by Carla Kelly
It was all worryingly quiet, then she heard the sound of voices in the hall and went out. Theo was laughing, Drew smiling. Thank goodness.
‘I was just saying that I must leave now if I am to be ready to move here tomorrow,’ he said and her heart gave a ridiculous little jump when he transferred that smile to her. Then the amusement faded as he looked around the hallway. ‘Do you not decorate for Christmas? I had thought to bring a wreath for the door, but I will not if you do not wish it.’
‘Yes, please. That would be delightful.’ Ellie looked around, realising for the first time how the days had crept up on her. ‘We always decorate with evergreens when we are in the country, but I bought this house in February because I wanted us all to become used to London before the twins made their come-out. Now I do not know where to obtain holly and all the things we need, not at such short notice.’
Drew was disappointed, she thought, although he hid it well. Perhaps after years in the army he had been looking forward to a proper traditional Christmas in an English home. Her imagination conjured up images of snow-swept mountain passes and flickering fires barely warming the men huddled around them with scarce any food for their hungry bellies.
‘We will have your wreath and we will decorate a table for presents,’ she promised. And the food and wine would be excellent. ‘I have been so preoccupied with other things that details have escaped me this Christmas.’
‘We usually go out to cut branches,’ Maddie said. Her lower lip quivered and for a moment Ellie thought she might cry. ‘I never thought it would be different here, which is so foolish—we can hardly go and cut down foliage in the parks.’
‘We’d be arrested if we did. Never mind,’ Theo said. ‘We’ll know better next year.’
‘I kept all the red ribbons from last Christmas,’ Claire said. ‘We can use those.’ She gave her twin a jab in the ribs and Maddie glanced at Ellie, then fixed a firm smile on her lips.
Bless them, Ellie thought, they don’t want me to feel I have let them down.
Which she had. She was the adult in the family and it was up to her to make Christmas special for them.
‘What time should we expect you tomorrow, Drew?’
‘I’m not certain, but certainly by noon. I am glad to have met you.’ He gave a slight bow to the girls in the doorway, clapped Theo on the shoulder and then stopped and caught Ellie’s hand in his. She expected him to kiss it again and steeled herself not to blush too much.
Impossible. He makes me blush just thinking about him, she thought, and then gave a little gasp as he pulled her gently towards him and kissed her cheek. Then, as he straightened, his lips brushed against hers, just for a fraction of a second.
‘Goodbye.’
Drew left in a chorus of farewells from everyone except Ellie, who was discovering that when a certain man’s lips touched hers she felt an urgent need for Cousin Joan’s smelling salts.
Chapter Four
After almost a year she would have thought she would be used to how noisy London could be. Ellie opened one eye on to grey winter gloom and guessed it must be before seven. There was the very faintest sound of the servants beginning their morning routine far down in the basement, but that was not what had woken her.
Down in the street, three floors below, someone was cursing, there was the sound of metal-shod wheels on the cobbles, laughter. Ellie dragged the pillow over her head and closed her eyes. She could have at least another half-hour of sleep, surely?
But there had been something familiar about that laughter. Theo? Ellie threw back the covers, slid out of bed and shivered her way across the room in her nightgown. It was hard to see without throwing open the window and leaning out, but there was an empty flat cart below. A man was holding the reins and talking to someone on the pavement she couldn’t see. Then he whistled piercingly and the horse set off, leaving the street empty of all but the milk delivery, one footman jogging along on an errand and a laden wagon unloading coal opposite.
She pulled on her dressing gown, pushed her feet into her slippers and went downstairs, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
‘Shh! You’ll wake the household.’ The deep voice was surely Drew.
‘We’re up, they can get up.’ That was definitely Theo. ‘We need all the help we can get with this lot. The hall’s impassable.’
‘What on earth is going on?’ Ellie demanded as she rounded the newel post. ‘Ouch!’
