Christmas Carol

by Speer, Flora

  She knew the answers to those questions as if they were engraved upon her heart. She would always love Nicholas, but if he could not love her, then she would work with him for as long as he allowed her to and she would see to it that they helped as many people as possible. And she would always try to remember that in a future world—a different future world from the one she had known—she and the man she loved would be together. If in this lifetime she was not fated to know Nicholas’s passionate love, then she would earn his respect.

  Nor would she be alone. She would have friends, the Kincaids, Nell and Hettie, Mrs. Marks and Crampton, the Bascomes if she were lucky—and perhaps even Nicholas’s friendship, too. It was not all she wanted, but it might have to be enough. Knowing there was more to come in another lifetime, she would learn to be content.

  “This is the gift that Lady Augusta has given me,” Carol whispered, “and for it I shall be forever grateful. Forever. Thanks to her, I know that this life is not the end.”

  Chapter 21

  Nicholas’s dinner party for the Kincaids and the Bascomes was a great success, the three men enjoying themselves with tales of their school years which Carol suspected were highly embroidered. While the men talked the women got acquainted, and by evening’s end Carol was sure they were going to be friends. Which, from her point of view, was exactly as it should be.

  In fact, the evening was similar in spirit to the ones Carol had enjoyed in the Lond of the future, in the kitchen of a ruined version of Marlowe House. This time, the conversation was a good deal more cheerful.

  “I have begun inquiries as you wanted,” Will Bascome said to Nicholas. “I believe it will be possible for us to acquire the lease on the house next door.”

  “Are you planning to rejoin the two halves of Marlowe House once again?” Carol asked Nicholas.

  “It would create too big a house to be practical, and who knows what the needs of the future will be?” he answered. “We might want two separate houses. I did think, Will, that you and Joanna might like to design your own flat on the top two floors of the building next door, and we could use the lower levels as offices for the Montfort-Marlowe Charitable Trust. Perhaps Lucius will have some people among his flock whom we could hire to do the work. Talk to him, Will, he knows them all and knows who needs a job.” This last was said with a mischievous grin in Lucius Kincaid’s direction.

  The week following the arrival of Nicholas Montfort in London was a busier one than Carol had experienced for some time. She had never realized how much work was involved in spending large amounts of money. In company with Nicholas she visited Lady Augusta’s solicitors, where she did not hesitate to voice her opinions as to what her late employer would have wanted done with the money she had left behind. It quickly became clear to her that Nicholas was right when he told her it would take time before Lady Augusta’s estate could be settled and all the taxes on it paid.

  Thanks to Nicholas’s quick action in regard to his own fortune, which was entirely within his control, by the end of the week arrangements were well in hand for continuous funding of St. Fiacre’s Bountiful Board. When Nicholas approached Crampton and Mrs. Marks about taking positions at St. Fiacre’s, their responses were immediate and positive.

  “I do not doubt that you would prefer a more youthful butler and cook if you intend to remain in London,” Crampton said to Nicholas, “and while Mrs. Marks would never admit to such a thing, I believe she has found the last few days rather tiring.”

  “Indeed not,” that worthy lady protested. “I could continue as I am doing for years to come, but I do feel I could be of more use at St. Fiacre’s. However, neither I nor Crampton will leave Marlowe House until a new cook and butler have been installed.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Marks.” Nicholas’s response to this speech was as serious as the cook could have wished. “I am grateful to you for your consideration. If either of you should happen to learn of anyone qualified to join my staff, please let me, or Miss Simmons, know of it.”

  Nell and Hettie were to be kept on at Marlowe House at increased wages, and Hettie had been signed up for a course in remedial reading at Nicholas’s expense.

  “You are being very generous,” Carol told him.

  “I will be paid back in loyalty and better service,” he responded. “If those two young women are as intelligent as you think they are, they won’t remain lower-echelon servants for long. I take great pleasure in promoting deserving employees.”

