Regency Christmas Wishes (9781101220030)

by Layton, Edith; Jensen, Emma

  No promises, she’d reminded herself again and again, until her heart stopped aching. They had made no promises to each other. They had spent one heady month, hand in hand as they walked. Kissed once, tentatively, under the ash boughs. Or rather, Alice amended now, she had been shy and tentative. Gareth had been much as he ever was: strong, assertive, that current of impatience roiling just beneath his surface.

  Now Alice stopped halfway between the window and her bed. She tilted the dressing-table mirror until she could see herself, a bit shadowed in the firelight, but clear enough. She reached out one hand, traced the reflection of her cheek with a fingertip. She wondered if he thought her very changed. Of course he did. She was changed. My lovely elf, he’d called her as he’d kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, her lips. Then, more gruffly, Run home now, elf. This is no place for the likes of you. Or, Alice thought might have been unspoken, for the likes of him.

  Perhaps while he was holding her he’d already really been gone, his insatiable mind out in the world. Perhaps there had been no future in his kiss after all, only a goodbye.

  And now it didn’t matter. Tipping the mirror away again, Alice slipped out of her dressing gown and into bed. She needed to sleep. There was so much to do to prepare for Christmas, for the baby. Gareth would stay until the birth, until he knew whether he would be the Earl of Kilcullen or remain the Honorable Gareth Blackwell. Either way, he would probably be gone again within a sennight.

  Remember, find charity in your heart, cailín.

  Forgive me, Alice.

  Our characters are formed long before we have the will or ability to forge them.

  Well, that was it, then. She was the pliant, reliable Alice Ashe; he was the wild, roving Gareth Blackwell. He had come home and she was going to be as welcoming as she could be. Even if she went mad in the process.

  3

  It was past ten when Gareth wandered downstairs the following morning. He remembered Alice’s stern announcement regarding breakfast, but was hopeful nonetheless. Damned if he knew why, but Ireland made him hungry. He wanted something to eat. Then he intended to find Alice.

  The sunny east parlor where his mother had always breakfasted was empty. So was the small family dining room. As he wandered through the downstairs rooms, Gareth tried to conjure up happy memories. He must have run through the portrait hall, clattering a stick along the panels, ridden a hobby-horse through the drawing room’s sliding doors and into the music room. Odd. All he could recall was leaving the house: skidding along the marble foyer floor before launching himself down the front stairs, rattling the glass panes in the library’s French door in his impatience to get to the lawns that sloped away from the house. Climbing the ivy outside his window. Up to the roof to see the stars. Down to the gardens to meet Alice.

  The sun had been shining the day he left, a summer sun in the middle of autumn, sparking quartz lights in the drive’s gravel. He’d spurred his horse into a canter, a full gallop as they passed under the canopy of ancient elms lining the exit from the estate. He’d had London in mind. He hadn’t looked back.

  From the drawing room, Gareth stalked into the foyer. The front door was open; a stream of servants bustled in and out, carrying holly and pine boughs. Gareth breathed in the scent of Christmas and crisp December air. Footmen bowed and swept out of his way as he approached the door. He stopped on the stone steps. He had arrived in the dark. Now, in the morning, the gravel drive stretched out before him, a wide, bright ribbon arcing away toward Kilcullen village. Dublin would be beyond that, London beyond that. One step would take him out the door, a few more to turn east . . .

  He took another deep breath, then returned to the house. Maybe he would find something to eat in the formal dining room. Arthur had always been a formal creature, had taken absurd pleasure in sitting in their father’s massive carved chair at the table. It would have been just like him to have all his meals served on the twenty-foot expanse. Even as a boy, Arthur had taken his future as lord of the manor very seriously. Gareth found himself smiling at the memory of the two of them seated at opposite ends, only their eyes showing above the snowy cloth. It was one of his few childhood memories where he’d been sitting still. He had even fewer memories of playing with his brother.

  Arthur, as the heir, had rarely been home. Ironic, really. It had been Gareth, the spare, not considered important enough to send away to school, who had known the estate best. He’d certainly covered every inch of it on foot or on horseback. He had been desperate for adventure. Ultimately he’d created it: imaginary pirates in the waters of the big pond, highwaymen on the dirt roads, dragons among the old stone circle in the meadow.

