Lady Osbaldestone’s Christmas Goose

by Stephanie Laurens

  Later that day, when describing Henry and his friends to him and George, Lottie had mentioned the smell of “funny smoke” that had hung about Henry in particular. Lottie, Jamie knew, had a keen sense of smell; she could tell which of their mother’s perfumes she’d used over a distance of a yard or more.

  Jamie had noticed a nice big tree, perfect for climbing, to one side of the glade. Although the tree was currently leafless, a large bush thick with dark-green leaves grew near the tree’s trunk and reached high enough to conceal the lowest branches. Jamie crept up to the glade, but discovered it was disappointingly empty. Undeterred, he crossed to the tree, leapt and caught the lowest branch to one side, and swung himself into the concealment of the bush.

  He lay along the branch and willed Henry Fitzgibbon to show.

  Unfortunately, when Henry appeared, one of his friends was with him. They were talking expectantly about lunch. Jamie prayed Henry wouldn’t wait until after the meal to light up a cigarillo—and that his friend would leave him to indulge his habit alone.

  Whether Cupid or some other god was watching over him, Jamie didn’t know, but after a minute of chatting, the other gentleman made some excuse and took himself off, heading for the house.

  Left alone in the glade, Henry drew out a silver case from his pocket and opened it.

  Jamie dropped from the branch, then stepped around the bush—startling Henry. He juggled the case and only just managed to save the contents from spilling onto the grass.

  Snapping the case shut, Henry frowned at Jamie. “Here—who are you? And what the devil are you doing skulking in my gardens?”

  Jamie gave a slight smile—the sort of superior smile he’d seen his grandmother use. Halting before Henry, he bowed. “Permit me to introduce myself. I’m Lord James Skelton, Viscount Skelton.”

  Henry thought about laughing or calling what he thought was a bluff, but he saw something in Jamie’s face that made him think better of it.

  “I came here,” Jamie smoothly continued, “because I wanted to speak with you. Privately. That was why I was hiding in the tree. I knew you smoked those things”—he tipped his head at the case Henry still held in his hands—“and that you came out here to do it, so I lay in wait.”

  Henry’s frown had grown puzzled. “What do you want to speak with me about?”

  “In a way, it’s about your sister.” When Henry looked taken aback, Jamie asked, “Do you know how worn out she is with managing the estate for you?”

  “What?”

  “I heard her talking to Lord Longfellow last night, when they were at dinner at my grandmother’s house.”

  “Oh.” Henry looked at Jamie almost with respect. “Your grandmother is Lady Osbaldestone.”

  Jamie nodded. “I have sisters myself, so I thought you would want me to tell you what I’ve heard. Not just from your sister but from others in the village, too—they all talk to my grandmother, and I’ve been with her for the past few days.”

  Henry looked uncertain. “What are people saying?”

  “It’s not so much gossiping as what they see and observe.” Jamie leveled his most direct look at Henry. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but this estate comes to you when you attain your majority”—he knew all the right words; he’d heard them often enough, usually referring to himself—“and your sister gets none of it. When she marries—if she marries—she’ll have a small dowry but no further call on the estate. Is that correct?”

  Henry frowned. After a moment, he conceded, “That is how it goes. But what do you mean by if? Of course, Eugenia will marry at some point—”

  “How old is she?”

  Henry paused, then, in a rather more subdued tone, admitted, “Twenty-four.”

  “You know as well as I do that by that age, many ladies of our class are married, and if not, would already have had several offers. But your sister hasn’t even had a Season in town. She’s been here taking care of your inheritance.”

  Henry rocked back on his heels, his expression closing. “She likes taking care of the place.”

  “Have you asked her recently if she’d rather be doing something else?”

  “Well…no.”

