A Christmas Promise

by Joanna Barker

  The captain’s face softened. “Your father must have thought a letter too impersonal for such a message. He knew I would pass Pinnock Hill on my way to Edinburgh, and he asked me to pay a visit.”

  Lucy shook her head as the truth of the situation crashed down around her. She tried to maintain her composure, but her face would not stop jerking. Tears filled her eyes, spilling over to run down her cheeks.

  Captain Stewart reached across the low table and offered her a handkerchief.

  When Lucy opened her mouth to thank him, a sob tore free. She buried her face in the handkerchief, the pain of her disappointment outweighing the embarrassment of weeping in front of a stranger.

  “There, there, miss.” Mrs. Fraser patted her back.

  Lucy couldn’t respond. Her heart ached, and disappointment pressed down, making her feel like she couldn’t breathe. What would happen to her now? She would likely have to leave Pinnock Hill and stay with another relative. The thought of saying goodbye to her home again was too much to endure. She just couldn’t.

  Mrs. Fraser continued to pat her shoulder. “Thank you for coming, Captain,” she said.

  “I’m sorry to be the cause of such distress,” he said.

  “Miss Breckenridge has suffered a great disappointment, but she will be well soon enough,” the housekeeper said. “Have you far to travel tonight?”

  “I planned to stay at the coaching inn in town,” he replied. “The journey has been long for the horses, but we’ve made good time. If the weather continues to cooperate, I should be home tomorrow, a few days earlier than I’d planned.”

  An idea occurred to Lucy, stilling her tears. She wiped off her cheeks, sniffling as she contemplated. Yes, this was the answer.

  “Are you all right, Miss Breckenridge?” Captain Stewart asked.

  “I shall have to go to London,” Lucy said. She folded his handkerchief and handed it back to him.

  “I do not think that is a good idea.” Captain Stewart looked up at Mrs. Fraser, as if hoping the older woman would agree with him. “Your father—”

  “I understand he is busy,” she said. “But even the War Office will be closed on Christmas Day. If Father cannot come here, then I will go to him.” The idea was sounding better by the moment. She would have to act quickly, before her aunt learned her father wasn’t returning. Aunt Prudence would never permit such a venture. Lucy just had to convince Mrs. Fraser, which she didn’t think would be too difficult. If Meg accompanied her and Mr. Owens drove the carriage, how could the housekeeper argue?

  “It is a very long journey, Miss Breckenridge.” Captain Stewart took a drink of his tea. “And at this time of year, the condition of the roads is unpredictable. It can be treacherous.”

  “You just said that the weather cooperated, and the journey went faster than you’d predicted,” Lucy pointed out. She was becoming irritated with Captain Stewart. The man had known her for less than an hour, and he was already telling her what she could and could not do. It did not matter what he said, she thought. He had no business giving her orders. She was not one of his soldiers.

  “I’m sure your father will be home by Epiphany,” Captain Stewart said.

  Why was he concerning himself like this? And Epiphany was the end of the holiday celebrations. If her father arrived in January, Lucy would have to wait nearly an entire year to spend Christmas with him. And that just wouldn’t do.

  “I believe the colonel mentioned you have an aunt in East Riding,” Captain Stewart went on. “Perhaps you might join her for the holidays?”

  That was the last straw. If her mind had not been completely made up before, the suggestion that she spend another Christmas with Aunt Prudence and her guestroom filled with porcelain dolls was the push she needed. She shivered just thinking of all the glassy eyes watching her as she slept.

  “Yes, that is a very good idea,” she said, speaking with false cheerfulness. “Christmas at Aunt Prudence’s sounds splendid.” She glanced up and met Mrs. Fraser’s eye.

  The woman’s lips pursed. She knew Lucy was lying.

  Lucy felt guilty about the deception, but she did not want to argue with the man, and there were plans to be made. She figured the trip would take three days, meaning she needed to depart tomorrow morning or she would be too late. But first, she needed Captain Stewart to leave.

