Miranda tramped through the undergrowth, distancing herself from the other women and children, deeper into the silence and darkness of the forest. Even their voices became muffled by the tree trunks and low-hanging branches.
Behind her, leaves rustled, then a stick snapped. And then something heavy collided with the base of her neck.
Pain exploded throughout her skull. She didn’t remember falling to the ground, but she became aware of dead leaves under her cheek, the overpowering scent of mildew and dirt. Her limbs felt chained to the ground.
Something blocked the dim light, and she saw the edge of a dark cloak dragging in the wet leaves. Hands ran over her body as though searching for something. She tried to roll over, but the attacker was leaning hard against her back.
Then she felt, through the ground, the heavier tread of boots, the lighter touch of a cane. No. She had to warn Gerard. He had Ellie with him.
The steps stopped. “Miranda!” he shouted.
The hands touching her froze.
He hastened toward her at the same time her attacker moved away. Miranda rolled over.
There was a blur, a swirl of skirts, and then a heavy branch swung though the air at Gerard’s head. He ducked, but the action made him stagger against his cane.
“Gerard!” she gasped. Miranda was behind the attacker and saw nothing but a dark cloak.
Then she saw Ellie standing a few feet away from Gerard. The girl had frozen, her face aghast. Fir boughs slowly rained down upon the ground.
Gerard’s expression looked more shocked than injured. But then the woman swung the branch again and hit his hip. He grimaced and fell to his knee, losing his cane.
But this time, the branch clipped Ellie on the head, and the little girl crumpled.
“Ellie!” Strength surged through her, and Miranda scrabbled through the leaves and bushes on her hands and knees.
The woman aimed a third blow at Gerard’s head, but he was able to grab the branch in both hands. The two of them struggled.
It seemed an age before Miranda reached Ellie’s form on the ground. The little girl was screaming. She gathered her into her arms and tried to drag her away from Gerard and the woman, turning her back to them to protect Ellie.
Grunting, frantic movements in the undergrowth. Then the woman cried out, her voice sounding as if she were being flung away.
Miranda turned her head to look and saw a heap of wool fabric several feet away from Gerard. He had taken the heavy branch the woman had used. He tried to rise to his feet, but his knee buckled and he fell again.
The woman scrambled up and darted away into the trees.
“Stop!” he shouted. Miranda heard the razor edge of frustration in his voice as he rose unsteadily, leaning for support on the branch that he still held.
Miranda used her scarf to dab at Ellie’s forehead, which was smeared with blood. The branch had cut her, but it did not appear to be deep, and Ellie’s cries were wrenching sobs of terror rather than pain.
Gerard retrieved his cane and hobbled toward them. “Who was that?”
“I don’t know,” Miranda said.
“Did you see her face?”
“No.”
“Are you injured? Is Ellie hurt?”
At that moment, Cousin Laura ran toward them. “What happened? Good gracious, is that blood?”
Aunt Augusta followed close behind with some of the other children. “What happened?”
“A woman attacked Miranda,” Gerard said. “When I came upon her, she appeared to be looking for valuables in Miranda’s cloak. When I tried to stop her, the woman accidentally hit Ellie.”
“Poor dear.” Cousin Laura drew near, but Ellie buried her face deeper into Miranda’s shoulder, her crying muffled.
“Let us take the children back to the house,” Laura said. “We should have enough greenery by now. Who would attack you?”
“Was it a gypsy?” Aunt Augusta asked. “I hadn’t heard of any gypsies in the area.”
“I don’t know.” Miranda started to shake her head, but the movement made pain cloud her vision.
“Miranda, you’re injured,” Gerard said.
“I am well. We must take Ellie away from here.”
They all turned back toward the house. Cousin Laura and Miranda’s aunts counted children and went to collect any stragglers while Miranda carried Ellie tightly against her.
Gerard was walking more slowly, leaning more heavily on his cane. She watched him, and had a drowning feeling in her lungs. Suddenly her plan to somehow erase her feelings for him no longer seemed so simple.
When the woman attacked him, and she’d seen Gerard go down, she’d known deep in her heart that she couldn’t bear to lose him.
CHAPTER SIX
Gerard pulled his mouth wide in what he hoped looked like a smile and passed Miss Church-Pratton a fir branch.
“Oh, Captain Foremont, are you certain your leg is not paining you?” She gave him a soulful look that brought out the blue of her eyes.
“I am perfectly well, Miss Church-Pratton.” Gerard ignored the ache in his knee.
“I do appreciate your help but I would not wish to cause you further injury.”
He tried to stretch his leg without drawing attention to the action. He seemed to be mostly recovered from the events of this morning in the woods. He moved a little more slowly and he could not climb the ladder to decorate the chandelier, but he was perfectly able to collect greenery and deliver it to the women who arranged it around the house. Unfortunately, Miss Church-Pratton seemed to call upon him quite incessantly for more greens.
“For I must tell you, Captain Foremont,” Miss Church-Pratton said as she wrapped ribbon around a fir bough and strand of ivy, “I was alarmed when I saw you limping so dreadfully as you came into the house.”
