When they reached the lead sleigh, he handed her in, ignoring the footman who noted his master’s intent and took a step back.
Hot bricks and carriage blankets that had been warmed before the fire were there, and while Merry pulled up her fur-lined hood and tucked her gloved hands into the matching crimson muff, Alex pulled a blanket over them both.
“What ho,” said a familiar voice from the side of the sleigh. “Is there room enough in this sleigh for two more?”
“Mr. Vessey!” Merry cried. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Alex turned to greet his friend with a nod, and he and Merry turned their knees so that Vessey and Miss Delaford could enter the interior.
“You made good time, then,” he said as Vessey ensured Miss Delaford was seated comfortably. “I hadn’t expected you until Christmas Day.”
“Despite the wretched conditions, we did manage to get here in less time than I’d have predicted,” Vessey said. To Merry he said, “My family home is not terribly far from the Keep, and I often spend the holidays here with Wroth since my own parents are long dead.”
“How dreadful,” said Miss Delaford—speaking up for the first time. She’d seemed somewhat preoccupied when she entered the carriage. Since she and Vessey were on the backward-facing bench, it enabled her to stare with some intensity at someone—or something—in the area behind him. She now turned to Vessey and very sincerely, it seemed, said, “I’m so sorry for your loss. It is a great hardship to lose one’s parents.”
Since Alex knew both of her own parents were alive and well, and likely playing whist in the drawing room of the Keep just then, he thought her dramatic tones were a bit much. But Miss Delaford was an unusual young lady, to be sure. Whereas Lady Katherine was generally a good-humored, intelligent conversationalist, Miss Delaford tended to be a bit more reticent about speaking.
But Vessey, as he usually did, just brushed aside the well-intentioned sympathy. “It’s been years now, Miss Delaford,” he assured her. “No need for tears at this late day. And aside from that, I enjoy my time at the hall. This year I was doing a bit of a favor for Wroth, here, though.”
“And what was that?” Merry asked, her blue eyes sparking with interest. Alex made a mental note to keep Vessey and his damned artless charm away from her until he’d managed to secure her acceptance to his proposal.
She slid a teasing look in his direction, and Alex forgot his mild jealousy when she said, “Have you arranged some grand surprise for your guests?”
At that moment, however, the coachman on the box of the sleigh set the vehicle in motion, and the sound of bells filled the air.
They were off.
“Don’t think you’ve escaped my questions, sir,” Merry said in a lower voice as Vessey and Miss Delaford fell into conversation.
Alex watched as the wind from their acceleration blew a lock of hair against her cheek despite the hood of her cloak. Tucking it behind her ear, he gave her a rueful smile. “I didn’t think I had,” he said. “You may ask me anything you like, and I’ll always answer you, Merry. Always.”
Her blue eyes softened just before she looked down shyly. Then, as if realizing he hadn’t really answered her question, she shook her head. “You are too clever by half, my lord. I almost lapsed into girlish cooing for a moment there.”
But he just laughed. “Ask your question again then, Miss Inquisitive.”
“What was Vessey bringing to you from London?” she asked without hesitation. “Does it have anything to do with the parcels loaded into the last sleigh?”
She didn’t miss anything, did she?
“Yes, as it happens,” he said with a note of surrender. “Vessey saw to it that the food and toys I ordered in London were here in time for our visit with the tenants. He actually arrived last night, but didn’t wish to disturb the rest of the party, so he went directly to his rooms.”
“You could have had the servants here prepare the food for the tenants, surely?” she seemed puzzled. Then her gaze turned sympathetic. “Though I suppose you couldn’t instruct your grandmother to oversee the project.”
“No,” Alex agreed. “And given that she thinks the enterprise is a waste of time and resources, I don’t think she’d have given the task her all under any circumstances.”
“So you improvised,” Merry said with a nod of approval. To his amusement, Alex felt a jolt of relief at her blessing. He was a lovesick fool.
