by Diane Gaston
‘She says she is feeling very well.’ He was touched by their concern.
‘I fixed her a posset last night,’ Cook said. ‘I am certain it was my posset that helped.’
‘It very well may have been,’ he agreed.
Cook beamed. ‘I’ll make her another for tonight.’
‘She will be grateful.’ He looked around. ‘I’ve come for the greenery. We thought to start decorating.’ He turned to Mrs Irwin. ‘Will you send your husband on an errand for me?’
‘I will, sir,’ she replied. ‘What will it be?’
‘I want to procure firewood for the fireplace in the drawing room for tonight and tomorrow. It won’t be a Yule log, but at least it will smell like one.’ He wanted to fill the house with as many delights as he could think of, all to please Cecilia.
‘Well, won’t that be the thing.’ Mrs Irwin smiled in approval.
She helped him carry up the greenery Oliver and Cecilia had purchased the previous day. He had two projects that needed to be done without her seeing. Hanging the mistletoe and shopping.
He walked into the drawing room. ‘Here we are.’
They were laden with holly, ivy, hawthorn and flowering Christmas rose.
‘Oh, I’d forgotten how beautiful they are. They smell heavenly.’ Cecilia stood by the mantel, which she had cleared of its decorative pieces. ‘Put them on the floor. We can select them easily from there.’
Mrs Irwin placed her bundle, wrapped in a sheet, in the middle of the floor. ‘Would you be needing any help?’
Cecilia smiled at her. ‘Thank you, Mrs Irwin. It is kind of you to offer. I think Mr Gregory and I can manage.’
She glanced at Oliver, who added his bundle to the pile on the floor.
Mrs Irwin gave her a knowing, but cheerful look. ‘That is it, then. Ring for us if you change your mind.’
‘Thank you. We will.’ Cecilia turned to the pile of cuttings. ‘Where to begin?’
‘We should begin with you sitting and directing me.’ He pointed to a chair.
To his surprise she did as he asked without an argument.
She pointed to which piece of greenery he should use and told him how to arrange it. When he finished she rose and added bows and ribbons. They placed greenery on the mantel and window sills and in vases on the tables.
The scent of the hawthorn and pine brought back memories of gathering cuttings from his father’s country estate. He always accompanied the footmen charged with the greatest portion of the task. His father, stepmother and their houseguests made a show of collecting cuttings, but he was not encouraged to join them.
His father had sent him an invitation to their Christmas house party this year, as he had every year since Oliver turned twenty-one. Oliver knew his stepmother did not want him to attend. She’d always gone out of her way to make him miserable. Once he reached his majority, he saw no reason to put himself through that ordeal. His father used to profess to missing him, but he quickly became accustomed to Oliver’s absence.
Oliver never had any reason to acknowledge Christmas after that. He and Nicholas, who also had been at loose ends on the holiday, used to spend it together, drinking, gambling or carousing.
Until Nick disappeared.
This Christmas was different. He was not alone and Cecilia’s delight in filling the house with evergreens was infectious. Had the ancient Celts felt that same enthusiasm for Winter Solstice, the rebirth of the sun?
Oliver knew of rebirth. His life had changed dramatically several times. Leaving India. Being befriended by Nicholas, Jacob and Frederick. The creation of Vitium et Virtus.
Now, with Cecilia, his life had changed again. When the baby was born, Oliver would be reborn into the role of father, reborn into a new family of his own.
Even if she would not allow it.
When the drawing room was finished, he and Cecilia moved on to the dining room and the hall. Cecilia arranged some holly cuttings in a vase and climbed the stairs to weave ivy through the banister.
‘Are you certain you are up to finishing that task?’ he asked her.
She sat on the stairs, weaving ivy in and out of the wrought-iron banister. ‘I’m sitting. That is not too much, is it?’ She smiled. ‘Does it not look pretty?’
It did dress up the hall.
‘What else do you wish me to do?’ he asked.
‘After this we are finished.’ She gestured to the extra cuttings left over. They had plenty. ‘Perhaps you could remove what we did not use?’
‘I’ll take them to the servants. They will want to decorate below stairs.’ He picked up the bundle.
She gave him a very approving look that felt surprisingly gratifying.
It was his pleasure to please her.
* * *
While Oliver gathered the remainder of the branches and cuttings and carried them to the servants’ door, Cecilia finished with the ivy.
The scent of the greenery filled the house, just as it had in her childhood. They always spent Christmas in the country. Had her parents returned to the country house for Christmas? she wondered. Would her sisters and their husbands be joining them?
She would never be a part of their Christmas again.
Oliver re-entered the hall and looked up to where she was seated on the stairs. ‘Would you like me to finish that?’ he asked.
‘I’m done.’ She pulled herself up by the banister. ‘But I am fatigued. Would you object if I took a rest?’
There she went again, asking permission.
She spoke with more force. ‘I mean, I am going to take a rest now.’
‘I have no objection.’ He frowned. ‘Perhaps you have done too much.’
‘I’ve been careful, Oliver,’ she assured him. ‘But that is why I think I should rest.’
