Merry Misrule

by St. Clair, Ellie

  And with that she reached into her dress and pulled out a pocket watch that, from the look on Joanna’s face, could be none other than the very one that had belonged to her grandmother.

  Chapter 9

  Joanna could only stare with mouth agape.

  Her pocket watch — her grandmother’s pocket watch — was hanging from Cecily’s hand, swinging by its gold chain back-and-forth, back-and-forth, mocking her with its closeness.

  It wasn’t anything particularly special. It was gold enamel, featuring a bouquet of flowers in the middle of a four-layered border, each one intimately familiar to Joanna.

  The outside border was blue, with red and gold crowns inlaid into it.

  And on the back, she knew there would be an inscription.

  To my love.

  It had not been inscribed for her, but her grandmother had told her that the love that filled it continued on through the gift.

  Elijah’s gift was actually much more elaborate. It was gold, with one central flower encrusted in diamonds.

  She didn’t want him to think her ungrateful. Truly, she didn’t. He had no need to give her anything, and the fact that he had thought of a pocket watch showed that his intentions to make amends were sincere.

  It also proved, however, that he didn’t actually understand what the value of the watch had been to her.

  “Yes,” Joanna said now, her voice strangled, “as it happens, I do recognize that watch.”

  “I must have shown it to you then!”

  “You did,” Joanna’s lips somehow formed a tight smile. “You don’t recall where the watch came from?”

  “Mm, no, I don’t,” Cecily said with a bright smile, although a quick darkness passed over her eyes, telling Joanna that she well remembered all that had occurred. “It’s a mystery!”

  Joanna opened her mouth once more, but suddenly Elijah’s hand was on her shoulder.

  “I can hardly believe you still have it, Cecily,” he said, and when Joanna looked up at him, a protest on her lips, he silently shook his head. “How lovely. Your husband must be thrilled.”

  Joanna nearly snorted at that, but then Elijah held out an elbow. “Should we go and rejoin the others?”

  Joanna nodded, and it wasn’t until Cecily left them to fetch her cloak for the walk to the church service that she turned to him with her hands on her hips. She didn’t need to demand his explanation, however, for he already had one awaiting her.

  “I have a plan,” he murmured in her ear. “We won’t be able to put it in place until later, but I will get your grandmother’s pocket watch back. I promise.”

  She turned to him then, searching his deep brown eyes, wondering if what he said was true.

  “Do you trust me?”

  She didn’t. Not entirely. But he seemed so earnest, so committed, that she didn’t have it within her to break his spirit.

  “Let’s give it a try,” she said, forcing a smile to her face.

  She wasn’t sure how he thought to pull this off, but if there was any man she knew could come up with the perfect scheme, it was he.

  * * *

  Elijah was buoyed by hope. Joanna had, at the very least, not completely turned away from him and shut him down.

  He knew she was trying to show pleasure over his gift, even though it had done nothing but cause her additional grief. He had done the best he could, but Cecily showing up with the watch that Joanna actually longed for… well, there was nothing he could have done about that.

  But he could get it back for her.

  He had a few tricks on how to encourage people to give up things that belonged to them, to scheme them out of the items. He had to be careful, however, for Cecily was already aware that Joanna wanted what she had, and if she were to simply lose the watch, Joanna was sure to be blamed. The fact that she was a seamstress while Cecily was the daughter of an earl and the wife of a viscount, would certainly mean that Joanna would be found in the wrong.

  He donned his cloak and hat before opening the door as all who filled Briercrest began to pile into the waiting sleighs. As many of the guests had arrived in one themselves, there were more than enough to fit them all.

  He hoped for the chance to sit under one of the warm fur rugs with Joanna pressed up against him, but alas, he was next to the admiral’s wife once more.

  “Mrs. Cuthbert,” he greeted her, and the woman beamed up at him so hard that her eyes closed. She was near to his mother’s age, but he couldn’t help note that she wiggled in much closer to him than was necessary. He swallowed, looking for help or an escape, but he was pressed up against the side of the sleigh.

  “Lord Elijah,” she gushed, so loudly that his ear started to ring. He supposed that when one lived with a near-deaf husband for so many years, one would become used to speaking in so great a volume. “Happy Christmas.”

  “And to you,” he returned politely.

  “It is a chilly one today, is it not? Thank goodness we have one another tucked in here under all of these layers.”

  She laughed, but unfortunately there were not nearly enough layers between the two of them. If she came any closer, then he was sure he was the one who would be ruined.

  He looked up toward the other sleighs which were also being loaded, and found that sitting across from him, watching him with interest, was Joanna.

  She was laughing. At him.

  He stared back at her, slowly shaking his head at the fact she was taking such pleasure from his obvious distress. That was when she really began to laugh in earnest, so much so that her sleigh companions looked at her with some question. Caroline, who was seated next to her, leaned in and asked something, and when Joanna obviously explained just what had her so entertained, Caroline began to snicker as well.

