by Lynn Kerstan
“Believe me, she was as strong and willful as her husband was weak and dissipated. She ruled Wolvercote, for all practical purposes, and spent every penny of the money she inherited from her mother to improve the lot of the tenant farmers. Lady Swann would do far better to write about Grandmama than her repellent husband and son.”
“Then tell me what you know of her,” Jane urged. “It was precisely this sort of information Lady Swann was looking for when she sent me to you.”
“Perhaps. But I trust that old busybody as far as I could throw an elephant.” He dug into the chest, pulling out dresses and quilted petticoats, looking them over before tossing them into a pile on the floor. When Jane protested, he waved a careless hand. “They will be preserved, I promise you. I’ll send people to see them cleaned and properly stored.”
Hands itching to pack them neatly again, she followed him as he scooted over to a trunk and wrested it open. More dresses, less elaborate but still lovely with their hand-tooled lace and intricate embroidery, were chucked onto the pile.
“Ah. Here’s something,” he said, lifting a delicate length of cream-colored wool to the light. “A Kashmiri shawl. I used to trade in these. The finest, by legend if not always by fact, were so finely woven they could be passed through a wedding ring.”
He ran his fingers over the material. “Excellent quality. It’s an amilkar, because of the embroidery. In the old days, the shawls were plain, but the story has it that an artisan named Ala Baba could not wash out the tracks made by a chicken that walked over the material he had woven. He covered the tracks with patterns of colored thread, and a whole new industry was born.”
To Jane’s astonishment, Lord Fallon put the shawl in her hands. “You must have this,” he said. “I’ll hear no objections. Consider it a Christmas gift, or a souvenir of your decidedly bizarre excursion to Wolvercote. Besides,” he added softly, “Grandmama would have liked you enormously. I know she would be pleased for you to wear her shawl.”
Choking on a boulder-size lump in her throat, Jane wrapped the soft wool around her shoulders. “It’s lovely, sir. I shall treasure it always. Thank you.”
“Well, then.” Looking mightily pleased with himself, which made her want to laugh, he moved on to the next trunk. “What the deuce?” Frowning, he lifted out a pair of black-and-silver brocade knee breeches. Next came a frock coat to match and an elaborate lace jabot attached to a stiff collar.
“Your grandfather’s?” she asked into the stunned silence.
“Possibly, although he was never permitted to set foot in the dower house. I can’t imagine she would keep anything that belonged to him.”
Jane heard a low rumble in his chest, followed by an explosion of laughter.
“By God,” Fallon said when he could speak. “I’d wager dear old Grandmama took a lover! Good for her. I wonder who he was.” He dug through the trunk, throwing out more coats and breeches and two pairs of high-heeled, silver-buckled shoes. Uncovering a voluminous opera cape of black satin lined with velvet, he stood and swung it over his shoulders, making her an elaborate leg and sweeping the cloak back with a dramatic flourish. “How do I look, Lady Ryder?”
She dipped into a profound curtsy. “La, sir, all England has never seen so gallant, handsome a gentleman as you.”
“Or one in more need of a shave,” he replied with a grin, removing the cape and folding it carefully. “I think I shall keep this, in memory of Grandmama’s secret affair. Lord knows she deserved a better man than the one she was married to.”
The notion of his grandmother frolicking in the dower house with a mysterious lover put Lord Fallon in an expansive mood. He rummaged through trunk after trunk, most filled with hand-embroidered linens and pillowcases, some holding fans, handkerchiefs, and knickknacks. Now and again he recognized something, like a porcelain shepherdess missing one arm that stood on the mantelpiece in his grandmother’s room, and the ormolu clock he used to wind for her when he visited, because the servants always forgot.
Jane sat on a box and watched him. He spoke to her, often using her name, but she suspected he was only dimly aware of her presence as he called up experiences from a past he had forgot until now.