He would rather not be reminded of that riotous scene, complete with schoolboys chasing each other around the entrance hall, yelling at the tops of their lungs, and Mrs. Augusta Hathaway shrieking about gypsies attacking children in the woods. Ellie’s cries had turned to sniffles by the time they arrived at the house, but the noise had caused her to start crying again. Gerard had tried to speak to Miranda but hadn’t been able to get close to her.
“It must have been terrible for you.”
Miss Church-Pratton’s fussing over Gerard annoyed him, but he tried to tell himself that she was simply concerned.
“Now, if I had known you would be going greenery hunting rather than with the men hauling in the Yule log, I would have gone with all of you,” Miss Church-Pratton said.
Gerard had been secretly relieved that she had not joined the greenery party this morning. He had suspected that she had no wish to be in the company of all the children.
“Perhaps I could have protected you from that madwoman.” She smiled, dimpling up at him.
Considering the horrible violence that Ellie had been forced to witness, Gerard found Miss Church-Pratton’s comment inappropriate. He looked down at her coldly. “You no longer appear to need assistance, Miss Church-Pratton. I shall help my mother.” He gave her the tiniest of bows, then crossed the room to where his mother was directing a servant on a ladder in hanging the kissing bough directly over the open doorway into the drawing room.
His mother eyed the expression on his face with wariness and a splash of irritation. “I do wish you would stop focusing on your injury quite so much, Gerard. You may not be aware of it, but it casts a pall over the company, which is not very considerate of you.”
He did not feel he deserved his mother’s censure, but she had seen him through the blackest of moods over the past several months, and he knew it had put a strain on her temper. And the truth was that he did indeed feel frustrated with himself, not a novel emotion by any means. He had not been able to chase the lone woman because he had been unable to rise quickly to his feet, and he would not have been able to hobble after her in any event.
Added to his frustration was a strong dose of guilt. He had
been horrified that Ellie had been injured simply because she had been standing too close when the woman had swung the branch at him.
“No, to the right,” his mother said to the servant, who obediently moved the kissing bough to his right. “No, the other right.” She indicated her own right side. “Miranda, is it centred?”
Miranda had been tying greens into a long garland to drape over the bannister, but she rose to stand in front of the open doorway, her head tilted to the side. “Perhaps a little to the right …”
Miranda appeared to be her usual calm self, although paler. A half hour after returning to the house, Gerard had climbed the stairs to see Ellie in the nursery, and Miranda had been there after finally coaxing the little girl to sleep. Miranda had not looked as though her nerves were frayed or that she were likely to take to her bed, which was what Gerard’s mother had done for an hour after he returned. Miranda had insisted that the blow to her head had merely caused her a slight headache.
She had changed her dress, as had they all, for dinner. Her dark blue gown made her skin even whiter, her hair glossy like a raven’s feathers. When he first saw her, she looked so lovely that he hadn’t been able to speak for a moment. Luckily, she hadn’t been looking at him, and then all the guests had begun the task of decorating the house with the greenery.
“Are you well?” he asked her.
“A slight headache.”
He could see the pain in the lines across her forehead, alongside her mouth and eyes. He would have wanted to look at the base of her neck, hidden by the folds of her shawl, if it had not been so improper for him to do so. “Has the doctor seen you?”
“No, but one of the maids has seen to my injury.”
“One of the maids? Cecil did not call for Dr. Morgan for you or for Ellie?”
“Betty, the maid, is very skilled in healing,” she said in a calm voice that alleviated his outrage. “Her mother is the local midwife, and the tenants call upon her when they cannot summon Dr. Morgan. I admit that I would trust Betty more than Dr. Morgan, since he often comes to the house smelling of wine.”
He determined not to summon Dr. Morgan if his knee grew worse, and to do all he could to prevent the man from coming near Miranda or Ellie. “How is Ellie?”
“She woke several hours ago, and while she is quieter than usual, she seems to be well. I left her playing jack-straws with her cousins.”
“I am glad.” He had never felt so alarmed as when he had looked at Ellie and seen blood on her face. Although the sight of Miranda on the ground had made his heart stop in his chest.
“No, to the other right,” his mother told the servant.
“The kissing bough looks nice,” Gerard said, immediately regretting how inane that sounded. Earlier, Felicity had grown impatient with Miranda because she was not draping the greenery in the dining room as quickly as she wished, and so she had assigned to her the task of creating the kissing bough. Miranda had twined the mistletoe upon the wire frames with scarlet ribbons and roses made from twisted red paper. Stars cut from gold paper peeked out from under the dark green leaves and pearly white berries.
“Thank you,” Miranda said. Miss Church-Pratton would have laughed and teased him, but Miranda accepted his words without judgment on how foolish he sounded. “Your knee is paining you?” She stated it calmly, already knowing the answer.
“No, I am—”
“There is a poultice I can make for you that will soothe it. I shall give it to your man later.”
He wanted to say that he was well and in no need of any poultices, but Miranda was known for her skill in the stillroom. If it would indeed ease the pain, he ought not to indulge his pride and act like a muttonhead. Say thank you, Gerard. “Er … thank you, Miranda.”
“You are welcome.”