  He had left home as soon as he possibly could. Or, rather, when he’d come into a small inheritance left to him by his maternal grandmother. It had been just enough to buy him a military commission. His father had had more than enough money, but little interest. He’d brushed off Gareth’s requests with vague promises or curt dismissals. Go shoot something had been a frequent one.

  Gareth was reminded of this as he reached the dining room. One of the earl’s favorite trophies was mounted above the fireplace just opposite the door: a massive buck with spreading antlers. The sight of the thing had always made Gareth rather sad. Now, it made him blink. Someone had looped a glittery strand of beads around the buck’s neck, draped a garland of holiday greenery over the antlers. The creature looked far more cheerful than it ever had.

  Then Gareth stepped fully into the room and found both Alice and an abundance of food. He stopped in his tracks, amazed by the sight. She was in his father’s chair, only a pale forehead and halo of curls visible. Covering the table, end to end, was what looked to be the supplies for a crusade. There were several towering stacks of rush baskets, countless piles of rosy apples, endless wrapped hams, mounds of walnuts. As well as what appeared to be every fruitcake in Kildare.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  Startled, Alice bobbled an apple. It bumped to the floor, where it rolled slowly in Gareth’s direction. He bent to pick it up, rubbed it on his sleeve, and took a large bite. “Tasty.”

  She had two rosy spots of color on her cheeks. “Good morning.” She ducked her head, hiding the appealing flush as she shuffled several papers. “I hope your rest was comfortable.”

  So very polite. “It was, thank you.” He could do polite, too. “I fear I am interrupting your work.” Whatever the hell it was she was doing.

  “Mmm.” Apparently politeness didn’t quite extend to false demurrals. “I am hoping to have the Christmas baskets delivered by next week.”

  Gareth surveyed the mess as he polished off the rest of the apple. “A new tradition?”

  “A very old one, actually, gift baskets at the holidays from the great house. One would almost think you weren’t Irish.”

  “I daresay Ireland herself would have forgotten,” he said dryly, then, “I don’t recall my mother going to this effort.”

  “Your mother,” Alice replied mildly, “was not an advocate of Irish tradition. The new lady is.”

  “Bosh. Clarissa couldn’t care less. You, on the other hand, have green in your veins.” He leaned in, snared another apple. “Tell me, Alice. How long have you been shouldering your sister’s duties?”

  “I have been helping since your brother’s death. Clarissa is unable—”

  “Clarissa is unwilling. No, no, don’t scowl at me. She and I are of a kind. It was Arthur who was the dutiful one. To his king, to his land.” To himself, he murmured. “Even if I were so inclined, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “You might begin by not taking food from the mouths of babes.”

  Gareth paused with the apple halfway to his mouth. “You are jesting.”

  “Am I?” Alice raised a brow, then waved a sheet of paper. “Let’s see. That apple might have been intended for the Perrys. They have three little girls. Or Mary Sullivan had twins in February. Boys. The MacNeils have six children, the Haggertys nine.”

&
nbsp; “Who on earth are all these people?”

  “Kilcullen’s tenants, as it happens. Your tenants.”

  He grunted and set the apple down, intact. “Don’t start with that, Alice. There will be ample time to prod me into due diligence should the worst come to pass.”

  “Was I prodding you? Goodness, how uncomfortable that sounds. I shall endeavor not to prod.”

  Gareth propped one hip against the table. “You know, you are not making this any easier.”

  She regarded him calmly over a large ham. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “Rot. Perhaps I deserve it. No doubt I do. But we were little more than children.” He closed his eyes wearily. “God, Alice. What is it that you want from me? It’s been eight years. I am sorry I hurt you—”

  “You broke my heart.”

  Alice watched his mouth open and close soundlessly. Well, if he was startled by her candor, she was even more so. If she had ever been so blunt, she’d lost the habit over the years. Compromise and diplomacy left little room for frankness.

