Christmas Delights

by Heather Hiestand

“Can you get him up the stairs?” the earl asked.

  “Just tell us where to go. ’E’s an ’eavy one, milord,” the man who had Lewis’s left shoulder puffed.

  “Take him up the servants’ stairs,” Victoria called. “It’s closer.”

  They went down the long hallway to the left of the mudroom. Eddy ran ahead to open the door. Lewis gave the order to be let down, insisting he could walk.

  “No. Let us do this fast,” the earl demanded. “We need to get you out of those clothes.”

  “A couple of shoulders under my arms and I’ll do fine. No room to carry me,” Lewis insisted.

  “Do as he says,” Victoria interjected. “It will be faster than arguing with him.”

  A goofy, unfocused smile broke over Lewis’s face when he saw her. The men who were holding his legs slowly let them drop to the floor. Lewis’s knees buckled, but then he found his footing, and the two men who had held his shoulders tucked themselves under his armpits instead. Victoria could see the water from Lewis’s clothes dripping down their bodies.

  She shook her head at him, but the infuriating man just grinned and slowly turned away. “I’m going to nurse him,” she told the earl. “I’m a widow.”

  The earl shrugged. “I’m not going to stop you. I have a leak to repair.”

  She shook her head in disgust. “Was it worth a man’s life to find it?”

  “He didn’t die. You’re going to dry him out, right?” The earl smirked at her, then held out his arm to her.

  He actually had the gall to apply levity to the situation. How were gentlemen trained that they could joke about nearly dying? Perhaps they couldn’t go to war without such a mentality, or risk their lives in other ways.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, the men insisted that Lewis be carried again, but two of them formed a chair with their arms and staggered to his room in that fashion. Eddy opened the door and Victoria was able to reach the coverlet and pull it down before her lover was deposited on the mattress.

  “Get his clothes off quickly, before he soaks the bed,” she urged.

  The men looked at her strangely, as if they’d decided their work was done as soon as Lewis had made it inside.

  She grimaced. “Eddy?”

  “Right. Got to get the boots off, milady. You work on his jacket and I’ll tackle the laces.”

  She nodded and pulled the sodden coats off Lewis’s front, which had all but been glued to him with the water. Then she began to work on the buttons of his jacket, wincing as her torn palms touched the icy fabric.

  Lewis could do nothing but cough and she feared for his lungs. While the workmen left, the earl ordered tea. A footman arrived carrying more blankets and hot water bottles. Victoria ordered that they be tucked around his pillows for now and kept working. After a couple of minutes of tapping his foot and looking irritated, the earl began to worry at a boot lace as well.

  “You have disgusting feet, pale as a dead jellyfish,” the earl said when he’d achieved the removal of the sock on his side.

  Eddy almost fell over as the boot on his side finally popped off, releasing a stream of water over the foot of the bed.

  “I’m going to need you to roll out of your jacket,” Victoria told Lewis.

  He attempted to comply but began coughing again and lay back.

  “Give me your arm.” When he did as told, she crossed it over his belly and pulled him over, panting at the exertion. Eddy ran to grab the jacket and waistcoat from under his back.

  “Milady, your hands,” the boy said. “You need those doctored.”

  “What did you do?” Lewis asked, twisting to grab at her hand.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said briskly, pulling them away.

  A maid appeared at the door with a teapot and cups on a tray.

  Victoria nodded. “Good, let’s get this into Mr. Noble. Can you fetch some beef tea, please? That would be better. Very strengthening.”

  The maid set the tray on the bedside table and went to get the broth. Victoria began to work on Lewis’s shirt.

  “Both socks off now, milady. Should we work on his trousers?” Eddy asked.

  “Certainly not,” Lewis said, sounding stronger, as if in response to the effrontery of the question. “I will do it myself.”

  Victoria glared at him. “You will lie back and do as you’re told.”

  “You are not taking off my trousers, Lady Allen-Hill.” He said her name with great emphasis.

  She realized he didn’t want her to reveal her overfamiliarity with his person. “I am a widow, sir. You have nothing I have not seen.”

