It's a Wonderful Regency Christmas

by Edith Layton

  “Not everyone,” he answered softly, his high cheekbones flushing slightly, though she didn’t know why. He hadn’t told her about all the responses to his question. She might be a friend, but he never forgot that she was a female.

  “Anyway, it’s a relief to find out that you don’t think me mad,” he said on a long sigh, “it may be you’re right. The holiday will pass, and the dream may go with it. If not, there are worse things to dream about, I suppose. Thank you, Elizabeth,” he said more heartily, putting down his teacup and rising. “I think you’re right. I’ll ask round some more, but I won’t let it bedevil me. Nor let it change my plans in the least. Past time I was wed, after all. Best buy some dancing slippers, my dear, you may well be dancing at my wedding come springtime. But be sure, there’ll be no gingerbread at my wedding feast!”

  He laughed. She did not. It seemed to her that her heart stopped. She seemed to see him in a mist, and hear him through a buzzing in her ears.

  “Elizabeth, are you all right?” he asked suddenly, reaching out to hold her steady. Because she had stood when he had, but now seemed to sway on her feet, and her face had grown pale—so pale he could see the ghost of a few freckles high on the bridge of her little nose. Her skin was so pure and fair, he’d forgotten how the sun had dappled her cheeks with them when she’d been a girl. He hadn’t seen them for so long, he’d forgotten that with her russet hair and dusting of freckles, she’d always seemed like a young fawn to him in those days. Now he wished she had more of the little gingery specks on her cheeks, so she could be his little Elizabeth again.

  He held her shoulders, and she brushed against him for a moment before she regained her balance. It was disconcerting. She felt light and fragile as a child, but also soft and inviting as a woman—instinctively he wanted to draw her close.… So he held her upright instead. He knew her face as well as his own, but now he couldn’t really see her. It was as though he were seeing two people in one: the adorable child—a lovely young woman, wavering back and forth before his eyes. He blinked. Perhaps he was going mad, he thought in alarm.

  “I’m all right, much better,” she said, stepping back abruptly. He dropped his hands, guilty for no reason he could think of. That damned gingerbread story his mistress had told him. It made a man feel like a lecher with any young girl he cared about, he thought ruefully.

  “Don’t worry, it’s only—a problem of a—female nature,” she said before he could ask about her health again.

  “Ah,” he said, because he knew what she meant, but didn’t know what else to say. A woman’s biology wasn’t the sort of thing a gentleman discussed with a girl, even a girl who was a close friend.

  “So,” she said brightly, “it’s to be the Davis chit, is it? Lud! Forgive me, but in light of what you said, I can’t keep calling her that, can I? What is her first name again?”

  Her monthly time must be giving her pain, he thought, watching her uneasily, because her large blue eyes were dazzling with unshed tears. Soft, flowery blue, the blue of wild flags, or the wild bluebells in the springtime meadows of home… “Her name?” he said foolishly. “I, um, yes—Caro—Caroline, that’s it!”

  “Well, congratulations,” she said bluntly.

  “Hold!” he said. “Not so fast. It’s not gone that far…yet. I haven’t even put the question to her, though half of London thinks I have.”

  “As if you don’t know the answer, as well as most of London already does,” she said with a brief laugh. “Well, good luck, my dear, not that you need it. And do let me know when it is fait accompli, will you not?”

  “Oh, that won’t be until after the holidays, in any case,” he said quickly. “But speaking of things to come, I’ll see you tonight at her ball, won’t I?”

  “No,” she said softly, “I won’t be there.”

  “But I thought you were going.”

  “I am not. No, you’re not losing your mind,” she said, seeing his expression, “I was going. But something came up.”

  “Then tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll tell you about the ball. Feel better, my dear.”

  They said good-bye, and she watched him leave. This time she didn’t watch him from the window, because she had to rush up the stairs to the privacy of her own room to weep. A female thing, she had said, she thought as she wept: indeed, so it was. He loved another female. Or at least, he wanted to marry one. She’d always known the day would come—but like knowing the day of one’s death, that didn’t make it any easier to bear.

