Christmas Surprises

by Patricia Rice

  As if just realizing the child in front of him had said something, Jonathan reluctantly tore his gaze away from the proud woman on the ladder and back to the speaker. “My parents apparently left before us. Since they don’t seem to be here yet, I suppose they chose to rest overnight while we rode on. That’s their usual style. They should be here by morning, I venture to say.’’

  Above them, Diana gritted her teeth at this stilted speech. The Jonathan she had known had been full of life and laughter and eagerness. He had defied his father by saving his quarterly allowance until he had enough to buy his commission into the cavalry. He had gone off to war determined to defeat Napoleon and return a hero. Now here he was, wounded and ill and, judging by Charles’s condition, probably half-liquored, sounding as pompous and bored as his curmudgeon father. She had half a mind to throw an apple at him as she might have done in happier times.

  As if in answer to her thoughts, Charles returned and quickly took stock of the situation. Diana sat perched in high dudgeon upon her pedestal and Jonathan sat sulking behind the barricade of a great wing chair. Charles briefly contemplated knocking their hard heads together, but it was Christmas and there had to be better ways to raise their spirits.

  “Get down from there, puss. That’s my job.” Without preliminaries, Charles grabbed his sister’s waist and hauled her from the ladder. Then, throwing off his long-tailed frock coat, he promptly applied his trousered legs to the flimsy ladder and nearly reached the ceiling when he stood on the top rung. “Now give me the rest of those apples. You would never have got this top branch right.”

  “Charles!” Elizabeth gave a gasp of fright as her brother swayed alarmingly at the top of the ladder. “Do come down, Charles. You do not look at all safe up there.”

  Jonathan had turned with wry interest to observe his friend’s assumption of the role of man of the house, and now he, too, raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I daresay you enjoyed the innkeeper’s punch a trifle too much, Carrington. You’re going to make a proper botch of a perfectly good garland if you don’t climb down.”

  “I can hold my liquor as well as you, Drummond, and you had twice as much of the grog. You just rest there like a proper invalid and let me take care of things. Diana, where’s the mistletoe?”

  “Mistletoe?” Diana stared dubiously upward at her slightly wobbly brother. He looked remarkably handsome in his crisp white cravat and linen, and she was thrilled to have him home again, but he was just a wee bit too tipsy for his own well-being. “You do remember this is a house of mourning, Charles? I don’t think Mama would approve of something quite as frivolous as mistletoe.”

  Her words had an instant effect. Charles stared down at his sisters in their stiff mourning and went silent. He climbed down a few steps, then suddenly slumping over the ladder, he held his head in his hands and asked with anguish, “Do you think I can forget, Diana? Do you think for one instant of these last months I have thought of anything else but you and Mama and the children and how selfish I have been? I should have been here. I shouldn’t have to be notified by letter a month after the fact. Devil take it, I left him to die alone with only women and children at his side.” His voice rose as he spoke, and he pounded the trembling ladder with his fist for emphasis.

  Jonathan rose quietly and reached to grasp his friend’s arm to help him down. “He was proud of you, Carrington. You showed me his letters, remember? He was as proud of your accomplishments as if they had been his own. Be glad of a father like that. You could have had mine.”

  Diana looked up swiftly at the bitterness she had never heard before in Jonathan’s voice. Even with the vicious scar across his brow he was a handsome man. His deep-set eyes could hold wells of compassion, and the heavy eyebrows could frown thunderclouds of anger when he observed injustice. The aquiline nose and distinguished cheekbones revealed his pride, however, and it was there in full force now. The years of war had worn away any forgiving softness, and the taut lines of his features now revealed the man who had once been a pampered boy. She gulped back a heartbroken sob at what had once been and was now lost.

  Mrs. Carrington entered as Charles climbed down, dispelling the silence that had suddenly fallen between the young people. “I have the servants airing your rooms and warming baths for the both of you. You must be overweary. Elizabeth, it’s time for you to retire. I will need your help with the twins in the morning. Diana, if you would come to the kitchen, I need your help with tomorrow’s menu.”