  Jamie nodded. “In her mind, she’s doing her duty by you, out of loyalty to you and most likely even more for your late parents. And probably also because she feels a certain responsibility for the people—those in the household and the estate.” Leading Henry that far had been simple. Now came the difficult part. “I can see it’s been easy to let her carry the burden for you—she’s made it that way—but what you have to grasp is that when it comes down to it, she is your responsibility. You have a duty toward her. I know all about that—I have two sisters, and I’ve already been told that when we’re older, it might fall to me to see them properly settled. Of course, if that was the case, I would be the Earl of Winslow, but the issue is the same. Gentlemen of our class have to take responsibility for seeing that our sisters get to live the life they want and should have.” He paused, then added, “Or so my father tells me, and I daresay he knows—he has three sisters himself.”

  Henry’s expression was a study in guilt embellished by uncertainty. After several moments of staring at Jamie, Henry set his jaw pugnaciously. “You’re only a boy—a child. Why should I listen to you?”

  Jamie had his answer ready. “Because my grandmama is Lady Osbaldestone. And when I grow up, as an earl, I’ll have far more responsibility than you ever will—and my father has already started training me in how I should behave.” He held Henry’s gaze steadily, then insight dawned, and he said, “But you already know where your responsibility lies. You don’t need me to tell you—just, perhaps, to remind you.”

  After a very long moment, Henry sighed. His jaw eased; his expression softened. Several more seconds passed before he uttered the words Jamie had hoped to hear. “What do you think I should do?”

  Without allowing any hint of triumph to show, Jamie told him.

  Five minutes later, as Jamie made his way back to the lane, he rather thought his awe-inspiring grandmother would be proud of him. Getting people to do what one wanted them to—for their own good, of course—was a puzzle and a challenge, one with which he’d just proved he could succeed and which he had, indeed, enjoyed.

  Now to see if Henry made good on his promise and started down the right track.

  * * *

  After conferring over a late-afternoon tea of fruitcake and scones and jam, and confirming and bemoaning that they were no closer to determining what had become of Farmer Tooks’s geese, Therese and the children, along with all the manor staff, donned coats and scarves, gloves and mittens, and, with Crimmins and John Simms lighting their way with lamps hoisted on poles, set off for the church and the annual village carol service.

  The event was popular, and carriages and carts from the farms and houses all around were clopping smartly up to the church. Their party had to wait for a break in the traffic to cross the lane and join the crowd streaming through the lychgate and up the short path to the base of the square tower and the church’s main door, presently set welcomingly wide.

  As they walked up the path, Therese looked ahead, noting the way the golden light from candles and sconces within the church spilled through the door and through the mullioned windows to pool on the cold, hard ground. The sky above was crystal clear, with a myriad of stars twinkling brightly and a close-to-full moon glowing in the ink-dark firmament.

  The combined breaths of the gathering congregation hung like wispy clouds in the air, and chatter and excited comments abounded on all sides.

  With Lottie’s hand in hers and George and Jamie walking on her other side, Therese joined the throng with more real enthusiasm than she’d felt over the event—indeed, over Christmas—for many years. Doubtless the effect of having youngsters with whom to share the season. She glanced at them, at their fresh, innocent faces, presently turning this way and that as they took in every last detail.

  “Grandmama,” George
said from beside her, “why is the church called St. Ignatius on the Hill when it isn’t on a hill?”

  “That, my dear, is a continuing mystery. There are those who maintain that when the church was built, it was on a hill of sorts, and the terrain has altered with the centuries. Others contend that it was St. Ignatius himself who was on a hill, but as to which hill that was, or what he was doing there, much less why the fact was considered of sufficient importance to commemorate, no one knows.”

  George uttered a sound very like a humph.

  Smiling, Therese nodded to Jeremy Colebatch, fully accoutered and waiting just inside the arched doorway to welcome his parishioners as well as the many he rarely saw who nevertheless crowded into the nave for this particular event.

  Therese led her small band down the central aisle. The second pew on the left had been endowed by her aunt and on occasions such as this was reserved for the manor household. Therese held the children back to allow the Crimminses, Harriet Orneby, Mrs. Haggerty, and John Simms to file into the pew, then she and the children took the places nearest the aisle.

