Timeless Christmas Romance

by Laurel O'Donnell et al.

  Captain Payne came back into the sitting room with a tray arrayed with mismatched china cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits, as well as a kettle which he placed on the hob to warm.

  “There is no sugar or milk,” he said, with that stiff formality he had only barely begun to throw off.

  “That is quite all right,” Antoinette answered, not sure what else she could say to continue to draw the captain out.

  Much to her surprise, he was the one who continued the conversation. “And where is your family, Miss Duvall? You are obviously not a native of Cornwall.”

  Antoinette gave a little laugh. “Ah, so you noticed that, did you? No, I'm not English. I was born in Jamaica. My mother was a freed slave from Barbados. She and my father came to Kingston before I was born, and he died shortly thereafter. He was a blacksmith, I believe, the son of a French merchant and his mistress though I have no memory of him at all. My mother was a seamstress, a very fine one.” Antoinette had never told anyone of her family. Not even Cassie knew the truth about Antoinette’s father and his scandalous origins. Most English people would be shocked to their core by this litany of slavery and illegitimacy. Captain Payne, though, was not like other Englishmen; she had sensed that the moment she first saw him. He merely nodded at her words, and reached for the kettle to pour hot water into their cups.

  “Your mother, too, is deceased?” he asked, carefully steeping the tea.

  “Yes.”

  “And how ever did you come to find yourself here?”

  “That is a long story, Captain Payne.”

  “We have all night, Miss Duvall.” He passed her the cup, and gave her a wry grin. It seemed less stiff now, as if he was remembering at last how a smile went.

  “It is a dull story, as well.”

  “Ah, but I am seldom bored.”

  “Very well, then.” Antoinette stretched her stockinged feet out toward the fire, and sipped at the strong, bracing tea. She told him of how her mother was employed as seamstress to Cassie’s mother, of how their families became close and Cassie became like her sister. How they took her in when her mother died of the fever.

  “So, when her father died and she came here to live with her aunt, she asked me to come with her,” Antoinette finished. “I could not say no.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “You were very brave to come to a new land.”

  Antoinette gave a disbelieving snort. “Brave? Nay, Captain, I was a coward, unable to make my own way in life without my friend to cling to.”

  Captain Payne shook his head. “I lived in the West Indies for five years, Miss Duvall. I know what you left behind; I know how very different it is from this place. It is warm, full of flowers and sun and strange, compelling music. To have that, and come to this cold, narrow-minded, inhospitable place—that is courage indeed.”

  There was a sudden passion in his voice, a pain, a longing, that seemed to echo that in her own heart. “I haven't always found England to be so terrible.”

  His head swung toward her, his gaze, like quicksilver, piercing her to her very core. “Do you not?”

  “I—no. It is not all one could wish for, of course, but what is? I often miss the sun, and the way the sea looks there, so very different from the cold waves here. But there are compensations. Such as tonight.”

  His dark brows drew down. “Tonight? You enjoy being knocked unconscious and falling in the snow, then? You are a strange female.”

  Antoinette laughed, feeling an odd rush of sudden lightness. “Of course not! Snow is horrible. So cold. But if all that had not happened, I wouldn't have met a new friend.”

  Those brows arched up in surprise, as if the word “friend” was one he had not heard in a very long time. Then he chuckled, a sound more warming than the fire and the tea. “Indeed, Miss Duvall. I would have been most unhappy to be deprived of making your acquaintance.”

  “And, considering everything we have been through this evening, could you perhaps call me Antoinette? Just for tonight?”

  “If you will call me Mark.”

  “It is a bargain—Mark.” Antoinette took a biscuit from the plate and settled back happily in her settee. Despite everything—her injuries, the cold, her spell gone awry—she felt more content here in this tiny, bare cottage than she had in a very long time.

  “I think that captaining a navy vessel is far braver than anything I could have ever done,” she said. “And far more exciting besides.”

  “It was mostly deadly dull,” he answered. “Days and days of looking out at nothing but the waves.”

  “I do not believe that. You must have a great many tales to tell.”

  Mark shrugged, and reached for a biscuit of his own. “A few. But they are hardly suitable for a lady’s ears.”

