Carla Kelly's Christmas Collection

by Carla Kelly

  I should never have listened to all my friends and relations telling me what a prize I was getting in Lucy Monroe, he thought as he wrapped himself in his robe and sat looking out the window. What little conversation we had before marriage showed her to be a shallow, vain little thing. I should have withdrawn my offer, taken my lumps, and left the field.

  He winced and felt his shoulders grow cold, even though the room was well heated. Instead, I married her and discovered quickly that my wife was no fun. She was fueled by no love, like, or even lust, and saw no more to me than a title for herself and the promise of London, in which I sadly disappointed her. She hated every minute of her confinement with Will and never wanted me near her again. Almost never.

  His lips set in firm lines, Chard dressed quickly, shaved, and tidied up after himself before he remembered that he had a valet to do all that now . The sad thing is, he told himself as he went downstairs to dinner, I like women. If Lucy had shown any pleasure in it at all, we could have had some famous romps in bed. And now there is nothing. He paused on the bottom step. I am too much an honorable man to go near a doxy, even though none of the longings have left me. I work hard because I need to be tired every night. I am afraid to make another attempt. When left to my own devices, I am a coward. Shame on me.

  He was grateful that he did not have to make conversation on the way to choir practice. His carriage was filled with the Welsh women, and the men came after in the gig and on horseback. Rosie Wetherby sat next to him, her eyes bright with the pleasure of being with her father’s countrywomen. He glanced at Rosie, who was crammed so tightly against him that he could feel her baby kick. It should have flattered him that she was so loath to leave his house tomorrow, but it only sank him deeper, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  St. Philemon’s was brightly lit, and he was gratified to see so many carriages, gigs, and blanketed horses there. He drew his singers around him for a moment of strategy before they went inside. “I know you will do your best,” he said simply, and then laughed and shook his head as some of the veterans of Wellington’s army grinned at him. “Lads! I know what you are thinking! Although I must sound like every officer who has ever exhorted you on the field of battle, believe me, this is more important than Agincourt and Blenheim combined!”

  He enjoyed their laughter, and continued, to their amusement, in his brigade major voice. “If we do not have a good choir, my mother will be sorely disappointed. I will have to sneak into a back pew at St. Phil’s every Sunday morning, and the vicar will preach deadly sermons from Leviticus or Revelation to take his revenge upon me. Do your best. England may not care much, but I do.”

  The steps were icy, so he turned instinctively to look for Rosie. He found her at his side, grasped her by the elbow, and helped her indoors without saying a word.

  Once inside, he looked at her. “That was silly, wasn’t it?” he said.

  She shook her head. “Lord Wythe, do you know what your singers are already saying about you?”

  “I can’t imagine.” And he couldn’t. While he had admired the Fusiliers in India, he had never commanded them. “Well, maybe I can,” he amended, as he walked with her to the choir seats at the front of the chapel. “I am Lord Mark Time, eh?”

  He could tell he had surprised her with that nickname. “Oh, no!” she exclaimed. “Mostly they are excited to be working for you, because they remember you from India.” She leaned closer. “Were you really a legend there?”

  It was his turn to stare. “Not that I know of,” he replied honestly. “They must have me confused with someone else.”

  “No, they don’t,” she replied. “Men like that don’t confuse their heroes.”

  “I never imagined—” he began.

  “You probably never did,” she said.

  He looked at her. “I’m not the quickest man on the planet.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said. “What you also are is humble, and I think it must be so rare that no one recognizes it.” She touched his arm. “For your children’s sake, please never change.”

  He stared at her. No one had ever spoken to him like that before, and her words fell on him like warm rain. He had no idea what to say and was relieved when the choirmaster asked them to take their seats. His face still blazing with embarrassment, Chard settled her between two of the weakest sopranos and took his place with the basses. His under-bailiff made room for him, leaning close to whisper, “Sir, thank you for sending for Meg.”