  “Thank you for your visit,” Lucy said. “I appreciate you delivering the message, and I apologize for my reaction.” She noticed her foot was tapping and stopped it.

  Captain Stewart studied her, but after a moment his face relaxed. He smiled, looking relieved. “No apology necessary, Miss Breckenridge. You were taken off guard and presented with unwelcome news. Entirely understandable.” He glanced at his pocket watch and stood. “I should return to the inn. Mrs. Higgins was adamant that supper would be served exactly at six thirty.”

  Lucy stood as well. “You will not want to miss her fried sea bass. It is one of Father’s favorites.” She accompanied him to the entrance hall as Mrs. Fraser went to the kitchen to fetch the captain’s driver. Lucy’s mind was spinning with plans for her journey, but she pasted on a smile and handed the captain his hat.

  “I am very glad to have met you, Miss Breckenridge.” Captain Stewart buttoned his coat and pulled on his gloves. “Happy Christmas to you.”

  “Happy Christmas, Captain Stewart.” Lucy waved and closed the door, pressing her back against it as she drew in a deep breath and firmed her resolve.

  If Father cannot come home for Christmas, I will take Christmas to him.

  Chapter 2

  Captain James Stewart woke the next morning, his belly still full of Miss Higgins’s fried sea bass. He’d not left one scrap on the table—a habit of most soldiers who’d campaigned abroad for any length of time. Even though the war had ended and his next meal was guaranteed, hunger was not a sensation a man soon forgot.

  He dressed and descended the stairs to the inn’s dining rooms.

  Private Matthews sat at a table near the hearth. Nick Matthews, James reminded himself. He crossed the room, making certain Matthews saw him before joining him at the table. James knew better than to startle a man who’d fought at Albuera and Badajoz. “Good morning, Matthews.”

  Matthews nodded but gave no verbal response. Not that James had expected him to. The man hadn’t spoken in years—not since the battle that had killed both his brothers and very nearly himself.

  James stretched his legs out beneath the table, accepting a mug of coffee from a server and ordering breakfast for the two of them. “Sleep well?”

  Matthews gave another nod, but James had learned to discern the smallest fluctuations in his companion’s seemingly expressionless face. His friend hadn’t slept well.

  Again, James wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t slept well either—not for years. He wondered if one night he might actually dream of pleasant things and wake feeling rested instead of being jerked from sleep by nightmares of fear and battle and the screams that accompanied them. Would he ever close his eyes without remembering?

  “We’ll be in Edinburgh by nightfall. And from there, it’s only a few miles farther.” James spoke mostly to ease his own apprehensions. The family he was returning to wasn’t the same as the one he’d left. Hardly surprising after nearly ten years.

  James’s parents were both dead, and his brother was the laird now, living in their ancestral home with a wife and family that James had never met. Of course they would welcome him home with open arms, but for reasons he could not fully understand, he dreaded returning.

  James had changed as well. He was not the same lad of eighteen who’d gone away to see the world, become a hero, and defend the kingdom. How would he fit back into a life he could scarcely remember?

  He glanced at his friend, feeling guilty. At least James had a home and a family to return to. Many men came back to nothing.

  The server returned with their meals, setting down plates of beans, eggs, sausage, and toast before the two men. She darte
d a nervous glance at Matthews.

  James recognized the young woman’s unease. He’d observed the same reaction from nearly everyone who encountered the man’s haunted eyes and expressionless face. A rush of defensiveness rose inside him. Matthews had saved his life. He was the reason James was sitting here in a pub in North Yorkshire instead of buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in the hills of Spain. James could only see the barest trace of the person he’d known before in Nick Matthews’s eyes. And it saddened him. Matthews was not the only man who came home from the war damaged, but he was the one James couldn’t leave behind.

  The man needed work, and James needed a manservant. The solution was simple enough. He hoped bringing Matthews home and settling him somewhere he could feel safe would give him a chance to heal.

  Matthews took a bite of toast.

