Miss Davenport's Christmas (The Love and Temptation Series Book 6)

by M C Beaton

  The Harringtons were determined to have a large fir tree along with the yule log, the holly and the ivy, and the mistletoe over the door.

  Presents would be given—even the Puritans hadn’t managed to stop that; it had been going on for so long, even the Romans exchanged gifts around what came to be known as Christmas.

  Jilly and Mandy listened, wide-eyed with excitement, no thoughts of their parents’ disapproval coming into their heads. There was so much about the Harringtons that their parents would disapprove of.

  There was, of course, to be a Father Christmas, who would head the mummers on Christmas day, the mummers being the masked players. Father Christmas had been around since pagan times. The Puritans hadn’t stamped him out, preferring to quench the praying to Saint Nicholas, a popish practice not to be encouraged, and so Father Christmas, with his white beard, his great belly, and his cudgel, reigned supreme.

  And then Jilly thought about those Christmas presents and began to worry. She and Mandy certainly had pin money, not much of it, but enough to buy a few things. “What is troubling you?” asked Lord Ranger.

  “I was thinking about Christmas presents and wondering how to get them,” said Jilly.

  He thought quickly. He was sure that the dreadful Davenports would not have furnished their daughters with enough money to buy anything expensive.

  “We will be going to Oxford sometime next week if the roads are not too bad. If you give me a list, I will see what I can do for you. There are plenty of shops around here, but I am sure you do not want to embarrass your host with anything too expensive. Grand gifts are not expected from young ladies. Did you know that?”

  Jilly looked relieved. “No, I did not. It is most kind of you to offer to help. But I do not know what to give.”

  “Perhaps you might leave it to me?”

  The minute the words were out of his mouth, he wondered what he was playing at. He had no desire to forge any bonds of intimacy with this chit. But the large green eyes turned up so trustingly to his were full of gratitude.

  “Thank you, my lord. I will fetch you the money after dinner.”

  “There is no need for that.” Something prompted him to say, “Paul and I have promised to take Lady Harriet and her friend to Oxford on a shopping expedition, so I am going there anyway.”

  Mandy overheard that remark and tried to keep a smile on her face and not show how depressed she was. Jilly felt a sharp stab of jealousy, but not sexual jealousy. She envied Harriet and Lucinda for being so very much a part of Lord Ranger’s world, a world that they would continue to inhabit and enjoy long after she and Mandy had been taken back north to their old repressed life.

  “Now, what has brought the shadows back into your eyes?” teased Lord Ranger.

  “I find I am jealous of Lady Harriet and Miss Lucinda,” said Jilly candidly.

  He gave her a guarded look. “And why is that?”

  “Because all this—” she waved an expressive hand round the table “—all the balls and parties and merriment, are everyday things to them, but not to us.”

  “That is why you show such refreshing enjoyment in everything. Do you not know it is fashionable to be bored?”

  “Why is it fashionable to be bored? Is that not an insult to one’s hosts?”

  “I think it all started away back at the court of Marie Antoinette. You know how slavishly we copy French fashion whether we are at war with the French or not. Well, it became the thing not to show any emotion at all, neither sadness nor happiness. The fashion came here, and here it stays.

  Jilly’s eyes flashed wickedly and then she composed her face into a bored mask. “Like so?”

  “Yes, my imp. But I prefer you the way you are.”

  “Are you flirting with me, my lord?”

  “Perhaps. You see, I am very fashionable.”

  Jilly gave her infectious gurgle of laughter.

  Lord Paul helped Mandy to salad. “I hope my friend is behaving himself. He is rather a careless heartbreaker.”

  Mandy looked at him shyly. “And you, my lord?”

  He laughed. “I am perhaps more responsible in my actions.”

  Sir John tapped his spoon against his glass. “I have not warned our guests, Lord Paul and Lord Ranger, of their fate this evening. We are endeavoring to teach the girls how to dance, and your help is requested after dinner.”

  “We can hardly dance in our boots,” said Lord Paul.

  Lord Ranger grinned. “We can take them off and allow the ladies the pleasure of treading on our stockinged feet.”