  “Nursed your husband, did you?” Eddy asked.

  Actually, she had not been involved in the intimate details of caring for Sir Humphrey’s body. She’d been such a new bride that his valet had taken on most of the nursing duties, although she had done her best. She made a noncommittal noise as she pushed Lewis’s suspenders down his arms. Coughing all the while, Lewis rolled out of his shirt. The earl found a nightshirt and they got it over Lewis’s torso after Victoria wiped him dry as best she could with a towel. By the time that had been done, a footman had assisted Eddy with the lower half of Lewis’s garments.

  “He should have the thickest wool socks you can find on his feet,” Victoria told Eddy. The boy went to look for some in the bureau.

  They tucked Lewis in, adding hot water bottles, and spooned beef tea into him. His skin still felt icy after an hour, though he had stopped coughing. Victoria stared at his pale face, wishing she could curl up against him and offer him warmth. A wife could do that, but not a lover. She’d offered a bath, but he refused it, pleading exhaustion.

  “I think he just needs to rest,” the earl said, coming back to the bed after stirring up the fire. “It’s blazing hot in here now.”

  “You should see to your own attire,” Victoria said. “You have been in those damp clothes for too long, Lord Bullen.”

  “I’ll keep watch over him, milord,” Eddy said. His eyes were still reddened by emotion. “You’ve missed luncheon, Lady Allen-Hill. And you are damp, too, if you don’t mind me saying.”

  “The same goes for you,” she told the boy. “I’ll send someone up with hot, nourishing food and ensure you are checked on every fifteen minutes or so.”

  “He’ll be right as rain by tomorrow,” the boy promised. “He wasn’t in that long.”

  “I know,” Victoria said.

  Lewis smiled at her and took her hand. “You’ve done everything for me you could. Let nature take its course now.”

  She nodded, her throat suddenly parched. “I shall check on you later.” Head held high, she left the room. Tears came when she had the door shut behind her. How close had she come to losing him? It was best not to consider what had not happened. He would be fine, since he was so young and strong. Strange that she had not understood quite how large and muscular he was when she was in his arms. But just now, she’d felt quite overwhelmed by his size.

  When she reached her room, she ordered a bath, thinking they perhaps should have insisted on that for Lewis, but it was too late now. When she was safely in the steaming water behind the screen, she finally gave in to emotion and sobbed.

  When she climbed out, every muscle still ached. She clumsily doctored her hands but fell asleep before she had wrapped them properly. She woke up within half an hour, her body too sore for proper rest. An hour later, she had just finished dressing herself in a simple wool gown when Penelope appeared, trailed by a nursery maid.

  “Did you know there is a wishing well on the property?” the girl asked. “We should make a wish for the new year!”

  I could wish for Lewis to suffer no ill effects from his experience. “Yes, that sounds like an excellent notion after we check on Mr. Noble.” She felt quite warm, especially since she’d slept before the fire.

  “Do you think the wishing well was here in Princess Everilda’s day?” Penelope asked as the maid went to retrieve their outerwear.

  Had t
he girl decided her story was real? Victoria smiled at the notion. She supposed her cousin had to find something to believe in after yesterday’s troubling revelations about her mother. “It probably was,” she said cautiously.

  “Do you think it will be important to the story?”

  “I have no idea,” Victoria said. “When last we left the princess, she was waiting until midnight to go to the bell tower.” The maid handed her a coat. It wasn’t her fur-trimmed winter coat, and it took her a moment to remember that that was still on the floor of Lewis’s room somewhere. “I wonder if you might have someone retrieve my coat, and Eddy Jackson’s as well, from Mr. Noble’s floor and have them brushed and dried?”

  “Yes, milady,” the maid promised, handing her a pair of gloves. “I couldn’t find a muffler for you.”

  “Also on the floor,” Victoria said.

  “We heard what happened at luncheon. Poor Mr. Noble. Will he take sick?”

  “I hope not.”

  “What happened?” Penelope demanded.

  “He was trapped in the submarine when it sprang a leak,” Victoria explained. “But the earl got him out.”