“So I improvised,” he said in agreement. “And this way, the kitchens, which are already overburdened with the holiday guests, are not pressed into more work. “Some of the gifts were for them, as well,” he added conspiratorially. “But they won’t have them until Christmas morning.”
“You’re a thoughtful gentleman,” Merry told him solemnly. And Alex wished like hell they were in a closed carriage and not sitting across from chattering Vessey and Miss Delaford.
“Thank you, Miss Parks,” he said, noting that she didn’t look away from his heated gaze.
“Oh, I say, lovebirds?” Vessey broke into their shared moment. “While you were cooing sweet nothings, we’ve managed to arrive at the tenant farms.”
And sure enough, Alex recognized the first tenant cottage at the edge of the property. It was the home of George Smith and his wife, Alice, and their two children.
Everyone disembarked from the sleighs, and the footmen who’d accompanied them brought round a pallet with a rope handle attached, upon which they’d stacked the items from London.
Each pair would visit a cottage with food and toys, and when they’d visited them all, they’d meet again at the sleighs for the ride back to the hall.
To Alex’s pleasure, Merry took it for granted that she’d accompany him. Slipping her arm through his, she walked with him, her half boots crunching over the path he’d had cleared earlier by grooms from the house so that his guests could walk comfortably. “Do you know the tenants well?” she asked as they neared the gate of the Smith cottage. “I imagine, since you were in France for nearly a year, you’ve not seen them in some time.”
It was a truth that gave him a pang of guilt. He had a good steward, who was fair and decent to the tenants in his absence, but he knew there was no substitute for input from the master of the estate.
“It has been some time,” he said, “though I hope very soon to settle at the Keep for most of the year. Once I’m able to make a few changes to the current occupants.”
Merry’s brow rose as she turned to look at him, but she didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure if she was pleased or concerned.
Then George and Alice Smith were opening their door to them and exclaiming over the gifts he and Merry had taken from the footmen earlier.
And for the first time in some years, he felt perfectly content.
* * *
By the time their visits to the tenants were completed, Merry was tired but happy. It had been surprisingly touching to see the genuine pleasure in the faces of the children as they tore open their toys and books. And their parents, who could, she knew, have greeted the man whose land they worked with contempt, had seemed genuinely pleased that Alex had called on them in person.
“I remember your dear mother,” said Mrs. Pierson, an older woman who lived with her son and his wife on the estate, “when she would come round at Christmas with cakes and the like, milord, and it does my heart good to see ye’ve got a touch of her in ye. She was a sweet lady, and I know it ain’t proper to speak of her, but she’s yer mam, so ye must care about her.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Pierson,” he responded, and Merry could feel the pleasure he took in hearing the kind words. “I do not mind the mention of her in the least. She was and is a kind and decent lady. And I feel sure she’ll recall you with kindness when I relate this meeting to her in my next letter.”
At his mention that his mother was a just a posted letter away, Mrs. Pierson’s mouth gaped. Then, she laughed—cackled really, though Merry was loath to think it that way given her kindness�
�and beamed at Alex. “That does my heart happy, milord. I never did think she got treated right by the old lord, if ye’ll excuse an old woman’s way of thinking. I’m glad you’re in touch with her.”
And many of the tenants, at least the older ones who’d been there in his mother’s time, had expressed pleasure at the resurrection of her Christmas tradition and shared remembrances of her.
Added to the joy that gave Alex, Merry felt her own heart swell with pride whenever he introduced her to a family. “This is my dear friend, Miss Merry Parks. I hope you’ll make her feel welcome.”
Though he didn’t say anything overt about her role in his life, she got the sense that he was showing her off. She couldn’t help but be gratified by the gesture, though she also felt a pang of concern that she’d still not confided to him just what his grandmother had done to them five years earlier.
