ONCE UPON A REGENCY CHRISTMAS

by Various

  Taking a seat beside Harry, Jack concentrated on his daughter’s needs. It was just as well Alice had arranged for Izzy to sit on his lap—she would not have been able to reach the table and needed help with her spoon. Which Harry provided with an expertise an eight-year-old boy should not have.

  And clearly, Alice thought so, too, from the troubled glances she sent the lad’s way from time to time. She must think he was a terrible father. Though she couldn’t think any worse of him than he did of himself.

  * * *

  He’d made so many mistakes. And that night, counting them kept him awake. It was no use blaming the proportions of the sofa, it was his guilty conscience that made him too uncomfortable to fall asleep.

  Every good intention he’d had, in regard to his children, had ended up being a bad choice. Even removing them from their cold, tyrannical grandparents had meant exposing them to a blizzard.

  Though at least getting stranded here was giving them all time to get to know each other in an informal setting. He’d been so worried about his son, before they’d started making camp in this parlour, earlier. Until then, Harry hadn’t spoken unless asked a direct question. Though boys of his age usually asked dozens of them. And spent their days climbing trees and shooting birds, and generally getting into mischief.

  Yes, he’d been able to see his way forward with his son, because he’d been a little boy once and had loved making dens. But what of his daughter? How was he to break through to her, when the only person to whom she responded in a positive manner was Harry? What did he know of little girls?

  What did he know about anything, but war?

  He tossed his blankets aside, deciding he might as well take a walk to stretch his cramped legs and get the lie of the land. Sometimes, on campaign, it had helped to walk the perimeter upon setting up a new base in strange terrain, to check all was secure. It was certainly better than lying here twitching and fuming and listening to Hopkins snoring.

  He stole, barefoot, across the room and gently lifted the latch. Thank goodness, he could see light spilling from round the edges of the kitchen door. He hadn’t wanted to go stumbling around in the dark and waking anyone else.

  But when he opened that door, he came to an abrupt halt at the sight of the housemaid—Alice—sitting in a chair by the stove, with a pile of what looked like mending on her lap.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘Is there something you need?’

  You, he wanted to say. Having a woman would help him get to sleep even quicker and a whole lot more pleasurably, than going for a walk. Especially when it was a woman who had no ulterior motive, no hidden agenda. Who wanted him just because she liked what she saw.

  As if she could guess what he was thinking, a flush spread across her cheeks.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said, turning to shut the kitchen door quietly behind him. ‘So I thought I might as well go for a walk.’

  ‘A walk?’ She darted a glance at the window. ‘I don’t think you ought to go outside just now. It’s still snowing.’

  ‘Ah. And it was enough trouble getting me dried the last time, wasn’t it?’

  Her blush intensified. She was picturing him naked, he was sure of it. And so was he. At least, he was picturing the rapt expression on her face, and the way it had made him feel while he’d been standing there letting her look her fill. And just like earlier, that memory sent a rush of blood to his loins.

  ‘Do you mind if I join you?’

  She gave a little shake of her head, which he took for assent. So he went to the table and snagged a chair, which he carried over to the stove and set down as close to her as he could.

  Her eyes darted about all over the place, looking anywhere but at him. And when he sat down beside her she lowered her head and, instead of shooting him a coy glance from under her long lashes, stared very intently at the pile of stuff in her lap.

  ‘Do you normally stay up this late?’ he couldn’t resist asking her. It was just possible she’d been hoping for a chance to be alone with him, even if she didn’t have a clue how to flirt.

  She shook her head. Bit down on her lower lip.

  His heart sped up.

  ‘I made a very silly mistake. I suggested Susan share with me tonight. I thought we could light just the one fire, you see, and it would keep us fairly warm until morning. But...’ she darted an anxious look in the direction of the table ‘...she snores.’

  Ah. So it was as simple as that.

  ‘So does Hopkins,’ he admitted ruefully.

  But then she did smile up at him. Though it wasn’t in the slightest bit coy. On the contrary, she looked as though she was sharing a joke with him.

  ‘And then,’ she continued, dragging her gaze from him with what looked like an effort, ‘my mind started to whirl. It occurred to me that it will be Christmas the day after tomorrow and you will all still be stranded here, and the children ought to have presents. So I thought I might make a rag doll for Isabella.’

  ‘A doll?’ He glanced down at the pile of stuff in her lap. ‘That is what you are sitting here doing, at midnight?’

  Her hands fluttered over her sewing as if to conceal it. ‘It isn’t anything very much. Just a bit of sheeting stuffed with wool and a scrap of fabric remaining from the last ballgown we made for Naomi for a dress, and a bit of ribbon to make a waist, then I’m going to sew a couple of buttons on for eyes. I don’t know what I will do for hair, though,’ she finished ruefully.

  He felt something tighten in his chest. He’d felt so alone, lying awake worrying about his children. But in another part of the house, she’d been lying awake thinking about them, too. And she’d answered his concern about what to do for his daughter, in a very practical manner. By making her a doll. Out of whatever scraps she could find.

