ONCE UPON A REGENCY CHRISTMAS

by Various

  He liked the pale in her hair as it blew around his face in the wind, all the colours of gold and wheat dipped in honey. In America people were tough and sunburned and danger wary. Christine Howard was nothing like that. She was kind and fragile and gentle. Virginia would make her wilt and die, the strangeness of it, the harsh differences in the seasons. No one around the mountains owned a gown that was especially made for a ball or a soirée or an afternoon tea. Nobody he had ever met wore silk.

  ‘I should take you back for it is getting cold.’ And it was, her teeth chattering against each other and her cheeks pale. Stripping off his jacket, he brought it about her, lifting the collar on her slender neck to keep the wind at bay. The homespun made her look smaller and less of a high-born lady.

  When she smiled at him, revealing her deep dimples, he nearly told her it all. But he stopped himself as he thought of the first words and said others instead.

  ‘I will help you to mount.’

  When he had her up on her steed he turned away. All he could think about was the taste of her and the softness for it had been a very long time since he had touched someone in such a way.

  He refused the offer of dinner with the family that evening and went straight to the stables, to his bed in the loft above the horses, where the warmth of the animals seeped upwards. He liked hearing their movements, liked the smell of them and the sound.

  The housekeeper had given him a package of fresh baked bread and cheese and a tankard of ale to wash it down with and when he had finished the meal he took out the harmonica from his haversack and began to play.

  Father I stretch my hands to thee,

  No other help I know;

  If thou withdraw thyself from me,

  Ah! Whither shall I go?

  He’d always loved the gospel songs with their themes of faith, repentance and salvation. He’d told Christine that he did not believe in anything today, but even that was not quite true.

  He did believe in the hope of it and the deliverance. He wanted such himself and it seemed especially important now with Christmas coming and with Advent’s religious messages and coloured candles. He wanted the peace, joy, love and purity that Christine had spoken of.

  And most of all he wanted her.

  He needed to be back in London. He needed to visit the Meltons in order to make sense of what had happened to him and his parents and he needed to make sure that Christine was safe from the threats of Rodney Warrington.

  He would take up Lucien Howard’s offer of an appointment for it was a way into the Melton town house that did not require any greater explanation, then he would come back to Christine Howard and tell her all of his past.

  The sliding notes of the harmonica filled the air about him and the relief of making a decision as to what came next had him leaning back against the hay to begin another song.

  There is a fountain filled with blood

  Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;

  And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,

  Lose all their guilty stains.

  The hope of it had him shutting his eyes to pray.

  Chapter Five

  She had not seen William Miller since yesterday for he had taken a horse and gone back to London early on the morning after their kiss.

  To run, she thought, or to hide, though Lucien was adamant that it was on his bidding he had left to undertake an important errand for him in the city.

  Christine was to return alone in the afternoon, Lucien and Alejandra staying on for a day or two with their two small sons. ‘To finish the decorating,’ Alejandra had told her, ‘so that it will all be done for Christmas when you come back again.’

  Two sturdy male servants were to accompany her and her maid on the carriage box for the homeward journey as Lucien was taking no chances with her safety.

  ‘Tell Mr Miller I will see him on Wednesday and make certain that you give him this.’ Withdrawing a letter sealed in wax, he gave it over to her. ‘I like him, Christine. I think he is a good man. Be kind to him.’

  Astonished, she simply nodded. Lucien seldom offered his opinions on such matters and to do so now and like this was unprecedented.

  ‘If you would enjoy for him to come at Christmas, I am sure he will want a family meal, Christine.’ Alejandra squeezed her arm with a sort of cheering joviality, her dark eyes smiling, the two small children around her feet.

  Sometimes Christine thought her family caught the gist of things before she was able to. Hugging them both she made her way to the carriage and was glad as the horses were spurred on and she could simply lean back against the leather seat and think.

  She would confront William Miller the moment she arrived home. She would demand some answers and find out what he meant by the kiss and also by his absence. Had he developed cold feet? Did he regret their closeness? Was he laughing at her even now, a woman who had divulged her secrets and then shown him directly that she wanted more of him?

  Had she no shame? Was he at this moment packing his haversack and heading for the harbour? Her eyes went to the missive Lucien had directed her to give him. What was in that? she wondered. Her brother had impressed on her the importance of staying at home until he returned. He had made her promise that if it was imperative she attend to some business then she was to take Mr Miller with her. At all times.

  Mr Miller. All her thoughts invariably came back to him and she was impatient to reach the Ross town house just to make certain that he was still there in the plain downstairs room of the garden wing.

  * * *

  He had gone, she thought five hours later, though his belongings still lay in a neat and tidy pile, the slouchy hat laid across the top of it.

  Gone, but not left. She let out a sigh of relief and went in to ask the housekeeper of his movements.

  * * *

  Will had dressed carefully in his best shirt and a clean neckcloth. He had jammed his small knife down in the soft leather of his boot, though, just in case, his mother’s warnings ringing in his ears.