She’d almost begun to hope that she could simply continue on without disclosing the information to him at all. But with every introduction, and every warm welcome, she knew she couldn’t continue behaving as his prospective bride—in all but name, at least—without giving him a chance to hear the true reason she’d left him. Perhaps he already knew his grandmother had a hand in it, but he deserved to hear the story from her. And though she knew he was fair, there was the possibility that he would hear her accusation against the dowager and take his grandmother’s side.
When they’d finally completed their last visit, they rejoined the others at the sleighs, and soon enough were disembarking near the terrace at the back of the house, where coal heaters had been placed at regular intervals. On either side of the squared-off area were tables with food and hot drinks.
“How lovely,” Merry said with surprise. “The perfect ending to a perfect day.”
“I’m so pleased you’re pleased,” Alex said, as he led her to a table. “Now, I’ll fetch you a plate.” Then, his eyes going to where she’d thrown back her hood, he added, “And a hot drink. You’re looking a bit chilly, despite the heaters.”
Merry didn’t dispute what he’d said, only nodded. “Thank you, my lord.”
He gave her a speaking look at the use of the honorific, but turned to head for the food table.
It wasn’t long before Lady Katherine and Miss Delaford had joined her at the table, as their escorts—Mr. Ponsonby and Mr. Vessey—joined Alex in the queue for food.
They’d been chatting about their experiences during the day, Lady Katherine giving a particularly amusing anecdote about a child who’d been so pleased with his hoop and ball that he’d been overenthusiastic and hit himself in the head with it.
Then, as if she’d not even heard Lady Katherine’s tale, Miss Delaford turned to Merry. “Miss Parks,” she said with a serious expression, “might I trouble you to come with me. There is something most . . . important I need to tell you.”
Merry exchanged a glance with Lady Katherine, who seemed just as nonplussed as Merry by the other girl’s odd request. Still, she supposed Miss Delaford was in need of a friend—especially given that her pursuit of Lord Wrotham wasn’t likely to prove successful.
“I suppose I can give you a few moments, Miss Delaford,” she told the other lady, who almost went limp with relief at the assent.
“Thank you, Miss Parks,” said Miss Delaford with a smile that made her normally serious visage light up with a pretty glow. “I promise you it will only take a few moments.”
“Shall I come with you, ladies?” asked Lady Katherine, who despite her smile seemed not to be comfortable with the situation.
Merry was about to tell her there was no need when Miss Delaford looked at the blonde thoughtfully. As if weighing the advisability of adding her to the mysterious errand party.
“Yes, why don’t you come with us?” she said with a nod, as if the idea was growing on her. “Shall we go quickly before the gentlemen return?”
Grateful that Katherine had offered to go with them, Merry rose, and she and Katherine followed the diminutive Miss Delaford into the darkness beyond the torches lighting the terrace.
It wasn’t quite nightfall, so once her eyes adjusted, Merry was able to see that Miss Delaford was leading them to the outbuildings lined up at the side of the house. She had no idea what they were, but in a house this size, there were generally a laundry and other utility spaces where the work of maintaining a large estate could be performed at a distance from the main house.
“Not too much farther,” said Miss Delaford over her shoulder.
Katherine, walking beside Merry, said in a low voice only she could hear, “I get the feeling we’re being led into the deep, dark wood.”
“She does seem a bit fey, does she not?” Merry asked in the same undertone.
“My dear Miss Delaford,” called Katherine to her in a louder voice. “It’s becoming quite cold. I think perhaps we’d better turn back.”
At that Miss Delaford turned, and once again her face was transformed by a beaming smile. “But we’re here.” She said this with the air of one facing a long coveted treat. “Come, I must show you. You’ll both be quite pleased, I promise you.”
At that moment, Merry realized she was standing before a small stone building. Miss Delaford had her hand on the curved door handle and waited while the other two ladies caught up to her and stopped beside her at the door.
Pulling the door open, Miss Delaford moved to the side so that Merry and Katherine could go in first.