  Repairs to Marlowe House were to begin shortly after the New Year, and Nicholas was discussing with Lucius Kincaid and Will Bascome just what ought to be done to restore St. Fiacre’s Church to good condition. A donation would soon be made to cover most of the restoration bills.

  Carol was pleased with all of these changes, which she believed would have a positive impact on the future. It was the present that disturbed her, for Nicholas continued to preserve his cool, professional demeanor with her. Nor had he played that haunting waltz a second time on Lady Augusta’s old stereo. It was almost as though he felt no personal connection to Carol at all. She began to wonder if she would, as she feared, have to resign herself to being only his business associate in this present lifetime.

  At mid-week a strange little incident occurred that left Carol perplexed and eager to question Lady Augusta at their next meeting. Will Bascome announced that he had obtained four tickets to a popular play for the following night, which was Thursday. He invited Nicholas and Carol to join himself and Joanna.

  “It’s a wonderful idea, Will. We could all use a break. We will go on to dinner afterward,” Nicholas decided. “Miss Simmons, would you mind informing Crampton and Mrs. Marks of our change in plans? Perhaps the servants would like a night off, too.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Montfort.” Silently cursing his formality and her own, Carol hastened to the kitchen. There she discovered Mrs. Marks with a large knife in hand, attacking a boiled lobster as if it were a personal enemy. Without comment Carol delivered her message. She knew Mrs. Marks well enough by now to be aware that she would not have to wait long before she was told exactly what was troubling the cook.

  “I’m sure I could use an evening to myself,” said Mrs. Marks, taking a vicious whack at the lobster. “There’s others what would also enjoy an extra night out on the town. Nell has started seeing that young man she met at St. Fiacre’s on Christmas Eve. Mrs. Kincaid says he’s a decent enough fellow, but he hasn’t got a job. Nell pays for the cinema and for their tea afterward, too. In my day, a respectable man would never let a lady pay his way. Mrs. Kincaid says times have changed, but I say, not for the better.”

  “What young man?” Carol asked, disregarding Mrs. Marks’s other complaints. “I didn’t know Nell was dating anyone.”

  “She wasn’t, till this week. Here they come now,” Mrs. Marks hissed in a stage whisper.

  Out of the servants’ dining room issued Nell, her blond curls dancing and her plump cheeks pink with an emotion Carol could not immediately define. A tall, fair-haired young man was right behind her. Crampton followed the couple into the kitchen. He was finishing what sounded to Carol like a serious lecture.

  “I will expect you to have Nell home by eleven o’clock at the latest,” Crampton warned the young man. “I stand in the place of her late parents and I feel responsible for her, so I will hold you to this time-honored household rule.”

  “Sure, Mr. Crampton. I’ll see she’s back in time,” said the young man in an offhanded way.

  “Oh, Miss Simmons,” said Nell, catching sight of her, “this is Allen Symms. Al, this is the lady I told you about.”

  “Al?” When the young man stuck out his hand, Carol took it, but she could think of nothing else to say to him. He did not appear to notice her tongue-tied condition, nor did Nell.

  “We’re off to see that new movie,” Nell told Carol, adding in a low voice, “You’d think Crampton and Mrs. Marks were my grandparents, they’re so fussy about where I go and what time I come back
.”

  “They care about you,” Carol said. “Have a good time.” As the young couple went through the servants’ entrance and up the outside steps, Carol stared after them.

  “Nell and Al together?” she murmured to herself. “There is no way in heaven or earth that I will ever understand this development. I wonder what Lady Augusta would say?”

  “An interesting question, Miss Simmons, and one with which I quite agree.” Crampton was standing closer to her than Mrs. Marks and he had overheard her remark, but he could not possibly have known why Carol found the pairing so incomprehensible.

  “There’s no accounting for young people’s activities these days,” Mrs. Marks put in. “If you ask me, that boy is just not right for Nell.”