  She’d loved him from the day she’d met him, and she couldn’t remember when that had been, she’d known him since she could remember. But she could clearly remember that first Season she’d come to London, that first dance he’d had with her as an adult. That had been a dream fulfilled. He’d gazed at her with admiration. He’d smiled, and bowed low, and offered her his hand into the dance. He’d danced with her. At last, he’d seen her as a woman grown. She’d waited for the rest of the dream to come true.

  It had not.

  A dozen worthy men had asked for her hand that Season, and she’d politely declined, waiting patiently for him to come and ask. He had not. But he had come to ride with her, to walk with her, to talk with her. And so, of course, he’d known of her popularity. He’d congratulated her on her success, and so she’d clung to her hopes. He was not unaware of her. He was yet young. His father had married late. He was clearly waiting for her to mature too.

  Another Season came and went, and yet she waited. He had to serve his country, and she admired him for it. But she worried and waited for him to return to her. He did. He returned. Not to her specifically, but to her locality. They remained friends.

  Another Season, another reason: and another and another and another. Now she was seven-and-twenty, and could see another decade looming. All her friends were wed; most were mothers. Her parents despaired, and then gave up their hopes, thinking she had none. They were indulgent enough to let her have her way and let her set up a spinster’s establishment. But then, they’d three other daughters, after all, as well as two sons and many grandchildren, and more coming every year.

  Elizabeth was very clever, and very careful. Because she was also very afraid of her good friend the Duke of Blackburn ever knowing her hopes. Precisely because he was a good man and a close friend, she knew he might offer for her if he thought he was breaking her heart by not doing so. But knowing that was why he offered would certainly break her heart.

  And so they none of them knew—neither parents nor sisters nor brothers, nor the man she loved—how much she wanted her own home and children. But only his home and only his children.

  He loved no other. She was sure of that. He had mistresses in his time, true. Not many, he was no rake, and he never took any who were not thoroughly professional, and he had, after all, never given his name or his heart to any other woman. It dismayed her, even so. But he was a man, and he didn’t love them and so though it hurt, it did not kill her. This, she was sure, as she wept, would. Him—and that foolish Davis chit! Pretty and silly and popular because of it. But not for him, surely not for a man like him. He was no longer a childish dream of hers. Elizabeth knew him too well to adore him. She loved him, instead.

  He had flaws, of course, she knew he did. She loved him the more because of them, because his virtues outweighed them. He was a man of action who liked a good day of riding, a thoughtful man who liked a good evening of reading. He was a true nobleman, kind to the powerless he didn’t have to be kind to, with the courage to be cruel to the powerful who could hurt him—if he thought they deserved it. He was a gentleman in every construction of the word, and a man whose presence sent shivers of desire through her. There was no man she’d ever thought more attractive. Was he tall, lean, strong, and ice-eyed? Then that was exactly how the best-looking man in the world should look. He was the measure by which she judged all other men, and none had ever come close to him, much less topped him in her eyes.

  And he was going to marry some silly l
ittle fribble of a chit because it was time for him to be wed? He wasn’t perfect, but that was beyond foolish of him. Even so, he deserved so much better. Elizabeth wasn’t sure she was that much better, but she knew him, she knew what would please him and she’d devote her life to that, if she could. She made him laugh, she made him happy—she could make him happiest.

  But…she sat up in her bed now, and wiped her eyes. But, in a way, she’d begun to realize this day was coming for a long time. Other men may have praised her looks as well as her allure, but he never had. Why should he, after all, if he didn’t think it? Honesty was one of his virtues. What was it young Marston had called her once, because of her hair? a perfect autumn rose. But even if so, what good was it being a perfect rose, if a gentleman preferred lilies? Or daffodils, or daisies? When a man had a taste for peaches, what use were apples? Even perfect ones. Elizabeth took a steadying breath. She was simply not to his taste, she could wait forever, and would never be.

