Christmas Surprises

by Patricia Rice

  “Now is not the time to play those maidenly games with me, Miss Chadwick,” he chastised her lightly. “We know each other’s opinions on the factory very well, and I have no desire to fight with you about it tonight. Nor is it the reason I wish to remain, as you very well know. I am asking your honest opinion. Do you think I will be accepted here if I stay? It’s sometimes difficult for people to accept strangers.”

  “I think you belong here.” Even as she said it, Marian wondered how she knew it to be true, but it was. Alan Ellington belonged here, and she wanted him to stay. “Stay, and let us argue over working conditions on the morrow.’’

  The laughter was back in those incredible blue eyes, and soot-smudged lashes beckoned him teasingly until he could do no other than lean over and press his lips to hers.

  Marian gave a sigh of contentment as Alan’s fingers brushed her cheek and turned her more pressingly into his embrace. Until now, she hadn’t realized this was what she had been waiting for to make this day perfect. Her fingers went tentatively to his waistcoat as his arm closed around her, and she gave herself up to the deliciousness of his kiss.

  He was very good at kissing, she decided moments later when his mouth moved to the edges of hers and her head stopped reeling briefly. She really shouldn’t allow him such liberties, but if he meant to stay...

  His lips returned more forcefully this time, and she had to gasp “Mr. Ellington!” and try to push away.

  “Alan,” he insisted, daring to touch the shimmering silk of her pinned tresses. “You must call me Alan, and then I will kiss you just one more time and let you go.”

  “Alan,” she breathed with a smile as he brought their lips together once more. And it was more than one kiss later when he finally caught his breath and forced himself away.

  “I am rushing things. I tend to do that a lot. You must make me slow down when I go too fast. It’s just this day has been so lovely, I don’t want it to end.” Alan knew how he wanted it to end. He had been married. He knew what it was like to retire to bed with the one he loved; he knew how to extend this happiness. But she did not, and it was much too soon to ask it of her, too soon to even consider it. So reluctantly, he stroked her cheek instead.

  “Will it be the same tomorrow?” Marian asked wistfully, leaning her head back into his protective palm, basking in the heat of his gaze. “Or will everything be back to normal? Do animals only talk on Christmas Eve?”

  Alan laughed and lifted her hand to kiss it and put some distance between them before they both regretted it. “I can’t answer for the animals, but I hope tonight will last until the dawn. The world is seldom peaceful, but two reasonable people ought to be able to iron out their disagreements. Shall we find out in the morning?”

  Marian squeezed his hand and reached for the gift he had set aside. “I shall take this with me and open it in the morning and pretend today has started all over again. That should make me much more reasonable.”

  Alan watched her retreat to the security of her feminine bedroom and found himself wishing for the right to follow her. He’d thought something in him had died with Isabel; he was only just discovering it had not. He wanted a warm and willing woman, and not the kind that he could buy. He was more than certain that Marian Chadwick could not be bought, perhaps not even with a wedding ring, particularly not when he was forced to admit the truth.

  Not wanting to contemplate that subject, Alan banked the fire and checked the locks and windows before taking his candle up to his lonely bed.

  It was obvious he couldn’t stay here much longer. Sooner or later, he was going to have to leave the Chadwick house and make his own home. He wanted it to be later.

  * * * *

  “You cannot mean it! You’ve bought the Hall?” Christmas Day had been nearly as splendid as Christmas Eve. Alan admired the glitter of the sapphire brooch at Marian’s throat, avoiding the incredulity in her eyes. She had only accepted the gift because she thought it a pretty piece of glass. He doubted that she had ever seen a valuable piece of jewelry. To him, it was merely a bauble, but he was quite certain she wouldn’t look at it that way had she known the cost.

  But Christmas Day was over, and though there were many more celebrations to come, reality was already beginning to set in. There was no point in delaying the inevitable any longer, not if he really meant to stay and plant his roots in this soil.

  “My family owns the Hall, Marian,” he explained patiently, but she still stared at him in disbelief.

