ONCE UPON A REGENCY CHRISTMAS

by Various

  The street was busy, for the start of Advent was less than four days away and there were people scurrying here and there with parcels and shopping and urgency. She’d never liked the Yuletide, Joseph’s death in the December campaign under Moore ruining it for her. She reached for her brooch, the strange mixture of old sorrow and Christmas joy unsettling.

  ‘Did you celebrate the festive season in America, Mr Miller? Is it a custom there?’

  He smiled and shook his head. ‘Indeed it is, though my own family did not hold much time for it.’

  ‘Well, as you will no doubt soon see the Howards love the traditions.’

  ‘But you do not?’

  His question unleashed an anger that she seldom felt. ‘Is it written on my face, such distaste, or is that just a lucky guess?’

  ‘Sorrow is a universal emotion. No guesswork in it at all, my lady.’

  He did not speak like a farmer or a groom. He spoke like a man who was well educated and well read, the hidden secrets in his voice as discernible as her quiet sadness. Such a tone laid her bare.

  ‘I lost my betrothed, Joseph Burnley, in the Christmas of 1808. In the first Peninsular campaign in Spain.’

  ‘And he was your beloved?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There, she had said it aloud after years of inward silence and after almost a decade of trying to forget. Sometimes she could barely remember what he had actually looked like, her intended husband, but her grief seemed locked up in a heart that had never opened again. The beat of it now was heavy and fast in her chest, as though the words had hurt her flesh and loosened the channels of blood, a confession trying its hardest to thaw the hard-held kernel of deceit. A love no longer true, but still hurting.

  For so very long now she had not understood herself. Even the thought of that was frightening.

  The green eyes on her were soft, though, and burnished at their edges in gold. There was no criticism in them whatsoever, only acceptance. She felt a relief that was so overpowering her hands clutched at the seat beneath her so that she did not lose her balance. Why would she feel like this with a stranger she hardly knew? What was it that drew her into discarding so carelessly her more usual and secure masks?

  ‘Once I killed a doe on the high hills behind Churchville.’ His voice was quiet and measured, the burr of a strange land pleasant and unfamiliar. ‘It was December and the first snows were upon us. When I slit its throat for the meat I looked up and its fawn was watching me from the shadows of pine. It was new and born far too late, or too early.’ He was looking right at her, but he was a long way from London in memory. ‘When I made for home the next morning I saw it following me and my mother said it was my Christmas gift from the natural world and bedded it in the stables. She died three days later of the measles alongside my father.’

  He stopped and took a breath. ‘I escaped the illness by sleeping with the unsettled fawn and in doing so was taught a lesson that life is entwined in death in a way that few of us can fathom. Everything has good and bad mixed within it. Their death and my salvation.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be for it was a long time ago. 1808. The same year as your betrothed died.’ His mouth twisted into a smile that didn’t come anywhere near to touching his eyes.

  This man was like no other she had ever met, Christine thought, a warrior but vulnerable with it. She hoped she would not cry, not in front of him at least, and was glad to see the Howard town house when it came into view, releasing her from the confined space of the carriage.

  Wishing him good afternoon, she walked up the steps and into the house, leaving him there with the footman and driver to see to the horses.

  Chapter Three

  She danced and chatted, dressed in a fine silver gown. Her hair had been caught in a simple chignon with ringlets framing her face and the gold of it was reflected sometimes as she swirled in the light of many chandeliers on the ornate plaster ceiling of the Canning-Browne ballroom.

  Around her others gathered, many wearing all the most splendid gowns of her creation, the silks and the organza and the fine Brussels lace.

  ‘You look beautiful tonight, Christine,’ Amethyst Wylde, Lady Montcliffe, said from her place beside her. ‘You look as if the cares of the world have suddenly flown from you, and the most interesting thing is that you are not wearing your brooch tonight. The one Adelaide gifted you on the loss of your betrothed.’

  ‘I took it off this evening. I decided I had grieved enough for Joseph Burnley and I did not wish to any more.’

  ‘Then that is the difference—you are no longer gazing back but looking forward and it suits you. I thought you might be distracted tonight, too, for Daniel said your brother has employed a man to watch over you, a guard so to speak, because there has been some trouble at your shops?’

  ‘Indeed he has, but Mr William Miller is dangerous, quiet and troublesome himself.’

  Amethyst began to laugh. ‘He sounds intriguing.’

  ‘He is a working man.’

  ‘As I was a working woman when Daniel met me, so that fact makes him even more beguiling. Is he beautiful as well?’

  Christine could hear the interest under her friend’s words and only smiled. ‘When you meet him I will let you decide. I know if I tell you anything at all you will twist my meaning into knots with that particular way you have of trying to find out things.’

  ‘Well, I can see that Freddy Smythe has been hanging around you all night. Is he still trying to inveigle you into marrying him?’

  ‘Oh, I barely listen to his words any more. I did tell him the oldest Grayson daughter was more than keen on him, though, and pointed him in her direction.’

  ‘And Lord Greenwood?’