  Elijah shot both of them what he hoped was a dark look, one telling them that they were going to face retribution for their glee.

  Just what that would be, he wasn’t entirely sure yet.

  * * *

  Joanna had quite enjoyed watching Elijah struggle. There was obviously nothing he could do to extricate himself from his position — quite literally — but when the horses had pulled the sleighs into the yard of the Chearsley Parish Church of Saint Nicholas, he had jumped out at nearly a run, holding the church door open for the rest of them.

  “Careful, Eli,” she murmured as she slipped past him, “some might get the wrong impression.”

  He snorted as he followed her in, taking the end seat beside her on the pew, with Caroline on her left.

  “You’re cruel.”

  “I’m not,” she protested, “just having a bit of fun.”

  “I’m glad one of us enjoyed that,” he muttered. “You must protect me on the way home.”

  “You’re a grown man!”

  “Even so,” he said with a sigh, “it caused me great suffering.”

  As Joanna rolled her eyes, Christopher went running by them, but Elijah deftly stepped out of the pew and picked him up, fitting him in between him and the edge.

  “Just where do you think you are going, young man?” he asked, and the five-year-old turned to him with a grin.

  “To see baby Jesus!”

  “All in good time,” Elijah said. “The minister is coming out now. We must wait until he’s finished to go forward.”

  Christopher heaved a great sigh and Joanna’s lips twitched at what categorized such a great tragedy when one was young. How she wished it remained so for her.

  “Uncle Eli?” Christopher whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “Were you there when I was born?”

  Elijah started, and Joanna swung her head toward them, interested in just how Elijah was going to handle this conversation.

  “Not in the room, no, of course not,” he said. “That is no place for a man.”

  “But were you in the house?”

  “I…” Elijah paused, tilting his head as though he had to think on it, “I’m not entirely sure.”

  “You
don’t know? I was your first nephew.”

  “I…I’m sure I was,” he said now, although his features had tightened, and Joanna could tell he was not particularly comfortable with the conversation.

  Another memory he had apparently lost. What had happened to cause it?

  She had no more time to think on it, however, for then the first chords of Joy to the World began to resound from the organ, and she stood along with the rest of the congregation.

  It was a beautiful service in the little village chapel. Their house party and Briercrest servants made up three pews, the rest filled with villagers. Joanna appreciated the moment in time of this Christmastide to be in the midst of others who were not marquesses or admirals or heirs to a title or a wife or daughter of one of them. Here, they were just people. People who had come together to celebrate Christmas in its truest form.

  Christopher was remarkably well behaved, and his little sister Clementine even took a seat next to them, warming Joanna’s heart when she wiggled her way between Elijah and Joanna before taking a seat on Joanna’s lap in order to better see the service.

  Joanna’s heart churned as she wondered, for a moment, whether she would ever have a child of her own. Elijah’s face flashed in the role of their father, startling her, for while she could admit that his nearness had awakened the attraction to him that she had always fought against, she had never entertained the thought that she might ever have any sort of emotional connection to him, besides one of anger or avoidance.

  But now that the four of them sat here together, like a small family… it tugged at her, and she told herself to fight against it. Elijah was not the kind of man who would make a good husband, nor a good father.

  Or would he?

  She thought back to breakfast that very morning. She knew that most had disdained Elijah’s actions with Christopher, but she had actually been quite entertained. His voice had cut through the others down the table even before all attention had been pointed toward him, and she had been eagerly awaiting to see what else he could come up with.

  He was creative, if nothing else, and knew how to entertain a child.

  Whether he could be responsible for one, however, was an entirely different question.

  After the service was over, they walked up the aisle between the pews, the old wood and musty smell that always came with small, old churches accompanying them, so that the children could see the manger with the little baby Jesus right in the middle.

  “He’s so small,” Christopher said.

  “Like me!” Clementine chimed in.

  “Yes, just like you,” Joanna said with a laugh.

  They all stood there for a moment, taking in the scene before them, and Joanna couldn’t help but allow her gaze to wander over Elijah once more. His dark hair was curled with a dash of debonair, his eyes laughing as they always were — until they looked up to meet hers, and then they darkened with a sense of knowing, telling her that he understood what she was thinking, and wished for it too.

  She shouldn’t. He shouldn’t. But the air seemed to go out of the room and she wanted nothing more than for this to be real, for him to want her just as assuredly as she wanted him, for reasons beyond all reason.

  “Christopher! Clementine!”

  Ophelia was calling the children now, beckoning them back out into the crisp winter air, and when Clementine jumped from Joanna’s arms, she felt the loss of her presence within them.

  “Well,” Joanna said, filling the pregnant air that remained as most of the congregation filed out of the church. “We best go.”

  “Don’t forget your promise,” Elijah said, one eyebrow quirked.

  “My promise?”

  “To protect me,” he said, before leaning in close. “Do you know how many times Mrs. Cuthbert’s hand found its way toward my leg?”

  Joanna laughed out loud at that, but Elijah feigned insult.