  “I’m glad one of the family has finally decided to return.” Elena Chadwick smiled sensibly as she drew her yarn around the knitting needle. “I thought perhaps it might be one of your sisters. It was too much to hope that one of the wandering males of your family would come home.”

  Alan grinned at the aptness of this remark. “Grandfather evidently set a bad example. I’ve just returned from visiting one uncle in Italy and another who was about to explore Africa. I think there was a time when my father would have returned, but that was before he met my mother. She feared his consumption would worsen should he leave Arizona. And he’s quite content to stay there now. And I must admit to a certain amount of wanderlust of my own, but that’s only because I have never been here before. Now I know what I’ve been looking for.”

  His gaze drifted back to Marian, but she was still looking at him as if he had developed two noses and horns. “You said you wished to see the Hall opened,” Alan reminded her. “Do I not deserve some show of appreciation?”

  “Your family is the one who closed up the Hall and the factory? Your grandfather is the earl who built those warehouses and ignored the people who worked for him? How could you? How could you sit here and pretend you were what you were not?’’

  He had been afraid of that. Threading his hand through his hair, Alan tried to explain. “My grandfather left everything to his solicitors. The distance between here and India is too great for him to have made the everyday decisions. Perhaps he was wrong, but there is no one to say that his decisions would have been any better had he been here. I have seen other towns much worse off than yours, and the noble families in their districts still live and play there. They’re not any better or worse than the wealthy families in my country who put business first. Surely you cannot blame me for a life I have never known?’’

  “I can blame you for pretending you aren’t who you are. I should have known when you opened up the Hall! Shall we call you Lord Ellington now, or is there some other title that goes with it? I can’t believe you... Oh, damn!” Unable to scream at all the little lies that were causing all the little hurts right now without coming to blows or tears, Marian picked up her skirt and ran from the room.

  Drained by the scene he had known had to come, Alan bowed stiffly before his hostess. “I am sorry for that, ma’am. I didn’t want people to get their hopes up, or to say the things they thought I wanted to hear just because of who I was. I thought perhaps you understood…”

  “I understood, Alan, but my daughter is far too young to understand. She still has ideals and dreams, and perhaps you shattered them just a bit. When she sees the good you can do, she will come around after a while. You mean to remove to the Hall, then?”

  “I thought it would be best. I will have to go up to London and work things out with the solicitors. They know I am here, and my father has written them with his permission to allow me full rein, but I haven’t told them my decision to stay yet. You’re the first to know.”

  “I thank you for that. I’d always secretly hoped that Bartholomew would return and make things right again. I had forgotten about his little boy. You’ve grown into quite a handsome young man. Sometimes, it makes me feel old to see the children growing up, but you’ll know the feeling soon enough. You are always welcome to stay here; I hope you know that.”

  Alan smiled at the gracious lady who had made him feel at home even knowing who he was. He was nearly thirty and hadn’t resided in this town since he was a toddler too young to remember, b
ut she made him feel as if he had belonged here all his life. “Perhaps I can return the favor and have you stay with me sometime. I’ll call when I return, shall I?”

  Alan felt the parting more strongly than when he had left his parents. Then, he had known he could return at any time. Now, he knew he might never spend another Christmas as he had with the Chadwicks. As he carried his bags down a staircase still wrapped in evergreen and adorned with ribbons, he felt as if he were leaving home, and he didn’t want to go.

  Another person had the same thought. Before Alan could let himself out the door, a small figure in mussed shirt and knee breeches came hurtling out from behind the stairs, his dirty face streaked with tears.

  “Don’t go!” he wailed, clinging to Alan’s leg. “Don’t go!”

  Despite the protest of his knee, Alan crouched down to hug the little boy. “I’ll be back, I promise. Somebody’s got to go up and keep an eye on the puppies until they’re big enough to run by themselves. When I get back from the city, I’ll take you up there to see how they’ve grown.”

  “Don’t want you to go,” John repeated resentfully. “Stay here.”