  The trouble about close friends is that they will sometimes never mind their own business. Lord Paul fretted that Lord Ranger was raising hopes of marriage in this household, and it was as well for Mandy that he was so busy concentrating on his friend’s behavior that he did not notice the yearning look in Mandy’s eyes. But Lady Harrington did and heaved a romantic little sigh. If nothing came of it, she thought, at least little Mandy would know what it had been like to be in love, and every young miss should know that. She herself had married Sir John against her parents’ wishes. It was pointed out to her that he was a mere baronet with little money. Then a relative had died and had made him a very wealthy man, a state of affairs that Sir John accepted lazily, as he had accepted his previous lack of money.

  At the end of the dinner, the curate said he would play for them and they all went through to the drawing room. There were no servants around to roll up the carpet, so they did it themselves and moved back the furniture.

  Jilly thought she would never, ever forget that evening, not until the day she died. She learned to move gracefully in the waltz in Lord Ranger’s arms under the low beams of the ceiling while the old dogs snored in front of the blazing fire and the curate played and played.

  Mandy moved in a dream. For different reasons, she was savoring every moment. Love had given her quick perceptions she had never had before and a new maturity. She knew that Lord Paul liked her, had even become fond of her, but not only had he no intention of marrying her, he was determined that Lord Ranger’s feelings for Jilly should never become anything warmer than friendship. So having decided to live for the minute and put all thoughts of romance out of her head, Mandy behaved charmingly and with a new confidence.

  “What are you doing awake at this unearthly hour?” demanded Harriet, waking to find Lucinda sitting on the end of her bed at eleven in the morning.

  “You have to get up,” ordered Lucinda. “We must hold a conference with Mrs. Tenby. This is war. Peter, the footman, reported to me that our gallants arrived back from the Harringtons’ at three in the morning, and in a high good humor, too. Are we to have two such prizes snatched from under our noses by a couple of provincials?”

  And so an hour later, which was fast dressing for Harriet, saw the two of them closeted in Mrs. Tenby’s boudoir. Mrs. Tenby was a plump, domineering woman with the sensitivity of an ox. She had overweening self-confidence and vanity. It seemed right to her that her guests should appeal to her for help. Despite the fact that she was American by birth, the democracy of that new country had passed her by, leaving her rigidly snobbish. She felt it would be a personal affront if two English lords, while under her roof, were taken away by undistinguished guests in another household.

  “The point is,” said Harriet, “that both men are at loose ends and so they entertain themselves by going over to the Harringtons’. Were we to produce lively amusements, skating parties and so on, they would have no reason to go elsewhere.”

  “My poor husband is not aware of my plans for you,” said Mrs. Tenby, “so we will not trouble him with them, but he will do as he is told. Leave it to me!”

  The colonel raised his head as his wife came into his study and tried not to look forward to the days after Christmas when he would be rejoining his regiment. He who had bravely faced the French tirailleurs at Waterloo was frightened of his domineering wife.

  “I want you to tell the servants to sweep the lake,” said Mrs
. Tenby. “We are having a skating party this afternoon.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “At three o’clock. And tell them to have lanterns placed around the edge of the lake because it becomes dark early. And a bonfire for warmth. And some tables along beside the lake with rum punch.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  After she had gone, the colonel rang for his butler and issued the orders. Then he said, “Send that footman, Peter, to me.”

  The colonel had suddenly decided that if he was to trudge around a freezing lake on a winter’s afternoon, it might help to have some congenial company. It was ridiculous that he had not yet seen Sir John Harrington. He would send the footman over to Greenbanks with an invitation to the skating party. His wife could not possibly take exception, he thought naively, since the two most favored guests appeared to enjoy the company of the Harringtons.

  Peter, the footman, listened to the instructions and wondered whether to warn his master, of whom he was very fond, that Mrs. Tenby would not approve, but decided against it. He had taken a strong dislike to Lady Harriet and Miss Lucinda and was gleefully looking forward to seeing their faces when the party from the Harrington household arrived.

  “We shall go,” said Sir John, reading the invitation aloud.