  Jamie wordlessly insisted on taking the spot closest to the aisle. George and Lottie quickly settled, with George reading his sister the order of the carols, which had been inscribed on cards scattered along the seats. Jamie, however, seemed to be waiting for something—or someone; he kept squirming and looking back up the church.

  Eventually, Therese poked his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m keeping watch for Lord Longfellow. You did say he had said he would come.”

  “I did, and he did.”

  “Oh.” Jamie had once again twisted to look back at the church door. “He’s just come in and gone into the last pew.” Frowning, Jamie glanced at the front pew on the opposite side of the aisle. He nodded toward it. “Isn’t that pew where the Dutton Grange people sit?”

  “Clearly, it is. No one could miss the mountainous Hendricks, and Jiggs and Mrs. Wright are there as well. So obviously that fact is well known, I expect to Christian as much as to anyone else. But of course, he’s chosen to hang back in the shadows.” She sighed. “It’s clearly going to take more than just one dinner to make him ignore those scars.”

  Jamie wriggled around so he could watch the door.

  Therese inwardly sighed and poked him again. When he looked up at her, his Skelton blue eyes wide, she bluntly asked, “What have you done?”

  He returned her gaze, then, much to her satisfaction, replied, “I spoke with Henry Fitzgibbon. About him not…well, picking up the reins of his position. Especially not over Miss Eugenia.”

  “Did you now?” Therese regarded Jamie—who seemed intent on proving he was more related to her than she’d appreciated—with a degree of fascination. “And how did that go?”

  Jamie lifted a shoulder. “All right, I think. But”—he looked up the nave again—“the proof will be in the pudding, I expect.”

  The church was filling up fast. It was almost six o’clock, and the reverend had quit his post and hurried up the nave to the vestry to join his troops—the choir, the choirmaster, and the deacon—all of whom should be congregating there. At the appointed time, the procession would form up, then circle the church to enter with all due pomp through the main tower door.

  Gradually, the excited chatter faded, to be replaced by an expectant hush.

  Finally, Jamie saw Henry enter the church with his sister on his arm.

  Determined, Jamie stared hard at Henry, willing the young man to meet his eyes. Henry glanced down the nave and did.

  Jamie signaled with his eyes—directing Henry’s gaze to the last pew on Henry and Eugenia’s left.

  After what seemed an age but was no more than two seconds, Henry got Jamie’s implied message and looked into the shadows.

  Eugenia turned to Henry. She tugged at his sleeve—urging him to go down the nave to the front pew on the left, where members of their household already sat.

  Mindful of Jamie’s instructions, Henry shook his head and, without allowing Eugenia any chance to argue, guided her into the last pew instead.

  Jamie sighed with relief. A smile curving his lips, he wriggled back around to sit facing the altar.

  Therese glanced back. She couldn’t see Eugenia—too many hats were in the way—but she glimpsed Henry sitting by the aisle.

  Smiling, she faced forward. She caught Jamie’s eye and nodded approvingly. “Good work.”

  At that moment, the organist pressed his fingers to the keys, and the congregation came to their feet as Reverend Colebatch, resplendent in his robes, led the small procession of deacon, choirmaster, and choristers down the aisle.

  In the last pew, where he should have been safe, Christian stood beside Eugenia Fitzgibbon. What neighborly impulse had prompted Henry Fitzgibbon to eschew the Fitzgibbon pew at the front of the church in favor of the last pew where Christian had taken refuge, Christian had no clue. But when Henry had nodded politely to Christian and ushered Eugenia into the pew, there’d been nothing Christian could do to avoid the outcome.

  To avoid the nearness.

  Compounding the issue, two of Henry’s friends had rushed in just ahead of the procession and crammed into the pew alongside Henry. Christian had moved along as far as he’d been able, but there had already been three lads from one of the farms in the pew when he’d arrived. The resulting squeeze left him hemmed in tight beside the distracting Miss Fitzgibbon.