  Well, and what was she to do? Wither and die, because he did not find her to his taste?

  He wanted gingerbread, she thought with a sniff, as she sat up straighter, and she—she was some other flavor. What should she do, grow stale because of it? Elizabeth gave a watery giggle, thinking about how tangled and silly her thoughts were becoming. And found herself smiling because she actually could giggle. But why not? She’d feared and yet anticipated this for so long that now that she really knew, it was almost a relief, in spite of the pain.

  Well, then, she thought. She rose to wash her face. Well, then, she would go on. She wouldn’t get what she wanted, but she would learn to want what she could get. Dreams were one thing. Reality was another. She wouldn’t waste her days and nights pining for what she could sense and smell but never taste—the way he did in his dreams these nights. She had not too many nights and days left to dream, after all, she thought. She was a spinster: a girl who had waited too long at the fair.

  In a curious way, his dreams had served her purposes. They were a lesson to her. She wouldn’t let her recurrent dream make her sick, and she wouldn’t worry about losing her mind. She’d find it. And a new life.

  Time, Elizabeth thought as she dashed cold water on her face and her dreams, past time to get on with living and wake from all her foolish dreams.

  *

  “You look very fine this evening, Your Grace,” Miss Araminta told Owen, greeting him as they chanced to meet when he stepped from his house to the street.

  “Up to all the rigs,” Mrs. DeWitt concurred heartily, eyeing what she could see of her neighbor’s formal garb in the dimming twilight: from his high beaver hat to his silk breeches and white hose, nodding her approval as though she knew every nuance of masculine fashion.

  Owen bowed, and wished he could return the compliment, but the sisters were dressed in their usual non-fashion. Tonight they carried several packages, and had an air of bustling purpose about them.

  “I see you’re off to paint the town,” Mrs. DeWitt said. “Come along, Araminta, time’s wasting,” she told her sister, and then added, “good night, Duke. It’s a new day for you, and a good night for us. Your time to rise and greet the fashionable world, but our time to prepare for bed.”

  Miss Araminta tittered at this weak sally, Mrs. DeWitt gave a bark of a laugh, and the two sisters curtsied, then hurried to the front stair of their own house. Owen waited until they were safely in, and then strode on, frowning. Women of property should have had footmen to carry their purchases. He considered the pair. Old clothes, carrying their own parcels, rushing through the cold London streets by themselves each evening? Poverty was a shame as well as a crime in his world, and he knew all the rigs men went to in order to hide it. Pawning the family heirlooms, mortgaging their estates, living in debt, increasing that debt by high wagering in a mad attempt to win it back. And then if that failed: fleeing the country or life itself, by going home to put a period to their existences.

  But these two? What could they do? What was left to pawn, what did they have to sell? He doubted they would wager. He knew they couldn’t begin a new life on the Continent. Owen hated to think of the two odd sisters as destitute, and resolved to have his man at law look into their finances. If he had to make an anonymous contribution, he would. It was worth it to keep such good neighbors—and Christmas was coming, and they were part of his childhood, as well. Gad! he thought, this Christmas, with its phantom gingerbread and thoughts of childhood, marriage, children!

  But that was exactly what he was thinking about as he strode through the streets toward the Davis town house.

  The Davises were wealthy, and Miss Caroline’s father was wise. He had a daughter who was a gem of a girl, the toast of the Season: pretty and personable, and he presented her in a sparkling setting to accent her charms. The town house was brilliant with light, light enough to show that everything in and about the house was first-rate. The furnishings, the uniforms on the household staff, the portraits staring down at the guests from the silk-covered walls, all proclaimed it: the chit this ball was being given for was well-born, well-bred, of good family with considerable fortune, and she was up for bids.