  “But the fittings for the girls’ ball gowns!” cried Lady Harrington. “Besides, I do not think it very politic to let Lord Paul and Lord Ranger see them alongside very fashionable people. They might appear to a disadvantage.”

  “They are going to the ball in Moreton, are they not? Better to get them used to such fashionable company first at an informal skating party.”

  “Nothing to do with Mrs. Tenby is ever informal. I cannot abide that woman. Poor Colonel Tenby. We must go. I think his invitation is a cry for help.”

  Her sharp eyes noticed that the invitation was not greeted with the usual cries of delight with which Jilly and Mandy normally heralded every suggestion. Jilly said primly that it sounded “very nice.” Mandy said nothing, but her large blue eyes held a guarded look.

  Everyone was skating beautifully on Colonel Tenby’s ornamental lake. No shouts, no clumsy falling down, only decorous circling with the ladies.

  Mrs. Tenby’s efficiency had effectively tamed nature. The ice had been swept until it looked like black glass. Lanterns had been set geometrically six feet from one another around the lake. She had had Peter measure the distance. A table with a white cloth stood beside the lake with punch bowls and glasses. There was no unbridled bonfire; instead two fires burned in polished steel braziers. Armchairs, sofas, and footstools had been carried out from the house so that the guests could rest in the same comfort as they could in the drawing room.

  Mrs. Tenby watched with satisfaction as Lord Ranger moved slowly around the ice with Harriet, and Lord Paul with Lucinda.

  And then she saw a carriage rolling up the drive. “Who can that be?” she asked the colonel.

  “Probably Sir John,” he said easily. “Asked the Harringtons and their party over.”

  Mrs. Tenby’s already highly rouged face went even redder with anger. “Fool!” she said bitterly, and strode off, leaving her husband looking after her in a bewildered way.

  Jilly and Mandy, both at the same time, wished themselves elsewhere. It was more like a ball than a skating party. Everything was so calm and formal, the skates hissed over the ice, the fires crackled, but otherwise everything was as cold and silent as the winter weather.

  But their very presence was already brightening the lives of two young men at the colonel’s house party, Mr. Travers and Mr. Jensen. Both young men had initially tried to court Harriet and Lucinda but had been ruthlessly snubbed. They had not turned their attentions to any other ladies in the house party, for the rest appeared to want to emulate the cold, high-and-mighty manner of Harriet and Lucinda. They waited impatiently until Jimmy had strapped on Jilly and Mandy’s shoes and helped them to the ice, and then they skated forward and bowed low. “May we take you ladies for a spin on the ice?”

  Surprised and delighted not to be left alone, Jilly and Mandy agreed, Jilly going off with Mr. Travers, and Mandy with Mr. Jensen.

  “It is a bit like a funeral,” said Jilly, after they had circled the ice slowly several times. “We were sledging yesterday and I liked that. I like going very fast.”

  Mr. Jensen and Mandy skated up to join them. “Miss Jilly,” said Mr. Travers, who had found out her name, “says she likes to move very fast.”

  Mr. Jensen, a chubby young man with an endearing grin, said, “Then let’s go as fast as we can. I know, we’ll have a race!”

  They lined up at the edge of the lake and then started off. The other skaters moved off the ice and stood watching as, shrieking and laughing, the girls with their partners raced each other round the lake.

  “That looks like fun,” said a Miss Charteris to her friend, Miss Andrews.

  “Mrs. Tenby looks furious,” pointed out Miss Andrews.

  Miss Charteris pouted. “Mrs. Tenby is always furious about something. Those girls from Greenbanks look like fun. I’m going to join them.”

  She skated up, followed by Miss Andrews, and caught Jilly round the waist. “Like a line of carriages,” she shouted. Soon—with Mr. Travers leading, and Jilly hanging on to his waist, then Miss Charteris hanging on to Jilly, with her friend, Miss Andrews, behind, then Mr. Jensen and Mandy—they all snaked their way around the ice at great speed. One by one the other guests, laughing and shouting, caught on to the end of the line until the whole party, with the exception of the older members, along with Harriet, Lucinda, Lord Ranger, and Lord Paul, were sailing round the ice. Then Mr. Travers lost his footing and they all collided into one another and fell in a heap on the ice.