  Along with the rest of the congregation, he bent his head for the first prayer.

  It didn’t help.

  At Lady Osbaldestone’s house, he’d managed to clamp down on his inner self’s responses to what, for some reason, that younger, earlier, more hedonistic version of himself viewed as a delectably tempting morsel. He’d tried telling himself that he was far too old and far too damaged to even think of her, at least not in the way he had been thinking of her, but then he’d discovered she was actually twenty-four and apparently unperturbed by his mangled face, and that argument had crumbled to dust and blown away.

  But he was adamant that, no matter the promptings of his gentler, more-carefree self, he was not going to allow that self to take control, much less dismantle the guard his older, wiser, more-hardened self had erected around his heart and his soul.

  Unfortunately for his resolution, there was worse to come.

  The deacon announced the first carol, and Christian, along with the others in their pew, discovered there were only three hymnals to share between them. The three farm lads took one, Henry and his two friends settled to share another, leaving Christian to share the remaining book with the female who was fast becoming his nemesis.

  Not that he could accuse her of in any way pursuing him. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Henry diverting into the last pew hadn’t been her idea. Indeed, her murmured response to his very correct greeting had been every bit as reserved as he’d endeavored to be.

  The organist completed the introduction to the carol, and the congregation filled their lungs and, led by the small choir standing in the stalls about the altar, sang.

  In melody and in harmony, with full voice and full hearts, they sang of the town of Bethlehem so very far away.

  And he discovered Eugenia Fitzgibbon had a very sweet soprano voice.

  Discovered that she transparently enjoyed singing the old hymns, the venerated Christmas carols.

  And as if a door in his mind had blown wide, he remembered how much he enjoyed that, too. He rediscovered the pleasure of lending his voice to the refrain. Remembered again the joy that welled and swelled through the interweaving of voice and organ, through the melding of notes and emotion and freely offered devotion, and its ability to lift—to buoy—his soul high.

  The moment captured him again.

  Yet it wasn’t the past but the here and now that sank hooks into his soul.

  And he couldn’t draw back—couldn’t find it in him to pretend, to push his other, more joyful self back into the iron cage he’d created o
ut of pain and loss and misery. Later, he whispered to his hardened self, but even that promise was weak.

  The tug of the carols was too great for him to resist, and he surrendered and sang, heart, soul, and voice.

  Alongside Christian, Eugenia marveled at the quality of his voice. One part of her stopped listening to the communal song and concentrated instead on his. His effortless outpouring of note after clear note, all rendered in a baritone so true and warm she felt the sound like a tangible entity wrapping about her.

  At the conclusion of the first carol, she smiled in unfeigned, unambiguous delight at him.

  He smiled at her after the second carol ended—a smile more relaxed, more beguiling, than any she’d seen him give.

  By the third carol, they were singing virtually as a duet, so attuned to each other’s voice had they become.

  She’d always enjoyed the village carol service, but this year, the experience shone like gold in her mind.

  She’d been surprised when Henry had shrugged aside his friends’ disparaging comments about a village carol service and had instead declared he would accompany her to the event. She’d been even more surprised when he’d kept to the time and had been waiting in the front hall when she’d come down ready to drive to the church.

  Because of the press of carriages and carts trying to find a place before the church, they’d been late reaching the door, but Henry hadn’t faltered in his march inside.

  She’d felt more in charity with her brother than she had in a long while, but once inside the church, Henry had halted. He’d been looking intently down the aisle, then he’d looked toward the rear pew and, ignoring her wishes, had steered her that way.

  She’d been annoyed with him all over again for refusing to walk all the way down the aisle to the front pew—annoyed at his ducking scrutiny by the village, which was how she’d initially interpreted his move.

  Then she’d realized that Christian was in the last pew…and she’d known very well why. From that moment, she’d been wholeheartedly behind her brother’s unexpected action.