathered around to hear them.
Without a sign from any of the sisters, Emma sat behind the pianoforte and began to play their introduction, the soft, lower strains beginning to fill the room.
Elizabeth began first, her clear voice ringing out with the warm, husky tones the song required.
Elinor joined her in harmony, keeping her eyes constantly scanning across those in the room, forcing her expression to remain as delighted as possible.
Emma and Ellen came in together, adding yet another dimension to the harmonies of the song, and the four of them began to find themselves moving in near-perfect synchronization with each other’s notes. Their voices were all so similar in timbre and sound that the combination of them tended to lend them a more polished air than it was in reality.
As the song commenced, the faces of their audience transitioned to individual smiles all around, and without exception. Their mother had tears, and their father seemed fit to bursting with pride, but those were reactions they were well versed in.
The guests experiencing this Asheley sister phenomenon bore similar expressions of pleased bewilderment, which was to be expected, under these circumstances.
But one face, in particular, held Elinor’s attention, much against her will.
Hugh Sterling bore the awestruck look of a man seeing an angel or goddess, though how he managed to smile while so completely agape was miraculous.
That wasn’t what captivated her.
It was his complete fixation on her. He did not look at any of her sisters as they sang.
Just her.
There was no way he could have made out her voice above the rest, they had it on good assurance that such a thing was impossible.
But he could.
She had no idea how she knew that just from his expression, but know it she did.
It was the most terrifying, vulnerable realization she had ever felt. She was not a gifted singer, it was well known, and only in a chorus with her sisters was she even remotely capable. She would never be a soloist, and she did not wish to be.
Yet for him, in this moment, she might as well have been. He ought to have heard Elizabeth’s voice, or even Emma’s, if he were to hear anything worth hearing.
But no, it was clear that he was hearing her.
And there was no sign of mockery, superiority, or disgust in him. It was the most genuine she had ever seen him appear.
While he looked at her.
Her.
Something in her heart began to race, and she wrenched her gaze away, focusing on the beaming Uncle Dough as they neared the end of the song.
The piano began to fade, and their voices faded with it, trailing off into a warm finish that seemed to hang in the air for a moment.
Then the room applauded, and Elinor found her gaze returning, somehow, to that of Hugh Sterling.
He still looked at her alone. He still smiled.
And he applauded them, or her, as his smile grew.
At which time, that traitorous heart of hers skipped and raced as though they had sung a jig.
Chapter Four
In winter, we find ourselves confined in places and involved in activities we might never engage in were the weather conditions more appropriate. One should never judge a person by their winter habits.
-The Spinster Chronicles, 4 February 1818
Hugh sat quietly in the library, enjoying the moment’s reprieve from the complete chaos of Deilingh. A book lay open in his lap, though he only pretended to scan the pages before him.
He had never been a very great reader, but there were hardly better options for how to spend his time this morning. He had certainly inquired, but this, it seemed, would be his position for some time.
Difficult to believe as it might have been for some.
A small hint of a smile lit one corner of his mouth briefly as a partic
ular sound met his ears. He forced his expression into blankness and focused on the pretend reading of his book.
There was a faint shuffling, a restrained giggle, two sniffles, rustling, and then…
“RAH!” came the shout of multiple little voices, while two sets of little hands landed on his shoulders.
He gasped dramatically and tossed his now closed book in the air. “Heavens above!”
More giggles rent the air, and Hugh sank down into the chair as though their hands pressed him into it. “Oh no! Oh, I can’t escape! Oh no!”
“We got him!” one of the young boys cried, whooping as he dashed around the chair. “He’s melting!”
Hugh reacted accordingly, continuing to slide down his chair with agonized moans before flopping to the ground and rolling about until he lay still, face down on the rug.
He remained as still as possible, barely breathing.
One by one, he heard their footsteps approach him, and then, with great hesitation, a few bold fingers began to poke at his back and shoulders. Then, the hesitation seemed to fade and the fingers became more insistent, jabbing between his shoulder blades and into the back of his head.
