Her Rags-to-Riches Christmas

by Laura Martin

  ‘I feel well, thank you, Mrs Peterson.’

  ‘Good. We’ve got a busy day today. I’m just going to add some more brandy to the Christmas cake and then we need to get started on the jams. And we can put that nutmeg you bought yesterday to good use, too.’

  Glad of the distraction, Alice began pushing up her sleeves, but before she could start gathering the bowls they would need for the jam George stepped forward.

  ‘I just need to borrow Alice for few minutes,’ he said lightly. ‘I’ll have her back to you shortly.’

  Mrs Peterson frowned and Alice had to laugh at the older woman’s expression. Although she was eager to keep the divide between master and servants, Mrs Peterson wasn’t afraid of telling her employer what she thought.

  ‘You can come instead if you want,’ George said with a shrug. ‘It’s just I know you aren’t keen on gardening...’

  ‘Go on, then,’ Mrs Peterson said to Alice, ‘but no dallying. We’ve got a full day ahead of us and I’ll need all the help I can get.’

  With a pounding heart Alice followed George outside, wondering if he did really need help with the gardening or if it was just a ploy to get her alone.

  ‘Come here, you little rascal,’ George said, sweeping the baby kangaroo up into his arms to avoid stepping on him. They’d named him Lucky and already the little animal was thriving on the milk and love he was receiving. He carried him through the gate into the little garden at the side of the house, setting him down in the shade to have a little explore.

  Alice followed them into the garden, closing the gate behind her. For a moment she watched as George stroked the baby kangaroo, then felt her breath quicken as he rose and faced her.

  ‘Good morning, Alice,’ he said, taking a step towards her. In the sunlight his eyes sparkled and his skin seemed to glow with a golden tan. She had the urge to throw herself into his arms, then remembered the reservation she’d seen in his eyes when they were in the kitchen and instead hugged her arms around herself.

  George stepped closer, one hand rising up slowly to rest on her waist. It was an intimate gesture and as his hand came in contact with the material of her dress Alice felt her hopes soaring again. She swayed towards him, tilting up her chin, seeing his smile before their lips came together and she was lost in the kiss. This morning he was gentle, kissing her softly, cupping her face, running his hands softly down the length of her back, but there was no mistaking his desire.

  ‘I dreamed about you,’ he said as he pulled away.

  ‘Oh?’

  He grimaced. ‘It was a good dream. A very good dream. Perhaps too good.’

  She felt the smile forming on her lips and some of the tension leaving her body. He hadn’t changed his mind, hadn’t realised what a mistake this would be in the light of day.

  ‘Come here,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘Out of view of the house. I have something I want to talk to you about.’

  He led her down the winding path through the garden to the little shed he kept at the end. She hadn’t been inside before, the garden being very much his private domain, but she knew he kept seeds for growing in there and clippings of plants he’d collected.

  For a moment he disappeared inside, then re-emerged with a few pots and thin wooden stakes in his hands.

  ‘Do you mind if we work while we talk?’ he asked, ‘I’ve always found it easier.’

  Shaking her head, Alice knelt down next to him and watched as he began filling the pots with soil. She waited until she was sure of what he was doing and then began to fill one of her own. The soil was dry and crumbly, another reminder of the last of rain these past few months.

  ‘I need to know something, Alice, and I need you to be completely honest with me,’ he said as he patted down the soft soil.

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘I know you feel grateful to me, for saving you from the whipping post and giving you a job here,’ he said slowly and Alice realised the direction his mind was travelling.

  ‘No,’ she said sharply.

  ‘No?’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say and the answer is no. No, I didn’t kiss you out of gratitude. I kissed you because I wanted to. I want to.’

  He glanced up then, as if wanting to assess the truth of her words.

  ‘I know things are not equal between us, Alice...’

  ‘No. They are not. But I’m not the sort of woman who thinks I need to repay a debt of gratitude with intimacy.’ Alice spoke firmly—it was a subject she was passionate about. All throughout the voyage on the transport ship and during those first few months in Australia she’d seen women giving themselves away just because a man had done something for them. As if it were some sort of payment. She’d hated witnessing it, hated seeing other women value themselves so low.

  George began pressing tiny little seeds into the soil, passing her a handful to do the same.

  ‘I don’t know what this is between us,’ Alice said more softly, ‘but please believe that I want it. If we were two people, two free people of the same circumstance, I would still want it. It’s not your status or your wealth that I see, it’s you. Your kindness, your warmth, your...’ She trailed off, blushing as she realised what she was about to say out loud.

  He looked up at her, a smile creeping on to his lips. ‘I want you, too,’ he leaned in and whispered. Alice felt a heat rise up from the core of her body and saw the same desire reflected in his eyes.

  ‘I think I need to explain,’ he said after a few seconds. Carefully he covered the little seeds over with soil and rose to get some water. Alice waited for him to return and give the newly planted seedlings some water, seeing he was trying to put into words what he was thinking.

  Only once the seeds were tended to did he rise, taking her hand and leading her over to a bench near the shed. From here they had a beautiful view of the garden, the flowers blooming and the trees a verdant green, and beyond the rolling hills of the countryside spread.