  Only a few hours since, he’d been thinking that Isabella ought to have a doll. And now this woman, this lovely woman, was making her one, when she clearly had so little of her own. Because it was Christmas.

  While he, wretch that he was, had been permitting carnal thoughts about Alice to take centre stage.

  ‘It will be a perfect gift for her,’ he managed to say through the lump in his throat. ‘May I see?’

  Shyly, Alice uncovered the scraps of fabric which were already taking shape.

  ‘She will love the feel of the material,’ he said, reaching out to stroke his thumb over the scrap of puce satin that was going to be its dress. ‘And I have an idea about how to give her hair. One of the men in my regiment once wove little plaits from hair he cadged from the manes and tails of horses. He had his...er...wife stitch it on to a rag doll she made for their own daughter. She loved it.’

  ‘Why, yes, that would be the very thing!’ She looked at him as if he was a genius.

  But her smile faded abruptly. ‘If only it were as easy to think of something I could give Harry.’

  ‘Harry.’ He sat back and speared his fingers through his hair. What was he to do about Harry? ‘I only wish I knew what I could give him. The boy deserves something really splendid. But the sad fact of the matter is, I was so impatient to get them both away from their grandparents, I never stopped to pack their toys, or to ask if anyone had bought them anything for Christmas. I’ve made a mull of it.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you haven’t.’

  He gave a bitter laugh. ‘You don’t know the half of it, or you wouldn’t say that.’

  And then, he didn’t know why, but he found himself wanting to tell her everything. Perhaps it was just that he needed to tell someone and she was there, her warm brown eyes gazing at him so trustingly, so admiringly.

  ‘I’ve been a terrible father. Right from the start. If there was a wrong way to go about things, I took that way.’ Just like now. He’d been lusting after this pretty housemaid instead of concentrating on what his childr
en needed.

  ‘But you were trying to do your best for them, weren’t you? That is all any parent can do.’

  He squeezed his eyes shut and lowered his head in gratitude. For she’d said the very thing he’d needed to hear. The very thing he’d been trying to persuade himself was the case, when he’d been unable to sleep.

  He opened his eyes and gazed down at her. Would it help to tell her the worst and let her judge?

  Though once she knew it all, would she still look at him the same way?

  ‘It was the retreat to Corunna that made me send them away,’ he confessed. Because didn’t they say confession was good for the soul? ‘I don’t know how much you know about it?’

  Alice shook her head. ‘I have never followed the course of the war in the Peninsula closely. It all seems so far away,’ she explained as though apologising.

  ‘Most people would agree with you,’ he said. Poor Lizzie hadn’t had the faintest notion of what it would mean to be an officer’s wife. Once the thrill of running away with a soldier had worn off, the grim realities of the life had proved too much for her.

  ‘Well, when Harry was about the age Isabella is now,’ he said, ‘the entire British army had to retreat across northern Spain during the winter. Soult’s forces harried us all the way. And when we got to Corunna, it was to find the ships which were supposed to be taking us to safety hadn’t arrived. It was a shambles. So many women and children died.’ He stopped short of telling her some of the terrible things that had happened on that retreat. It was bad enough that they were seared into his own memory.

  ‘Elizabeth, my wife, was carrying Isabella at the time. I couldn’t bear the thought of exposing her to such danger ever again. Or of her having to suffer the rigours of childbirth for the second time in a foreign country. So I left them behind in England the next time my regiment was posted abroad. Where I thought they’d be safe. Safe,’ he scoffed.

  ‘Well, they have been safe, haven’t they? I mean, they are both well.’

  ‘My children both live, yes. But their poor mother died anyway. Leaving Harry and Isabella at the mercy of the most flinty-hearted, miserly pair of people you can imagine. When I got to Meerings last week, I...’ He shook his head again, words failing him.

  ‘You mounted a rescue,’ she finished for him.

  ‘Yes. But the devil of it is, in doing so, I exposed them to the very dangers I’d meant to spare them in the first place. It is why I couldn’t sleep,’ he found himself confessing. ‘Every time I shut my eyes I kept seeing those children, lying frozen in the snow, and thinking how close I’d brought Harry and Izzy to the same fate.’

  She leaned forward and placed her hand over his. ‘No, you didn’t. You kept them warm and dry, and found shelter for them. They are sleeping safely in the front parlour. And in a day you are going to give them the best Christmas they’ve ever had.’

  She wasn’t just saying it. She really believed it. He could see sincerity blazing from her eyes. ‘Thank you for believing in me, even though we’ve only just met,’ he said, lifting her hand and pressing his lips to it. She gasped and snatched it away.

  ‘You are a good father,’ she said, burying the hand he’d kissed in the bundle of scraps on her lap. ‘Anyone can see that.’

  ‘Hah. When I went to visit them last week, my son behaved like a little automaton and my daughter didn’t even dare look at me. Children of their age, the ones I’ve been used to seeing running about camp, are always full of high spirits. They get into everything. They may be barefoot, or close to starvation, or prone to all sorts of illness, but while they are alive, they are really alive.’

  ‘Well,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I had noticed that they seem unusually well behaved. I did wonder at first if you’d done something to frighten them. But I soon changed my mind. It is more as though they are so used to being punished they daren’t put a foot wrong.’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I think. Which is why I brought them away with me.’