  Carol was left with a sense of bewilderment. She was unable to understand why two couples—the Kincaids and Nell with her new friend—were so mixed up when they ought to be paired off differently. And yet Lucius Kincaid and his wife seemed to be perfectly happy in their marriage. Perhaps couples did not always find each other in every lifetime. It was a depressing idea.

  Whatever her concerns about her friends, Carol soon put such thoughts aside in order to concentrate on her own relationship with Nicholas Montfort—or rather, her lack of a relationship with him. Throughout their evening with the Bascomes, at the theater and the dinner afterward, Nicholas behaved toward her with the same air of polite but detached formality that permeated all their activities together. Carol was beginning to believe he felt nothing at all for her.

  After a nightcap in the library on their return to Marlowe House, the Bascomes decided to retire. Nicholas and Carol followed them up the stairs, and they all said their good nights in the upper hall. Their bedroom door closed behind Will and Joanna, leaving Carol and Nicholas alone.

  “Good night, Mr. Montfort.” Carol started up the second flight of stairs toward her own room.

  She never knew what made her suddenly look over the railing toward Nicholas in the hall below. Perhaps it was the sudden faint whiff of lavender in the air, or possibly it was the fact that Nicholas did not respond to her words.

  He was standing by the door into Lady Augusta’s old suite, with one hand on the polished brass lever. She caught him by surprise, with all of his polite, professional barriers down. He was gazing up at her with such an expression of stark longing on his face that Carol stopped dead, gazing back at him.

  “Nicholas?” For the first time she used his given name.

  “Carol.” His voice was a whisper, but still she heard him. With his eyes locked on hers he drew nearer to the staircase where she remained standing, unable to move. Reaching up, he placed one hand over hers on the banister as if to keep her where she was. He spoke again in the same harsh whisper. “Who are you?”

  “I am Carol Noelle Simmons.”

  “That is not what I meant and you know it.” His voice was rough, as if he were fighting against an emotion he did not want to acknowledge. “Who are you? ‘What are you, that you can have this effect on me?”

  She did not answer in words. Instead, she bent forward to caress his face with her free hand. Nicholas caught his breath—and caught her hand, holding it tightly so she could not pull away from him.

  “We have met somewhere before,” he said. “That must be it. I can’t think of another explanation for what has happened to me in the last few days.”

  “And what is that, Nicholas?” Carol moved down one step and then another, slowly returning to the hall where he stood. She paused on the second step. “Tell me what you feel.”

  “You are—significant to me.” Then, as if he could maintain his rigid self-control no longer, he burst out in a low, ragged voice, “My God, how do you expect me to feel? Since the first moment I saw you, all I can think about is taking you in my arms, taking you to my bed. On Christmas night I did not know you, I had never seen you before that I could remember, but I could not get you out of my mind. I don’t think I have slept an hour since I reached London. And every day, seeing you, working with you, having to hide what I’m feeling—”

  “No one would ever suspect.” Carol was amazed to discover that she could keep her voice so level when Nicholas was losing control. She held on to his hands and looked straight into his eyes. “I didn’t guess. I thought you were indifferent to me. I could only hope that one day you might regard me as a friend.”

  “Friend?” he choked. “Far more than that. This isn’t supposed to happen! I am a sensible, practical businessman. What I am feeling belongs to fairy tales and medieval legends. Intelligent men do not fall madly in love at first sight or imagine that they have known someone else since the beginning of time. I think I must be going mad,” he concluded.

  “Could you entertain the possibility that we might be meant to be together?” she asked.

  “Do you mean fate? I have known people in the Orient who believed in such things.” He looked even harder at her. “Is that what you believe? Do you feel the same way that I do?”

  “Since the moment when I looked up and saw you standing at the top of the servants’ steps,”’ she said, “I have known there was a deep connection between us. I was only afraid that you would never know it—at least, not in this time.”

  “Carol.” He did not remark on her last words. Perhaps at a later time he would ask her about them. If he did, she would answer him honestly, for she could never lie to him.