  He shrugged off any reply, his eyes on the choirmaster. “Really, my lord, you’ll like Meg’s voice,” Dafydd Williams assured him. “I think she can be made useful around the estate, too, sir.”

  Startled, Chard glanced at his under-bailiff and then looked down at the music the bass on the other side was handing him. I wonder, Williams, if you would believe me if I told you that I wasn’t thinking about your wife’s voice when I sent for her? he thought. I wanted you to have Meg close, and that was all.

  “Doesn’t matter about the estate, Williams,” he whispered back, even as the choirmaster—no respecter of marquises—glared at him. “You have a nice little cottage. Just let her keep it for you.” He laughed and then put his hand over his mouth when the choirmaster started in his direction. “Consider it an early Christmas present.”

  The St. Philomen’s Christmas choir waited a few minutes more to allow two latecomers to seat themselves, and Chard looked over his contribution of singers, noting with a brigade major’s strategic eye how wisely they had spaced themselves among the uninitiated. I appear to have three sopranos, two altos, three tenors, and three basses, he observed.

  With half an ear, he listened to the choirmaster’s usual greeting, which contained, as it did every year, equal parts of resignation and exhortation, mingled with sufficient rue to dampen even the celestial enthusiasm of a multitude of the Heavenly host. I must suggest to Mr. Woodhull after Christmas that it is time to replace our choirmaster, he thought, and then he smiled at the idea of approaching his vicar, who would not recognize a tune even if it bit his bottom. He will wonder why I am so inclined, but offer no resistance. Ah, well. This is one of the few occasions in life when being a marquis and the holder of Woodhull’s living will carry the day, he told himself.

  The choirmaster cleared his throat and everyone looked up expectantly. “My dears, let us not tackle the Haydn immediately but warm up first on a hymn.” He turned to the organist. “May I suggest ‘The Mighty Power of God Unfolding’? A note please, sir, if you will.”

  It was a rousing, familiar hymn and everyone knew it. The sound of incredible, perfect harmony exploded in the church, booming from wall to wall with all the majesty the hymnist must have intended but which had never before been even remotely achieved at St. Phil’s. By the end of the first stanza, the choirmaster was gripping the lectern, his knuckles white. At the completion of the chorus, he waved the choir to a halt and staggered to a seat.

  A soprano and a tenor from the front row reached him first, fanning him with Haydn, while an alto loosened his neck cloth. He sat for a long moment under their ministrations and then waved them back to their seats with a hand that shook. The doctor, who only dreamed that he was a bass, took his pulse and then helped him to his feet. He guided him back to the lectern, and the choirmaster clamped his hands firmly again, a changed man.

  It was still a moment before he could speak. “My dears, the strangest thing happened,” he said finally, sounding like a different man. “I dreamed that you were singing, and in tune. How singular.” He looked down at the music before him, but to Chard’s view, he was not actually seeing anything. “I am certain it was a trick of hearing. Let us tempt fate again and try a mellower hymn. ‘Lambs Sweetly Feeding,’ if you will be so kind, my dears.”

  The soft beginning was no more difficult than the magnificent spiritual call to arms that had preceded it. As led by the Welsh singers, each note was sustained, melodic, and softer than dew on the hillside. Chard did not sing, preferrin
g to listen to those around him and enjoy their special national gift. He noticed that others of the choir were doing the same thing. The Welsh singers could not have been more oblivious. They sang with the fervor peculiar to their race, fervor he had remembered all these years, and thousands of miles from dry Indian washes and the scorch of a sun that burned up everything but song.

  The hymn ended, the choirmaster closing it with all the feeling and artistry of a man half his age. “This is a miracle,” he declared. “My dears, do let us examine the Haydn before us.” He leaned forward to confide in them. “I admit I was wondering if we would have the capacity for this selection. Wasn’t I the silly one?”

  They sang for more than an hour, the choirmaster in such a state of bliss that his wife had to tug at his arm finally. When that effort proved fruitless, she dragged his watch from his coat pocket, opened it, and waved it under his nose like smelling salts. “Very well, if we must,” he grumbled.