  He had broken her heart. It was the only time she’d said the words aloud. And the only time she would.

  Our characters are formed long before we have the will or ability to forge them.

  He was still staring at her, silent. She could see regret in his eyes, but she knew it wasn’t the regret of a man who felt he’d made the wrong choice. He quite probably was sorry he’d hurt her, maybe even more so now that she’d let him know how much. Gareth had never been cruel, merely careless.

  “I shouldn’t have come home,” he muttered finally. “Not like this, anyway. If I’d known—”

  “Gareth.” Alice leaned forward and, carefully clearing a space, folded her arms on the table. “Of course you came home. It is your home. And there is no reason we can’t manage to share it, at least for the time being, until matters are settled. Yes, it hurt when you left. But you made me no promises then, and as it happens, I want nothing at all from you. You are not responsible for me; you never were.”

  He studied her for a moment through narrowed eyes. “When did you take up serenity? You used to be such a feisty little thing.”

  “I used to be a great many things, I expect, but I don’t think feisty was ever one of them.” She found herself wondering if he really remembered her as she did him—or whether time and carelessness had wiped memory away. “We were young. And cannot be expected to see everything as it was.”

  “Mmm. You threw a rock at my head once.”

  “Well, yes, I did that, but only after you’d tipped me into the pond.” She’d been eight, he twelve.

  “You filled my best boots with water.”

  “I did, didn’t I?” She remembered his face when he’d thrust a foot in. Then he had poured the contents of the second boot over her feet. She knew he had wanted to dump the water over her head, but had refrained. He’d been fifteen, on his way to manhood. “You promised to take me fishing, but went without me.”

  “You tried to set my horse free.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “In the dead of winter.”

  Yes, she’d done that, too, thinking he was going to join his father’s hunting party. She’d been fourteen, he eighteen. He’d yelled for a minute or two, then lifted her easily, plunked her down into a pair of boots several sizes too large for her, and made her come with him to retrieve the horse. Then he had, for the first time, talked to her as adults would, as equals. They had discussed the hunt, how they both abhorred it. She’d told him about her parents, how she still missed them so much it ached. He’d told her of his desire to see the world beyond Ireland. He had talked about stars.

  It had taken an hour of plodding through cold, muddy fields side by side for her to fall in love. The horse, of course, had been waiting for them in the warm stable. Gareth, she’d decided, had known it would be.

  She smiled now with the bittersweetness of her memories. “I half expected you to climb onto the horse the minute we returned and ride away toward the sea.”

  Perhaps, she thought, it would be better for all if he got on his horse now and took himself back to wherever he’d been. Gareth was so much more Irish than he thought. The rover, the rambler, with his feet itching for the road, his eyes on the distant horizon. It was, she knew, part of what she’d once loved so about him. How easy it would be to condemn him for it now. How easy and how uncharitable.

  “Had you not been with me, I might have.”

  She hadn’t forgotten for a minute how very green his eyes were. She had forgotten how soft they could be.

  “Oh. Gareth.”

  “Well.” His gaze dropped to the apple core he still held, then to the crowded table. Alice watched as he strode over to the mantel and dropped the thing into a china vase resting there. Then he pointed upward. “Your handiwork?”

  She glanced at the buck. “Yes. I thought he needed . . . some holiday cheer.” She thought Gareth might need some, too. He was looking so grim again. Heaven only knew why she was taking it upon herself to cheer him. Or prod him. ’Twas the season . . . “Here.” When he turned, she polished an apple on her sleeve and tossed it to him. “Come with me.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside,” was all she said as she rose gracefully from her seat.

  The ribbon binding her bodice beneath her breasts was emerald green, Gareth noticed as he followed her from the room. The cloak she collected herself was a cheerful red. The combination, with her winter white dress, was charming. And very Alice. She’d always dressed well, with little touches of whimsy. Like the sprig of holly he could now see tucked into her hair as he helped her with her cloak. The top of her head didn’t even reach his shoulder and he was tempted, just for a fleeting second, to brush his lips over the glossy curls.

