Mick came to his feet and walked beside her toward the parlor door. “Rosalind, now that you know all this about me—all my failings—do you wish to be released from our agreement? I cannot blame you—”
“No, indeed.” Her eyes shone as she met his gaze. “For I find that I am in grave danger of falling in love with you, sir.” She dipped her head. “Do excuse me now. I must return to Papa.”
Before he could respond, she had fled across the foyer and out the front door.
“This is a capital idea, indeed!” Lord Remington clipped a small, white candle to the branch of the towering fir tree that stood in the front parlor of Sir Michael Stafford’s house in Grosvenor Square. “William, was this your notion? Or do I detect the distinct touch of my dearest Caroline?”
“No, Father, for it was Mick himself who conceived the plan.” William was stirring a bowl of hot cranberry punch. “He said that a Christmas Eve wedding called for a tree and all the trimmings.”
“And what could be more enjoyable than gathering friends and family for a decorating party?” Mick asked as he hung a red glass ball on a limb. “All of you have played an important part in the union that is to take place tomorrow morning. Miss Treadwell . . . Rosalind . . . and I are very grateful.”
Rosalind smiled as Mick cast a warm glance in her direction. How could it be that in such a short time, her heart had transformed from a solid block of suspicion and resentment to this buttery, flip-flopping, giddy lump that danced about in her chest every time he looked at her? She took her father’s hand, seeking an anchor.
“Mick is thanking every one,” she said through the ear trumpet.
“Ahh.” Lord Buxton nodded sagely. Though his speech was not completely clear, he was able to sit up for long periods of time, and he was making every effort to learn to stand again.
“Artie!” he called, beckoning Sir Arthur with his good hand. Lord Remington hobbled across the room on his gouty legs, and Rosalind gladly gave him her place on the settee. The two men had discovered that their chess playing abilities had not suffered in the least. Rather than making the effort to go to their gentlemen’s club, they simply visited each other’s abodes, and their cries of victory or defeat could be heard echoing down the corridors at all hours.
“The tree is lovely,” Rosalind said as Mick stepped toward her with a cup of punch. “Caroline said you ordered all the trimmings yesterday from a shop on Bond Street.”
“I’ve never put up a tree before.” He gave her the cup and took her free hand in his. “I hope it will be a tradition we can enjoy for many years to come.”
“Indeed.”
“Children,” he added, “would very much enjoy a tree.”
Rosalind couldn’t force away the blush she could feel heating her cheeks. “I always loved Christmas when I was a little girl. But I suppose you had no fir trees or cranberry punch in India.”
He glanced down. “Rosalind, I—”
“What is this?” Caroline exclaimed over a collection of boxes near the door. “These ornaments are not new, Mick. Oh, how lovely! Wherever did you get them?”
She lifted a silver ball of blown glass high into the air. Rosalind gave a gasp of joy. “Those are our ornaments!” Leaving Mick, she fairly danced across the parlor in delight. “Papa must have ordered them to be sent from the great house at Bridgeton. Look, Mick!”
“How very pretty,” he said.
“They’ve been stored in the attic for many years, but I would know these balls at once. My grandpapa bought them in Bavaria before the turn of the century. He told us they were all hand painted by a wee man in a shop on the side of a mountain. Oh, how delightful!”
Her heart singing, she hurried to her father’s side and gave his cheek a kiss. Lord Buxton patted her arm. “Mick, please may we add them to the tree?” she implored. “I know they are old, but—”
“Of course, Rosalind.” His face softened. “It is your tree now . . . and your home . . . as much as it is mine.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much!”
“Look at this!” Caroline cried as she unwrapped an angel with spun-glass wings, and Rosalind could not bear to miss a moment. She raced back to the boxes and eagerly took out one cherished object after another—a wreath made of gilded pinecones, angels and Father Christmases of embossed paper, tiny lace cones spilling with silver ribbons, and countless glass balls from the mountains of Bavaria.