  “He’s a hero, like Prince Hugh.”

  “Prince Hugh hasn’t done anything except get himself captured,” Victoria said. “The princess is the heroine.”

  “There has to be a hero.” Penelope screwed up her face. “Is he going to do something marvelous at the end? Like kill a dragon?”

  “Or his stepmother,” Victoria muttered.

  “She’s already dead. I think you should have a dragon.”

  “Why can’t the princess be the brave one? Girls can do all sorts of things.”

  “Boys are always the heroes of adventure stories.” Penelope stuck her hat on her head.

  “They shouldn’t be,” Victoria said, putting on her gloves. “Come, let’s go before the snow starts.” They scratched at Lewis’s door, but Eddy said he was sound asleep, so she decided to return later.

  She had made no attempt to be smart. Her old winter coat, a warm bonnet that covered her ears, thick wool gloves. At least it kept out the worst of the wind as they dashed out of the front gate and across the drawbridge that reached across the stream that meandered past the front of the Fort. Here, Victoria could more clearly see the ancient architecture, which was what had inspired her to spin her fairy tale. Off in the distance, she could see hints of a town, the tall spire of a church.

  Once, there had probably been additional defensive structures, but they were all gone now. Penelope took her hand and led her through a frosty meadow. Peals of laughter greeted them as they walked across the slippery, dormant grass. Several children, accompanied by nursemaids and Lady Rowena, passed them on their way back to the Fort. The earl’s sister even smiled at them, apparently pleased by her wish.

  “Happy New Year!” Penelope cried, her words dancing on the breeze.

  Victoria pulled her bonnet more tightly over her ears. Her cheeks were already icy and she could see clouds, dark with snow, gathering above them. They ran to the wishing well, exclaiming over the quaintness of the multicolored stones that made up the base, the shiny copper bucket that was clearly maintained by the servants. In the distance, they could see people walking up from the town in their Sunday best.

  “This must be a local tradition,” Victoria commented. She took her cousin’s hand and placed a shiny new shilling in it, then pulled one out of her pocket for herself.

  “The maid told me you have to put your coin in the basket, then lower it down and tip it out as you say your wish,” Penelope reported. She tossed her coin in and began to turn the handle to lower the basket, her lips moving.

  When the basket reached the calm, reflective surface of the water, she waggled the rope until the bucket rocked and turned on its side. As the bucket righted itself, Penelope pulled it back up. “Now you have to drink a sip of the water.”

  A wooden ladle was attached to one of the well’s posts with a rope. She dipped the ladle in and took a sip, then shuddered. “Freezing!”

  Victoria glanced up as two birds flapped their wings overhead, seeming to come out of nowhere descending onto the cross post where the copper basket’s rope was hung. “White storks?” She recognized the long red beaks and the sharp black feathers at the end of each wing. “Shouldn’t they be wintering somewhere warm?”

  “Magic birds,” Penelope breathed, her face breaking into the first contented smile Victoria had seen from her this holiday. For once, she looked like a child instead of a miniature, cross adult. “They’re beautiful. Now I know my wish will come true!”

  The birds clicked, their beaks moving rapidly. Then, without warning, they lifted their wings and flew off.

  Victoria had to admit the effect of the birds had been magical, especially since they were so evidently out of season. “I hope your wish does come true.”

  “It’s your turn.” Penelope hopped up and down on one foot.

  She didn’t have much time before the townspeople made it up the hill, so Victoria quickly dropped her coin into the bucket and lowered it, until it was far beneath the water. But she didn’t know what to wish for. Some generic hope for a new husband who would smooth out the edges of her life and give her children? A specific wish that Lewis would decide he wanted her despite the cost? No, neither of those; they were both selfish. Instead, she spoke under her breath: “I wish that everyone will be healthy and all the loving relationships that have been formed at this house party are deepened and strengthened in the coming year.”

  She pulled the bucket out, hoping the well had accepted the coin. The bucket was indeed empty of anything but water. She followed Penelope’s lead and drank a sip of the icy water, then let the dipper drop back against the rocks. After a hopeful glance at the empty, leaden winter sky, she knew the birds wouldn’t be coming for her wish, but at least they’d given her an idea.