  “Disgraceful,” murmured Harriet. “Do you not think so, Lord Ranger?”

  “They are young,” he said, feeling about a hundred years old.

  “I, too, am young,” pointed out Harriet, who was nineteen, “and yet such rude displays are not those of a lady.”

  Lady Harrington had been talking to the colonel, who in turn called Peter, the footman, said something to him, and sent him off to the house. Peter returned carrying a fiddle and started to play a lively tune. The skaters moved off in time to the music while the lanterns round the lake were lit and the sun went down.

  Lord Paul watched moodily as Mandy’s little figure flew round and round. He was chafing at being kept so firmly anchored to Lucinda’s side. But neither he nor Ranger could desert them and join the skaters. Both Lucinda and Harriet seemed content to stand elegantly at the edge of the lake, looking scornfully at the noisy party.

  Lord Ranger glanced sideways at Harriet’s beautiful face. It was strange, but he had always imagined himself eventually settling for a wife like this. She would run his home efficiently and always look mannered and beautiful. There was a scream from the ice as Jilly went spinning off and fell in a heap.

  Not someone like that, he thought, but a smile curved his lips and he forgot about minding his manners and staying at Harriet’s side, and skated quickly up to Jilly before Mr. Travers could reach her and pulled her to her feet. “You hoyden,” he said. “Mrs. Tenby looks fit to have an apoplexy.”

  Her worried eyes flew to his face. “Have I done something wrong? You should have told me. You know I do not know how to go on.”

  “You have enlivened a dull party and made me forget my duty to Lady Harriet.”

  “Your duty to Lady Harriet? What duty, my lord?”

  “Only that with you and your sister taking all the other guests away, I feel someone has to keep her company.”

  Jilly saw Mr. Travers hovering near and said quickly, “So you cannot skate with me?”

  Hot punch was being served and the guests were all chattering and laughing and moving towards the table at the edge of the lake. Harriet, Lucinda, and Lord Paul were joining them.

  “Now I can,” he said. “Give me your hands. I think we have the ice to ourselves.”

>   They skated around, gloved hands tightly holding gloved hands. Lord Ranger suddenly felt at peace with the world. It was as well he did not hear what Mrs. Tenby was saying to Lady Harrington.

  “I must get my guests indoors,” Mrs. Tenby was saying firmly. “I would invite you and your party to dinner, Lady Harrington, but I have not told the chef to expect other guests and so—”

  “I would not dream of dining with you,” said Lady Harrington. “Ah, Sir John, we must go.”

  He looked surprised, and beside him, the colonel’s face registered dismay.

  And so Jilly and Mandy were called away from the punch table. They cheerfully waved farewell, and Lord Ranger heard Jilly promising Mr. Travers a dance.

  The Harrington coach rumbled off down the drive, seeming to take all the light and color out of the party with it.

  “Now we can behave like grownups again,” said Lady Harriet, and laughed. But no one joined in.

  Had Lord Ranger and Lord Paul, despite their long military experience, not been such products of their class and age, it would have struck both forcibly that to be with the Davenport girls meant fun and laughter and to be with Harriet and Lucinda meant a certain amount of tedium. But even the younger sons of dukes were used to knowing their place and making sure no one encroached on it. They were also made aware from their birth what was due to their position. Lucinda and Harriet were “suitable,” the Davenport girls were not. One did not only marry a lady but her family as well, and who wanted his fine old name to be tied to that of some dismal, repressive Yorkshire family without wit or elegance?

  And so Lord Ranger flirted expertly that evening with Harriet, and Lord Paul with Lucinda. Both girls were practiced flirts, and their undoubted beauty was enough to quicken the senses. Lord Paul and Lord Ranger moved easily about the goldfish bowl of their own world and only remembered the Davenports when Mr. Travers yawned and said, “What a curst dull evening. Let’s ride over tomorrow and see those Misses Davenport. Don’t think Sir John will mind.”