Never had she thought she would spend the days before her wedding in such joy. Caroline and William had become her dear friends, unabashed in their happiness at the growing attachment between Mick and herself. Her father’s health was steady. Her acceptance into London’s highest society seemed assured. But most of all—she couldn’t keep herself from glancing in his direction—most of all, she had come to adore her future husband.
How could it be that God had seen fit to bless her with more than she had ever dreamed of in a man, Rosalind wondered as she unwrapped an old nativity set her grandfather had carved. Mick was more than handsome, she had decided. With his broad shoulders and thick hair and warm blue eyes, he was . . . well, he was a masterpiece! She loved the shape of his hands, the hint of beard that shadowed his face each evening, the fine angle of his nose, the turn of his ear . . .
“Who are these people?” Caroline asked, holding up a small picture frame that emerged from the bottom of a box.
“It’s Mama and Papa!” Rosalind cried. “How did it get put into the Christmas decorations? One of the servants must have thought it was an ornament.” She took the portrait and gazed at her youthful parents. Then she scrambled to her feet and hurried to her father. “Look, Papa, it’s you and Mama!”
At the sight of the portrait, he let out a cry of joy. “Maude!” he said, so clearly there could be no doubt of the depth of love they had known. “My Maude.”
Her heart flooding with pleasure, Rosalind looked around for Mick. Surely he would wish to see how her parents had appeared in their youth. Indeed, Papa had often told Rosalind she was almost a copy of her mother. With her masses of brown curly hair and her slender figure, she could see the resemblance so clearly now.
“Where is Mick?” she asked, looking around the room.
“He stepped outside for a moment,” Caroline said as she began setting up the nativity scene. “Oh, look, it’s snowing! I do hope he doesn’t stay out long.”
Remembering how Mick had spoken of his desire for children, Rosalind felt determined to show him the portrait of her mother. What if their daughters had the same curly hair? Would he be pleased? She thought so, as she pushed open the long French door that led onto a croquet lawn. He had admired her curls just that evening, and he had stated that she must purchase all the jeweled combs and pins she desired so that her hair might be displayed to its fullest advantage.
“Mick!” she called, spotting him near the far edge of the lawn. She lifted her skirts and ran through the heavy flakes that had begun to fall. “Mick, you must come back inside, for Caroline has found a portrait of my parents, and I want you to see it. I am quite sure you will recognize how strongly I resemble my mother—”
She gasped as he caught her suddenly in his arms. “Rosalind, I love you more than words can express!” he exclaimed. “As I watch you, I feel so undeserving of you. You are good and kind and so beautiful!”
“And you are generous and witty and very handsome!” she returned, laughing with pleasure. “Oh, Mick, I cannot think when I have ever been so happy.”
“Nor I. God has given me such a gift in you.” He bent his head and touched his lips gently to hers. “I have longed to kiss you.”
“Kiss me again,” she said breathlessly. “For I am dizzy with joy.”
He drew her more closely into his arms and this time permitted his kiss to linger. “Rosalind, I spoke to you of my past,” he said, his breath warming her ear, “and I feel that before we marry, I should make a confession.”
She drew back a little, but she could not see his expression
in the darkness. “Mick, does your behavior of the past continue into the present?”
“No, of course not. Absolutely not, but I—”
“Then I do not wish to hear it. God has forgiven you, and tomorrow we shall begin to build our new life together. The only confessions I will hear from your lips are confessions of love.”
“Rosalind!” he whispered, clasping her tightly.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, feeling a small object in his breast pocket. “What do you have in your coat, Mick? Is it that little thing you take out when you are troubled? Let me see it.”
He pulled the lamb from his pocket and set it in her hand. “Come, we must go back to the parlor, or we shall begin to freeze.” He slipped his arm around her. “I keep that little toy in my pocket as a sort of comfort. It reminds me of when my mother was still alive . . . when hope lived in my heart . . . I’m not sure what it is, really. A lamb or something, but I treasure it as the anchor to which I have clung when all the world seemed falling down around me.”