His mother died when he was five years old, Jane knew from Eudora’s account. He was sent off to Winchester when he was eight. But for a little time, on school holidays, he stayed in this house with a grandmother who took the small boy to her heart. She gave him a rocking horse and tin soldiers. She put him in charge of her special ormolu clock, which the servants had doubtless tended perfectly well, to make him feel important.
Above all, she had loved him.
You are a rich marquess, she thought, gazing at his profile through watery eyes, and I a nobody earning my living as best I can. But we have much in common, you and I, when all the money and social distinctions are peeled away.
Thank the Lord he could not read her thoughts. He kept his emotions so strictly guarded that he would be revolted to think a virtual stranger was sitting a short distance away, analyzing him like a bug on a pin. She could never tell him she knew how he felt, or that her heart ached for him when he lifted something he recognized and cradled it between his large hands.
He had become more careful now with the things he found, replacing them in the trunks or setting them gingerly aside. “Have you a hairpin?” he asked when he tried to open a small trunk that was apparently locked.
She passed one over, and in less than a minute, he was raising the lid. Then he took out a small laquered box and set it on the floor. It, too, was locked, but not for long. Lord Fallon, she thought, could well have a rewarding career as a burglar. Or perhaps he’d already had one. Curious, she went to kneel beside him and saw an assortment of old jewelry in the lacquered box.
He raised an intricate filigree necklace to the light. “This was Grandmama’s favorite. She always wore it when she dressed for dinner. I remember that cameo brooch, too. But there is nothing here of value, I’m afraid. My grandfather sold most of her jewelry to pay his gaming debts.”
Jane picked up a painted miniature set in a gilt frame. “Is this a picture of your grandmother?”
“No. That was her mother, Lady Belva Urquhart. Grandmama kept this miniature on her bed table for inspiration, she told me. As I recall, Lady Belva shot her first husband between the eyes and went on to marry Lord Urquhart for his money. Grandmama was their only child.” He raised a brow. “You’ve probably heard this story from Lady Swann.”
“No. It happened before her time, I expect. But this is all far more interesting than the redundant tales in Scandalbroth. I am sure Lady Swann would love to know all the gory details of Lady Belva’s story.”
“Well, I don’t know them.” He replaced the jewelry case in the trunk and pulled out a square wooden box. “Grandmama said only that Lady Belva’s first husband was a notorious brute and that his demise was generally regarded as a blessing. The case never came to trial.”
As she watched, Lord Fallon opened the wooden box. “My God,” he whispered. Hand shaking, he passed her a painted metal figure about four inches tall. “The Duke of Marlborough,” he said. “Commander of my troops. They are all here. The entire army is here in this box. I cannot imagine why she kept them.”
Jane examined the roughly carved figure of the Duke of Marlborough, paint peeling from his red coat, the tip of his sword broken off. “So that you could give them to your son, of course.”
He looked up at her in surprise. “I mean to sire an heir, naturally. That is my first duty once I’ve selected a wife. But do you know, until this moment I never once thought of the Fallon heir as a small boy. What the devil will I do with a son between the time he is born and the day he claims what I mean to build for him?”
Love him, Jane thought immediately. Love him.
“No matter,” Fallon said, replacing the box of soldiers in the trunk. “He’l
l want a modern army, I expect, not these ancient fellows. And a mighty French army to battle, with Bonaparte leading the enemy charge.”
“Yes.” Jane pretended not to notice when Fallon slipped the Duke of Marlborough into his pocket. “I daresay you will buy him an expensive collection of infantry and cavalry and artillery. But these beat-up tin soldiers will always be his favorites, I promise you. He will play with them more than all the others, because they once belonged to his papa.”
“Humbug.” Fallon got to his feet and stalked to the tiny window, glancing back at her over his shoulder. “No Fallon with a grain of sense ever wished to be anything like his father—not that there has been a sensible Fallon male born in the last two centuries. I am as mad as all the others, you know.”
Unsure how to respond to that startling declaration, she was casting about for a change of subject when he began rubbing his sleeve against the window.