  How he wanted to. Throwing a last glance around the now familiar foyer, Alan hugged the lad, then let him go. Someday, he wanted children of his own, but none would ever replace this grubby little one in his heart.

  Telling himself it was all for the best, Alan Ellington, Viscount Coke, carried his bags out to the waiting carriage.

  * * * *

  “Where is little John?” Marian stopped in the nursery to count heads. John seldom joined his older brothers in their rough games, but she hadn’t found him anywhere else in the house. Alan had scarcely been gone a week, but already she missed his ability to attract her youngest brother like a magnet.

  “Probably down in the closet sniffing boots again,” Matthew declared disdainfully. “Want me to go get him?”

  “I just looked there. And he’s not in the kitchen, either. Where did you see him last?”

  The lads looked from one to the other and shrugged their shoulders. Worried but trying not to be, Marian picked up her skirts and went searching for her sisters. Perhaps one of them had grown bored and agreed to read him a book.

  Finding the girls involved in their own activities without any knowledge of their youngest brother, Marian went nervously down the staircase to check under it one more time. Her mother entered with a cold draft of winter wind, and throwing off her scarf, lifted a questioning brow.

  “Lost John again? Did you check with Matilda? The child’s always hungry.”

  She had, but Marian joined her mother for a second search of the kitchen. When no one claimed any sign of the child since luncheon, Marian felt fear, but her mother calmly went off to the upper story to look for herself. John was a peculiar child given to hiding in strange places. With that thought, Marian lit a candle and turned to the cellar. He could very well have found the key and locked himself in.

  Supper was delayed while the entire family joined in the search, scouring the old house from top to bottom, unburying old boots and ancient canes in unused closets, stirring up coal dust in the cellar and spider webs in the attic, without any hint of a tow-head or a sleepy smile.

  Quite certain that they would find the child sound asleep in some unlikely cubbyhole, Elena Chadwick refused to be alarmed, but she agreed to allow Marian to call on Bernard to do a hasty check of the neighbors. The wind was achingly cold with a hint of snow in the air, but John was quite capable of wandering into someone’s backyard in search of some elusive toy. He could easily be sitting in a neighbor’s kitchen munching biscuits and drinking hot chocolate while they waited for his family to claim him.

  By nine o’clock that night, supper had been forgotten while men wrapped in their warmest mufflers and hats spread out to search the surrounding countryside for a little boy no bigger than a large dog and with just as much tendency to stray. Marian held back her tears for her mother’s sake, but she insisted on going with Bernard when he took their carriage out to parts of town that had not yet been searched. How far could small legs and an empty belly carry him?

  Farther than anyone expected, it was discovered when dawn arrived and still no sign of the child was found. Both women had given in to tears by then, but they dried them as they joined the others in searching up and down the river bank with the first light of day. It was not the way anyone wished to welcome the new year, but it was the only other logical place to look.

  When Alan rode up to the Chadwick home on his new horse expecting to extend his good wishes for the New Year, he discovered only a teary-eyed Laura and a house full of children at home.

  “They’re all down by the river looking for little John.” Her bottom lip quivered as she gazed up at the elegant man who had made Christmas so exciting, as if he might wave a magic wand and return the strayed child.

  “The river?” Alan felt a shiver of apprehension as he realized the abandoned horses and wagons along the drive and roadway had naught to do with an excess of visitors.

  The story came spilling out then, and Alan felt a coldness creeping up inside of him. He had just begun to accept that life must go on, but he couldn’t accept the passing of a child who had not yet begun to live. With a brisk nod to the shaken girl in the doorway, he strode through the back gardens toward the river where he could see even now the bright red wool hats of some of the searchers.

  News of his name and title had already spread through the village like wildfire, and Alan disregarded the irritation he felt as men removed their hats when he appeared and women bobbed ancient curtsies. His gaze sought and swiftly found the women he had come looking for.