  She and her cousin stepped away from the well and exchanged holiday greetings with the townsfolk. As they walked down the hill on their way back to the Fort, she saw the first fluffy snowflake. Penelope darted ahead, trying to catch flakes on her tongue. Acting like a child again, with no worries beyond the immediate, just as she should be.

  Despite her fears for Lewis’s lungs, Victoria felt entirely uplifted by the sight. She smiled to herself as she approached the Fort. The tall stone walls seemed to reflect the gray of the sky, stern and imposing. Yet the stream and the bridge softened the medieval sight somehow, made it look almost homely. A place of refuge.

  “Let’s go peek in on Mr. Noble,” she suggested.

  “I can bring him some peppermint sticks. I know where the housekeeper keeps them.”

  “He might like that,” she agreed. “Maybe we can bring him a hot cup of chocolate with one.”

  Penelope struggled out of her coat in the front hall, handed it to a footman, and ran down the long passageway toward the housekeeper’s office to comply.

  Victoria took off her own coat and tossed everything in her room, then fixed her hair while she waited for Penelope. She still ached, but her wish had buoyed her spirits. Twenty minutes later, her cousin arrived, trailed by a maid carrying a tray with a pot of chocolate and a handful of peppermint sticks. They went down the hall and she scratched at Lewis’s door. A footman opened it and gestured them in.

  Eddy bounced up from beside the bed when they entered. Penelope did a little side-to-side hop when she saw him. He was a favorite of the girl’s.

  Considering that this might be a good way to get some time alone with Lewis, she said, “Why don’t you tell Eddy about the wishing well, Penelope? He might like to go, too.”

  As Penelope chattered happily about their experience, Victoria went to the bed. The outside light had faded due to the snow, so oil lamps had been lit and the candle sconces in the wall were ablaze, along with the fire.

  “Quite a contrast from outside,” Victoria said, placing a hand on Lewis’s forehead to check for fever.

  His eyes had
been closed, but he opened them at her touch. “Eddy said it was snowing.”

  “Yes. Penelope caught snowflakes on her tongue. Lovely to see her scampering about.”

  Lewis raised himself on an elbow. She could see a dusting of fine blond hairs in the open placket of his shirt. The sight of the strong column of his neck, the shadowed base of his throat, all made her want to lick, taste, even smell. To think he might have died today. Her breath caught in her throat and she swallowed hard.

  Forgetting about the chocolate, Penelope asked if she could take Eddy to the wishing well. At Victoria’s nod, the girl ran to retrieve her coat.

  “You sure it’s safe for me to go, guv?” Eddy said, coming back to Lewis’s side.

  “I’m perfectly well,” Lewis said. “Her ladyship will keep an eye on me.”

  “I’ll be back inside of an hour,” Eddy promised, then frowned. “I don’t have a coat.”

  “Take one of mine,” Lewis offered. “It will be close to fitting.”

  As the door slammed behind Eddy two minutes later, she smiled. “I think a whirlwind came and went through here.”

  “Felt that way to me,” Lewis said. He pushed himself into a sitting position.

  Victoria tucked pillows behind him to help.

  He nodded his thanks. “What’s on the tray?”

  She walked over to it and poured him a cup of the still-steaming liquid, then placed a peppermint stick and a piece of shortbread shaped like a tree on the saucer.

  “Very festive,” he commented as she placed the cup and saucer in his hand. “You have the look of a woman with a question.”

  “Do I?” She tilted her head.

  “Oh, yes. You’ve opened your mouth half a dozen times since you came in here, but nothing of substance has come out yet.”

  “Oh, Lewis,” she sighed. “It was the most magical surprise. Really, I almost believe in the wishing well.” Especially after the near fatal disaster.

  His lips quirked with amusement. She noted they were still rather pale, as were his cheeks, but his speech seemed fine. No wheezing or difficulty.

  “Don’t forget, I am a scientist. What happened?”

  She told him about the white storks.