Salt Hendon Omnibus 01 to 03

by Lucinda Brant

  The little boy’s pout and the sidelong glance of doubt that accompanied this assurance made Kitty smile. She kissed his chubby cheek then rose and brushed down her gossamer apron. Turning about, she discovered the Prince carefully picking his way across an oriental carpet strewn with toys.

  “Good morning, Your Highness,” she said buoyantly, and curtsied. “I am sorry you had to find me. I presumed you were with the men observing the Yule log’s progress. A servant could have been sent to fetch—”

  “Please. Do not apologize, Miss Aldershot. It is most unnecessary,” Prince Mordvinov replied with a smile and a quaint little nod. “I overslept. A rare thing. It was a novelty for me to find my own way here. In ’Petersburg always there are serfs around every corner, holding a candle, a handkerchief, or a snuffbox should you require it, to open a door, to close a door, to wipe your boots, to unbuckle a shoe, or simply to bow as you walk by. You English make better use of fewer servants… I do not even have Peter as my shadow this morning. I sent him into the snow to sketch this big log of importance.”

  His gaze swept the half dozen nursery maids who had abruptly stopped in their activities as soon as they realized there was a visitor, and who bobbed a collective curtsy.

  “But I have caused an unnecessary—fuss? Yes. Fuss, it is the right word for this intrusion?”

  “You are correct about the term ‘fuss,’ Your Highness. But your presence is not an intrusion.”

  He saw her glance distractedly over his shoulder for a second time, and his smile widened.

  “Lady Reanay, she awaits us by the tea trolley. Are you able to come with me now before the tea it goes cold, or must you wait for—er—Uncle Tom?”

  “Oh! Yes, of course,” Kitty replied, realizing the Prince thought she was expecting Her Ladyship to be at his shoulder, when in fact she had hoped to see Mr. Allenby—Ned’s Uncle Tom—and so she told the Prince, hoping her face was not flushed with a guilty blush. She bobbed another curtsy, saying in a rush, “If you will excuse me for one moment, Your Highness. I will then come with you.”

  When he made a gesture of acceptance, she quickly turned away to speak with Merry, and then to one of the nursery maids who was sorting satin ribbons into colors to use as ties for wrapping the Christmas gifts for the servants.

  “Uncle Tom! Uncle Tom!” Ned shouted and leapt up.

  “Yes, Ned. Uncle Tom will be here very soon,” Kitty said patiently, turning back to the little boy when Ned’s chair hit the floor with a clatter. She came face-to-face with a handsome young man and blushed rosily. It was indeed Ned’s Uncle Tom. She took an involuntary step towards him, only to instantly step away again. “Oh! Mr.—Mr. Allenby! You—you are indeed come. How—how lovely to see you—for all of us—to see you!”

  THREE

  LONDON, ENGLAND

  ‘AND HOW LOVELY to see you, Miss Aldershot,” Mr. Tom Allenby replied with a smile, his gaze lingering on Kitty a moment longer than was polite. He thought her very pretty indeed in mint green silk striped quilted petticoats, the wide satin ribbon threaded through her blonde hair matching the color of her red silk shoes. “To see you all this fine Christmas Eve,” he added with a polite nod to Prince Mordvinov, before his gaze returned to Kitty.

  A handsome man in his mid-twenties, Tom Allenby had a mop of auburn hair tied back off his face with a black ribbon, soft brown eyes, a cleft to his square chin, and above that, a winning smile. He was wearing jockey boots and a greatcoat over his suit. Kitty surmised he had just come indoors, and in his haste to fetch the children to see the Yule log had not bothered to divest himself of this necessary winter apparel. It was only when Ned ran to greet him and was scooped up into strong arms that the couple remembered their manners and broke eye contact.

  “I trust I have not kept you waiting too long?” he asked rhetorically as he rose to his full height, Ned in his arms. For want of something to fill an awkward silence, he gave his attention to the drawing Ned had been busily engaged in creating and was now waving in his face. “What’s this you’ve been drawing, Ned? A lovely snow angel? She is very pretty.”

  Ned beamed at the compliment but shook his head of tight blond curls. “No! No, Uncle Tom! Not a-an angel. Guess again! Guess!”