  ‘I swear you must have been watching me closely, Amethyst, and if so you should know he is far too young for me.’

  ‘He is twenty-five.’

  ‘Well, then that is that, for I am all of twenty-six.’

  ‘I don’t think love holds such exact boundaries, Christine. In my experience of it love more...just is.’

  Love more...just is.

  The odd words cut across her gaiety like a hot knife through butter, slicing into truth. She wished William Miller were here. She wished she might dress him in her best velvets and silks and show him off to all the other ladies of the ton. She wished he might hold her in a dance close and then closer so that his breath would mingle with her own and she would be able to see again the gold chips around the edge of his dark green eyes.

  The ridiculousness of such thoughts made her smile. She could not even imagine Mr Miller enjoying the narrow set of rules the ton made such an art form of. She, after all, was less and less inclined to enjoy them herself and she’d had years of it.

  Her age tonight seemed to bear her over a threshold into a landscape that was more and more empty. She was not a young debutante, rosy cheeked and starry eyed, any more, willing to be offered on to the marriage mart like a prize to be won. She was also not a virgin.

  This lack of innocence was a far greater stumbling block than she would have once imagined it could be and the wild years of her youth with Joseph Burnley now reverberated into the fact that she was ruined for marriage for ever. Spoilt and sullied.

  She shook away the thought and resolved to enjoy her night. She was so adept at allowing men to reach only a certain point of familiarity before she swatted them away it had become like second nature. Mr William Miller had far exceeded that point a number of times, though, and she wondered about her tolerance with him.

  William Miller. William Miller. William Miller.

  What was wrong with her tonight? She needed to enjoy the spectacle and the adoration and the compliments of the lords of the ton without complicating it with all the things that would never be.

  Love more..
.just is.

  The strange way Amethyst had put such a sentiment worried Christine because she could see a certain undeniable truth within it.

  A hush to one end of the room had her turning, though, and she watched as Rodney Warrington squired a very old lady into the room. Her clothes were of an age long past the fashion of today, but were extremely elegant and her hair was piled in a great mass of snow-white curls on the top of her head.

  ‘It’s the Duchess of Melton,’ Daniel Wylde said, his tone shocked. ‘She has not set foot in society for nigh on thirty years so why on earth would she be doing so now?’

  ‘Melton?’ The name was familiar. Lucien had mentioned the woman was back in town the other day and Christine fought to place the significance of the title.

  ‘Her only son tried to kill her husband years ago. No one knows what happened to him after that, though there were rumours.’

  ‘Rumours?’

  Daniel Wylde did not sound happy as he explained. ‘When the Duke died last year the Duchess refused to hand the title to Warrington as the next heir in line and sent runners to all corners of the globe to try to trace the lost son. Perhaps she has had word of him. Warrington will not be well pleased if she is successful, but what can he do?’

  ‘Squire her as he is, I expect.’ Lucien had joined the group, Alejandra on his arm. ‘And inveigle himself into being irreplaceable.’

  ‘I never liked him,’ Daniel said and her brother smiled.

  ‘I should imagine the Countess does not, either, for he is pompous and arrogant and quick to rise to anger. It is said his fabric business is not as profitable as it used to be either and that he is looking into new avenues of revenue.’

  Rodney had seen their group now and brought the old woman over to them for an introduction. He looked puffed up with the importance of being the centre of attention as he gave them her name.

  ‘My aunt, the Duchess of Melton.’

  He picked Christine out first to give a personal introduction and the embarrassing attention had her grinding her teeth together in chagrin.

  ‘May I present Lady Christine Howard, Aunt. Her brother is the Earl of Ross.’

  ‘How do you do.’ The Duchess’s voice was unexpected in such a tall woman, for it was almost high in tone and unsure. Falling into a curtsy Christine was pleased to see the Duchess nod her head.

  ‘Rodney has told me much about you, for it seems you have a dressmaking business of some note. I suppose you must think I need help in that department, but I confess I am not much interested in fashion these days.’

  Christine shook her head. ‘I was thinking the exact opposite in truth, Your Grace. These years could certainly do with some of your style.’

  Dark green eyes twinkled and for a moment Christine was reminded so forcibly of William Miller’s orbs she blinked, for his were of the exact same unusual shade right down to the gold chips on the edges.

  What was wrong with her? Why would she imagine the American everywhere? Her hand reached in habit for the ruby brooch and only emptiness greeted her. Joseph was gone, dead, buried in the snowy passes between Lugo and Betanzos on the high reaches of the Cantabrian Mountains.

  And her heart had stopped then. Still and dead and had never beaten again with the same certainty of precision. She was like a well-dressed ghost who flitted in and out of the lives of her family and friends, never tarrying, never sticking, always moving to the next social occasion or the newest bolt of fabric.

  Her hands ran across the embossed silver lace that lay across the blue silk in her gown and she spread them over the intricacy. A touchstone. Her life. She smiled then at Rodney Warrington and allowed him to partner her in a dance that was just being struck up. He was everything she did not like about a man and as such was the very perfect choice.