  In a manner of speaking, of course, Owen thought with a wry grin, as he gave his coat to a footman and prepared to join the throng in the ballroom. He waited to be announced. From the way Caro’s bright head shot up when she heard his name, he knew she’d been waiting for just such an announcement. And from the way her mama and papa looked up, he knew they were eager for yet another pronouncement—from him. And why not? he thought. He didn’t give himself airs. But a duke, and in her first Season? If she were his daughter, he’d be anxious too. A curious thought, and not one he liked, he thought as he went forward to greet her.

  No matter what Elizabeth had said, Owen thought as he approached the Davises, Caro Davis was of age, after all. It wasn’t as if he were leagues older. Only thirteen years, a trifle, not exceptional at all these days. But still: thirteen, he thought now, a little shocked in spite of himself. Still, it was common to marry a younger woman—everyone did it. He was only thirty, it wasn’t as if he were a lecherous old man—the way he felt this afternoon, when he’d touched Elizabeth. Odd that—

  He stopped thinking as he took Caro’s little hand. That was, after all, the best way to deal with thoughts of marriage. Once, he’d thought to love. Once, he’d thought he would someday declare himself to his beloved in a welter of romantic passion. But it hadn’t happened. It just had not. Still, marriage did have to happen. It was time. Now, he had to think about the children. Yes, the children.

  “Good everting, my dear,” he said and winced, inwardly; “my dear”? Suddenly that sounded so—avuncular. And yet he said it all the time and it sounded right. With Elizabeth, for example. But then, Elizabeth was nearly of an age with him. “You look lovely tonight,” he added, in truth. For she did.

  She was justly called the Incomparable this Season. Petite, with a fine rounded little figure, a mass of blond curls, fair skin, luminous violet eyes, a tiny dimpled chin. He was a tall man, and the contrast between them had seemed pleasing to him before, but now he was nagged at the realization that in all things she was somehow less than himself: height and age… Well, but he hadn’t offered for her yet, he told himself, silencing his doubts. Although why he had not, he couldn’t say, he was the envy of all the other men because she seemed to favor his suit.

  “Why thank you for your compliment, Your Grace,” she said softly, lowering her violet eyes. Then she peeped up at him through her lovely long eyelashes. He was enchanted. The music struck up. She looked her question at him. He smiled, but remained silent. She laughed, shrugged one shapely little shoulder, and let her father lead her out for the first dance. Owen could not have without as much as declaring himself utterly in the face of the ton.

  But it was not really presumptuous of her to have waited for him to ask. He’d heard the speculation about his increasing interest in her, she must have too. He’d taken her for a drive, danced wi
th her most particularly at every ball they’d been to together; he was hanging after her, and they both knew it. But he wasn’t yet snared, and she knew that too. Clever little lady, he thought, feeling much better about everything as he watched her dance.

  When the next set formed, they danced together. She was graceful and silent, charmingly shy with him, as always. He did the pretty by other ladies he knew after that, biding his time until he could take Caro in to dinner. Then he’d have a chance to speak with her. With all the idle pretty chatter a man might engage a society maiden in, there was little chance to really talk together. They had exchanged pleasantries but never actually discussed anything with each other. It was high time. She seemed perhaps a little in awe of him. That wouldn’t do. But as the time for the supper dance drew near, Owen found himself nonplussed, wondering what to talk about.

  Still, there was, after all, Owen thought with a certain grimness, the matter of gingerbread. He’d quizzed everyone he knew in London about it; it was time to sound her out. And yet, he thought suddenly, his spirits rising, wouldn’t it be delightful if it had been something she’d said that had spawned all his dreams?

  “Gingerbread?” she said when he broached the subject, when they were finally seated together at a little table, apart from the others. She dimpled. She was primed for this moment. Her parents were getting uneasy. Others had offered, His Grace had not, and yet he continued to—hover. “Time to pour on your charm,” Mama had said. “Show him the stuff you’re made of” Papa had said. So she would, and so she would have him, Caro thought: the cap to her glorious Season—nabbing the catch of the Season. His Grace was rich and attractive, and hers, Caro thought smugly.