‘Mind the holly,’ Drew’s voice warned, a moment too late.
Ellie jumped back on to the bottom stair and looked round. The hallway was a mass of greenery. She could see berried holly, fir branches, trails of ivy and great bunches of bare willow stems, green and golden. It smelled wonderful and looked chaotic.
Somewhere in there were her brother and her make-believe fiancé, but all she could see were two pairs of boots and two pairs of arms above, both clutching sacks.
‘What are you doing?’ she demanded.
One sack was lowered to the floor revealing Drew, hatless, his hair tousled, his cheeks red with cold. ‘You wanted to decorate.’
‘This house, not Carlton House,’ she protested.
Theo dropped his sack, spilling pine cones across what could be seen of the tiles. ‘We have been up since half-past five. At least I have, Drew must have been up even earlier.’
‘No one else is awake. I’m not even dressed.’ That fact began to sink in as she realised that Drew was regarding her with unmistakable interest. True, her nightgown was flannel and went from high frilled neck to her toes and her dressing gown was thick wool and might have been a nun’s habit, it was so chaste. Even so she felt her nipples harden and the wretched colour come up in her cheeks. But her hair was down and... ‘How did you get in?’ she demanded, submerging embarrassment in irritation.
‘I went to the basement door. The scullery maid was just making up the fire in the range. She told me where Theo’s bedchamber is.’
‘She let a strange man into the house?’
‘She knew exactly who I was—surely you don’t think the staff would lose any opportunity to stare at Miss Jordan’s betrothed?’
Blast the man, he looked amused—and still interested in her state of déshabillé.
Two can play at that game, Captain.
Ellie let her gaze slide down from the top of his disarrayed hair. So thick... Past the pine needles clinging to his coat. Those shoulders... Down to his battered boots. Oh, my, such long legs... And back. At which point she met an amused pair of grey eyes and one quizzical lifted eyebrow. Spontaneous combustion was apparently not a myth.
‘We thought the best tactic was to clear paths from the service door and the foot of the stairs to the dining room and deal with the rest after breakfast,’ Theo said, apparently impervious to whatever it was simmering between the two of them.
‘Yes, do that,’ Ellie said, intending to be brisk and managing snappish. ‘We do not want the staff’s lives made more difficult, do we?’ She turned and swept upstairs, the effect spoiled by her tripping over her hem on the middle step and cursing.
‘She doesn’t sound pleased.’ Theo’s voice carried clearly as she continued to stomp upstairs.
‘Perhaps she doesn’t like surprises. Look, you pick up the pine cones and I’ll start stacking this lot under the stairs.’ Drew sounded calmly practical, not at all like a man who had been sending her smouldering glances seconds ago.
She went into her bedchamber and confronted the long mirror. Those hadn’t been smouldering glances at all, she realised as she stared at the woman in the glass. Drew had either been repressing hysterical laughter or wondering just what he had done agreeing to woo such a fright for a week.
On one side of her head the hair was flattened and on the other it was sticking up like a disordered haystack. There was a crease mark from the pillow on one cheek. Her dressing gown had a co
ffee stain she hadn’t noticed before, the braid was trailing off on the bottom edge of the hem and she had pulled it on in such a hurry that the skirts of her nightgown were all bunched up on one side, making a most peculiar bulge.
The knot in her dressing gown cord was so tight that she bent a nail wrenching at it and the pain jerked her out of the state she was working herself into. This was simply a charade, a stratagem to protect Theo. What Drew thought of her was neither here nor there provided he could maintain a good-enough façade of wanting to marry her. And what she thought of him was irrelevant, too, because she was not going to be marrying anyone.
That was certainly as good as a splash of cold water for settling her emotions in order. She was not legitimate, which meant that any gentleman with a care for society’s opinion would not wed her and she had two young sisters to bring out, which meant she could certainly not lower their status any further by marrying unwisely. Or behaving unwisely, come to that. Their coal-merchant grandfather was enough of a handicap for the twins without their shady sister indulging in scandalous affaires. So, even if a hard-up half-pay officer in shabby regimentals made her heart—and other, less mentionable organs—flutter, that was all it could be. Some fluttering.
