Twenty minutes later, shivering hard enough to make their teeth chatter, they met once again at the top of the attic stairs. Christine’s eyes were bleak. “I’m glad she isn’t here, poor little mite,” she said, determined to maintain her optimism that Linny would be found. “She would be quite frozen.”
“Yes, my lady.”
What a very odd look on Sally’s face, but Christine was so anxious to join the search in the main part of the house she dismissed all thoughts of her maid’s peculiar expression.
When another quarter hour of searching proved fruitless, Christine’s concern escalated to near terror. She had been so certain Linny was deliberately hiding herself away. But what if Daphne was right? What if she had been stolen?
No, no, no. No one would be cruel enough to steal a child two days before Christmas.
Surely.
Bainbridge, she had to find Bainbridge. She needed him. Needed him to assure her Linny would be found, found safe and well…
After the cellars revealed nothing the earl had turned his attention to the little-used west wing of Ashford Park. Christine hurried in that direction, only to be told he had left abruptly some minutes before, ordering the footmen to continue the search without him. Left? He had left?
How could he?
A maid shrieked, a footman gave a whoop of joy. Shouts, running feet. Behind her. Christine picked up her skirts and dashed back to the central part of the house. And there was Bainbridge, descending the stairs from the nursery to the bedroom floor, carrying Linny in his arms with Sally trailing after.
“She’s had a bit of a chill but otherwise she’s fine,” Bainbridge offered as he set Linny down so she could run into her sister’s arms.
“Where?” Christine demanded, even as she hugged Linny tight and tears rolled down both sisters’ faces. “Linny, where have you been? How could you frighten us so?”
“Why don’t we adjourn to the drawing room?” Harlan suggested smoothly. To the servants he added, “Our heartfelt thanks for your efforts. Heat the wassail and joy to all!” More softly he added, “Christine, Linny, Daphne, Miss Applegate, Sally, come with me.”
When they were settled in the drawing room, with Linny snuggled close into Christine’s side, the Earl of Bainbridge, forcing his features to a sternness he did not feel, regarded the youngest Ashford sister. “Now, Linny, you will please tell us why you have set the whole household at sixes and sevens.”
Lady Belinda, quite naturally, burst into loud sobs.
“Beast,” Daphne hissed.
“He is quite right,” Christine countered. “We must know the meaning of this.”
Linny thrust her face into her eldest sister’s shoulder. Her whole body quivered but not a word passed her lips.
“If I may, my lady?” Sally ventured, “I believe I can explain.”
“Please do,” the earl intoned.
“I beg your pardon, my lady but, well…when we were searching the attic, I wasn’t truthful. I found Lady Belinda—”
“You what?”
“I’m right sorry, but hear me out, my lady!” Sally had to scrub her own tears with a corner of her apron before she could proceed. “I found her all tucked up in a trunk, with clothes all around. Like a cocoon, they were, keeping her warm. But when she saw me she near had a fit. Told me to go away, that I wasn’t supposed to find her.” Bainbridge made an odd sound in his throat. “She told me,” Sally continued, “to put the lid back down. That only his lordship could find her. And because I was beginning to see what was going on in her head, I did as she asked. And though I’m right sorry for deceiving you, my lady, I truly think it was for the best, even if you wish to dismiss me.” Sally threw her apron up before her face, her sobs joining Linny’s.
“Sally came to me,” Harlan said, “and hinted me to the trunk in the attic. I didn’t understand the why of it at the time but I believe I do now.”
Still puzzled, Christine looked from her youngest sister to Harlan and back again. “Linny,” she said softly, “please, dear, won’t you explain?”
Slowly, Linny raised her tear-streaked face from Christine’s shoulder. She sniffed and Daphne stepped forward to hand her a fresh handkerchief as Christine’s was already sodden. After blowing her nose and wiping her cheeks, Lady Belinda said very softly, “I wanted…I wanted Bainbridge to find me…because then he’d be a hero…and you’d like him better.”
“Oh my dear!” Christine hugged her little sister tight, murmuring words of reassurance even as her soul shriveled and writhed. She had done this. She had brought Linny to this point. Her stubborn clinging to the past, wallowing in grief when she should have been helping her loved ones cope with the world as it was now. When she should have been…more to the man who had made their new lives possible. Much more.
“It’s getting late, dearest,” Christine murmured in Linny’s ear. “Go with Miss Applegate and I’m sure Cook will send up a fine supper. And you can dream of what you will find in your plum pudding. And Linny,” she added, “I do think Bainbridge a hero, truly I do. I promise to do better.”
The drawing room emptied quickly, leaving the Earl of Bainbridge and his lady to settle their differences.