  They made him wait for a long time, sitting in a chair at the back of the house just outside the kitchen. A busy house, he determined, with twice the number of servants that the Howards employed and they all looked frantic, tending to this, seeing to that. Closing his eyes for a moment, William simply listened. To the hum of the chatter of the maids and the clanking of the pots. The bellows made a whooshing sound and further afield came the cries of a vending lad and the softer sound of horses’ hooves on the road.

  The music of the everyday soothed him, made him settle and he was almost surprised when his name was finally called out and he was led down a long corridor to a library of sorts, the few books within muddled and old.

  Rodney Warrington sat at a large desk, a Christmas decoration at the front of it and the only one in the room. Such a contrast to the festivity at Linden Park.

  ‘Mr Miller. I have five moments only...’

  ‘Then I shall be quick.’

  A smile on his cousin’s face made him look ugly. ‘Are you by any chance being facetious, Mr Miller? You do know who I am, do you not?’

  ‘I do indeed, Mr Warrington. I know that you are a liar and a bully and I have come to warn you that the Howards will not countenance one more threat from you...or else.’ He used those last two words deliberately and saw the answering shock on the brow of his cousin.

  ‘The Howards are a cultured family of the ton, Mr Warrington, but I am not and so my personal warning shall be a lot more blunt. If I see you or your minions anywhere near Lady Christine Howard and frightening her again, I will make it my duty to personally find you and kill you. Are those words easy enough for you to understand, sir? For when your neck breaks in the skull three things happen. You can’t move, you stop breathing and your body looses any ability to control your heart. It is n
ot a quick death when administered correctly and I have had a lot of practice in the art of killing.’ Will thought of his hunting expeditions up in the western mountains and smiled. ‘So there it is. I would make very sure that your death was a slow and painful exit.’

  Rodney Warrington stood at that, a vein on his forehead standing out in a way that looked ominous for good health. ‘Get out,’ he shouted. ‘Leave this house this instant or I’ll have you thrown from it.’

  ‘I will leave as soon as you tell me that you understand my stated intentions, Mr Warrington.’

  He kept his own voice low though he was as furious as he had ever been. If the man was to even look at Christine again, he would not be held responsible for his actions.

  And then everything changed just like that.

  The door to the library opened slowly and the old lady he had seen in the carriage came through it, her appearance this close more frail than it had seemed from afar and her brow troubled.

  ‘I heard shouting, Rodney, from my drawing room. Is everything all right?’

  Her eyes settled upon William, opaque and watery and her mouth simply dropped open as she stared.

  ‘Rupert? Rupert...is that you?’

  Then she fell quietly on to the rug below her in a small and crumpled heap, her skirts folded beneath her body in an impossibly neat pattern.

  ‘Get out.’ Rodney Warrington’s voice rose high over the chaos as two women came running to kneel beside the Duchess, maids by the look of them and most upset.

  ‘Find a physician.’ His cousin’s command was the first sensible thing Will had heard come from his mouth as other servants streamed in.

  Looking at the old lady one last time, seeing her age and her infirmity and the nasty red lump appearing on her forehead, he nodded his head and left.

  Outside he felt sick. Was she dead? Had he killed her? Her last words came back as a plaintive echo.

  ‘Rupert? Rupert...is that you?’

  His father’s name had been Rupert. She had recognised her son in his features, a family resemblance that had been passed down across the generations. He knew this exactly because even in that first glance of a few seconds of really seeing his grandmother it was as if his own eyes had looked back at him.

  He had no other true family save her. He had no other direct relative. Both his mother and his father had called Elizabeth Maythorne conniving and scheming, but she had not seemed it. She had only looked astonished and joyous as if in his unexpected coming she had found the way again. As if salvation lay in his very soul.

  Will waited for a few moments on the other side of the street just to make certain that a physician did arrive and that she would be tended to properly. Then he left the square to wind across the busy streets of the city for home and the small bedroom in the garden wing of the Howard town house.

  Christine would return later this afternoon and he was pleased for it but he needed a drink first to calm his nerves and the pub on the corner of the nearby street was not far.

  * * *

  An hour later Will knew he had underestimated the gall of Rodney Warrington. Five men had cornered him on his walk home and each held bars of steel in one hand and knives in the other.

  He bent to take the blade from his boot and retracted himself into a smaller target just as his father had taught him. The men opposite were made from English softness with panic in their eyes and fear on their breath. He could smell them from here.

  They had not been hewn hard like him from traversing the rock of high mountains or swimming rivers deep and wide and fast. They had not borne winters so cold a man could freeze by staying outside too long or summers that burned the very skin off your bones. They had not lived under canvas and hauled timber by river a hundred miles to the nearest civilisation or hunted in the forests for food when the trading had been poor and there was nothing left in the home larder save starvation. The toughness of Virginia had not seeped into their soul.