  Tom stared at the drawing with an overly-dramatic quizzical stare, bottom lip stuck out and eyebrows raised, and shook his head slowly as if he had no idea, all to make his nephew giggle. Mentally, he was doing his best to decipher the squiggles and scrawls into something recognizable in the myriad of bright colorful lines so as to not dampen his nephew’s enthusiasm. His pronouncement the drawing was an angel was a wild guess, but now as he really looked at it, he was not so sure he was wrong. Two offset eyes, one larger than the other with thick black lashes and a mouth colored red were drawn within the lines of a heart-shaped face that filled the page. A collection of yellow squiggles with a thick red pastel line struck through them sat atop this head. There was only one person it could be and he announced confidently,

  “Why, Ned, she may not be a snow angel—though some would dispute that—’tis a likeness of Miss Aldershot, is it not?”

  “Not Miss Alder—Miss Alder—It’s Kitty,” Ned stated. “It’s Kitty Angel Christmas!”

  “Aah! A Christmas angel. Of course! Kitty as a Christmas angel,” Tom Allenby repeated, clearing his throat of a phantom obstruction; saying Miss Aldershot’s Christian name suddenly made him parched. He dared not glance in her direction. “Look, there is the red ribbon in her hair.” He held the drawing up for all to see. “You have captured Miss Aldershot features perfectly, Ned, and are quite the artist. What say you, Your Highness?”

  The Prince inspected the drawing through his quizzing glass and pretended to ponder over it, then nodded seriously, a glance at Kitty, who was blushing. “You are a very good drawer of portraits—Ned. And of Christmas angels.”

  Ned grinned to be so praised and pointed at Kitty. “Give it to Kitty, Uncle Tom. P-l—lease.”

  Tom Allenby held out the drawing and Kitty took it with a shy smile, a quick look up at him when he did not immediately let go of the parchment.

  Their eyes met.

  He smiled at her.

  Kitty smiled back.

  She thought he was about to speak, such was the intensity in his gaze. And when his lips parted, she was sure of it. She took a step closer, the drawing folding in on itself, their fingers lightly touching, and her violet eyes widened in expectation, heart thudding in her chest. But he just stood there, smiling down at her, not saying a word.

  EVERY TIME HE was in her company, Kitty literally took Tom’s breath away. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. But this time she not only took his breath, but his ability to form a coherent sentence. Since their two dances at the masquerade ball several months ago, they had met on several occasions and with each occasion it became more and more difficult to be in her company and not get tongue-tied. And this time he had an important question he needed to ask her. He had rehearsed his question with his looking-glass reflection many times in his dressing room until he was confident of delivering it. But now being in Miss Aldershot’s presence, the question dried on his tongue and his mind went numb. So he just stood there, mesmerized, feeling a fool and wondering what had come over him. The last time he had been in such a state of stupefaction was when called upon to deliver his maiden speech in the House, and even that had not made him queasy!

  It was Ned who moved time on, snatching the drawing from his uncle and thrusting it at Kitty.

  The young couple fell back a step, as if woken from a dream, and both looked at Ned. Kitty found her equilibrium and her voice first.

  “Thank you, Ned,” she said, mustering a bright smile. “I have never had my likeness drawn. And never as a Christmas angel.” She looked at the drawing, and then up at the little boy with his arms about his uncle’s neckcloth. “What a lovely drawing. You are a very clever boy.”

  Ned beamed with pride, then was suddenly bashful and turned h
is head into his uncle’s shoulder, which made Kitty laugh and Mr. Allenby tickle his nephew under the chin.

  “Did I not—did I not say, Miss Aldershot, you—” Mr. Allenby stumbled into speech, vocal cords finally working, and with a quick correction of his slip of the tongue, “—it—is a beautiful drawing.”

  “Yes. Yes, you did,” Kitty replied a little breathlessly, the look of expectation back in her eyes.

  But Tom Allenby did not look at her again. He turned away, lifting Ned to his shoulders, and addressed the room,

  “Time we were off or we’ll miss the Yule log being carried into the Gallery. It looks to be much larger than last year’s mighty specimen. Only lifting it will tell. My guess is it will take four burly lads to get it into the hearth. What do you think of that, Ned?” he added, looking up at his nephew. “A log bigger than last year’s monster!”