  He couldn’t remember not feeling protective of Alice. As little as she’d ever needed protection, tiny as she was, he had still wanted to shelter her from the pains of childhood, of adolescence. The very first time he had seen her, a forlorn little figure in his mother’s parlor—her first visit, not a month after she’d lost her parents—he’d felt the urge to take care of her. And he’d continued to feel that way, long after she had proven her strength and resilience, through the rocks and the freeing of Cinn the horse and the bossy scoldings.

  Then it had changed. So slowly that he hadn’t realized it was happening. He had gone from enjoying their meetings to craving them. He had wanted to hold her hand, not just have it tucked companionably through his arm on occasion. He’d wanted to kiss her. He had wanted to kiss her rather desperately.

  But he had held himself in check, hard as it was. Until one night when he was twenty, she sixteen, and he could take it no longer. October. On a brilliantly clear night with stars filling the skies. He had meant to tell her that he was leaving Ireland, if only briefly. Instead he had kissed her. How sweet it had been. Sweet and deep and blood-stirring enough to shock him to the core.

  He’d left a week later.

  “Gareth?”

  “Hmm?” He blinked. Alice, crimson hood up to frame her face becomingly, was waiting in the open doorway.

  “Are you coming?”

  For an instant he debated refusing. There were so many other things he could do. He could go back upstairs. He could find a good book. He could find a calendar on which to tick off the days before he could leave again . . .

  He grabbed his coat and followed her.

  She didn’t speak as she led him through the west gardens and toward the Kilcullen woods, merely smiling slightly when he demanded again to know where they were going. After a few minutes, Gareth realized he didn’t care. He had wanted to walk away from the house from the moment he’d entered it, and here he was—walking away from the house.

  “Ah, good morning, Mr. Hennessey!” Alice called.

  They had reached the privet hedge. A stooped figure straightened and waved a cheery greeting. “Good morning, Miss Alice!” The man lifted his tweed cap, revealing a bald pate an
d craggy face that broke into a wide grin. Gareth stopped in his tracks. He had seen that smile a hundred times. Usually shining up at him from the base of a tree he had climbed. And more than once, in his childhood, from the top of a ladder when he’d needed rescuing from a tree far easier to get up than down.

  “Hennessey.” Suddenly he was grinning, too.

  “And I thought ye’d be sure to have forgotten me,” the old gardener beamed. “Welcome home, Master Gareth. ’Tis grand and no doubt to see you home again.”

  “I . . .” He couldn’t do it, couldn’t say it was grand and no doubt to be home. “Thank you. You are well?”

  “Oh, fine, fine. The rheumatism acts up a bit, old bones . . . But you don’t want to be hearing about that.” The fellow turned his smile to Alice. “A fine morning to be out and about, miss.”

  “It is indeed. I thought to take Mr. Blackwell with me to find a bit of Christmas.”

  “Did you now? Well, may you find it. ’Tis out there.” He lifted his hoe. “I’d best be getting back to work. Welcome home, sir.”

  Gareth caught himself whistling as he and Alice descended the slope leading to the woods. It was Hennessey who had taught him how to whistle. Macatee the head groom had taught him the best bawdy tunes. He would have to go in search of Macatee, assuming the man hadn’t retired. The navy was the world’s best repository for bawdy songs and Gareth thought he might have a few that hadn’t reached Kildare.

  The path grew slippery suddenly and Gareth saw Alice struggle to keep her footing. He reached out, grasped her arm, and, as if he’d been doing it every day, tucked her hand through the crook of his elbow.

  “Thank you,” she murmured. Her cheeks, when he glanced down, were pink in the crisp air, her eyes bright. Winter suited her. It always had.

  They walked in companionable silence until they entered the woods. In an instant, eight years—more—dropped away. Gareth recognized a spreading oak where he had played Robin Hood as a boy. He heard the quiet flow of the brook where he’d floated leaves, bark, and little boats made for him by the estate’s blacksmith. His own naval fleet. He and Alice had sat on the mossy bank more than once, having the sort of discussion only youth can appreciate: too serious for their age, too earnest for adulthood. He glanced down at her, wondering if she remembered.