“Did we really kill him?” one of the girls asked, sounding less timid and more dubious in her question. “Just by giving him a fright?”
“Tommy, check if he’s dead,” another girl asked.
Hugh waited where he lay, and, sure enough, a moment later his eyelid was pried open.
He roared to life, making the children screech in fright and dismay as he rose to his knees and began to bark like a dog.
It turned out that his attackers consisted of four boys and five girls, none older than eight years of age, and the youngest perhaps only three. They bore enough similarity in features to all be related, without question, but also bore enough differences to argue the degree of said relationship.
“Run!” one of the girls cried as Hugh continued to bark.
They all did, without question, but rather than charge for the door, they moved further into the library.
Hugh grinned, and gave chase, barking madly, wheezing laughs in between each bark.
The screeches of the children turned to mad giggles, and when one of the girls had the ingenious idea to try petting the rabid dog, Hugh immediately rolled to his back and began panting and kicking his left leg, just as his father’s dog always did when petted.
Tickling the dog then became the game and seeing which of them could make him howl in the silliest manner.
It turned out that Hugh actually possessed the ability to howl in a desperately silly manner, and with some variety.
He’d never figured that out before. He really couldn’t remember barking on hands and knees or rolling about on the floor panting, so perhaps that followed.
Following silly howling, they hunted for grouse, which the canine Hugh was most adept at fetching accordingly, though he really was quite miserable at getting the grouse out of their hiding places in order to be shot.
At least according to the hunters, he was. He thought he had performed the task admirably, but he was, it seemed, quite mistaken.
Ah, well, he had never been a sportsman.
“I want to play in the snow!” one of the girls suddenly whined, sinking to the ground with a dramatic flick of her skirts.
Phoebe, if he recollected correctly, was the youngest of the party, and seemed to bore easily. He sat up and gave her a kind, pitying smile.
“A bit bored with the silly dog, Phoebe?”
The girl nodded, jutting her lower lip out in an impressive pout. “It snowed more last night. I want to play in the snow!”
One of her cousins sighed and plopped down beside her on the floor. “Pheebs, it’s too cold. The mamas said we’ll freeze, so we must stay inside. We aren’t even going to go for a sleigh ride today. Uncle Dough says maybe tomorrow.”
“Uncle Dough?” Hugh repeated, leaning on one elbow. “Which one is that?”
The tallest boy leaned against a bookcase with a sigh. “He’s nearly as round as he is tall.”
“He is not!” one of the girls snickered, snorting softly into a chubby hand.
“Fairly,” came a response from the only boy whose name Hugh could remember.
“Well, I know who he means, at any rate, Tommy,” Hugh said with a laugh. “So, whose father is Uncle Dough, hmm?”
All of the children looked at him as though he had sprouted three additional heads. “No one,” the majority said at once.
Even little Phoebe laughed. “Uncle Dough isn’t a papa!”
Of course not. Silly Hugh, what an idea.
He shook his head, laughing even as the children continue to giggle at his apparent idiocy. This family, he would easily admit, was peculiar.
Warm and generous, but peculiar.
“What if Mr. Sterling takes us outside?” Little Phoebe asked, brightening pointedly, her white-blond curls bouncing in the light of the room.
Hugh raised a brow. “I’m not brave enough to stand up to all the mothers in the house, poppet.” He looked over both shoulders pointedly, then back at her before whispering, “There’s a fair few of them, you know.”
“And they tend to forget which ones they belong to,” Tommy said with a grunt that was older than his years. “Only yesterday, Aunt Millie scolded me and told Nanny not to give me dessert.”
“Tsk tsk.” Hugh shook his head in sympathy. “And where is Nanny now?”
All of the children shrugged, their shoulders bobbing up and down in a poorly choreographed dance of sorts.