* * *
Ellie thought she had everything well under control when she came downstairs half an hour later. Her hair was smooth and swept up into a practical chignon. Her gown was practical, too, a day dress in dark green. Her temper was even, her smile as she came into the dining room was, she hoped, just warm enough to show her pleasure at the sight of the neatly ordered piles of evergreens.
The twins were already downstairs, buttering toast as they chattered about ribbons and wreaths and how best to decorate the hall. Theo was at the buffet, heaping his plate with the appetite only a sixteen-year-old youth could demonstrate, and Drew was addressing bacon and eggs like a man who had been up since before dawn. He came to his feet as she entered and she made a point of smiling more broadly. His expression warned her that she was probably overdoing it.
‘Good morning again. I hope you both make a good breakfast as a reward for your labours. Do forgive me for being so grumpy first thing—you know what a bear I am when I am woken early, Theo. Where did you find such a good selection of evergreens, Drew?’
‘I asked the porters at Albany where I have been staying. They suggested the Hay Market and Covent Garden, so I got to Hay Market before dawn, found a carter who had just emptied his wagon and who was ready to earn a few extra shillings. I bought some evergreens there, then came to pick up Theo and we went down to Covent Garden to finish up.’ He looked at her, clearly assessing her mood. ‘It looks a lot, but the servants will appreciate some decorations below stairs, no doubt.’
‘It will look quite wonderful,’ Ellie said. ‘But we will all have to work exceedingly hard to finish today. Girls, can you take the guest rooms first? Don’t disturb Cousin Joan, you know how she likes to read after her breakfast and this is the last morning she’ll be taking it in bed for a while. Theo and Drew, if you decorate the stairs and the hallway, then Maddie and Claire can add ribbons and bows. I’ll do this room and the drawing room.’
* * *
It was a very long time since he had decorated a house for Christmas, Drew realised as he hung over the banisters, coat off, twine clenched in his teeth, holding the end of ivy sprays in place while Theo wove them round the spindles. Army officers were more likely to decorate their tents and lodgings with candles stuck in empty bottles and the bones of whatever scrawny fowls they had managed to acquire than worry about artistic pine cones and ribbon bows. His mother had always insisted on decorating lavishly but mere menfolk were relegated to cutting the greenery outside, lugging it in and then standing up ladders being ordered about.
‘Are we doing it right?’ he asked Theo, who was tucking pine sprigs into the ivy.
‘Oh, yes, this will be fine and the girls will tweak it anyway.’
It wasn’t simply the distant memory of decorating a house that was coming back to him, Drew realised as the twins’ laughter echoed down from the bedchambers. It was being part of a family. The teasing, the companionship, the occasional little spats. The warmth. That came from Eleanor, he was certain. Theo and the girls were intelligent, cheerful and friendly but it was Eleanor who worked to make this house a home, who looked after them, worried about them, focused them.
‘Twine?’
Drew passed the last strands to Theo. ‘I’ll get some more.’ They had begun at the top of the flight of stairs and were halfway along the banisters. He was already head-down, so Drew simply gripped the bottom of the spindle and rolled over, dropping the six foot or so into the hall. He landed on the balls of his feet, facing into the area under the stairs.
There was a shriek and pine cones rained down around him.
‘Eleanor?’
‘You scared the living daylights out of me!’ The shadowy figure took a shaky step forward and revealed itself as his betrothed, swathed in a vast white pinafore that she’d gathered up in front to carry the cones. ‘I swear I’ve two sixteen-year-old boys on my hands, not one.’
She might be lecturing him, but he had scared her, he realised. Her cheeks were white and her hands trembled as she smoothed down her apron.