  He came at them fast with his blade raised and took the first man in the shoulder and the second in the arm. The howls of them put the third man off though he had got in some sort of a thrust before William could parry and the pain of it made him take in breath.

  ‘He’s bleeding.’ This came from the man who had circled behind, distracting him, and the sharp smash of heavy iron landed on his head. Crouching, he cut at him from below and the man lay still. Two more left, though it was getting harder. The blood from the last injury ran into his eyes, giving the world a look of red, and he could hear ringing in his ears.

  The fourth man made a mistake in his eagerness after seeing the blood and Will had him upended and quiet before he had taken another breath. The last man simply ran, the sound of feet and shouting and then silence.

  No, not quite silence. His own breathing sounded wrong, shallow and shaky. He put a hand up to his face and felt bubbles coming from his mouth. Blood from his head, he thought in a strange detached way, and then the pain came in.

  He needed to get home. He needed to get to Christine. He needed to tell her things he hadn’t before the world turned black and still. He needed to say that she was his salvation and his joy. He needed to hold her pale small hand in his and feel the hope of her there.

  He began to walk, the dizziness receding with the movement though he had to stop to be sick a few yards down the way.

  That done, he began again, one foot in front of the other, a yard and then two more until the Howards’ town house stood before him and he began to climb the steps.

  The door was opened before he got to the top and she was there, her tears falling across his face as she knelt to him, his blood staining the baby pink of her gown.

  ‘Sorry.’ That was the only word he could get out in any coherent form before a blackness gathering in the corner of his eyes moved across his vision and all he felt was the falling.

  * * *

  William would die. She knew he would. No person could survive the loss of all that blood and all those wounds. The fingers on one hand were broken, too, she thought, but she could not dwell upon that. She had to get him breathing again and properly.

  He would die on the first week of Advent when everyone else was celebrating the coming of a king and when all she would be thinking of was the going of a prince. Her prince. For ever.

  An anger that had laid dormant for all of the years since Joseph’s death resurfaced. She could not let this happen again, not with William, not with a man whose face she would never forget in a hundred years or in a thousand.

  Sitting him up, she pulled back his head so that his throat straightened and the whistling noise eased.

  ‘Bring warm wet cloths,’ she shouted to the servants who had gathered, ‘and send for the doctor. Tell him if he is here under ten minutes I will make it well worth his while. Andrew, come here and press down on the wound across his side and don’t let up on the pressure. Mary, find ice for his head to stop the swelling and ask the housekeeper to bring me three warm woollen blankets and a hot bedpan because he is freezing.’

  When this had been done and he was wrapped in warmth, she lowered her voice and sat with him, willing the calm that she had mustered only by a great force of strength to seep into him as she waited for the physician.

  * * *

  He came awake in a place that was so hot he could not breathe. The heat prickled across his face and his body, down his legs and even under the soles of his feet.

  ‘Water?’

  It came, small sips and cool. He needed to concentrate to swallow, close his eyes and find the movements. Then he only felt sick.

  ‘Have another.’

  Her voice. She was here with him through the darkness somewhere. He could not quite focus.

  ‘You have had a head injury and there is a wound on your side. From a knife, the doctor thinks. You have
also broken a finger on your right hand.’

  He tried to make sense of the inventory and the words strung together, long complex phrases that he forgot as soon as she said them.

  ‘You were lucky.’

  Lucky. He understood that word.

  ‘Stay with...me?’

  ‘I will.’ Now he heard a smile in her voice and he slept.

  * * *

  The fever racked him and had him trembling, almost sitting up with the force of the shakes when he could barely move otherwise.

  How on earth had this happened? she wondered There was drink on his breath when he had returned home. Had he been in a fight in a public bar, brawling like the sailors when they came into port after long durations at sea?

  She knew so very little about him, that was the trouble, but the worries mounted and she wished Lucien would come back from Kent to help her.

  She didn’t want others involved in case something truly terrible had transpired and the law was even at this moment looking for him. Could he have killed someone? She had found a bloodied knife tucked down the side of his boot and it was wickedly sharp.

  ‘Please, God, let him be safe,’ she whispered. ‘Please let me hold him safe.’

  Reaching over, she took his hand in her own, winding her fingers around his, liking the contact.

  She had removed his shirt and jacket and boots, but had left on his trousers, reasoning that he would want her to do that and there did not seem any blood visible beneath his waist. His chest was well defined, his arms thick with corded muscle. A fit man who had been outdoors a lot. She could see the lines of faded sunlight where his waist met the paler skin beneath. There were scars there, too, both large and small, everywhere, old scars crossing his shoulder and his back and more running down his left arm.

  This was why he had not wanted to remove his shirt at her shop in London when she had tried to have him measured for a new jacket. He had known other fights, other battles and many of them. She closed her eyes in worry. He read widely and he spoke well. He owned a farm in the mountains of Virginia and he played the harmonica. Yet life had not been easy on him or kind. Her brother Lucien had his own scars from war, but they were nowhere near as numerous as those of William Miller and she had thought them bad.