  The sisters stared at their mother’s renewed energy with astonishment, but hastened to comply. While Elizabeth hurriedly departed after her mother and Charles carried out the box of ornaments, Diana began gathering the scattered tea things. Jonathan lingered uncertainly in the doorway, watching her slender figure as she studiously pretended he had left with the others.

  “I liked your father. I have not offered my sympathy at your loss.”

  Diana started at the sound of his deep, masculine voice. It had always thrilled her when he came home for the holidays and hid behind a door or wall or tree and caught her by surprise with the sound of his voice. The same thrill went through her now when she had no right to feel it.

  She swung around to face him. He was not just an image in her mind any longer but a man, a soldier returned from war, a person with dreams and a life of his own. Once, she had thought that life would include her. His silence since he had departed for the war had taught her differently.

  “He was ill only a brief time. Perhaps it was better that way. It just seems very ... strange, without him.” To her disgust, Diana felt her eyes filling with tears again. She so desperately wanted to be held and cosseted and told everything would be all right, but as the eldest, she had been the one to comfort the others. There had been no time for self-indulgence.

  Jonathan heard the way her voice broke over the words, felt her anguish, and wished he had the power to give her the comfort that she needed. She had made her disgust of him clear from the moment he had walked into the house, however, and he had too much pride to take a second rejection. He still did not understand the first.

  “Things have changed all over, Janey.’’ He used the secret name they had chosen when they were children.

  “It’s a part of life and growing up. Sometimes it’s for the good, sometimes it’s not.” He strived to keep his voice casual as he shrugged and looked around him. “This room, even. I like the painting of the hunt. That’s new. But I miss the old secretary. Whatever happened to it?”

  At this casual mention of the old hiding place for their childish notes and secret love letters, Diana had to turn away, unable to meet his eyes without dissolving into tears at the memories he revived. “The twins ... The twins decided to experiment with fire with the pair of candles we kept there. The blotter they were testing—” she hiccupped on what could have been a sob or laughter—”went up in a sheet of flame, scorching the desk, not to mention their little fingers. Mama always meant to have it refinished, but she never did. I suppose it’s still up in the attic somewhere.”

  A sudden, extremely painful thump paralyzed Jonathan’s heart as he heard her words and watched the proud line of Diana’s slender back as she turned away from him. It could not be. It was not possible, was it? All these years, all these confounded lonely years thinking she had rejected him ... Could she really not have known he would never have left her without a word?

  Tentatively, he probed for more information. “That must have been some time ago. They look too old for such mischief now.”

  Diana gave a shaky laugh and finished gathering the last of the cups. “They are only just recovering from broken bones after falling from the apple tree, but at least they have learned their lesson about fire. It’s been nearly four years since they’ve touched a candle, since right after that Christmas when you left, as a matter of fact.” She spoke more firmly now, recovering from her shock and reminding herself of her place in things.

  Right after Christmas. There had been time, then. She
should have found it. Jonathan sighed and made a polite bow. “Then we can all go to our beds without fear of waking up in flames. I’ll leave you to your tasks, Diana. Good night.”

  It was when the door closed behind this cold stranger that the tears came, great wrenching sobs that had no place in her life any longer. Diana curled up on the window seat, buried her face in a pillow, and cried like the child she had once been.

  Her mother had to plan the Christmas menu without her help, after all.

  By the next morning Diana had completely recovered from her momentary lapse of self-pity, and no trace of last night’s tears remained. Since it was the day before Christmas, she felt the occasion warranted her first break from full mourning, and she donned a lavender percale gown that pleated gracefully in back. Although it was merely a simple morning gown, the mameluke sleeves adorned with velvet ribbons and the shoulder ruffles made her feel feminine and sophisticated. She had crimped the hair about her face so it curled attractively for a change. Without thinking it, she allowed herself to feel satisfied. Let Jonathan see what he had given up when he had chosen life as a soldier over her.