  He would require no careful handling, no investment. And just by dancing with him she kept all the others at bay.

  * * *

  Will leaned back against the stone wall in the shadows of Portman Square, melded into darkness, indistinct and formless. Always he had lost shape when he hunted and here in London on a busy street the trick was as easy as it had been in the endless forests above Harrisonburg.

  The stillness claimed him inside and out, only the whisper of breath to say he lived and even that was hard to discern.

  The carriage came at last, the lamps burning low and the moon as high as it would climb in the sky that night. The call of the driver, the clap of hooves on a fine set of four, the shout from inside the gates and a final stop.

  She was very old, he could see that by the way the woman beside her helped her find her footing on the stepladder and another guided her from below. Her coat was thick and her hat ornate. When she turned suddenly he saw her face there in the street light, the whitened hair, the drawn cheeks, his father’s nose. The shock of it made him move, breaking cover, something he seldom did, the night’s quiet letting him go, exposing him, allowing the space he inhabited to be questioned, to be watched.

  He was sure she had not seen him, though, as he relaxed back into invisibility, the dappled shade, the quiet moving shadows of a small many-branched deciduous shrub. His hand shook, however, as he clutched his thigh because his grandmother was a tall woman and her bones were as strong as his father’s had been.

  Betrayal was an amorphous thing, he supposed. It did not always live in the skin of the wicked and bend them to its shape. The stick she clutched was black and carved. Topped with the face of a snow hawk, his father had said, and he should know for it was his hands which had fashioned it.

  It was a puzzle that she still kept the thing after all the years of treachery. If it had been him, he would have thrown it far into a river where it would sink into the mud and never be found again. He’d almost done that with the crested ring, but something had stopped him. He felt the gold and its engraving in the palm of his hand; crouching with warmth, a homing pigeon close to the roost. Perhaps it was the same with her. Simply the hope of it.

  History here had a way of reeling you in, bringing you back, yearning for a place and a name and a family even if you had sworn a thousand times to the heavens above that you did not want it; sworn until your eyes ran with the tears of anguish and fury.

  The small party was at the door now and other Melton servants had come out to help—he recognised servility when he saw it. William smiled to himself at such a foreign familiarity and then bit down on the humour.

  Here was the woman who had ruined them all, who had followed the tenets of societal pressure to protect her husband and her assets even at the expense of her only son. He should hate her, but he found he did not.

  Another carriage had drawn up now and he recognised the man who alighted from it. Rodney Warrington. The arrogant second son of a viscount. His cousin.

  His father had told him about those who might covet the title and he had been right in his summation about Warrington, a man whom Christine Howard had so blatantly disliked. He would need to be careful. He would need to tread with caution and sureness if he were to discover the truth about a family he had never met.

  * * *

  Christine walked down to the small room in the garden wing the next day to speak with Mr Miller. She knew she should not be here finding him, but after last night’s ball she felt a burning need to see him, talk to him and to understand what it was about him that made her...foolish.

  Knocking on the door, she waited and waited before trying again. He was not there? She cupped her hands against the window glass and peered in. The bed was made tidily, the blankets pulled into order and the two pillows stacked. A frugal room, she thought, a wooden chair by the bed, a small desk next to that and a mat on the bare floor. No frills. No luxury. A single chipped cup sat on the table, but there was nothing else anywhere that she could see.

  His meagre belongings could fit
into the smallest of bags, she thought, and then footfalls behind her made her turn.

  ‘Did you want me, my lady?’

  This morning Mr Miller was dressed in the same jacket, but a different shirt. The tie at his neck was changed, too. Cleaner. Whiter. Washed. He looked tired, though, the shadows beneath his eyes darker this morning, giving the impression that he had not slept well, if at all.

  She shook her head. ‘I was wondering how you had settled in and if there was anything you need?’

  ‘I am fine.’

  Three words that cut off further discussion and she stepped back nonplussed. Today he seemed distant and distracted, his eyes flat and wary. He added a ‘thank you’ as though he thought he should and opened the door.

  A haversack that she had not seen from the other angle was on the floor and there was a harmonica on the chair seat.

  ‘You play this?’ she could not help but ask.

  ‘I do.’

  A book lay next to it. The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. She’d seen the same title in her brother’s library, but it was here now, crouched on the wicker seat, a bookmark made of newspaper signifying he had read a great deal of what was inside.

  Everything she found out about Mr William Miller was surprising.

  Seeing where it was she looked, he crossed the room and lifted the tome. ‘It’s the study of personal morality and an insight into human needs and conduct. The Earl lent it to me.’

  ‘Unusual reading for a groom, I should imagine?’

  At that he laughed. ‘“The good for man is an activity of the soul.” I do not imagine Aristotle thought reading was an activity only for the rich.’

  She was astonished. He had not only read the book, but he could quote from it?

  ‘Who are you, Mr Miller? Really?’

  The words came from nowhere, forming a space between them of uncertainty and question. She wished she might have taken back such a blunt outburst, but she couldn’t. He made her cross lines and blur manners. He made her desperate in a way she hated.