  “This English toast has nothing on true Scottish tattie scones,” James said. “No offense to Mrs. Higgins, but the cook at the colonel’s house is far superior. Don’t you agree?”

  Matthews glanced at him, his gaze lasting a fraction of a second longer than usual.

  “You still think I should have told Miss Breckenridge the truth,” James said, understanding what his companion did not say.

  Matthews went back to eating.

  “I feel wrong about it too.” James cut a bite of sausage. “But I promised the colonel.”

  Matthews glanced at him again.

  “I know,” James said. “You don’t have to scold me.” He scooped up a pile of beans and eggs with his toast and bit into it, chewing slowly. “Can you believe she actually threatened to travel to London to find him? That would have been a disaster.” He cut more sausage. “Talked her out of it, luckily.”

  He scooped up some more beans. Miss Lucy Breckenridge had taken him quite by surprise the day before. She was nothing like he’d assumed from her small portrait on the colonel’s desk. He shook his head. The portrait hadn’t changed in the ten years James had known the man. James was foolish to believe the person depicted had not changed either, and yet encountering a young woman when he’d expected a girl had come as a complete shock to him.

  Not only had she been ten years older than he’d pictured in his mind, but she was extremely pretty, possessing a bright energy and youthful innocence that he felt drawn to.

  Remembering how she’d fallen to pieces upon learning that her father was not coming home brought a pang to his heart. But was his sorrow entirely for the young woman? Or was he jealous that the colonel was missed so desperately by his family?

  He drummed his fingers on the table.

  He’d not considered for a moment that his message would cause such devastation. He’d certainly not delivered it with the compassion it warranted. Was he truly so callous not to have foreseen her reception?

  James had thought about the interaction with Miss Breckenridge late into the night. It had left him unsettled, but he could not put a finger on why. Did he simply feel remorse for making a lovely young woman weep? That did not fully explain it. Perhaps it had something to do with how quickly she’d agreed to his suggestion of staying with her aunt. She hadn’t required much convincing to give up her plan to go to London. Had she misled him? Did she still intend to go? If the young woman was anything like her father, once she set her mind to something, turning her from the course would be practically impossible.

  “Do you think I should return and apologize to Miss Breckenridge?” James asked Matthews. “I haven’t made a girl cry like that since I pulled Millie Archibald’s braids in the kirkyard when I was eight.”

  Matthews cocked his head.

  “I’m not just coming up with an excuse to see her again, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” James frowned. “And I have talked about plenty of other subjects since we left her house.”

  Matthews’s face remained expressionless.

  James tapped his foot on the floor, feeling a nervous energy that he knew he couldn’t hide from his companion. He folded his arms, then unfolded them. “Very well, perhaps it is an excuse.” He pushed back his chair and started toward the staircase with hasty steps. He called back over his shoulder, hiding his grin, “Prepare the carriage. I’ll fetch our bags.”

  ***

  Ten hours later, James shoved open the carriage door and climbed out. He glanced at the sign hanging above the door—The Fox and Fern. This was the seventh coaching inn he’d stopped at in his search for Miss Lucy Breckenridge. This morning’s excitement of paying a call on a lovely young woman was, by now, fully extinguished. He slammed the door behind him, shivering in the chill of the late afternoon. He’d forgotten how early evening fell in the winter in Northern Britain, but the cool air did little to temper his frustration.

  What was the young lady thinking, rushing off to London on her own—or rather, as her housekeeper had informed him, with a maid and an elderly hired man? He shook his head at the foolishness of it all. He stomped toward the door, wishing he knew whether or not she had taken this route. The Great North Road was the fastest course to London. He estimated that one day’s travel would bring them here to Lincolnshire, but his surety that Miss Breckenridge had come this way was dwindling.

  “What am I doing, chasing after this young lady like a madman?” he muttered to himself. But he knew the answer. He must not allow Miss Breckenridge to go to London.

  Matthews joined him, and the two stepped inside.