“Salvation is at hand!” he announced, turning to her with an exuberant smile. “The wind is quieting, and I’m almost certain I saw a slice of blue sky. Let’s go have a better look.”
Jane blew out the candles, picked up the black cape, and hurried after him. When she arrived in the entrance hall, he was already outside, knee-deep in snow, gazing up at the sky.
“See there!” He pointed a finger. “A patch of blue. And there’s another.”
The wind did seem to have lessened fractionally, but any blue sky he may have spotted was covered with clouds again when she looked overhead. Nonetheless, to judge from the elated expression on his face, one would have thought summer had come roaring in.
He steamed past her into the house, grabbed his greatcoat from the hook, and emerged with one arm stuffed into a sleeve. “I’m going out for a look around,” he informed her, fumbling for the other sleeve. “Scorpio needs to be exercised. Don’t worry. I’ll be back before dark.”
Before she could so much as wave farewell, he was on his way to the stable.
Chapter 11
AS LORD FALLON disappeared around the side of the house, Jane looked up at the gray clouds scudding across the sky. They marked the end of the storm, she thought, or perhaps the beginning of a new one hard on its heels.
In any event, nightfall was little more than an hour away. Please heaven the hotheaded Lord Fallon knew what time it was and kept himself within quick reach of shelter. Sometimes he hadn’t the sense God gave a parsnip.
It’s Christmas Eve, she realized as she tramped back into the house and shook the snow from her half-boots. While delving into the past with the marquess, she had forgot everything but him. Now she felt the spirit of this holy night wrap over her like the soft Kashmiri shawl.
Every Christmas he could remember was spent in this house. Could she give him another to remember? At the very least, she resolved to make their sparse Christmas Eve supper a festive occasion.
All fired up, she sped to the kitchen and began to assemble a stew of salted pork, potatoes, turnips, and peas. There would be pickled cabbage on the side, and hot applesauce with black currants for pudding. A careful search of the cupboards had disclosed the packet of hard, dry currants, now soaking in a bowl of warm water. She had also uncovered small bags containing flour and salt.
When the heavy cast-iron stew pot was hung over the fire, she mixed water into the flour, added a pinch of salt, and rolled out the sticky dough. Then she rubbed a small piece of salt pork she’d held back from the stew over a baking sheet, added rectangles of dough, and set the tray inside a brick oven built into the fireplace. Plain hardtack could scarcely taste worse than her gingerbread men, she told herself.
Nearly two hours had passed by the time she finished laying out the elegant dishes and silverware she’d found in the dining-room sideboard. A trip upstairs to the storage room produced a lace-edged linen tablecloth, napkins, and ribbons. She made up a centerpiece, too, of evergreen branches from a tree growing near the front door, red ribbons, and candles.
The kitchen was fragrant with the smell of simmering stew. She checked the hardtack, just starting to go brown, and took a few minutes to comb out her hair and tie it back with one of the ribbons.
Fallon would be chilled and hungry when he returned, she thought, crossing to the window and gazing out at the darkening sky. Visions of him wandering lost in the snowy woodlands or, worse, lying injured after a fall, chased through her imagination as another half hour passed with no sign of him.
She was pacing the kitchen, nibbling at a piece of cold tasteless hardtack, when she heard him come into the house. By now she was too annoyed to go out and meet him. The wretch could very well come and find her, and he’d better have a good explanation for worrying her half to death.
Moments later he burst into the kitchen, carrying a pair of storm lanterns, an exhilarated grin on his face. “Hullo, Miss Ryder. Is supper ready? I’ve got a wolf in my stomach.”
She shook her head, all her anger evaporating like the steam that rose from his wet hair as he moved to the fire. Insufferable man. Lord Fallon had best select a wife with an inexhaustible store of patience, for she was going to need it.
“I found a dozen of these in the stable,” he said, setting the lanterns near the hearth. “They all have candles, and I’ll bring them in if we start to run low. Or”—he gave her a sideways glance—“we can use them to find our way back to the inn tonight.”
