But lost in her own selfishness, she had forgotten the meaning of Christmas. She had also forgotten how fortunate she was to have the Salt Hendon family as her family. There were many orphans in the world, and she was not now one of them. She had told the Prince how, at this time of year, the Earl and many noblemen like him opened their doors to offer warmth, and their larders to offer food, to those much less fortunate than themselves. Kitty would never go hungry and she would never be cold.
That her best friend Caroline was expecting her first child was the most wonderful news imaginable. And what had she, Kitty, done in response to such news? She had thought of only herself and those wretched words written on the back of Ned’s drawing, and immediately become miserable. She should not let such words blacken her heart, for in doing so it blackened everything else. Caroline was entitled to her opinion, and was not Kitty living up to such an opinion by her selfish behavior?
As for her hopes and dreams of marrying Mr. Tom Allenby MP, well, she would not blame him if he did not wish to marry such a self-absorbed creature. Her childish conduct in running from the Yule log ceremony was surely evidence enough of that. Tom Allenby was a good man with a good heart, and he deserved nothing less in return. She was very sure she was in love with him, but if he did not return her regard, then so be it. She could not make him love her, nor would she. She must be true to herself and let the future take care of itself. She had so much of which to be thankful—for the family who had embraced her, and for the love they had shown her; that was more than enough for a young girl eighteen years of age.
Decided, and feeling very much better, Kitty left her bedchamber with Ned’s Christmas angel to rejoin the family and guests in the Gallery. She did not read the rest of what was written on the back of the drawing. It was not her place to do so. What was important was the loving message reflected in Ned’s drawing.
RETURNING TO the Gallery, she was surprised to find it deserted but for Prince Mordvinov, two footmen attending to the fire, one with a pair of bellows on hand should the flames show signs of faltering; servants would now be on rotation day and night to keep the Yule log burning until Twelfth Night.
The Prince sat cross-legged in a wingchair nearest the warmth, swirling brandy in a crystal tumbler and gazing into the enormous hearth. By the far away look in his eyes, his thoughts were anywhere but here in this long room. He was so preoccupied that Kitty was admiring the magnificent Yule log, hands spread to the warmth, before he realized he was not alone. When she curtsied, he smiled and offered her to sit on the adjacent tapestry upholstered settee.
“You missed dinner, my dear,” he said with a kind smile of regret. “There were many dishes, but the one that I most remember and enjoyed was a splendid venison pie. You English are very good at surprising the palate by encasing succulent meaty morsels in mouth-watering pastry. One bite, and ah! It melts in the mouth. And then there are the little mincemeat pies Lady Reanay favors, and at any hour, for they are only made at this time of year, yes? But forgive me. How are you? I hope you are feeling much better? You look well.”
“Yes, thank you, I am, Your Highness.” When the Prince’s gaze drifted back to the Yule log, she added, to fill the lingering silence, “I like mincemeat pies, too. And Yorkshire Christmas pies, because they are very large and decorative, and feed so many. You will soon see.” When the Prince looked at her and nodded, she took it as a sign to continue. “Yorkshire Christmas pies are served at the feast of St. Stephen, in two days’ time—Your Highness, I am very sorry I missed the blessing of the Yule log,” she added in a rush, the heat in her cheeks having nothing to do with the warmth from the fire. “But most particularly I am sorry I did not see you have the honor of lighting the log this year. I should not have been so bad-mannered and—”
“Please, Miss Aldershot, an apology is unnecessary,” the Prince said with a languid wave of a hand. “I do not know why you left in such a hurry—Perhaps that young man said something that upset you? Young men can be quite awkward when attempting to explain themselves. I remember when I was that age and was courting my—”
“Oh! Oh! No, Your Highness! No! Mr. Allenby did not offend me in the least,” Kitty interrupted, sitting forward, violet eyes wide, so intent on reassuring him she was oblivious to her rudeness in cutting off the Prince’s reminiscing. “Mr. Allenby is a gentleman in-in every way. He has never said or done anything to offend me. It was my own foolish thoughts that caused me to flee.” Kitty looked at her mittened hands in her lap. “I fear I embarrassed myself…”
“That makes two of us, Miss Aldershot.” When Kitty’s chin lifted with surprise, the Prince grinned bashfully. “I told a joke when making my speech while lighting this massive tree trunk here that made the men laugh out loud, but which, so I am told—and was scolded in no uncertain terms afterwards—was not fit for mixed company.” He shrugged and pulled a face. “How was I to know this? It is strange to me that the same joke can be laughed at in the privacy of one’s bedchamber, but not laughed at when said here in this room.” He shook his head and set down his glass. “Please, Miss Aldershot. Forgive me for not repeating the joke in question. I fear I would have my ears boxed if I were to do so! So now let us talk of mundane things like this Yule log, which I am told shall remain lit for the—twelve?—yes, twelve days of Christmas. You see me sitting here alone, staring at this log, enjoying a few moments of solitude—”
“Oh! And I have trespassed on your time,” Kitty interrupted again and made to rise, but settled again when the Prince made motions for her to do so. She smiled. “And I think I have interrupted you for a second time, and for that I also apologize.”