‘I could have landed on top of you. I’m sorry.’ He stepped in under the slope of the staircase and reached for her. It was probably an indication of shock that she let him pull her into his arms.
Soft curves, a flurry of fabric, the scent of buttermilk soap and jasmine water, her breath feathering on his exposed neck. His body was making the straightforward calculation woman + against me + soft = bed sport and was springing to attention.
Then something changed as he held her, the simple physical reaction ebbing away to be replaced by that warmth he had been musing about. He felt Eleanor’s tense body relax as her hands closed gently over his forearms, holding him as he held her. Drew felt a strange kind of recognition. This was like coming home. This woman was—
Eleanor gave herself a little shake and stepped back out of his embrace, her expression impossible to read. But he could interpret the message that her body had just sent him as clearly as if she had slapped him. She had sensed far more than an apology or an instinct to soothe after a scare. Whatever had just passed unspoken between them was not what she wanted, not what had been in their agreement.
Signs of affection to convince her relatives and the servants, yes. More, no. She was a wealthy woman and the last thing she wanted was a half-pay officer. Or the Vagabond Viscount with his estate in ruins and a shambles of a house waiting for him behind bramble thickets that would have kept out the Sleeping Beauty’s suitors.
And the Vagabond Viscount had too much pride to become a fortune hunter. He intended to turn around the house and the estate before he looked for a wife. And when he did, he supposed he needed a lady with impeccable bloodlines and an upbringing that would have trained her to be a viscountess if he were to have any hope of rescuing the family name and giving his children their place in the ton.
He and Eleanor were wrong for each other and he should have recognised the dangers in this charade the moment he felt the first stab of desire, the first flicker of liking and attraction.
He couldn’t think of any words that would do more good than harm, only the practical.
Let’s pretend nothing happened just then.
‘Have you seen the twine?’
‘It is on the hall table.’ Eleanor pointed. ‘Both balls of it. I need one to secure these cones to the swags over the fireplace or they will fall off.’
She was talking too much, he thought as he turned away, picked up the twine and handed her the smaller ball. ‘Here. Is that enough?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’ She snatched it from his outstretched hand as though she was frightened she might actually touch him.
Drew climbed the stairs
back to Theo, cutting lengths off the string with his pocket knife as he went.
‘Ellie is as jumpy as a cat,’ Theo remarked, securing one end of the ivy.
‘She is anxious about this ruse of ours and your uncle’s reaction, I imagine.’ Drew made himself consider the banisters. ‘Some holly? No, too prickly. It might catch the ladies’ skirts.’
‘The twins will make bows.’
‘You can manage the bottom section by yourself. I’ll hang the wreath on the front door.’ Getting out in the cold air might clear his head. Drew found the circle of holly and opened the front door.
‘Is it snowing yet?’ Theo called.
‘I sincerely hope not, we don’t want your guests held up.’
‘Don’t we?’ Theo said darkly.
‘No. We need your uncle here being convinced that the Navy is not for you. The sky looks heavy, but there is no sign of snow.’
‘I don’t expect snow is as much fun in the town as it is in the country. It will all turn to slush and they wouldn’t let you make snowmen in the parks, would they?’
‘Probably not.’ Drew lashed the wreath firmly to the door knocker. ‘This needs a ribbon or two.’ He closed the door again, but not before the fog swirled into the hallway. ‘You could probably get away with snowball fights, though.’
‘Snowball fights?’ That was Maddie, Drew thought. He was almost certain he had worked out which twin was which. She came downstairs, hands full of ribbons in crimson and silver and gold.
‘If we get snow. Could you make a large bow for the door wreath?’
‘Which colour?’ She held up the selection.
‘Gold,’ Drew said at random.
‘Excellent choice.’ She beamed at him, then pulled out a length of golden satin. ‘Hold that in the middle like so...’ She soon had him in a tangle of ribbon like a game of giant cat’s cradle.