He nodded. ‘I have some errands, but I will be back later in the day. Do you need anything? Is there anything I can do for you?’
His concern warmed her heart. She believed he meant it.
For now.
She smiled down at him. ‘You have done enough by helping me decorate.’
She walked up the stairs, suddenly wishing she could go on his errands with him and remain in his company the whole day.
She entered her room and gasped.
Holly, hawthorn and pine cuttings adorned her mantel and filled a vase near her bed. Ivy vines wound around her bedposts.
Mary came from the sitting room, carrying a basket of cuttings. ‘Oh, you are here!’
‘Mary, did you do this?’ The room was filled with the heady scent of pine.
Mary grinned. ‘I did. Mr Gregory set me to the task. I must say, it was a great deal of fun.’
‘Thank you,’ Cecilia said. ‘It is lovely. Very lovely.’
She’d never had many cuttings in her childhood bedchamber. Her sisters took the extra cuttings for themselves and she’d had to pull small pieces from the decorations in the other rooms and sneak them upstairs.
This room was lavish with greenery.
‘I am weary. I plan to rest a little,’ Cecilia said.
Mary’s brow furrowed. ‘Are you feeling ill?’
‘No.’ It was a lovely sort of weariness. ‘But I will retire to the sitting room and read for a while, I think.’
‘Anything you require from me?’ Mary asked.
Cecilia noticed that the basket had more greenery in it. ‘I need nothing. Please use the extra cuttings for yourself.’
Mary grinned and left the room.
Cecilia opened a cabinet and removed the fabric that she’d purchased for Mary. It was wrapped in brown paper, but she added a red ribbon and tied it in a bow. She added a green ribbon to Oliver’s gift and wished now that she’d found something of even more value to give to him.
She stared at the package and thought about their day. If all days could be like this one, how pleasant life could be. How pleasant life could be if only one could depend upon another person to be constant, to never change.
She put the gifts back into a drawer and kicked her shoes off, putting her feet on the sofa and hugging her knees.
The baby moved inside her. She lowered her legs and placed her hands on her rounding belly, vowing to be as constant as the sun and moon for her baby.
‘I promise, baby,’ she whispered.
At least she could give her baby what she could not have.
She let that thought cheer her.
There was a knock on the door and Mary entered. ‘Uncle Irwin said this letter came for you.’
‘A letter? For me?’ She rose from the sofa and met Mary halfway.
Mary handed her the envelope.
Cecilia examined it. It appeared to be from her mother. ‘Thank you, Mary.’
Her maid smiled, curtsied and left the room. Cecilia carried the letter back to the sitting room. She sat on the sofa and stared at it. She’d not had one piece of mail since the one from her father three years ago, the one disowning her.
She took a deep breath and carefully broke the seal.
It was from her mother.
She read:
Dear Cecilia,
We are back in the country, but I managed to devise a way to get a letter to you from here without your father knowing.
It will be a quiet Christmas for us. Both your sisters will be spending the day with their husbands, but that is as it should be. We will have our usual guests over for Christmas dinner. The parson. Squire Watson. And their wives, of course. They are dull company, but your father insisted we invite them.
If you could be with us it would make me so very happy, but I fear your father would never allow it.
We will be back in town for the Season, of course, and I hope I am able to contrive to see you. Your father was impossible after we met, checking my every move, but I suspect he will be too busy in the Season to think of where I am.
My love to you, my dear daughter.
Regards to your friend, Mr G—
Happy Christmas,
Your loving mother
Cecilia refolded the letter and blinked away tears. That her mother thought of her, cared for her, meant a great deal, but her mother was so much under her father’s thumb, would Cecilia ever see her again? Perhaps a snatched visit in a Circulating Library? By then it surely would be obvious she was with child.
It was probably best that she disappear and never see her mother again.
She put the letter in the drawer with the presents and returned to the sofa, feeling more fatigued than before.
She’d told Oliver not to think of the past. She should heed her own advice. Right now, this day, she’d been happy. That was what mattered. She and Oliver would share Christmas together and they would be happy in each other’s company.
For as long as it lasted.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cecilia dozed on the sofa, waking when Mary came in to dress her for dinner.
‘I suppose I was tired.’ Cecilia sat up and waited for her head to clear. She determinedly pushed the thought of her mother’s letter out of her mind.
‘Do you wish to dress for dinner?’ Mary asked.
‘Oh, yes.’ She would make dinner with Oliver as enjoyable as possible for them both. ‘I want to wear something nice.’
Mary grinned. ‘Let us make you fancy tonight!’
Cecilia frowned. ‘Like a lady, though, Mary. Not like a worker at Vitium et Virtus.’ Not like Madame Coquette.
Mary chose an emerald-green dress. Its design was simple with few embellishments, but the silk fabric shimmered in the candlelight. Cecilia’s pearl pendant became her only ornamentation. Mary fixed her hair high upon her head and fashioned bands of ribbon for a very Grecian look, elegant and simple.
‘I have an idea!’ Mary went to the vase and snipped off a sprig of holly and pinned it in her hair.
Cecilia gazed at her image in the full-length mirror. ‘I look festive, do I not?’