“It is all unimportant to me. There is only one other in this house, indeed in this country, who I am more than happy to have interrupt me and my solitude. I give you such a compliment as one who is old enough to be your grandfather, so you are not to feel awkward or think me a senile old lecher. Ha! Now you are truly blushing! Forgive me, Miss Aldershot.”
He poured more brandy into his glass and sipped, adding in a more conversational tone,
“Everyone has gone off to do various tasks, but they have promised to all return here. Lady Reanay says we are to drink a Christmas concoction of apples and spices from a wassail bowl, and then to play at a silly game called Hunt the Slipper, or was it Questions and Commands? I have not played either, but the vicar, he was not amused and said such games are for Twelfth Night only. Quite a heated exchange occurred…” He chuckled. “Her ladyship would not concede, and when the vicar said he must retire early to prepare for his most important sermon in the morning, my very good friend Lord Temple proposed a solution. He said that perhaps one game would not do us any harm, particularly as it was important to instruct the honored guest—me—in how to play before Twelfth Night is upon us. Lord Temple is ever the diplomat!”
“Yes. Lady Caroline says her husband will be an Ambassador one day… I suspect the children wished to join in the Christmas games…?”
“They did. But the prospect of Christmas gifts awaiting them tomorrow morning after Church was enough of an inducement to see them scamper off to bed so they could fall asleep, and tomorrow it would arrive much sooner.” The Prince shook his head with a smile. “Ned is a most precocious child, and his little sister the image of her beautiful Mamma. I suspect Lord and Lady Salt, with Ned’s Uncle Tom, are still in the Nursery saying their good nights. Such attentive and loving parents, and Mr. Allenby is a most excellent uncle. I predict that when the time comes, he will also be an attentive father.
“When my children were small,” he continued smoothly, hardly stopping for breath, a close eye on Kitty, whose gaze had darted to the floor at mention of Tom Allenby, “I do not think I was in their company more than once in a week. And then only when they were brought before me in my study for inspection. No doubt so I could count them, and see they were all alive and well. When they went off to the summer house, they did not see their Papa for months at a time…” He rallied an
d smiled. “I am much better at being a grandpapa. I have twelve.”
“Twelve grandchildren, Your Highness,” Kitty repeated, impressed.
“I beg your pardon. I have twelve children. If memory serves me, I have forty-five grandchildren, and counting…”
“Forty-five grandchildren…” Kitty repeated in a whisper that was barely audible, and one the Prince did not hear.
“I was married twice,” the Prince continued, swirling the brandy in his glass again. “Both marriages were arranged, as is custom. My first wife I met on the day of our wedding. We were both about your age. Perhaps she was a year or two younger… My second wife was found for me by my relatives. I am told that arranged marriages are not uncommon here, too…”
He shrugged and Kitty remained silent, realizing the Prince was in a reflective mood, and hoping he would tell her a little more about his life in Russia. Her silence was rewarded.