“Mick, it is so tiny,” Rosalind said as they stepped back through the French door into the lighted parlor. “It is a lamb, a small carved lamb. Indeed, it—”
Her voice caught as she looked across the room at the nativity scene that Caroline was arranging. Unable to speak, Rosalind walked to her side and stared down at the small carved figures. There were Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. The three kings and the shepherd with his hook. And there were the donkey and the camel. But the lamb . . . the tiny lamb had gone missing on one terrible Christmas Eve.
Feeling that she might faint, Rosalind clenched the lamb in her fist and started for the door. She had to get out of this house, she thought as she ran across the foyer. She had to pack her bags and send for a carriage and have her papa brought—
“Rosalind!” Mick’s voice seemed to echo in her spinning head as he caught her arm. “Are you ill? What is the matter?”
She turned slowly and forced herself to face him. “This lamb,” she said, her words barely audible in the deserted foyer. “I have seen it before.”
“But that’s impossible, for I have had it since I was a child.”
“Many years ago,” she began, unable to look at him, “my papa decided to convert all his liquid assets into bonds. I was but a small child at the time, but I remember how he worked day and night to sort out the ledgers before the new year began. One evening, we went out to a Christmas party, and he left his ledgers and the bank notes on a table in the parlor. When we came home, they were gone. Most of our good silver was stolen, too.” She swallowed hard. “But what I wept for was the desecration of the small nativity scene my grandpapa had carved and painted by hand. I had played with it, loved it, cherished it. And that night . . . that night, someone had stolen the lamb.”
Mick reached for her, but she pulled back. “Rosalind, I—”
“My family never recovered from that loss. Our fortunes continued to fall, and my father was forced to sell much of his land and other holdings. My mama died, brokenhearted and rejected by her own friends and family. In the end, Papa and I moved into the gamekeeper’s cottage, where we were forced to peddle the family statuary and paintings in order to keep coal in our fireplace and food on our table.” She opened her palm. “The night this lamb was stolen, we were ruined.”
“But how can you be sure—”
“I know this lamb!” she cried, her heart tearing in two. “My grandpapa carved it, and it is a perfect match to the set in your parlor—the set that is missing its lamb! Mick, please tell me you did not take this from my house. Please say you had nothing to do with the crime that destroyed my family!”
He stared at her, and his face grew hard. “I see that my past does matter after all.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“He ruined us!” Rosalind knotted her fists as she paced before the small fire in her father’s bedroom. The only relief in her heart was that she had escaped Mick’s house. On learning that she was unwell, the decorating party had dispersed. Sir William and Lady Caroline returned to their home with Rosalind and Lord Buxton. Lord Remington’s carriage took him back to his town house. And Mick was left alone.
“Ros-ind,” Lord Buxton said, holding up his ear trumpet.
“Mick ruined us!” Rosalind stepped forward and fairly shouted into the horn. “It was he who stole your money that night so many years ago, Papa. He is a deceitful man with a wicked past. All of his great wealth has been gained from thievery. And he professed himself to be a Christian!”
Taking her handkerchief from her sleeve, Rosalind pressed it against her eyes. She walked to the fireplace and stared down at the glowing coals. “All that I believed in was a lie! Indeed, he is a parvenu. Sir Michael Stafford—oh, that is a good joke! He probably got his title by some underhanded means. And then he thought he could marry me in order to carry out the final workings of his evil scheme! He stole your money, Papa, and then he tried to steal your land and all your titles. Abominable man! Insufferable, horrible, revolting man!”
She grabbed the poker and gave the fire a prod. “I don’t know how I was so easily tricked. I was lulled into thinking him handsome and good and . . . well, he did tell me he had a wicked past . . . but I had no idea it was so frightfully evil! I thought perhaps he had taken advantage of a business partner or violated a trade agreement or something so much less. . . .”