  ‘Then, as long as you mean to be kind to them, they will soon recover their spirits.’

  ‘Of course I mean to be kind to them!’

  She smiled up at him from her needlework. ‘There you are. That is what makes you a good father. Not what you have done wrong in the past, but what you mean to do right in the future.’

  He could have kissed her. But just as he was thinking of leaning forward and brushing his lips against the soft curve of her cheek, there came a grating noise from the direction of the table which made him nearly leap out of his seat. Especially as it was followed by a disembodied voice, saying, ‘A sword.’

  He instinctively reached for the one that should have been hanging at his side. Though Alice hadn’t reacted at all. Hadn’t she heard the voice?

  ‘Or a gun,’ said the same voice. ‘That’s what you should give Harry for Christmas.’

  ‘Who the devil,’ he asked, ‘is that?’

  ‘Billy,’ said Alice on a little giggle.

  Billy? Of course it was Billy. Now that she’d pointed it out, he recognised the lad’s voice. And he also understood why she’d glanced at the table when mentioning the fact that Susan snored. She’d known the lad was there and hadn’t wanted him to overhear.

  ‘What the deuce is he doing under the table?’

  ‘It’s where he sleeps,’ said Alice.

  ‘Good God, why?’

  ‘Coz I’m an orphin,’ came Billy’s voice. ‘And orphins don’t get their own rooms when the master takes them off the parish out of the goodness of his ’eart,’ said Billy with heavy sarcasm. ‘Nor the right to an unbroken night’s sleep, neither,’ he finished pointedly.

  ‘I’m sorry Billy,’ said Alice. ‘Did we wake you up with our chatter? I thought we were speaking very quietly.’

  ‘Wasn’t asleep anyhow,’ said the boot boy. ‘I was thinking. Captain, do you think they’d have me in the army?’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Don’t know exactly. Prob’ly about twelve.’

  ‘Then, no,’ he said mendaciously. ‘You are a bit young yet. Why do you want to join up, anyway? It’s a very hard life, you know.’

  ‘It’d be more exciting than cleaning boots and emptying chamber pots though, wouldn’t it? And I’d get paid ʼn’ all.’

  He didn’t get paid? And was forced to sleep under the table?

  It crossed his mind that his own children were doing the exact same thing and regarding it as an adventure. But then it was not their lot all the time.

  No wonder the boot boy thought the army sounded more appealing.

  But he couldn’t encourage him to join up. Boys of that age thought all the travelling sounded exciting. They didn’t take into account the fact that they’d be shot at and probably starved into the bargain.

  ‘If it’s decent pay you are after, perhaps you’d consider working for me?’

  ‘What as?’

  ‘Well, why don’t we see what you can do over the next few days while I’m staying here and then we can discuss it?’

  Alice narrowed her eyes and glared at him. When he quirked an eyebrow at her, she made very stern shooing motions in the direction of the door. It felt like being ordered about by an infuriated kitten. Nevertheless, he got to his feet and left the kitchen, with her stalking behind him.

  ‘Don’t,’ she hissed, the moment they reached the hallway, ‘get his hopes up.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because he’ll be crushed when you leave, that’s why.’

  ‘Not if I take him with me and give him a decent job.’

  ‘And you mean to do that, do you? Really?’

  ‘Why not?’ He shrugged. And stepped closer so that he could speak without there being any risk of Billy overhearing. ‘I’ve recently inherited a property from a distant cousin. T
hat is one of the reasons I sold out and returned to England. I don’t know how many staff I have there, but I should think I could find employ for one small, miserable boy, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh.’ She slumped back against the wall, as though all the fight had gone out of her. ‘Well, as long as you really mean it, then I suppose...’

  ‘What do you suppose?’ He searched her face, which was turned up to him. They were standing so close he’d only have to bend, just a fraction, and he’d be able to kiss her.

  And suddenly it was all he could think about. He’d been wanting to kiss her almost from the first moment he’d seen her. So he took her chin in one hand, lowered his head to hers and brushed his lips across her mouth.

  She gasped. Went rigid.

  For a moment he feared she was going to slap his face.

  But then she melted against him. And her mouth blossomed under his. So he put his free arm round her waist and pulled her closer. It was like reaching a crystal-clear spring after trudging through a parched and barren land.

  So he drank, and drank, and drank.

  When she slid her arms round his neck need went raging through him. The need to lift her skirts and seek the release he’d find between her soft thighs.

  He jerked away from her with a curse. What was he doing? She wasn’t the kind of girl he could take up against a wall. She deserved better than that. The way she spoke to him—almost as an equal, the way she cared about his children...

  She was the kind of girl, he realised, that he should have married in the first place. A girl who would have been a help to him on campaign, rather than an extra burden.

  He speared his fingers through his hair in self-disgust at the disloyal thoughts about poor Lizzie. If she’d only survived, she would be coming into her own now. She’d been born to be a countess. She’d have excelled in the role. Instead she was lying cold in her grave...and he was betraying her memory by wishing he’d met someone like Alice instead.