  We must, thought Chard. He glanced at Rosie, who was starting to droop. In another moment they were dismissed and he was at Rosie’s side. Without a word he helped her into her cloak and assisted her from the church. She was quiet on the ride home, and he could think of nothing to say. It was enough to sit next to her. Before they turned into the lane before Wythe, she leaned against him, asleep.

  Sitting there in the dark carriage, with the other women silent and sleepy around him, too, he realized with a pang how much he missed the conversation of women at night. True, Lucy had not been the warmest of females, but early in their marriage he had enjoyed her inconsequential chatter about the events of the day, told in their entire minutia from her point of view. It was always different from his, and it charmed him somehow to know that women were different creatures entirely. I miss that, he thought as the carriage came to a stop and Rosie woke up. She apologized for crowding him, but he only smiled and helped her down.

  Will was asleep when they checked on him. To Chard’s eyes, his son was sleeping peacefully, but Rosie had to tug up the blanket higher, and smooth his hair before she would leave the room. This must be what mothers do, he thought as he watched her bend down awkwardly to kiss him. I am sure Lucy never did.

  Gracie Biddle Jones, who could not carry a tune, had volunteered to sit with Emma. When they came in the room, she said good night quickly and left the room. Rosie felt Emma’s forehead and nodded in satisfaction. She turned and held out her hand to him. “Good night, my lord.” He had no excuse to stay, so he went to his own room, knowing somehow that he would be awake all night.

  When the doctor arrived in the morning, he went first to Rosie as he had promised, spending some time with her in another room separate from Emma. He came out to assure Chard that Mrs. Wetherby was strong as a little French pony and right as a trivet.

  “Doctor, all similes aside, will she do?” Chard asked point blank as he walked with him to Emma’s room.

  The doctor laughed and clamped his hand on Chard’s shoulder. “Someone would think it was your baby, laddie, and not poor Junius Wetherby’s!” he exclaimed. “She’s fine, and she knows to send for me when her time comes.” He frowned then. “Can’t trust the Wetherbys with so much sense.”

  The doctor passed sentence next in Emmie’s room and doomed Rosie Wetherby to expulsion by his cheery news that Emma “simply couldn’t be more fine, and aren’t we all happy about that?”

  No one was. Will dragged around with a long face as Rosie carried her small bundle downstairs. Emma was a thundercloud, refusing to be placated with his promise of a ride on horseback with him as soon as she was a little better. And Chard knew he had not felt so dreary since that long voyage from India when he had paced the deck and wondered what he would do.

  The day was fine enough, so he took the gig. As they rode along, Rosie turned her face up to the sun. “I do not suppose there will be many more fine days like this.” She looked at him. “Does winter come early and stay long here?”

  “Aye,” he said simply, berating himself that he had no conversation. If he possessed any glibness, he could at least tell her how much he appreciated her help; and if he had enough nerve—not the battlefield kind but the sitting-room sort—he could confess in an offhand, insouciant sort of way that she had certainly inspired him into thinking about looking for a wife. As it was, he was silent and miserable.

  “My lord, is there a workhouse hereabout?” Rosie asked suddenly.

  Her question dumbfounded him and he nearly dropped the reins. “A what?” he asked.

  “A workhouse,” she repeated, softer this time, as though she hated to say it again. She looked at him, as if trying to decide if she could really speak. The words came from her mouth as if pulled with tongs. “Lady Wetherby says that will be my fate.”

  “She must be joking,” he finally said when he could speak. “Come to think of it, she has always been overly dramatic.” The Wetherby house was in sight, and he slowed the horse without thinking. “Surely you misunderstood her.” He turned his attention to the horse, unsure of what to do in the face of such a question. “I am certain you did, Mrs. Wetherby. Pay it no mind,” he added hastily.

  She was a long time silent, and he knew somehow that he had failed her. “I probably misunderstood her,” she said, her voice low, her eyes down. “And here we are now.” Rosie held out her hand to him. “I can get out by myself, my lord. No need to trouble yourself.”

