Lady Osbaldestone’s Plum Puddings: Lady Osbaldestone’s Christmas Chronicles Volume 3

by Stephanie Laurens

  “Nonsense,” Honor responded, smiling. “I’m accustomed to working in the Bodleian with students constantly around me. Besides”—she looked at the books and papers before her and wrinkled her nose—“all I’m doing is listing references.”

  Callum understood that drudgery. Still, he hesitated, but he really wanted to—needed to—pursue the location of the merchant’s compound. And he wasn’t at all averse to spending more time around Honor, even if they were both mired in the past. He caught her gaze. “If you’re sure…?” When she nodded, he looked at Lady Longfellow and Lord Longfellow and smiled. “Thank you. If I can locate the site of the Roman merchant’s compound that I’m now sure was somewhere near, our search for the source of the coins will go much faster.”

  “Excellent!” Lady Longfellow beamed.

  She, Callum, and his lordship arranged for Callum to commence his search through the Grange library the following day. From the corner of his eye, Callum saw Honor take note, even as she tidied her papers away.

  He glanced at the windows; although the curtains had been drawn, through a gap he confirmed it was full dark outside.

  A commotion drew Lady Osbaldestone and the Longfellows to the door, then onward; Callum followed, with Honor trailing behind him, clutching a folder containing the professor’s papers. They reached the front hall to discover Lottie had come down and was the center of a rowdy group. Relief shone in every smile and rang in the laughter.

  Lottie was smiling happily. Then she noticed Callum and pushed past those surrounding her and marched determinedly up to him. She halted before him, looked up into his face, and smiling sweetly, said, “Thank you for rescuing me, Mr. Harris.” Then she lowered her voice and added, “You were right—it was an adventure.”

  Callum felt his face split in a spontaneous, conspiratorial grin, but he was the adult here. He crouched, bringing his face level with Lottie’s. “I’m glad you’re all right, but next time you approach a deep hole—”

  “I’ll stop farther back from the edge.” Sobering, Lottie nodded. “I won’t forget.”

  Callum smiled and rose. Reaching out, he lightly ruffled Lottie’s curls. “I’m sure you won’t—and that’s the hallmark of a wise explorer, learning from one’s mistakes.”

  Therese was marshaling her brood. She called Lottie to her, and with a shy goodbye to Callum, Honor, and the Longfellows, Lottie hurried to take Therese’s outstretched hand. With a farewell wave to the Longfellows, with the rest of her brood gathered close, Therese led the way out of the front door, across the porch, and down the steps to where Simms was waiting with the gig.

  “Off you go.” Therese waved the other four on, and they ducked their heads against the wind and hurried down the drive, making for the warmth of the manor.

  Simms assisted Therese to the gig’s seat, then lifted Lottie up to snuggle close beside her. Simms then heaved himself up, flicked the reins, and set the mare plodding around the forecourt and down the winding drive.

  Therese hugged Lottie close and felt the little girl’s arms reach around her. After a moment of reflection, of giving thanks for the warm little body in her arms, Therese bent her head and whispered in Lottie’s ear, “I know you didn’t mean to fall into the well, and while I wouldn’t wish to encourage such accidents, intentional or otherwise, I have to commend you on the outcome.”

  When Lottie, her eyes wide in question, looked into Therese’s face, Therese smiled and went on, “You’ve inadvertently achieved something of a matchmaking coup. I’ve been wondering how to get Mr. Harris and Miss Webster together—to have them spend time together, preferably alone—and you’ve brought that about. They’ll be working side by side in the Grange library for at least the next few days.” She paused, then murmured, “The trick to successful matchmaking is to engineer situations without it being at all apparent that you had any active hand in bringing said situation about.”

  Therese straightened and, smiling fondly, raised a hand and smoothed Lottie’s bobbing curls back from her face. “You truly are my granddaughter, my dear—nothing could be clearer.”

  Lottie beamed. She held her grandmother’s gaze for several heartbeats, then snuggled closer as Simms turned the mare in to the lane, then up the manor drive.

  Back at Dutton Grange, Henry reminded Callum that Mrs. Woolsey had invited him to dine that evening, and after taking their leave of the Longfellows, in triumph, Henry and his friends bore Callum off to Fulsom Hall.

  Callum duly presented himself at Dutton Grange the following morning and, by midmorning, was seated at the library table surrounded by several small mountains of tomes, in one of which he hoped to find the crucial information he sought.

  Honor wasn’t there when he arrived, and as the clock ticked away the hours, she didn’t appear.