  “It’s not funny!” he exclaimed. “I had to keep pushing it back, and I moved so far away I was nearly falling over the side of the sleigh.”

  “Well, I cannot recall making any such promise.”

  “Please?” he said, turning in her direction, and she wasn’t entirely sure whether his desperation was real or feigned. “I will owe you forever, I promise.”

  “Here I thought you already did.”

  “But even more so,” he vowed. “Anything you want from me, I will make it so.”

  “Well…” she said, biting her lip, knowing that she was making a deal with the devil but unable to resist the temptation.

  “Very well.”

  “Excellent.” He grinned as they stepped through the door and he swept his hand out toward the sleigh, which only had room for two more, anyway. “Our chariot awaits.”

  Chapter 10

  Elijah could blame his reaction to Joanna on the fact that it had been quite some time since he had been with a woman. He had been recuperating from his war injury for a few months before he had begun the journey home. Even before then, while he had never been particularly shy around women, he was by no means a rake of any sort.

  Of all the women he had met and charmed, he had never responded to a woman the way he did Joanna.

  Since he had seen her in the library that first night, he had desired her physically with all of his being.

  There was more to it, however. He found himself looking to her every time he made a joke just to see if she would laugh. He wondered what she thought of her meal, contemplated whether or not she fell asleep quickly, was curious about what she spoke of when she was with the women and whether she sewed for fun or if she only did so in order to make a living.

  He wanted to know everything about her, and he wanted to be the man that would complement her in every way.

  There was one thing he knew without question, he noted as her frame molded into his from where she sat next to him — they would fit together better than any pair ever had before. He was sure of it.

  “Thank you,” he said, ensuring to tuck the blanket in more tightly around her. “I am ever in your debt.”

  “The real question is,” she said with a sigh, “just what to use my favor for?”

  He quirked up an eyebrow.

  “Careful,” he warned, “don’t use it too quickly. You might come to regret it later.”

  “I never regret anything,” she said quietly. “Every mistake made is something to learn from. You cannot have made a different choice unless you possess the same information that you have after your first decision.”

  “An interesting thought,” he remarked, curious about just how this woman’s mind worked.

  Joanna began waving then, and he followed her gaze to see that Caroline was whizzing by in the other sleigh. She waved back to the two of them before the sleigh passed, and Elijah suddenly stood, calling out to the footman driving theirs.

  “I say, Georges! Beat that sleigh!”

  “My lord?” The footman, his nose, ears, and cheeks completely red from the cold, looked at him in shock.

  “I said ‘Beat that sleigh!’ Come Georges, you don’t want Thatcher getting the best of us, do you?”

  Nor did he want Thatcher out of his sight with his sister in front of him, for his parents and Baxter and Ophelia must be in the third sleigh.

  Georges grinned, and without any more encouragement, he urged the horses on, and their sleigh began to pass Thatcher’s once more.

  “That’s it!” Elijah said, standing and shouting triumphantly, one fist in the air.

  Thatcher looked over, saw the race was on, and began to prod his own horses forward.

  Joanna cried out with glee as she held a hand over her hat, making sure it didn’t fly off into the wind. Lord and Lady Oxford were bundled into the sleigh with their son as well, but seemed to be enjoying the race along with them, while Alex urged Georges on himself. Shouts and taunts began to fill the air as they all called out to one another while the sleighs continued forward as fast as the snow allowed.

  “To
the break in the trees!” Elijah shouted, standing again, unable to help himself. He had always been competitive, and even now, when he had no way to actually affect the win, he couldn’t help but put everything he had into this.

  Joanna tried to stand, but then fell off balance and into his side, laughing. She held onto his arm, and even through her mittens and his layers of clothing, he enjoyed the feel of her, especially when it meant that he was supporting her.

  “Go, go!” she called, until finally they surged ahead and skidded through the break of the trees, coming out first the other side. All within their sleigh let out a shout of glee, and Elijah couldn’t help himself.

  He leaned down, placed his gloved hands on either side of Joanna’s face, and kissed her right on the lips.

  It was a quick smack of their lips together, but it obviously surprised them both, as suddenly they sat back and stared at one another.

  “I… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—” he began, knowing that he should never have done such a thing without her permission, but before he could say anything, his voice was overwhelmed by Thatcher and Georges beginning to shout good-naturedly to one another about whether or not the race was fair.

  “You started this, you know,” Joanna murmured, and he wasn’t sure whether or not she was referring to the jovial argument between the two footmen or their own interest in one another.

  Either way she was right.

  “That I did,” he murmured back, looking out over the snowy expanse below them, “that I did.”

  And he wasn’t sorry.

  Not one bit.

  * * *

  Their “small tea” that afternoon was anything but, just like most meals at Briercrest Manor.

  Joanna, however, could hardly eat.

  All she could think about was that kiss. She wasn’t entirely sure if it could even be called much of a kiss. Elijah’s lips had been on hers so briefly that they were gone before she had even realized what he was doing.