“I never thought of the alternative—of marrying for love. It was not a choice for one of my birth. My parents, my grandparents, in fact all of my family and friends have arranged marriages. To marry for love was considered unwise because the outcome of such matches are often—unpredictable. Parents know what is in the best interests of their children. I arranged the marriages of all twelve of my children, and they are all satisfied and happy as a result.” He smiled. “Do I not have forty-five grandchildren to attest to that? And I have no complaints about my wives. Both were lovely and sweet and good mothers to our children. The first, Anna, died in childbed. The second, Natalya, of influenza…”
When he broke off, the far away look back in his eyes, and the silence stretched between them, Kitty felt she had to say something.
“I am sorry you lost both your wives, Your Highness. Particularly when you say they were lovely and sweet…”
“To be in love is not quite what I expected…” he muttered as if Kitty had not spoken. He threw back the last of the brandy then put aside the glass with a chuckle at some private thought, before turning to Kitty with bright eyes. He leaned into her, silken sleeve to the padded arm of his chair.
“I will tell you a little secret, Miss Aldershot,” he confided. “What is most unexpected is that I never thought it would happen to me, this falling in love. I was not looking for it. So to find myself in love for the first time at my age—it is quite a shock, to me, and no doubt shocking to others. Be warned! It can hit you at any time, at any place, and at any age! Falling in love is not confined to the young, Miss Aldershot. Though I hope you will lose your heart when young because at my age there are not so many years left to love and laugh—Ah! But I am sorry if this old man’s conversation has—how you say?—galloped away at you!”
“I hope you are not turning Kitty’s ears red with one of your stories, Timur?” Lady Reanay lectured, bustling up to the hearth in a swish of silks. She was not surprised when the couple sprang back on their respective chairs in surprise. She had seen them from the other end of the Gallery, the Prince leaning across to Kitty, and she, all rapt attention. She was just in time to catch the last of the Prince’s sentence, and added with a lift of her arched brows, “Kitty is too young to be bothered with your age and your galloping. Please forgive His Highness, dearest,” she said with a smile at the girl. “I would like to blame his English translation. But I suspect, however, even if he were to converse with you in any of his six languages, be it French, German, Italian, Greek, or his native Russian for that matter, his conversation would still be most unsuitable for the ears of young ladies.”
“I have been on my best behavior this past week; I assure you,” the Prince sulked, long nose in the air. “Miss Aldershot will vouch for me.”
“Oh, yes! Yes, he has, my lady,” Kitty said earnestly before she saw the elderly couple exchange a teasing look, and realized the Prince was play-acting for Lady Reanay’s benefit.
“How are you now, my dear?” Lady Reanay asked Kitty, spreading out her silk petticoats a la Turque to sit beside her on the settee. “Jane sent your maid to look in on you, but you were sound asleep. So we thought it best to leave you that way. Playing Christmas guide to His Highness has worn you thin, and left you a little exhausted. No! Don’t argue with me. I know it is so. And His Highness agrees with me. A dinner tray has been prepared. Do you think you might be able to eat something now?” When Kitty shook her head with a smile, she patted her hand. “Very well. Perhaps when the others return… Oh! Is that Ned’s Christmas angel you have there?” she asked, trying to sound uninterested, spying the drawing in Kitty’s lap. “May I see it?”
“Of course, my lady.” Kitty handed her the drawing.
Lady Reanay squinted over the piece of paper, turning it this way and that, until the Prince became impatient and made a clucking sound, waving a hand at her, and saying what was also on Kitty’s mind.
“Your spectacles, Alice. Wear them. And do not tell me they make you look old! We are old,” the Prince chided her mildly, then grinned when Lady Reanay huffed her annoyance and pulled a face at him.
But she put on her spectacles as he commanded and saw the drawing anew, this time right way up.
“What a precious drawing, Kitty! Ned’s first Christmas angel, too. No doubt when Salt sees his son’s drawing he will think it the most exceptional piece of artwork he’s ever set eyes on, as only a doting father can. I predict he’ll dub this the Salt Angel, and no other Christmas angels will come close to measuring up. And to think Ned used you as his model. How enchanting…”
Without warning, she then flipped the drawing over, which elicited a gasp of surprise from Kitty. But Lady Reanay kept her eyes on the elegantly sloping script.