  She watched him move to the bottom of the staircase, still holding her hands in his over the railing, until he faced her directly, from two steps below her.

  He lifted her hands to his lips. It required only a little tug on Carol’s part to make him release her hands so she could put them around his neck and entwine her fingers in his thick, dark hair. She leaned downward, balancing herself against his shoulders. His arms went around her, holding her above him for a long moment while he gazed at her as if to assure himself that this was what she wanted, too.

  “Nicholas,” she whispered in response to his silent question, “hold me. Don’t ever let me go again.”

  Slowly, deliberately, he let her body slide along his until they were face-to-face. Another long moment passed as they looked into each other’s eyes, learning eternal truths that would for the present remain unspoken. And then their mouths met in a bruising kiss that released all the pent-up passion each was feeling. When it was over they were breathless.

  Carol threw back her head, moaning her pleasure as Nicholas’s mouth skimmed along her throat. Eagerly she clutched at his shoulders, and cried out a second time when she felt the touch of his tongue on the sensitive skin just beneath the slashed neckline of her dress.

  “Hush,” he cautioned, “or we’ll waken Joanna and Will. I don’t want company just now, do you?”

  Carol could not answer. She only nestled her face into his shoulder and let him touch her where he would. It was a relief when he picked her up and started for his bedroom. She did not think she could have stood on her own feet for much longer. Her knees were decidedly weak.

  He shut the door with his shoulder and carried her across the room to the huge old bed. There he laid her down and bent over her to unfasten the buttons at the front of her dress. His mouth followed his fingers all the way down to her waist. Carol stretched luxuriously, kicking off her shoes.

  “This room,” she murmured, “is where Lady Augusta used to sleep.”

  “It is the bedchamber of the master of Marlowe House,” he corrected her. “When I was a boy, this suite was my grandfather’s. It is mine now.”

  “I don’t know about your grandfather,” she said softly, pulling his head downward as she spoke so she could kiss him again, “but somehow, I don’t think Lady Augusta would mind in the least if she could know we are here together.”

  There followed a long pause while Nicholas indulged himself in the taste of her lips and her inner mouth, and Carol responded eagerly to what he was doing. His hands were working at the front of her dress, unbuckling her belt, unfasten
ing the last few buttons, pushing fabric aside. Carol scarcely noticed what he did. She had spent the last five days and nights in an agony of longing for this man, and now she was reveling in the wonder of his lips on hers. She whimpered at the loss when he removed his mouth from hers to raise his head and gaze down at her.

  “Carol, my sweet, how beautiful you are.” She was surprised to note that he had removed her clothing down to her plain white slip and her bra. In a reflexive act she crossed her hands over her bosom.

  “I wish,” she whispered, “that I were wearing something glamorous made of silk and trimmed in yards of lace.”

  “The wrappings don’t matter.” With a slow, sensuous motion he laced his fingers into hers and gently tugged her hands away from their protective position, spreading her arms wide upon the bed. In the same deliberate manner he pulled the straps of her slip downward and unfastened her bra to reveal her breasts. “It is the package inside that counts and you, my dear, are a rare gift. Never before have I met a woman as generous and tenderhearted as you are. Will you be generous with me tonight?”

  “Tonight and always,” she murmured. So sure was she of him that she felt no need to be cautious in words or deeds. “I have waited for you all of my life. And on Christmas night there you were, looking at me from the top of the stairs, the most wonderful Christmas gift I have ever received.”

  “And here I thought you were my Christmas present,” he responded with a chuckle. “Carol…” His lips brushed hers again, their breaths mingling in a sigh of recognition and joy.

  All of their movements were slow, as if they had all the time in eternity. Carol unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off along his arms, her every motion as she removed it speaking of tenderness and desire. Slowly she caressed Nicholas’s shoulders and his chest. He lay quietly, allowing her to do whatever she wanted to him.