  She was late coming down, but Charles was later. There was no sign of her brother as Diana joined her mother and sister in the dining room. Jonathan, however, had apparently overcome last night’s excesses and sat sipping coffee at one end of the table. Diana noticed his untouched plate in passing, but thought nothing of it until she sat down with her own breakfast of muffins, ham, and soft-boiled egg. The minute she held her egg cup with one hand and lifted her knife to crack her egg shell with the other, she understood Jonathan’s dilemma.

  “Good morning, Diana,” said her mother. “Will you be certain Cook doesn’t double up the spices in the pudding this morning? I want to freshen the linens in the guest rooms before everyone arrives.” Without stopping for her daughter’s agreement, Mrs. Carrington smiled at their single guest. “I hope you slept well last night, Jonathan. Your appetite didn’t used to be so poor.”

  “I’ve learned to live without, Mrs. Carrington. It will take some time to get back in the habit again.” Jonathan’s eyes were shadowed as Diana sat across from him, but he offered a smile and lifted his bandaged hand in greeting.

  Diana calmly buttered her muffin, then set half on his plate. “Then you should begin breaking bad habits now. That dreadful brew will ruin your digestion, else-wise.”

  Jonathan and her family looked at her as if she had taken leave of her senses to speak so boldly, but a small smile formed at the corner of Jonathan’s mouth as he accepted her muffin.

  “You always did have a way with words, Diana,” he murmured before biting hungrily into the muffin he could not have managed gracefully to butter with one hand.

  “I should rather like to be thought of as a person who acts instead of talks,” she responded tartly, breaking open her egg and neatly scooping the contents onto his plate, mashing it so he could use a fork to eat it instead of chasing the egg cup about the table. “Words aren’t very reliable.”

  Developing some understanding of what was happening at the other end of the table, Mrs. Carrington wisely kept her own countenance. Distracting Elizabeth with plans for the day, she gave the other two time to settle their differences.

  “It is common knowledge that actions speak louder than words,” Jonathan replied stiffly. The egg was delicious, but he couldn’t show his gratitude while she poked at still festering wounds. Diana was never one to carry out conversations on a single level. She was baiting him, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t think he would like being treated as an invalid, either, but Diana was somehow making it very easy to accept his limitations.

  Perhaps that was because she thought of him more as a brother than a lover, or even a rejected lover. In all these years of puzzling over her actions, he had never once considered that possibility, and it was a very likely one. They had grown up together. Just because he had felt their relationship had been a special one did not mean she thought of him as more than her brother’s friend. The likelihood depressed him even further, and he couldn’t bring himself to say thank you when she matter-of-factly placed the cut-up sections of ham on his plate.

  Diana was relieved of the task of answering his cold words by the startling bellow of a deep male voice from above stairs.

  “By the devil, I’ll have you martyred and hung upon the cross if you’re not out of here now!”

  “Charles!” Scandalized by this blasphemy, Mrs. Carrington hastily pushed away from the table and hurried to chastise her eldest and to assess the twins’ damage. There wasn’t a doubt in anyone’s minds as to whom Charles was speaking. The only question was what catastrophe they had wrought.

  Charles didn’t linger with quiet patience for help to arrive. He appeared in the upper hall still in shirt sleeves and stockings, one guilty twin caught by the collar in each hand. Seeing his audience streaming from the dining room below, he shook the rascals and held them up for all to see.

  “They’re too blood—” he cut his curse off short and rephrased the oath—”too young for catechism class! They’ve made the Last Supper out of my last bottle of wine. Where the h—” Again, he stopped to rephrase. “Where is their d— ‘ Throwing up his hands in disgust, he released his brothers. “The army is easier. Where’s their nanny? I can’t get dressed with this mess stinking up the room.”