Mary nodded. ‘Very festive.’
She felt an unexpected fit of nerves. ‘I suppose I am ready.’
Cecilia left the room and the distinct scent of burning firewood reached her nostrils. A Yule log? It could not be. Not in Oliver’s small fireplaces. She hurried down the stairs to the hall to see.
Oliver stood leaning on the doorjamb to the drawing room.
‘I smell burning wood!’ she exclaimed.
‘Reminiscent of a Yule log,’ he said. ‘Best I could do.’
‘It smells wonderful.’
He moved to the doorway of the drawing room. ‘Shall we have some wassail before dinner?’
‘Wassail?’ She laughed. ‘You have wassail?’
‘I do,’ he responded. ‘To celebrate our decorations.’
She hurried to the doorway. ‘Perhaps just a sip.’
He blocked the doorway. ‘Not so fast.’
‘What?’
He pointed above them.
She glanced up and then met his eye. ‘You’ve hung mistletoe.’
He nodded. ‘You know what that means.’
She rose on tiptoe, and he bent down and touched his lips to hers in a kiss so tender it caused an aching in her heart.
She wound her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss while her body flared with need. He lifted her and carried her into the room, still kissing her. They were prone on the sofa, him beside her, but he broke off.
‘We had better stop,’ he said, his voice rasping.
She nodded. ‘The baby.’
Not after the scare of her bleeding could they do anything that might hurt the baby.
He rose and she sat up, her body still humming with need for him. He walked to the wassail bowl and brought her a cup of the hot mulled cider.
He poured himself a cup and sat in a chair across from her. He looked like she felt. Unsettled. She took one sip before putting her cup down on the table. It seemed wassail made her stomach turn as well as wine.
‘The wassail is good.’ She did not tell him she could not drink it. She picked up the cup again and let it warm her hands. ‘Did you complete your errands?’ she asked, trying for conversation instead.
‘I did.’ He sipped his drink. ‘I know wassail is more typical of Twelfth Night, but I felt as if we deserved a reward for working all day.’
He’d also dressed for dinner, wearing an impeccably tailored coat of deep blue, a striped waistcoat and blue pantaloons.
‘I enjoyed it, Oliver. Very much. And everything looks so beautiful.’ She looked into the fireplace where flames licked the wooden logs and embers glowed bright orange. ‘The fire is such a special touch.’
‘I am glad you like it.’ He smiled. ‘Cook has saved the special meal for tomorrow, but tonight we’ll still eat well.’
‘Like every night.’
She would miss sharing dinner with him. The thought of leaving this little town house and the people in it—Oliver—made her eyes sting with tears.
She blinked them away. ‘I am looking forward to Christmas pudding.’
‘I know Cook has made some.’
Irwin came to the door and announced dinner.
Cecilia turned to him. ‘You had better not tarry in the doorway, Irwin. I might have to kiss you.’
He almost cracked a smile. ‘Mrs Irwin would ring a peal over my head if I let that happen.’
‘Or more likely over mine.’ She smiled.
Oliver rose and extended his hand. She placed hers in his and let him help her up. It brought her close to him, close enough to smell the soap he used an
d the spice of the wassail on his breath. He threaded her arm through his and they walked towards the door.
He paused under the mistletoe and gave her the lightest, sweetest kiss she had ever received. She touched her lips and thought of all the men she’d been forced to kiss when pretending to be Madame Coquette. Never again. She’d be happy if Oliver were the last man she ever kissed.
* * *
Their dinner had been special enough, Oliver thought. Roast lamb and turbot. Parsnips and broccoli. Chestnuts, grapes and walnuts. And cake for dessert. Their conversation had been light-hearted, confined to their experiences of the day before—not counting Bowles—and the decorating they’d done today.
After dinner they returned to the drawing room and played backgammon. Cecilia won most of the games. They laughed and teased each other and Oliver could not think of an evening he’d enjoyed more.
He wanted the feeling to continue.
When it came time for them to retire, they climbed the stairs to their bedchambers arm in arm. At the top of the stairs, Oliver stopped Cecilia and made her face him.
He touched her cheek. ‘Come sleep with me, Cecilia. I do not want this day to end.’
Anxiety filled her eyes. ‘I cannot. We cannot.’
He held her face in his hands. ‘I am not talking of lovemaking. Come be with me. We will sleep and nothing more.’
She looked into his eyes as if searching for her answer. Finally, she nodded. ‘I’ll come to you after Mary readies me for bed.’
He leaned down and kissed her lips. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’
He watched her enter her room before he opened his door. In his room he undressed, washed and donned his banyan, all without the services of his valet, still in Yorkshire with his family. Oliver put on a fresh pair of drawers underneath his banyan, a barrier to help him keep his promise to Cecilia. He poured himself a glass of brandy and waited for her.
He heard a soft knock on his door and sprang to his feet. When he opened the door to her, all he wanted was to pull her into an embrace and taste her, but his body was already humming with desire and he dared not push himself to a point where they would find it difficult to stop.
‘Come in,’ he said instead. ‘Would you like some brandy?’