Hugh sighed, making a face as he thought. “Well, we cannot just sit here in the library forever. So, our options are to go and find Nanny…”
“No!” the boys and the oldest of the girls cried.
“Or,” Hugh continued with a nod of agreement, “we devise winter games that will not subject us to the dreaded freeze the mamas warned you about.”
That got their attention.
The children stared at him, curious and eager, and the girls, at least, sat up, giving him their full attention.
“How, Mr. Sterling?” another of the blond girls asked, folding her arms rather like he’d seen Elinor do a time or two.
“Well…” He frowned and hummed at her. “What was your name again?”
She scowled, again like her elder relation. “Amelia. A gentleman wouldn’t forget.”
Hugh smirked at her sharp response. She was the spit of Elinor, and where that once would have disgusted him, it now amused him.
As Elinor now amused him.
And fascinated him.
“As we were not properly, nor officially introduced, Miss Amelia,” Hugh replied with a warm smile, “I believe I may be excused while still maintaining my gentleman status.”
She looked doubtful, but she offered no argument against it.
He looked around at the children, speculating without giving anything away. “Let me see… Hmm… I can’t decide…”
“On what?” one of the older boys demanded.
Hugh shook his head, heaving a dramatic sigh. “On who would make the best snowman.”
The children exchanged bewildered looks before returning their attention to him, most bearing the appearance of questioning his sanity.
“A snowman?” Amelia repeated. “One of us?”
“I do not want to be covered in snow!” Phoebe insisted firmly, folding her arms with a sharp hrmph of disgruntlement.
Hugh grinned swiftly, shaking his head. “No one is getting covered in snow, Phoebe. We will stay safely indoors, which will satisfy the mothers, and still get to play in the snow.”
No one looked remotely convinced.
He sighed as patiently as any adult surrounded by uncooperative children is able. “We will be using our imaginations. Like this.”
Tugging at his cravat, he slid the fabric free from his shirt and gestured for one of the younger boys to come to him. The tyke did so, torn between confusion and curiosity.
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“John, isn’t it?” Hugh prodded with a smile.
The boy nodded. “Yessir.”
Hugh nodded in return, then draped his cravat around the boy’s neck loosely as one might a scarf. “John, you are now a man of snow, as I lay this imaginary scarf upon you.”
Obediently, John stared straight ahead and held his arms out at the awkward angles one might have seen in sticks used for such a purpose.
Hugh grinned and looked at the other children. “What else does a proper snowman need?”
“A hat!” one of the girls called, jumping to her feet. “I know where one is!” She dashed out of the room at a surprisingly breakneck pace.
“And a pipe!” Tommy added, darting over to a larger chair in a corner of the library. Or, rather, to the small table beside it, where a well worn, well loved pipe lay. He snatched it up and returned to them. “Come on, John. Clamp it between your teeth as Uncle Dough does.”
The children all laughed, and John obediently did so, his lips never once wrapping around the pipe.
“Come now,” Hugh said to the rest, gesturing to young John. “Can you not find some pretend stones for buttons or eyes?”
Their imaginations needed no further encouragement, and they began to find all sorts of imagined inanimate objects to use on their pretend snowman. Their cousin returned with someone’s top hat and propped it on John’s head, where it dwarfed the lad and nearly came down to his ears. He tilted his head back to be able to see the rest, giggling wildly now that his pipe was high in the air.
Hugh chuckled himself and let the children lead the way in the rest of the game, watching fondly as they pretended to build up snow around John to make him increase in size. Even Phoebe giggled incessantly, pretending to mound up armfuls of snow before dancing around in circles, imagining catching snowflakes on her tongue.
“What a mighty fine snowman,” Hugh commented after a time. “Shall we build another? What say you?”
The children cheered and John shook himself out of his costume, clearly eager for his turn at building a snowman now.
“Who should be the snowman?” Hugh asked, tapping a finger to his chin and looking around at the gathering. “Hmm.”
God Rest Ye Merry Spinster Page 5