  “Hurry, Uncle Tom! Hurry! Ned doesn’t want to miss the log!” Ned demanded, then added because everyone in the room was looking at him, “Merry, too. And Kitty! And him,” he added, pointing a finger at Prince Mordvinov. “Hurry! We must all hurry!”

  “Coming, Merry?” Mr. Allenby added, putting out a hand to the Earl’s thirteen-year-old goddaughter. “I believe Your Highness is to have the privilege of lighting the log this year,” he said to the Prince. “I am certain Miss Aldershot can explain what an honor that is. We shall see you anon. Away we go, then!” he announced to the excited children, and galloped out of the room with Ned laughing from his shoulders and Merry skipping beside him.

  The children’s excited chatter and Mr. Allenby’s friendly voice were heard trailing off down the passageway, the young man breaking into Christmas song for their entertainment,

  O you merry, merry souls

  Christmas is a-coming,

  We shall have flowing bowls,

  Dancing, piping, drumming!

  The Prince offered Kitty the crook of his velvet sleeve in anticipation of following the merry band to the Gallery.

  But Kitty was preoccupied. She was staring at Ned’s drawing. Not because she was admiring the little boy’s portrait of her, but because in carefully rolling it into a cylinder to put in her pocket for safekeeping, she noticed the reverse was covered in script. She recognized the handwriting. It belonged to her regular correspondent, the Earl of Salt Hendon’s sister, the Lady Caroline Temple. It looked to be a page from a letter. How Ned came to have private correspondence in his possession, she could only wonder at. She did not have to wonder at its content.

  The first three sentences leapt out at her before she could stop herself from reading them. They were about her and Mr. Tom Allenby.

  FOUR

  —y must be prevailed upon. She must be made to realize the insurmountable difficulties of such a marriage. His family will not welcome it, nor his friends abide such an unequal match. It will be the ruin of TA’s career,

  CURIOSITY COMPELLED KITTY to read beyond this handful of sentences. But how could she when it was most improper and wicked to read another’s private correspondence? Yet how could she not when the content was about her and Mr. Allenby? Although the ink was smudged, making the word unreadable, the last letter, a Y, was clearly visible—her Christian nickname ended in a Y. And the initials TA were self-evident. They belonged to Tom Allenby. It was too much of a coincidence for it to be otherwise. The unequal match of which the Lady Caroline referred was the one Kitty anticipated between Mr. Allenby and herself. Lady Caroline was in the right. It would be an unequal match, but if she—if they—were in love, what did their circumstances matter?

  And this had been her abiding belief—until now. That an unequal match with her would be the ruin of Mr. Allenby’s career had never entered her thoughts until seeing it written in Lady Caroline’s hand. That her best friend believed this to be so wounded Kitty to her core. She did not want to be the ruin of anyone’s career, least of all the man she loved. But what also hurt, what brought the tears welling in her eyes, was that the Lady Caroline, whom she considered her one true friend, was not in favor of a match between her and Tom Allenby.

  What now was the use of orchestrating a private moment with him? How could she tell him her feelings if she could not, in good conscience, accept an offer from him because a marriage with her would not only ostracize his family, but ruin his future prospects as a parliamentarian?

  Suddenly all the joy, all the merriment, the meaning, and the hope of the Christmas season drained from her. She was left with a sick headache and an aching heart. Still, it said a great deal about her kind and caring nature that when Prince Mordvinov’s voice pricked at her subconscious, she willed the tears back behind her lids and swallowed down her distress.

  Brought out of her abstraction, and to the embarrassing realization she was being neglectful and rude, she quickly thrust the rolled-up drawing under her gossamer apron and through the slit in her quilted petticoats into the concealed large pocket tied about her waist. For the first time since having the Prince as her shadow she was grateful for his incessant questions. If anyone could distract her from depressing ruminations, it was he.

  Suppressing the urge to flee to her room to read the rest of the letter fragment, then fall upon her bed in a flood of tears of despair, she placed her hand in the crook of the Prince’s sleeve and went with him to join family and friends gathered in the Gallery, the largest public room in the Earl’s Jacobean mansion, and the only one with a fireplace wide and deep enough to accommodate the Yule log.