  ‘I haven’t ever told you much about my parents,’ he said eventually.

  ‘You said they came to Australia, dreaming of building a better life.’

  ‘They did. My father was the youngest son of a destitute baron. He had no land, no money and no real prospects, but when he married my mother he promised her the world. They emigrated here soon after they were married and bought the land and built the farmhouse just as I was born.’

  Alice thought for a moment of her own parents, their smiling faces and warm hearts, and felt a pang of homesickness but pushed it away. Whatever George wanted to tell her had been playing on his mind so she was determined to focus.

  ‘They always seemed like the perfect partnership,’ George said, looking out into the distance as if remembering the good times. ‘My father was a strong man, with strong beliefs, and my mother always quietly got on and did things. She wasn’t one to sit back and keep to what others might have viewed as her place.’

  Gently she slipped her hand into his, giving him an encouraging squeeze.

  ‘I always thought my father was a saint. He was so good. So kind. So generous. He was always talking about making a difference in the world, about helping those more in need than ourselves...’ He trailed off and shook his head. ‘He was a good man, he did care about those things, but of course no one is perfect.’

  Alice felt the weight of George’s disappointment and wondered what had made him realise his father was only human, only a man, and a man who made mistakes like everyone else.

  ‘When I was fifteen we had a young convict worker girl come and work in the house. My father had taken Robertson and Crawford in by then and our family had almost doubled in size. We needed a little more help and my father said this would be the answer, while saving one convict from the factories at the same time.’ George paused, looking out over the garden to the countryside beyond.

  ‘She was yo
ung, no more than eighteen, and shy and willing to do whatever was asked of her. Her name was Mary and she worked hard, but other than that I can’t say I noticed her very much.’

  ‘What happened?’ Alice asked.

  ‘One night I couldn’t sleep and I went downstairs. I caught my father being intimate with her.’ He shook his head as if the memory was too much and he wanted to banish it completely from his mind. ‘He wasn’t forcing himself on her,’ he said slowly, ‘but I could see by the look in her eyes that she wasn’t particularly enjoying it. That she felt obliged.’

  It was an awful thing to learn about his father, especially of a man he’d looked up to so much.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Alice said quietly. His fierce protection of her made sense now and his hesitancy in pursuing anything even when he clearly desired her.

  ‘He saw me,’ George continued, his voice hollow, ‘and the next day he came to me and begged me not to tell my mother.’

  ‘Did you?’

  Slowly he shook his head. ‘For weeks I couldn’t make up my mind, couldn’t decide if telling her would be selfish, to share the knowledge and unburden myself, or if she had a right to know. In the end I told myself I was protecting her, told myself the right thing to do was keep my father’s dirty little secret.’ The pain in his eyes told Alice that he now thought it had been the wrong decision.

  ‘Did she find out?’

  ‘Eventually. Father got rid of Mary almost immediately and I know Mother was suspicious of whatever explanation he’d cooked up, but she didn’t know for sure until many years later...’ he paused, looking out into the distance ‘...not until she was told by the doctors her health problems were caused by advanced syphilis. Syphilis my father had caught from Mary and later passed on to my mother.’

  Alice’s hand flew to her mouth in shock.

  ‘That’s terrible.’

  George grimaced. ‘I’m told it is more common than you would think. The silent killer. A disease that slowly ravages your organs until something fails. With my mother it was her heart.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘I’m not really sure what killed him. He died suddenly, only a few months after my mother. He had ulcers, which I’m told are common in people with the disease, and he’d started coughing up blood, but I don’t know what killed him.’ He ran a hand through his hair, letting out a low sigh. ‘He was still my father, I still loved him, still looked up to him, but after that day I caught him with Mary it was as though a spell had been broken. He was no longer perfect, no longer my idol.’

  ‘Many young boys would have hated their fathers after catching them like that.’

  ‘For a while I thought I did hate him. But as time passed I realised it was disappointment rather than hatred. I had thought of him as infallible and that belief had been smashed into tiny pieces.’

  ‘You friends don’t know, do they?’ Alice asked, picturing Crawford and Robertson’s awe-struck and admiring faces whenever Mr Fitzgerald senior was mentioned.

  ‘No. They needed a hero. Someone to believe in. To them he was still perfect, the man who had rescued them. I wasn’t going to be the one to take that away from them.’

  Alice smiled up at him, feeling the warmth radiating off him. ‘Sometimes I wonder if you’re too good to be true,’ she murmured.

  He turned to her, the sun glinting off his hair and making it look golden, and Alice found herself swaying towards him. The pull she felt was irresistible, the attraction overwhelming. She knew she should stop herself, should take this opportunity to tell him about Bill, to make sure there were no secrets between them. George had just let her glimpse into the most intimate and painful moments of his life, now was her chance to do the same.

  Alice opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come. She felt a panic rising up inside her. What if he heard about her past and decided it was too complicated? What if it highlighted the huge gulf between them, made him see that they weren’t supposed to be together?

  She knew she should say something, that he’d just told her he hated secretes, but still she couldn’t bring herself to make a sound.