“His Highness said these words upset you…” When there was no reply, she looked up over her gold rims. “Oh, we won’t say a word about it, dearest. Will we, Timur? But we do not like to see our favorite Christmas angel in distress, for any reason. Is that not so, Your Highness?”
“That is very true,” agreed the Prince.
“I should not have read any of it, my lady. It was wrong of me,” Kitty replied with a guilty blush, a glance at the Prince. “And I do not want Ned to be in trouble if, as I suspect, he took the page from amongst the letters on his mamma’s escritoire, particularly as he has now drawn upon it.”
Lady Reanay nodded, only half-listening, as she had dropped her gaze again and was reading. And as she read, a change came over her. Her mouth puckered. She sat up tall. She squared her shoulders. She stopped fanning herself and became indignant. More than once she glanced over the sheet of paper to look, not at Kitty, but at the Prince. Finally she dropped the hand holding the letter into her silken lap. She took a moment to compose herself and then said gently,
“You did not read very much of this at all, did you, Kitty dear?”
Kitty shook her head. “No, my lady. I did not. It is not mine to read, and truly, I should not have read what I did.”
“You read three lines at most. Possibly to the word career.” Lady Reanay peered down at the letter again. “Yes, to the ruin of TA’s career… Would that be so?”
Kitty nodded, and then was startled when Lady Reanay stated bluntly,
“I agree. You should not have read any of it!”
“I—I am truly s-sorry,” Kitty stammered, unaccustomed to hearing anger in her ladyship’s normally placid and loving voice. “But Lady Caroline is in the right.”
“Do not upset the child, Alice,” the Prince advised Lady Reanay in a low voice, sitting forward in the wingchair. “Miss Aldershot says she is sorry, and that will be an end—”
“If you knew what was written here, you would agree with me!” Lady Reanay snapped rudely.
The Prince, far from being offended to be so bluntly addressed, calmly put out a hand. “Then allow me to read it and agree with you.”
“If you read this, you most definitely will not agree with me!” Lady Reanay stated in an abrupt about-face, Ned’s drawing remaining in her lap. “In truth, Caroline’s argument is preci
sely what I have been trying to tell you all along! But you remain as one deaf to me, and refuse to listen!”
“I am listening now.”
Lady Reanay eyed him with resentment. “You say that now. But I know you too well, Your Highness. You won’t change your mind. You are a wretchedly stubborn man.”
The Prince held her gaze and then inclined his head in agreement, a smile curving his mouth as he raised his empty brandy glass to her in a gesture of triumph. Lady Reanay rolled her eyes, sighed, and threw up her hands in annoyance, the little gold and silver bangles about both her wrists tinkling in the silence. She returned to fluttering her fan with an agitated movement and would not look at the Prince.
“Lady Caroline is in the right,” Kitty repeated, her eagerness to show her contrition blinding her to the scene being played out between the elderly couple. “I realize now that Mr. Allenby’s career would be ruined were he to marry me. It was such a-a shock to see it written in that way. But now I have reflected upon Caroline’s words, I realize she was not saying it out of spite, but merely stating fact. I assure you both that if Mr. Allenby were to ask me to marry him—not that I am in expectation of receiving such an offer, but if he did ask me—I would refuse the honor. I do see that there are insurmountable difficulties, and that his friends, though I have not met them, are unlikely to approve of me. And Lord Salt cannot want me for a sister-in-law because I am an orphan without a dowry and a mere baron’s daughter, when Mr. Allenby is not only the MP for Hendon, he is, to be quite vulgar, exceedingly rich, and he is the brother of a countess. So I do understand how unequal such a union would be.”
When this confessional speech was met with silence, Kitty blinked, only realizing then that by their opposing expressions—the Prince looking supremely smug with a smile, and Lady Reanay, lips pressed together and looking anywhere but at the Prince—the couple were engaged in a silent quarrel, and that her presence was the only reason they were not vocalizing their arguments. But she was wrong to think her words had gone unheard. It was just that such was the battle of wills, neither the Prince nor Lady Reanay wished to capitulate. Kitty looked from one to the other, and waited for either one to speak. Finally, she was about to suggest she was hungry after all, and quietly excuse herself to call for her dinner tray, when Lady Reanay suddenly came to life.
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