  “This—Yule log? Yes! Yule log! I am very interested for you to tell me all about it, Miss Aldershot,” the Prince said conversationally, though he was not blind to Kitty’s distress, and that it had everything to do with the drawing now in her pocket. He had seen the writing on its reverse and watched the change come over his lovely young companion as her eyes scanned the words. Still, he pretended ignorance and did his best to keep her mind occupied. “It is a great trunk from a great tree, yes?”

  “Yes, Your Highness. The biggest trunk that will fit the hearth, for it must stay alight until Twelfth Night, which is Epiphany,” Kitty explained, and rattled on so that the tears that were again filling her rims did not spill on to her cheeks. “Choosing the right log is very important. Not only because it must be of a size and seasoned well so its wood will burn for twelve days, but the right log is said to contain magical properties. It brings good luck for the coming year to all who provide their strength to haul it to their master’s hearth. And its ash must be left to cool in the hearth until after Epiphany, then it is collected and strewn on the vegetable gardens to bring a better harvest.”

  “Then I imagine great care is taken when selecting the tree that is to provide this log? And that every one of Lord Salt’s laborers volunteer to be of service in this endeavor?”

  “Very true, Your Highness. The men are not only rewarded with good luck for the new year, but once the log is in place, they receive small beer and a hot meal of soup and mince pies for their services.”

  “A fair exchange for the use of their brawn. No doubt all their hungry friends are there to provide support, in shouts of encouragement, if not in physical labor. Are they, too, on the receiving end of His Lordship’s generosity?”

  “Oh, yes, Your Highness. But the Yule log feast is only one of many at this time of year,” Kitty explained. “All across the counties, doors are open wide in invitation. Every man, woman, and child may partake at their master’s table. So it is not only Lord Salt here at Salt Hendon who plays host to all manner of men. Even vagabonds and journeymen are given a warm meal. No one goes hungry at Christmastide. Nor should they—the birth of Jesus should be celebrated by all, from laborer to lord. Don’t you agree?” She smiled at the Russian prince. “Which is why Christmastide is my favorite holyday.”

  “I can see why that is so, Miss Aldershot. What you tell me offers an explanation, too, for an incident that occurred at dawn, and is the reason I was late to the breakfast table,” explained the Prince, stopping to all
ow Kitty to go before him up a short flight of stairs, and then down three steps to another corridor. When her hand was back on his arm, he continued. “Yuri, my valet, thought the house was being overrun by peasants and he rushed into my bedchamber screaming of revolution and being murdered in our beds. That we—that I—was in danger of having my throat slit! But now I understand he mistook the men from the field and the vagrants entering this house seeking food as a peasant uprising.” The Prince shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Yuri is a most exceptional valet, but this is his first time away from ’Petersburg. So he is as stupid as the bird who sees its cage door it is open, but does not see that as an opportunity for escape.”

  When this elicited a polite laugh from Kitty, the Prince shrugged his shoulders, then was suddenly conspiratorial. He stopped in an alcove under the light of a wall sconce, beckoned her closer, and lowered his voice.

  “I will tell you and no other, Miss Aldershot, that there was a moment after I was woken by my valet shrieking rebellion that I did believe him. Of course, I was only half awake. That is my excuse. Never have I scrambled out from under the bed covers as I did this morning! You English may not have had a peasant uprising since your King Richard, and thus you sleep in your beds contented and without fear, but we Russians blink and there it is!” He snapped his fingers. “Another peasant revolt. Since our beloved Empress ascended the throne a mere five years ago, it seems that a month does not go by without a group of peasants somewhere in the country causing ridiculous and fruitless upheaval. Their rebellions are for naught, but they continue regardless. So one learns to keep an eye over a shoulder. Al—Lady Reanay scolded me for being ridiculous… She-she—giggled.” The Prince opened his eyes wide in disbelief. “Can you believe it, Miss Aldershot? Yes! She did. She giggled, and at me, a Russian prince no less! But I tell you in all sincerity what I did not dare tell her for fear of making her giggle all the more—If not for Lady Reanay’s giggling, I may well have run out of the house into the snow, barefoot and in only my nightshirt, and that would have made me appear most ridiculous indeed!”