  “Ah, yet as we have established, I am not your typical English lady. Come now, Mark. We have many hours until dawn. Tell me some of your sea tales.”

  He gazed into the fire, perhaps trying to recall a story that was not too gruesome, or too personal. Antoinette doubted he would tell her how he came to get his scars—not yet, anyway. Their friendship was too new, too delicate.

  Antoinette was a patient woman, though. One day, he would tell her. And it was the Christmas season after all—a season when anything was possible. She hadn't believed that before, but now she was beginning to.

  “When I was a mere ensign,” he began, “I was sent to the West Indies, to Jamaica in fact, and there an old sea captain told me a most fanciful story indeed, about a mermaid he once met...”

  Chapter Five

  Dawn was just beginning to break over the landscape with the palest pinks, lavenders, and oranges when Antoinette made her slow, careful way out of Mark’s cottage door. She leaned on his arm, steadying herself against residual waves of dizziness. Mark had wanted to carry her out, tried to scoop her up out of her chair into his arms. She laughingly resisted, insisting that she was not an invalid. She had been sorely tempted to give in,. To feel his arms about her one more time, holding her safe above the earth and all its mundane cares.

  It was a most extraordinary night that had just passed, she thought, as she moved slowly down the uneven stone walkway to where Mark’s saddled horse waited. They had talked for hours, of nothing in particular. She told him stories of the Leighton children’s antics, the beauties of her island home, the books on herbals she wrote, and the lotions and soaps she made for stores in the village and in London. He related tales of his years at sea and all of the exotic lands he had seen. But only light tales he thought might amuse her, make her laugh; nothing of what had caused his scars. What had driven him from a life of seafaring adventure he obviously loved to one of isolation in Cornwall. Nothing more about his family.

  She wanted so much to know all those things, to know everything about this intriguing man. But she didn't want to press, and ruin this lovely night they shared. For it had been a lovely night indeed, filled with talk and tea and firelight. She had not felt so--light in a very long time.

  Strange, considering that it was all thanks to a man whose heart was the heaviest she had ever sensed.

  Antoinette paused to lean against Mark’s rusting garden gate, watching as he untethered the horse. “The snow has ceased,” she said.

  He gave her a small smile. “So it has. Judging by that sunrise, we should have a clear day. Warmer.”

  “I thought the saying was ‘red sky at morning, sailors take warning,’ ” she answered, remembering the little rhyme her mother had sometimes recited. “Can we look for new storms?”

  “Ah, but that is not quite red, is it? More like pinkish.” His strong hands came around her waist, lifting her carefully and easily into the saddle. All too briefly, his warm touch, soothing and incredibly exciting at the same moment, landed on her leg, smoothing the silk of her robe. “If it is clear tonight, will you go back out to the cliffs to finish what you began last night, Miss Duvall?”

  Antoinette turned her face up to the glories of the sunrise. Last night
, when she ran out to the cliffs in a dark fit of loneliness, seemed so very far away now in this new dawn. She went there wanting to find something. What it was, she knew not. She relied on her book and her herbs to send her an answer.

  She began to think now that they had done just that, though in a manner she couldn't have predicted. She felt so strange, so uncertain—so tired.

  “I thought I asked you to call me Antoinette. And I do not know,” she answered him. “I rarely go walking along those cliffs at midnight, though I often do so in the early evenings. There is no one about then, and the sounds of the sea and the birds are very peaceful.”

  He smiled up at her. “I am quite fond of a good evening walk, myself.”

  “Are you indeed, Captain? Well. Perhaps one evening we shall meet there.”

  “Perhaps we shall.” Mark swung himself up into the saddle behind Antoinette, his arms coming around her to take the reins. She leaned back against him, savoring that sensation of warm safety. His breath was cool, scented of the spice from their tea, as it brushed against her temple and stirred her hair. “Now, Miss Duvall—Antoinette. Would you be so kind as to give me the direction to your home?”

  Mark stood outside the garden gate of Antoinette Duvall’s cottage long after she disappeared through the door, turning to give him a wave and a smile before the red painted wood closed behind her. The draperies at the old-fashioned mullioned windows never opened, but in good time a plume of silver-gray smoke rose up from the chimney.