  He protested, but she was out of the gig before he had time to get down. She retrieved her bundle from the back and gave a small curtsy. “My lord, make sure Emmie stays indoors for a few days, and tell Will…” Her voice trailed off and she could not look at him. “Well, just tell him good-bye.” Then she was gone inside.

  He rode home knowing he had failed her somehow, and it bothered him through what remained of the day and into dinner. Weary with everything, he pushed away his favorite Yorkshire pudding, which only brought consternation to the footman’s face and Cook upstairs in tears. His evening was spent in tense kitchen diplomacy that left him with a headache, an inclination to chew nails, and the thought that if he were married, his wife could handle the domestic turmoil that now fell to his lot.

  I am making a muddle of my life, he thought as he went to bed. My daughter still pouts because Rosie is gone, my son mopes about, and I am a coward where women are concerned. What was it that Rosie meant by her remark about a workhouse?

  He saw her in the morning as he rode toward the new barn. She walked slowly on a distant hill, leaning into a stiff wind. “Rosie, go inside,” he muttered to Sepoy. “Surely it is not that bad at the Wetherbys.”

  Because he made a point from then on to ride a different way to the barn, he did not see her again until the next choir practice. He had arranged for Dafydd Williams and his lovely Meg—here now, and truly a beauty—to pick up Rosie for practice.

  He wondered all day what he would say to her, but that night she came to him and spared him the trouble of a first move. She held out two folded pieces of paper. “My lord, if you don’t mind, I wanted to write to Will and Emma, and want to spare the expense of the penny post.”

  He pocketed the letters. “I’ll be happy to see that they get your letters. You can probably depend upon prompt replies.” He hesitated. “They miss you, Mrs. Wetherby.”

  To his chagrin, tears welled in her eyes. She struggled to control them, and he flogged himself because he did not have the courage to take her hand or say something—anything. She was about to speak to him when the choirmaster rapped on the lectern for their attention.

  Halfway through the Haydn, Peter Chard admitted to himself that it was not beyond the realm of possibility that Rosie Wetherby loved his children nearly as much as he did. When the choirmaster finished by easing them through favorite passages from Handel’s Messiah, it came to Chard that he loved Rosie Wetherby, daughter of a Welsh sergeant and a foolish, wellborn lass, widow to the most worthless Wetherby on the planet, and mother soon of that man’s child. I am a fool where women are concerne
d, he concluded simply.

  He thought about Rosie constantly through November and into December. Letters came and went regularly between Rosie and his children, delivered during choir practice. He hated himself for it, but he read Will’s letters from Rosie after his son went to bed. Emma had secreted hers someplace where he could not find them. He had occasion to thank God that Will possessed a less suspicious nature.

  They were funny, well-written letters, telling about things she saw on her walks, mentioning last week’s Northern Lights, and describing events from Portugal, the West Indies, and Canada where she had adventured with the army when she was young and in her father’s care. Chard wrote her several letters of his own, which he never mailed.

  He pinned his hopes on Christmas coming soon. The choir was fine beyond words, and there was no way they could ever lose the competition this year. Life will return to normal, he told himself, even though he knew that was the biggest lie he had ever perpetuated. Well, the second biggest. I must talk to her, he told himself over and over on the day of the last practice.

  Snow was falling, and Dafydd and Meg were late with Rosie. There was only time for them to slide into their seats before the choirmaster’s downbeat. Chard sang with his eye on Rosie. Even in the dim church light he could tell that she was more pale than usual. When he caught her eye once, there was such a look of utter hopelessness on her face that he could only stare and wonder.

  The choirmaster kept them long after the hour for the practice to end. “This is our final rehearsal, my dears,” he reminded them. He leaned forward in conspiratorial fashion. “I have heard rumors that our efforts have not gone unnoticed at St. Peter’s and St. Anselm’s.” He permitted himself the luxury of a chuckle. “I have even heard that they are worried.”