  Callum reminded himself that he wasn’t there to meet with her but to locate an ancient Roman site and knuckled down to the task.

  Mrs. Wright, the Grange’s housekeeper, interrupted him with a plate of sandwiches and a tankard of her home-brewed ale. “I know what you gentlemen are like,” she informed him. “You lose yourselves in those books, and then you’ll be starving and looking for sustenance in midafternoon, just when we’ve all settled with our feet up.”

  Unable to deny the charge, Callum accepted her offerings with due meekness and genuine thanks. He paused to eat, but as soon as he’d finished the sandwiches, tankard in hand, he returned to flicking pages.

  The clocks had just struck three o’clock when the door opened, and Honor came in. She paused on the threshold and met his eyes. “Will I disturb you?”

  Yes—and please do. Callum held back the words and, with his most charming smile, waved her in. “I doubt it, but to be frank, it would be a welcome diversion.”

  She came to the table and set down the journals and papers she was carrying at the far end. “No luck?”

  Returning his gaze to the history he was laboriously reading, he shook his head. “Lots of hints and bits and pieces—throwaway references and the like. I’ve found three sources that mention, in one way or another, a merchant’s compound that was located in this area. Two other accounts refer to a villa, and until I prove otherwise, I’m assuming that all the mentions refer to the same site. But as to exactly where the villa or compound was located…that critical fact I have yet to sight.”

  While he’d spoken, Honor had arranged her books on the tabletop. She sat and, down the length of the table, caught his eye. “How are the others faring with the search?”

  He grimaced. “Not so well. The excitement of Lottie and the well aside, they’ve been concentrating on finding any excavation—any digging or disturbance of the soil—that might have resulted in the unearthing of the coins.”

  “Hmm. There wouldn’t be any tilling of the fields in this season.”

  “No. And they haven’t discovered any holes for new fencing or anything of that sort, either.” Mentally revisiting the others’ efforts, Callum mused, “It’s difficult to imagine how someone local might have come upon those three coins other than by picking them up. We’ve discounted any local receiving the coins from strangers or while traveling farther afield. Everything points to the coins being picked up locally—as has happened elsewhere often enough—but generally such finds have come from farmers or the like picking up something in their recently plowed field or from around some similar excavation.” He shook his head. “But the others have found no sign of any excavation, so the source of the coins remains a mystery.”

  Honor studied the books piled around him. “Are you looking for any particular sort of account?”

  Callum uttered a short laugh and drew his hands down his face. Lowering them, he said, “What I wouldn’t give for a good census at this point.” He surveyed the texts arrayed before him and grimaced. “I suspect the dearth of detail is largely due to the settlement here being entirely civilian and not connected with the legions at all, so it doesn’t appear in any military reports, and for various reasons,
those are the accounts historians have always paid most attention to.” He glanced at the small pile of books he’d already been through. “As far as I can make out, the settlement here was a staging post of sorts, located just north of the route linking Clausentum, near Southampton, with Sorviodunum, which is Old Sarum. However, that road wasn’t considered a major route for movement of the legions—apparently, they traveled via Venta Belgarum—our Winchester—and Calleva, which is Silchester. So while our local staging post was known, not much attention was paid to it. It didn’t rate inclusion in military dispatches, so…” He shrugged. “I’m finding mentions, but few specific details.”

  He drew the book he was perusing closer and, after propping up the tome in front of him, slumped back in his chair. “I’ll keep searching, because there’s always a chance some helpful scribe decided to keep a detailed diary of his travels, but to be perfectly honest, I don’t hold much hope.” His gaze on the book’s text, he paused, then added, “That said, the hallmark of a true scholar is that we never, ever, give up.”

  He heard Honor smother a laugh and looked up. Finding her regarding him with smiling eyes and a hand raised to hide her no-doubt-curved lips, he arched his brows in arrogant and demanding fashion.

  She lowered her hand and let a soft laugh escape. “You have no idea how much like my uncle you sound.”

  Callum stilled; everything inside him froze. His eyes locked with hers, he struggled to find the right expression for his face. Eventually, he managed vague blankness, relieved by a slight shrug. “I fear I’m definitely not the scholar he is.”

  And wasn’t that the absolute truth?

  She tilted her head, plainly made curious by his odd reaction. “Perhaps not, but you definitely have a scholar’s habits.”

  He dipped his head in acceptance and focused on the book before him.

  After a second, Honor lowered her gaze to her papers, and silence settled over the room.