  Jonathan tried to smother a grin, but the sound of Diana’s muffled giggles made it difficult to keep a straight face. The twins looked decidedly green around the edges as they ran to their mother for comfort, and part of the reason for Charles’s dismay became a little more obvious.

  “Don’t worry, Charles,” Diana called out sweetly. “The maids haven’t forgotten how to take care of drunken little boys. I’ll send someone right up.”

  Charles glared down at her. “See if I do you any more favors, Miss Jane.”

  “And when have you ever done me any?” she demanded, irked that he had used the private name only Jonathan should have known.

  Charles turned his glare to the tall man standing silently just behind his sister, then growled irascibly at the noncommittal expression he found there. “Bloody damn fools. Drummond, we’re going after the yule log just as soon as I get down there. No excuses.” He stalked off in righteous indignation, oblivious to his mother’s protests at such language.

  Puzzled, Diana turned to catch Jonathan’s expression, but he merely shrugged and asked, “He didn’t have his cravat on yet, did he? It will be another hour before we see him again. I, for one, prefer to return to the table.” And he did so, leaving Diana to stare after him with bewilderment and a shaky awareness of his physical presence that hadn’t been there before.

  The boy’s shoulders she remembered so well had broadened into those of a man, a man accustomed to the rigors of a soldier’s life. Muscular arms strained the seams of his civilian coat, and his athletic grace and masculine strength made a mockery of any injuries. Obviously, his wounds were such as not to limit a man of his stature to any great degree.

  She could detect no bandages beneath the tight line of his trousers, but she suspected Jonathan’s pride would prevent him from wearing any if they were at all to be avoided. She almost felt his wince of pain as he entered the dining room and reached for a chair. Were his wounds so painful that he could not relax and be himself, or had the war changed him to this cold and unrelenting stranger?

  She had loved Jonathan Drummond for as long as she could remember, since she had been too little for him to notice. He had been just one of her older brother’s many friends, but he had always been special. He was the only one who had spoken to her, treated her as an equal, and she had adored him. Later, when they were older, their families had shared their holidays, and there were picnics and romps and theatricals where they had just naturally paired off together, or against each other, depending on their ages or the game.

  Diana remembered a particular snowball fight where she managed to get him squarely in the
head, and he had chased her until they both tumbled down a hill of snow, soaking themselves thoroughly. They had both caught a chill that day, but he had arranged to send her a bouquet from their greenhouse to cheer her sickroom. It was that next summer when his nonsensical notes began to take a more serious vein. The hiding place in the old secretary that had been their cache of secret jokes became a place to exchange private thoughts.

  Diana watched as Jonathan returned to eating his breakfast, carefully adjusting his injured leg beneath the cloth and propping his bandaged hand upon the table, keeping his back to her. Four years couldn’t have made him a total stranger. Charles had not changed that much. Why should Jonathan hate her now when he had loved her before?

  She would find out. She did not know what she had done that had made him stop loving her, but she could no longer bear the suspense of wondering. He was alive and here and she would find out. That was the smallest price he would have to pay for leaving her with a heart that would not open to anyone else.

  He nodded without smiling when she returned to her breakfast. Mrs. Carrington and Elizabeth had run off to direct the settling of the twins’ latest disaster, so there was no one to monitor their conversation. Not that Jonathan invited conversation, Diana thought wryly as he calmly lifted his cup of coffee with his undamaged hand.

  “Where did you take your injuries?’’ Trying her best to be as cool and sophisticated as this stranger sitting across from her, Diana added more hot water to her tea.

  “In battle.” Not caring to expound upon the subject over the breakfast table, Jonathan diverted the topic. “Your brother has been seeing to my welfare. That is why he was so late in returning. I don’t suppose it occurred to him to write and tell you that, and unfortunately, I was not in a position to do so. I am exceedingly grateful for his care. The army surgeons would no doubt have insisted on amputation, and I would still be in some fly-infested tent if he had not come to my rescue.”