Rosalind glanced over at her father, who was attempting to write on a sheet of paper. A letter, perhaps. A document freeing her from the marriage agreement. Her father had always said, “Sin is sin,” and by that he had meant no evil was greater than another.
But Mick’s sin had been against her! Against her dear papa! How could she see that as anything but the worst, most unforgivable wickedness? And to think how close she had been to marrying him.
She had been such a fool! She had come to believe Mick was truly a gentleman of the first order. He had cared for her father with the greatest of kindness. He had paid for doctors, nurses, the phonetician, even the ear trumpet. He had visited day and night during Lord Buxton’s gravest hours. And he had done all in his power to provide Rosalind with every comfort and luxury a woman could dream of. But now she understood—all this was merely a part of his plan to secure her hand in marriage, and with that, to gain the prestige of her father’s titles for himself!
“He is a vile man!” she shouted, crossing to her father and speaking into his trumpet. She picked up the carved lamb that had been lying on the table where her father was writing and shook it in his face. “Mick took this from us, Papa. That Christmas Eve when all your money was stolen, Mick was in our house, and he stole this lamb. Do you not recognize it? Grandpapa carved it! It went missing from the nativity scene on that very night. Sir Michael is a thief, Papa, a lying, horrible, despicable thief, and we should do all in our power to—”
To what? What could they do to recover their losses? He had ruined them, but what power did they have to . . .
Rosalind stared at the lamb. “We must ruin him!” she cried. Grabbing the wide end of the trumpet, she spoke into it. “All Mick’s acquaintances have seen him holding this lamb from time to time. Everyone knows it is his. We shall therefore prove to one and all that it was stolen from our home, Papa! We must expose him for the man he is. All his past will be revealed— his childhood on the docks of the Thames, his wealth gained from breaking into the homes of wealthy families, and his lies about . . . about that rich uncle in India, his education at Cambridge, and . . .”
And he had said he loved her! She slammed the lamb back onto the table and crossed to the fire again. Surely, he had meant those words, that passion! His eyes had been so full of adoration. He had clasped her so tightly. And oh, how she had welcomed every whispered word from his lips . . . his wonderful, magical lips . . .
“Ros-ind!” The growl caught her as she was blotting the tears that had fallen down her cheeks. She turned to find her father beckoning.
“I believed he loved me, Papa,” sh
e wept. “And I loved him. I loved him so dearly . . .”
Her father picked up the paper on which he had been writing and waved it at her. She took it and read the spidery letters he had penned.
“John 1:29.” A Bible verse. “What does it mean?” she demanded. “Why have you written this?”
The viscount took the paper away from her, picked up the little lamb, and set it firmly on top of his written words. He gave her such a significant look that she dropped down into the chair beside his.
“What, Papa?” she asked. “I’m sorry, but I can’t remember that Scripture verse.”
He let out a raspy note of exasperation.
“Fine then, I shall go to the library and look it up!” She started for the door but returned and spoke into the trumpet. “It is our duty to expose him. He has risen to his position by wicked means, and all his friends and business associates are deceived in him. We must draft the letter in the morning.”
As Rosalind hurried down the staircase, she heard her words echoing in the corridor. In the morning . . . in the morning she had planned to be getting married! She would have put on her gown of white silk, woven strands of pearls through her hair, and given her heart to the man she had grown to love as dearly as life itself.
Oh, how could he have betrayed her so? Had he known from the moment he chose her that it was her father’s wealth he had stolen? Had he selected her as some kind of a joke—the final coup de grâce to the slow destruction of their family that he had begun so many years before?
“Ma’am?” A small boy standing in the shadows startled her. “I’ve been ringin’ and ringin’ but nobody comes. I’ve brought a message to Miss Treadwell from Sir Michael Stafford.” He stepped forward and extended a silver tray. “Can you see that she gets it? He gave me a whole shillin’ to do the job, and I don’t want to lose me wages.”
A Victorian Christmas Page 29