The interior of the shed was dim, but there was a lantern on the floor, and Merry and Katherine moved single file into the doorway, drawn to the light.
But it was the sound of an infant gurgle that made Merry step all the way into the room. There, in a small basket beside the lantern, was Lottie, bundled against the cold, but there inside the cold shed—where she had no business to be.
“Miss Delaford, what is this?” Merry knelt beside the child, who seemed to be growing restless.
“No! Wait, Emily, please!” She heard Katherine exclaim behind her and turned in time to see the door to the shed slamming in the other girl’s face.
“Let us out, Emily,” called Katherine through the heavy wood door even as she tried to push it open with her shoulder.
But it was fruitless, and almost in the next second they heard the unmistakable sound of a bolt being slid into place.
“Emily!” Katherine shouted. “Don’t do this! Please!”
Her raised voice upset Lottie, who began adding her cries to Lady Katherine’s. Merry held the squalling infant against her and tried to soothe her, but she herself wasn’t feeling particularly calm at the moment, either.
“Katherine,” she called to the other lady, who seemed to be growing more desperate by the minute. “It’s no use. She’s gone.”
Sure enough, they’d not heard anything from the other side of the door for some minutes, though the sound of Lottie’s cries might have drowned any other noise out.
But when the baby finally subsided into a few sobbing gulps, then quieted, the silence around them was deafening.
“She locked us in,” Katherine said, turning from the door with a stunned look in her eyes. “Why would she do that?”
Merry was just as surprised as her companion was. But of one thing she was sure.
“She used the baby to lure us inside,” she said, her voice flat with anger.
Whatever reasons Miss Delaford had to wish harm on Lady Katherine and Merry, she had no reason for endangering an innocent infant in the process.
“What are we going to do?”
She could hear the note of panic in Katherine’s voice, and Merry tried to reassure her as she had done with the baby. “I’m sure Lord Wrotham and Mr. Ponsonby will notice our absence. It can’t have taken them that long to return to our table.”
“You hope,” Katherine said. “I hope.”
“They have to find us,” Merry said with a sureness she didn’t quite feel. “They have to.”
Because the alternative was a night spent in t
he freezing cold with nothing to warm them but their coats and a single lamp.
“They have to find us,” she repeated.
And hoped with every ounce of will in her body that she was right.
Chapter Nine
When Alex returned to the table where he’d left Merry, a heaping plate of cakes and meat pies in each hand, he found it empty.
Which was odd, since he remembered as he was leaving Lady Katherine had come to sit with her.
“Where did they go?” asked Will, setting down two similarly laden plates on the table.
The two men scanned the terrace, which was crowded with holly-and-ivy-decorated tables. It was a festive scene, and one at odds with the pang of worry in Alex’s chest.
“I say.” Vessey came upon them and swiftly unburdened himself of his own plates of food. “You haven’t seen Miss Delaford, have you? I said I’d fetch her some cakes, but I can’t seem to find her anywhere. She said she’d be sitting with Miss Parks, but I haven’t seen her, either.”
“Wait here,” Alex told the other two men. Letting Will explain things to Vessey, he went in search of Quick, who was overseeing the outdoor dining room from a position beside the wassail bowl.
When he saw Alex approaching, Quick’s gaze went sharp. “What is it, my lord?” he asked before Alex even had a chance to speak up. Long years in the family’s service had trained the man to recognize a concerned expression when he saw it.
“Quick,” said Alex, as he drew the man away from where they’d be overheard, “have you seen Miss Parks or Lady Katherine since we returned? Perhaps they went inside to freshen up after the long drive?”
“Not since you first returned, my lord,” Quick said with a frown. “One moment.”
Catching the eye of a nearby footman, he sent the man to see if either Lady Katherine or Merry were in their bedchambers.
Deciding to wait until he heard back to take action, Alex thanked Quick and returned to the table where he’d left the other two men. They’d taken seats but weren’t eating, and as he approached, Will looked up. “Did they go inside?”
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