  ‘You know everything about me now, Alice,’ he murmured, reaching up to run a finger down the length of her cheek, dipping behind her ear and caressing the soft skin of her neck.

  Alice felt her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth and her throat go dry. She needed to say something, to confess her marriage, the foolishness of her youth.

  Before she could summon up the courage Alice saw the spark of desire in George’s eyes and felt every rational thought leave her. As his lips met hers the regret and uncertainty left her and she was swept away by the warmth of his kiss.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Whistling, George looped his cravat around his neck and tied a loose knot. He didn’t have a valet like most men of his wealth and status would back in England, preferring to dress himself, but that did mean some of the intricacies of formal dress looked a little haphazard when he attempted them. Still, it was only Robertson and Crawford and their wives, no one would mind if his cravat looked as though it had been tied by a heavy-handed child.

  There was a hesitant knock on the door and George glanced over. Mrs Peterson wouldn’t knock like that, hers was a firm rap, which meant one thing only. Alice was standing outside his door.

  He glanced at the bed, the setting for many of the vivid dreams he’d had featuring Alice in the past few weeks: Alice in various states of undress, Alice looking at him with inviting eyes as she lounged back on the pillows. Alice underneath him, Alice on top of him...

  The knock came again and George was jolted back to the present.

  ‘Come in,’ he called, perhaps a little too tersely, but he was busy trying to rid his mind of the vivid images that were far too distracting.

  The door opened slowly, hesitantly, to reveal Alice standing looking beautiful in a deep blue dress. It complemented her colouring, the blue making the red-gold of her hair seem even more vibrant than usual.

  ‘Alice,’ he said, unable to stop himself from taking a couple of steps towards her. ‘You look ravishing.’

  She glanced down, using her hands to smooth the silky material of the full skirt, a delicate blush rising in her cheeks.

  ‘It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever worn,’ she said, biting her lip. ‘It doesn’t feel right.’

  The dress had apparently been his mother’s, not that he could ever remember her wearing anything so fine. They had found it packed away in a box in the attic while searching for the music sheets for the Christmas songs. Alice’s eyes had widened as her fingers had caressed the fine stitching and the luxurious material and she’d shaken her head in protest when he’d suggested she wear it for the evening they were about to spend with Crawford and Robertson.

  ‘Who else is going to wear it?’ George asked.

  Her eyes flew up to meet his and she opened her mouth, closing it abruptly almost immediately as if trying to keep the words inside. Unspoken they still hung between them. Your wife. That was who should be slipping into the beautiful blue dress. But he didn’t want a wife, at least not one of the daughters from the other wealthy farming families. He wanted Alice.

  Taking a step closer to her, he reached out and took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers.

  ‘Alice,’ he said, feeling something catch in his chest as she raised her eyes to meet his. They were still sparkling, still the same brilliant blue, but there was a shadow in them as if she was worrying about something. ‘There is no one else in the world I want to see wearing that dress.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘It is a gift. I’m giving it to you.’ He shook his head as she opened her mouth to protest. ‘No arguments. I would much rather you got to enjoy it than it sits up in the attic gathering dust for years.’

  ‘Does it make me look too pretentious?’
Alice asked.

  He laughed—she was the least pretentious person he’d ever met.

  ‘No. It makes you look beautiful.’

  George was having a hard time keeping his eyes still. They wanted to roam over her figure, to take in the swell of her breasts, the curve of her waist, to imagine the slender legs under the swathes of material. She looked beautiful in the dress, but he had the sudden urge to want to get her out of it, to strip her completely naked and spend the evening showing his appreciation of every inch of her skin.

  ‘I don’t want your friends to think I have ideas above my station.’

  ‘Alice,’ he said, cupping her cheek, ‘stop worrying. They won’t think anything of the sort.’

  Although her worries were completely unfounded he found it endearing that she cared so much what his friends thought of her. He realised he did, too. He wanted them to like her, wanted them to see what he did.

  ‘I didn’t know whether to put up my hair,’ she said, twisting a strand around her fingers.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said quickly. Although it was convention for a woman to wear her hair neatly done up on her head he loved how Alice’s fell down her back. Every time he saw the soft waves of red-gold it made him smile and he didn’t want her to tuck it away even for a dinner party. ‘Stop worrying,’ he said, leaning forward and placing a gentle kiss on the furrow between her eyebrows. As he pulled away he saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned, but there was no one there.

  ‘Did you see something?’ Alice asked, looking over her shoulder.

  ‘No, at least I don’t think so.’ Not that it mattered really. The only people in the house were the Petersons and although Mrs Peterson might have a few choice words to say if she saw him kissing Alice it didn’t much matter. He was her employer and, more than that, she cared for him as though he were a son. She might tell him she thought he was being unwise, but she couldn’t do much else.

  Unwise, the word stuck in his head. Was he being unwise? Every day he spent with Alice he discovered something new about her that made him like her even more. Every day she gained a little more confidence and her smile shone a little brighter. At the moment he was trying not to get ahead of himself, trying to just enjoy each and every day, but the inevitable thoughts about the future would assail him every now and then. And right now he couldn’t really imagine a future without Alice in it.