She dropped onto the bench with a thump. “You believe we ought to try?”
“The sky is clear, and there’s no wind to speak of.” He stripped off his gloves and coat, letting them fall to the floor, and held his hands to the fire. “If this is only a break in the storm, we should have a go at it while we can.”
“Am I to understand you found the direction, sir?”
“Not . . . precisely. I got back to Wolvercote without difficulty and from there tried several likely routes to the inn. But the snow has drifted considerably, altering the landscape beyond recognition.”
“I wonder your horse did not stumble and bury the both of you,” she said, pressing her hands together to keep them from shaking. One wrong turn, one misstep, and he could well have frozen to death out there.
“Scorpio did stumble,” Fallon admitted, “although he managed to recover after I was tossed from the saddle. No harm done. It should be perfectly safe for us to travel if I walk ahead with a lantern, holding the reins and watching out for gullies and snowdrifts.”
“You have made up your mind, then.”
“Not at all. Naturally, were I on my own, I’d head out immediately. And if I had the slightest idea which way to go, I would do my best to convince you to come with me now. But the decision is wholly yours, Miss Ryder. Shall we risk getting lost in the dead of night, or wait until daylight in hopes the clear weather holds? You make the call.”
“Oh, thank you very much, sir. What if I guess wrong?”
He shrugged. “We are tossing dice, and there is no way to reckon how they’ll turn up. But as the Fallons are rarely in luck when they gamble, I prefer to leave the choice in your hands.”
“I’ll think it over while we have supper,” she temporized, although she had already made up her mind. Never mind he was itching to be on the move. That was his nature, and he would fret all night if the skies remained clear enough for them to travel. But yesterday’s storm had blown in swiftly, and another could do the same. They would manage well enough here for the time being, although she wondered if it had been a mistake to cook up nearly all their meager provisions.
“You have gone to a great deal of trouble,” he said, apparently noticing his surroundings for the first time.
“Not really. It’s a special night, sir, and I was of a mood to celebrate.”
“Well, so am I.” He smiled. “But you must let me help. What shall I do?”
She briefly imagined him wreaking havoc in the kitche
n and shook her head. “Perhaps it will be best if you keep out of my way for now.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He clicked his heels together and gave her a mocking salute before taking up a position in the corner with his back propped against the wall. “I am not altogether useless, you know,” he said after a few moments. “At the very least, I am capable of lifting heavy objects.”
“I shall keep that in mind,” she assured him, dishing the pickled cabbage onto a pair of saucers and carrying them to the table. When she tried to turn around, he was directly behind her.
“What is that supposed to be?” he asked, pointing at the cabbage.
“Taste it and see, my lord.” Slipping past him, she returned to the fire and stirred the stew with a long-handled spoon.
“That smells good,” he said, leaning over her shoulder for a closer look. “What are those little green things?”
“Peas,” she said between clenched teeth.
“I hate peas.”
“Then you’ll just have to pick them out of your dish, won’t you?”
To her relief, he wandered back to the worktable. Was the man never still? She began to ladle the stew, peas and all, into a ceramic tureen.
“Umm,” he said. “These raisins are good.”
She glanced over her shoulder and saw him dipping his fingers into her precious store of currants.
“Stop that!” Bounding across the room, she slapped his hand away. Currants flew in every which direction. “See what you’ve done? Those were meant for the applesauce!”
“What’s the difference if I eat them now or later?” he inquired, looking offended. “There’s more than half of them left. You can put them all in your applesauce. I’ll take mine plain.”
Indeed you will, she thought crossly. “I was trying to create something of a Christmas pudding,” she said. “But never mind. The stew is nearly ready to serve, so why don’t you light the candles on the centerpiece and take your place at table?”
He brushed a finger, wet from the water in the bowl of currants, down her nose. “Am I getting on your nerves, Miss Ryder? Truly, I am sorry for oversetting you, especially after you have gone to so much trouble preparing this lovely Christmas feast.”