“Christine,” Harlan choked out, “the fault is not all yours. Living apart, as we have, was my idea, and obviously not a good one. And you should know I never mentioned Lady Sarah Hutton because there was nothing to tell. Long ago our parents had hopes of a match but I have seen her only once in the past five years and never gave her cause for expectations. If she had any, they were all in her head. Christine?”
“Thank you for saying that,” his wife returned on a whisper, “but you are too generous. Linny was entirely right. I have been a beast. A cold, unfeeling beast.”
“No!”
“Do not be gallant, Bainbridge. ‘Heartless witch’ might be the best epithet.”
When he moved to sweep her up in his arms Christine held up her hand, palm out. “No, my lord…for one last time. My emotions are all helter-skelter, bouncing from wishing to strangle my baby sister to anguish over my guilt to…quite new emotions I need time to examine.” Christine stood, curtsied. “I bid you good night.”
Stunned, not quite sure what had just happened, the Earl of Bainbridge watched his wife sweep out of the room, bloodied but unbowed.
After a more than nodding acquaintance with the brandy bottle in the bookroom, Harlan climbed the stairs to his bedchamber, his feeling of aloneness exacerbated by the sight and scent of the Christmas greenery and the disgustingly cheerful red velvet bows. To the devil with pinecones, holly, mistletoe. Perhaps he’d order a bonfire tomorrow, burn the lot of them, down to the last pinecone.
For a moment they had been so close. He’d thought Linny’s plan had done the trick. And then, slippery as an eel, his wife had refused to take the final step, leaving him alone with his regrets. Confound it! Here he was, surrounded by a classic English Christmas in a great country house and he’d had better holidays in the wilds of Rupert’s Land.
No, he hadn’t. In the New World he had been truly alone. Here he had a ready-made family…and a wife—a lovely wife, a potentially warm and wonderful wife—a wife who would one day be his.
Patience!
Negotiators were known for their patience, he reminded himself for the hundredth time.
Perhaps it was just as well he had given up the diplomatic service, for that particular virtue seemed to have deserted him.
Harlan pushed open the door to his bedchamber, drawing in the warmth of a roaring fire after the chill of the hall. His valet, Edwards, was not waiting for him, which was odd, but undoubtedly he was still enjoying the wassail. Edwards had, however, drawn the heavy burgundy velvet curtains around his bed in an evident effort to preserve the effects of the warming pan.
At least somebody cared whether his bed was warm or cold.
Harlan kicked off his boots, stripped off his clothes and eyed the woolen bed-shirt and nightcap laid over the back of a chair
. His valet always laid them out, Harlan always refused to wear them. What was England’s winter compared to the northern reaches of Rupert’s land?
He drew back the drapery near the head of the bed…and jumped back a full foot as he encountered the wide-eyed gaze of his wife. She stared, her lips turned up. Hands over her face, she began to giggle.
Christine? Giggling like a schoolgirl?
He was standing in front of her stark naked. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d jumped up and run screaming from the room. But she simply sat there, propped up against a mound of pillows, and peeked at him over the tops of her fingers. What had she just said? Come to bed before you freeze?
He didn’t move.
“Bainbridge… Harlan, listen to me.” She held out her hand. “This has been a year of quite terrible surprises. The only good thing in it has been you. So I wanted to end the year with one last surprise. A good one, I hope. Will you have me, Harlan? For I truly wish to be your wife.”
Every last one of his gilded words failed him but somehow his feet moved. He slipped into bed beside her, and as he clasped her hand in both of his he managed to find his voice. “The last, and best, surprise,” he murmured and swept her into his arms, holding her tight for long moments before his lips finally found hers.
They never noticed when the fire died down and the room grew cold. New life, new hope, new love had come to Ashford Park at last.
About Blair Bancroft
Blair Bancroft is an award-winning author, multi-published in several different romance genres. Her eclectic background includes a career in music, with forays into editing and costume design. She wrote her first novel only after it occurred to her that her mother being a successful author didn’t mean she couldn’t be one too. Blair has traveled most of the United States and as far away as Siberia and Machu Picchu, with emphasis on touring Great Britain and Ireland, and enjoys using bits of her travel experiences in her books.
Blair welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Blair Bancroft
Christmas Kisses: Mistletoe Moment
Steeplechase
Tarleton’s Wife
Print books by Blair Bancroft
Christmas Kisses anthology
Steeplechase
Tarleton’s Wife
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
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The Last Surprise
ISBN 9781419942280
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The Last Surprise Copyright © 2012 Blair Bancroft
Edited by Ann Leveille
Cover design by Dar Albert
Photos: Foltolia.com
Electronic book publication October 2012
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