  Elena Chadwick appeared a ghost of herself with haunted eyes lined with shadows as he approached. Marian wouldn’t even look his way, refusing to acknowledge his presence by plunging into bushes, tearing at her clothes and hands as she thoroughly searched the surrounding shrubbery. Already victim to more emotions than he cared to decipher, Alan grabbed her arm and jerked her back to a safer level of the river bank.

  “Have you searched the Hall?” he demanded of both women, conscious of those who listened around them.

  “It’s much too far,” Marian protested. “They’ve searched half way there, but he couldn’t possibly walk farther than that.”

  “I only just returned late last night. I gave Bess and George a holiday, so there’s no one there, but I think I know where he might be. Grab a blanket and some food and we’ll go look.”

  Ignoring Marian’s remonstrations, Alan began pulling her up the hill. Several of the men offered to accompany them, and he nodded curtly, more in dismissal than agreement. He couldn’t bear to see the hope rising to Elena Chadwick’s eyes. If he were wrong, he would never forgive himself. But he could not be wrong. He wasn’t going to let that mischievous little cherub get away so easily.

  Marian gasped for breath as she tried to follow Alan’s long strides. If his knee gave him pain, he showed no sign of it as he hurried through the garden toward his waiting horse. She wondered what on earth he meant to do with her if he intended to ride back to the Hall, but she learned the answer to that swiftly enough when she returned with the blankets and basket of food he had ordered her to fetch.

  The new viscount had hitched his expensive horse to the old pony cart from the stable and was checking the strength of the traces as she hurried down the front steps. Without a word, Alan helped her into the cart and threw the blankets and basket behind the seat. In a motion, he had joined her and was whipping his horse down the drive before she barely had time to get settled.

  Clinging to her hat and the side of the cart as they barreled down the road, Marian prayed fiercely that Alan was right, that somehow John had trundled his chubby legs the miles up the hill to the Hall, but she could not imagine how he had done so. The cart and horse seemed to take hours bumping over the rocks and ruts of the main road, then turning off onto the overgrown drive up to the Hall itself. It was a torturous stret
ch of road, and she heard Alan’s curses under his breath as the horse gallantly pulled them out of ruts large enough to swallow a pony.

  When they finally stopped in the cobbled stable yard, Alan leapt out, but instead of running toward the house, he went directly to the stable, forgetting her presence entirely in his haste. Marian jumped from the cart and ran after him, hope finally flooding her veins.

  “You didn’t come back!”

  Marian heard the heart-breaking sob as she dashed into the darkness of the chilly stable, and she felt a sob of her own being wrenched from her throat. She couldn’t hear Alan’s low murmurs but judged their direction and found the stall just as he knelt to take little John into his arms.

  The child was sobbing wretchedly, and Alan looked up to her for guidance. On the floor near him lay a lovely collie and her squirming puppies, and Marian felt lightheaded as she kneeled beside them and reached for her youngest brother. He clung determinedly to Alan’s neck, however, and wiping a tear from her eye, she managed a smile.

  “You came all the way up here to see the puppies, Johnny?”

  The little boy nodded vigorously, rubbing his wet face against Alan’s collared greatcoat. “They don’t have a daddy,” he explained between hiccups.

  “And John and I were supposed to be the daddies for them, but I went away, and John thought I wasn’t coming back.” Alan looked up to her with pain in his eyes. “I packed my bags and left and he thought I would be gone forever.’’

  “Just like father and Robert. Oh, dear, I never thought...” Marian brushed a piece of hay from John’s hair. “Johnny, Alan isn’t going away. He’s going to live here, just in a different house than ours. You can see the puppies anytime you like, but you have to tell us. Mama’s so worried, she’s out looking for you,”

  “I want to stay here,” he sniffled.

  Alan shifted the boy so he could remove his handkerchief and wipe a grimy face. “I don’t have a mama and sisters and brothers here, John. There’s nobody to look after us and make us pies and cakes and mend our clothes. Let’s go back down and tell your mama we’re sorry for scaring her.’’