  He knew he should rush back to his hideaway before the countryside stirred to life and someone saw him lurking there. Her maid would be coming in soon, or a woodsman might pass by on the way to his morning’s task. Even worse, Antoinette herself might glance out of the window and see him still there, and wonder with growing horror just what sort of shambling beast she had let into her life.

  But he found he couldn't leave. Not yet. He felt like a beggar child, gazing longingly into the window of a warm bakery. There were delights of all sorts there—comfort, beauty, good humor, intrigue. But not for the likes of him.

  Antoinette’s cottage looked much like his own. Small square, built of rough gray stone. There the resemblance ended. Where his garden was wild and overgrown, hers was trim and perfectly ordered, with beds outlined in red brick. It was cut back for the winter, but in the summer it would be a riotous glory of color and scent. Her walls were free of choking ivy, her gate neatly painted and oiled.

  He wondered what she would do if he walked up to her door, knocked on it, and begged admittance as he longed to do. He even took one step forward, his hand reaching for the latch on her gate, before he remembered himself and fell back. She was exhausted. She needed to sleep and recover from her fall—a fall he had caused—not to be pestered by a retired sailor begging for just another moment in her company.

  In the firelight he could pretend she couldn't see him clearly, that he was as he had been eleven years ago, before Trafalgar. In the daylight, his flaws were all too obvious.

  Mark swung back up into the saddle and turned the horse toward home. Yes, indeed—firelight and shadows could conceal much, could even allow a foolish man to pretend he was not as he was. Those long hours of night had been a precious time out of time, where he could enjoy the company and the laughter of a beautiful woman. He told her half-forgotten tales of the sea and basked in the musical cadence of her voice as she told him stories of her own.

  Stories that were funny, and interesting, and even a bit eerie, as when she related ghost stories from her homeland. But nothing that told him what she had been doing on the cliffs last night, what she thought of her life in England. It couldn't be easy for her. Her skin marked her as an outsider, just as his scars marked him. There was only the merest trace of that sadness in her wide smile, in the dark pools of her eyes.

  He had the sense, though, that she would understand about his own life, his own pain. She would listen, and know. If he could just tell her, which of course he could not. He didn’t even have the words to explain it to himself. Long years in the navy had frozen off that part of himself, and not even Antoinette Duvall’s Jamaican sun could thaw it.

  He liked conversing with her, though. He liked looking at her, at her exotic beauty and the elegance of her long hands. She never glanced away from him uneasily, as everyone else did, as Elizabeth did. Antoinette watched his face as they conversed, touched his damaged left hand as he lifted her from the horse. It was as if she noticed not a thing amiss. They were merely two neighbors, sharing an amiable chat and a pot of tea by the fire.

  Perhaps he would go strolling along the cliffs one evening soon, where they could meet and talk and walk together in the fading daylight.

  And perhaps he would not. For Mark Payne, who had faced the French navy and fierce squalls at sea without flinching, found he was an abject coward before a beautiful woman.

  Chapter Six

  “Oh, Miss Duvall, I vow your lotions smell more luscious every time!” Mrs. Greeley gazed down at the array of bottles and pots on her store counter, and inhaled deeply of a dab of chamomile cream. “I cannot tell you how happy I am for a new batch. These fly off the shelves as quickly as I can put them there.”

  Antoinette smiled, deeply gratified by the compliment. She had worked long and hard over these preparations, concocting exactly the right recipes and mix of herbs. “There are soaps too, Mrs. Greeley,” she said, reaching into the large hamper and bringing out small, muslin-wrapped squares. “Rose, lavender, sandalwood. I am working on some toilette water; it should be ready to bottle after the New Year.”

  “Lovely, Miss Duvall! These soaps will be just the thing for customers looking for Christmas gifts.”

  Antoinette thought of the little fragrant bars she had carefully wrapped up at home, waiting for Cassie and Penelope. “Indeed you are right, Mrs. Greeley. The sachet bags would be very nice too. Perhaps you could make a pretty display of them here on the counter? Then people coming up to pay for their purchases would see them, and you could persuade them that their mother or daughter needs just one more sweet little gift.”