No fussing. No censure. Just a poultice for his knee. Miranda put him at ease like no one else had cared to do.
He caught his mother looking at them both, but the expression on her face was difficult to interpret. Some alarm—Gerard had not forgotten the embarrassing insinuation that Miranda would attempt to ensnare him just as Miss Church-Pratton seemed to be doing—but also some confusion, perhaps a thread of guilt. No, he must be mistaken about that. His mother looked away again.
“Why would that woman attack you when there were so many people nearby?” he asked.
“I had wandered away from all of you,” she said.
“We were fortunate that Ellie had lost sight of you and become alarmed. I went to look for you, and none too soon.”
“It is also fortunate that I had nothing for her to steal.”
“Now it is time to test it.” It was his father, just come into the drawing room and admiring the kissing bough, which the servant had finally hung to his mother’s specifications.
His father snatched his mother’s hand and yanked her under the kissing bough. She gave a surprised yelp, then a delighted gurgle. He kissed her firmly on the lips, then reached up to remove one of the berries. When all the berries were gone, there would be no more stolen kisses.
Cecil looked scandalised but resigned, for there had always been a kissing bough at Wintrell Hall for as long as the Belmoores had celebrated Christmas there.
“It’s almost time!” came a call from outside the drawing room. They all trooped to the doorway to the dining room, where Cecil held a large wax candle that had been decorated with gilt paper round its base.
Children came down the stairs to gather with the adults, and Cecil looked with pride at the assembly. He did enjoy theatrics when it made him look important.
“It is sunset, and now we will light the Yule candle,” he intoned. He led the way into the dining room, which had been magnificently decorated and set for the Christmas Eve feast. To accommodate all the guests, including the children, chairs had been shoved close to each other around the long table.
The guests stopped at the door while Cecil bore the candle to a special glass candle holder in the centre of the table. A servant approached with a lit taper, and with great solemnity, Cecil lit the candle.
“Happy Christmas,” he said, as though at a funeral.
In contrast, everyone responded with a rousing, “Happy Christmas!”
“May we be blessed by the light of the Yule candle,” Cecil said.
It did indeed look beautiful on the table. It was large enough that it would burn until dawn Christmas morning. Cecil would extinguish the flame just before the entire household left for church.
Everyone filed around the table with many smiles and appreciative sniffs at the feast to come. They all stood behind their chairs, waiting for everyone to find their places, and then at Cecil’s signal, they all sat to table at the same time. It had always been so. As a child, Gerard had been told it was to prevent bad luck.
He again found himself seated next to Miss Church-Pratton. Everyone was squeezed rather tightly together, but she seemed to rub her arm against his shoulder much more than Liliana, one of Mrs. Hathaway’s daughters still in the schoolroom, on his other side.
The meal was generous, with roast goose, boar’s head, venison, chicken, and turkey. There were more vegetable dishes than he could see from his seat, including potatoes, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, and carrots, as well as stuffing. The meal tomorrow night would be even more lavish.
Also according to tradition, everyone rose from the table at the same time. No after-dinner port and cigars for the gentlemen—everyone gathered in the drawing room. The tension of anticipation filled the room as the servants doused the candles, and then came a moment of breathless silence.
The doors opened and the butler entered with a mound of raisins in a large shallow bowl. A footman lit a taper from the fire and set the brandy-soaked fruit ablaze.
Oooh rose from the children as the blue flame blazed in the darkness, turning the butler’s staid face rather sinister. As he placed the bowl upon a low table in the centre of the room, it was the adults who led the traditional song:
H
ere comes the flaming bowl,
Don’t he mean to take his toll,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Take care you don’t take too much,
Be not greedy in your clutch,
Snip! Snap! Dragon!
Then adults and children alike gathered round for a game of Snapdragon, with each person reaching in to snatch a flaming raisin and eat it without being burned. Servants hovered nearby, ready to douse any inadvertent fires set by dropped raisins.
In the darkness, Gerard contrived to sneak away from Miss Church-Pratton and move about the dark room, straining to see each of the people in shadow. Then he saw Miranda, seated by the window with a bundle in her arms. As he approached, he saw that Ellie was asleep on her lap.
“You will not allow her to play Snapdragon?” he asked.
“Most certainly not,” she retorted.
“I seem to recall that we played at a fairly young age.”
“And at that tender age, you burned both your sleeve and your eyebrows, do you recall?”
He laughed. “I had forgotten.”
She looked at the blue light in the centre of the room, which flickered as people moved in front of it. “I like the light. It is mysterious and lovely. But I admit I like it better from a distance.” She turned her face toward him, and even in the darkness he could see the gleam of her smile.
He answered with one of his own, and he reached out to touch her cheek because it seemed the most natural and necessary thing for him to do. As in the carriage when he had touched her hand, he wanted to be connected to her in a powerful way that he could not understand.
Her skin trembled beneath his fingers, and then she turned her face away.
He suddenly felt awkward and large. He clasped his hands in front of him, then behind him, then he shifted his feet, except that he put too much weight on his injured knee. He winced.
“Does it hurt you?” she asked.
He didn’t know how she could have known, in the dark. “It is stiff.”
The Spinster's Christmas Page 5