  A wave of heat and the smell of baking met them as they crossed the threshold, making James’s stomach growl. Though it was dark outside the windows, the dining room glowed. A few of the tables held trays of baked goods. They stepped up to the counter, seeing no one but hearing the happy chatter of voices and the clattering of dishes beyond in what he assumed was the kitchen.

  James rapped on the counter with his knuckles. “Hollo there?” he called, hoping to be heard over the noise. When he received no answer, he stepped around the counter and pushed open the kitchen door.

  A woman with a red face and a scarf around her hair hurried toward him. “Oh, sir. I’m sorry; I didn’t hear you come in. How can I be of assistance?”

  “I hoped you might—” James began, but his attention was drawn to the other side of the room where another woman was holding a bowl in one arm and a wooden stirring spoon in the other. “Miss Breckenridge?”

  The young lady’s face lit up in a smile. She set the cooking implements down on the table and came toward him, wiping her hands on an apron. “Captain Stewart! What a surprise.” Her already rosy cheeks were rendered even pinker by the heat of the kitchen and sprinkled with flour. She looked even lovelier than when he’d met her before, and James reprimanded himself for the thought. The young lady was the daughter of his commanding officer, and besides, he was here to stop her, not admire her.

  The older woman stepped back as Miss Breckenridge joined them.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, and then frowned, looking confused. “Did you come to find me?”

  James gave a nod. “I did, Miss Breckenridge. I told you the road to London can be treacherous in the winter. You should return home before—”

  “Oh, nonsense,” she interrupted, swatting the air as if to hit his words away. “It has been simply delightful so far, hasn’t it, Meg?” Miss Breckenridge turned toward another young woman with flaming red hair and freckles.

  “Indeed it has, miss,” the young woman, Meg, replied.

  “Oh,” Miss Breckenridge said, shaking her head. “Where are my manners? Miss Meg Riley, allow me to introduce Captain Stewart.”

  “How do you do, Captain?” The young woman dipped in a deep curtsy.

  A boy squeezed between them and through the doorway, taking a tray of cakes out to the dining room.

  “A pleasure, Miss Riley.” James inclined his head, feeling foolish to be performing such pleasantries in the doorway of an inn’s crowded kitchen.

  “Miss Riley is my traveling companion,” Miss Breckenridge explained.

  “I see
,” James said, thinking the red-haired young woman could hardly be older than seventeen. He turned his shoulders, taking a step backward and motioning to his friend on the other side of the counter in the inn’s dining room. “Ladies, may I introduce Private Nick Matthews.”

  The young ladies greeted Matthews cheerfully through the doorway, neither appearing at all bothered by the man’s silence.

  James relaxed, realizing his natural defensiveness of Matthews had made his muscles tense.

  “Have you need of rooms for the night, Captain?” the woman with the scarf asked.

  James blinked, caught off guard. He hadn’t thought of what he’d do when he actually found Miss Breckenridge. He supposed he’d just planned to put her into a carriage and send her back north. “I . . .” He considered his next move. After waking every morning to the bugle’s call, drilling and eating at precise times, having no strategy in place felt disconcerting to say the least.

  “It’s past dark, Captain,” Miss Breckenridge said. “You cannot travel any farther tonight.”

  She was right, though he didn’t appreciate the reminder. “Yes. I require two rooms if you please, madam.”

  “Crenshaw,” she said, wiping her hands on the napkin and coming through the door to the dining room. “I’m Mrs. Crenshaw. My husband and I are the owners of The Fox and Fern.” She started toward the staircase, motioning for him to follow. “I’ll show you to your rooms. If your man will bring your bags, Mr. Crenshaw will see the horses tended to. Oh, and you’ll be wanting supper.”

  An hour later, once James had washed up and eaten, he came back down the narrow staircase into the inn’s dining room. A few girls were arranging little cakes onto platters on one of the tables, and on the other side of the room, a group of men sat near the hearth.

  James was trying to decide whether to sit or to return to his room when the door to the kitchen opened and Miss Breckenridge stepped through, carrying a tray of cakes.