  Mrs. Greeley laughed. “How clever of you, Miss Duvall! I shall do just that.” She turned the small, colored glass bottles so that their facets caught the sunlight from the windows. Her store was quiet at that time of day, and she was obviously primed for a bit of chatter. “Now, Miss Duvall, speaking of the festive season, I hope you are not working so very hard that you cannot enjoy it. It is Christmas, after all, and it only comes about once a year.”

  Christmas. Of course. How could Antoinette forget it, when every shop in the village was bedecked with greenery over the doors, every window festooned with ribbons, every horse’s bridle merry with bells? She had even given into it herself, bringing holly and evergreen in to decorate her fireplace mantel and staircase balustrade.

  Much to her blushing shame, she went so far as to make a kissing bough to hang in her sitting room, just on the slight chance that Captain Mark Payne might come calling. She thought better of it as soon as it was made, though, and tossed it in the fire.

  A very good thing too, for Captain Payne had not called. She hadn't seen even a glimpse of him in the past two days, not since he left her at her garden gate. She went walking in the evenings along the cliff, just as they had talked of, and he was not there either. Now tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and it seemed the holiday would pass without another meeting with the intriguing captain.

  Not that she cared, of course, for she did not. Not one jot. Truly. Really, she didn't.

  “Of course I'm enjoying the season, Mrs. Greeley,” she said, with a smile that even she could sense seemed overly bright and false. “Who could not?”

  The shopkeeper gave her a shrewd glance. “We heard that the family up at the castle has gone to Bath to visit the dowager countess.”

  “Yes, that is true. They go every Christmas.”

  “Since they are your nearest neighbors, and your cottage lies such a distance from the village, it
must get very quiet there. Very lonesome.”

  Antoinette peered closely at Mrs. Greeley, wondering what the lady was insinuating. Had she seen Mark leaving Antoinette’s cottage at daybreak? Was there gossip?

  That would be the very last thing Antoinette needed. It was difficult enough to overcome the villagers’ suspicions as it was. But Mrs. Greeley merely looked complacent and innocent, her faded blue eyes wide as she peered up at Antoinette.

  “I do well enough in my home, Mrs. Greeley,” Antoinette said cautiously. “I am very cozy.”

  “Yes, but one shouldn’t be alone at Christmas, Miss Duvall. You should come to the assembly tomorrow evening at the Hare and Hound. Mr. Greeley and I would so enjoy it if you came with us.”

  “An assembly?”

  “Yes, for Christmas Eve. Lady Paige is sponsoring, and the whole village is ever so excited—the assembly rooms haven’t been used in an age, and they are so much more spacious than the old rooms we used for the Christmas Eve assembly last year! There will be supper and dancing and cards.”

  Quite against her will, Antoinette was tempted. She generally disliked social events, where everyone watched her and whispered, and only a few people actually conversed with her. She usually only attended parties at Royce Castle or supper at the vicarage. She never went anywhere without the Leightons.

  But she did love to dance, and was not averse to cards either. And she hadn't really been looking forward to a solitary holiday writing her book. She had hoped, oh so briefly, that perhaps she could invite Mark for a Christmas supper and a hand of piquet. Since that appeared to be a distant possibility, she should go to the assembly with the Greeleys and try to enjoy herself.

  Be brave for once, Antoinette, she told herself. “Thank you, Mrs. Greeley,” she said. “I happily accept your kind invitation.”

  Mrs. Greeley’s smile lit up her round, lined face. “Excellent, Miss Duvall! We will see you tomorrow evening, then.”

  Antoinette tucked the payment for the soaps and lotions into her reticule, and stepped out onto the walkway, the bells on the Greeleys’ door jingling merrily behind her. It was a quiet time of day for the village, and not very many people were out and about on the street, going in and out of the half-timbered shops. Only the vicar drove by in his gig, raising his hat in greeting to Antoinette, and Mrs. Brown, the dressmaker, was arranging a new display of fabrics and ribbons in her bow window.