  An inability to concentrate on a book to the exclusion of everything about him was not, normally, an affliction from which Callum suffered. But the plodding descriptions of Roman life in conquered Britain failed to keep his mind, let alone his senses, from tracking every move Honor made.

  From her actions, he deduced she was wrestling with ordering footnotes and references for the professor’s treatise, an occupation with which Callum was familiar.

  So familiar that, just by glancing at her movements—from paper, to book, to paper, to list—he could tell that she was going about the finicky yet boring task in a way guaranteed to make said task even more difficult than it needed to be.

  A frown had settled on her brow; he was aware of a building impulse to smooth it away by showing her a better approach, but he bit his tongue and forced his eyes to the Latin text before him.

  He had a more pressing issue to resolve, namely, what he should do about Lady Osbaldestone’s ultimatum. She’d given him a deadline—now six days away—to reveal his true name to Honor, but that assumed that he had some reason for doing so. That he had some expectation of their acquaintance continuing beyond the following Monday.

  Did he?

  Forcing himself to face and accept the fact that yes, he did, indeed, wish to pursue an acquaintance—and more—with Miss Honor Webster took him nearly half an hour of staring fixedly at the same Latin text. Luckily, mired in her own difficulties, Honor didn’t notice.

  But he had six days; he didn’t need to rush into any potentially difficult revelations. He had time enough to think about what he needed to say and how best to explain himself—and to wait for a suitable opening.

  He tried to imagine how Honor might react. The most rudimentary attempt at putting himself in her shoes brought home the fact that with every day he let slide past—with every instance such as the present one, where they were alone and yet he failed to speak—he was digging the hole of his deception deeper.

  He shifted, then glanced at Honor.

  Her frown had deepened, almost to a scowl.

  He looked back at the tome before him, then shut it and drew the next forward.

  Regardless of the inherent danger of allowing yet another day to pass, he felt certain that today—now—was not the time to speak.

  Honor struggled to juggle her uncle’s footnotes into some semblance of order. The first half of his treatise draft—still unfinished—helped her only so far, then she had to contend with his rough notes, which he hadn’t put in any order. She was almost ready to tear out her hair.

  And she had to keep silent. She would have moaned and groaned and grumbled, except that she was hyperaware of Callum Harris, seated at the other end of the table and occasionally glancing her way.

  The curious thing was that, when he did, she sensed his gaze was assessing, but assessing in what way, measuring what about her, she couldn’t for the life of her tell.

  She wanted to know, which in itself was strange. Normally, she barely registered the effect she had on gentlemen—much less any effect of them on her. In that respect, Callum Harris was quite different—indeed, he was unique.

  It was a battle to keep her mind focused on ancient Vikings and not respond to Callum’s fleeting glances by looking up and meeting his eyes.

  Just as it was a fight not to blush whenever she realized he was looking her way.

  She gritted her teeth and forced her wayward wits back to ordering her uncle’s references—marginally preferable to organizing his footnotes.

  Mrs. Wright, the housekeeper, provided a welcome diversion; she brought in a tea tray and poured them cups of tea, then remained to chat about what they were doing and encourage them to eat slices of her plum cake.

  Honor savored a bite of the rich cake, then examined the slice she was consuming. “Are these the same plums that prompted Lady Osbaldestone to embark on supplying plum puddings for the whole village?”

  “Aye, miss. That they are. We had such a crop this year as never has been seen before—if it wasn’t for her ladyship’s notion of plum puddings, we’d never have been able to use them all, which, as they’re especially sweet and juicy this time, would have been a shocking waste.”

  “It must be quite an undertaking,” Callum said from the other end of the table. “To make plum puddings for the whole village.”

  “That, it will be.” Mrs. Wright nodded sagely. “But her ladyship’s Haggerty has a recipe I’d kill for, and there’s no doubt but that she and Mrs. Crimmins are up to the task.”

  Tea consumed and cake devoured, Callum sat back and grinned. “I’m trying to imagine a plum pudding factory in the manor’s kitchen.”

  Mrs. Wright chuckled and gathered their empty teacups. “Aye—it’ll be a sight to see. We sent all our pudding basins over the lane. First Christmas since the master came home that I won’t be filling any myself.”

  Honor considered the cook-housekeeper. “Will you miss it? Making a Christmas pudding?”

  About to heft the reloaded tray, Mrs. Wright paused, then said, “Aye, I will, that.” She lifted the tray and turned to the door. “That said, I’ll be happy to serve Haggerty’s plum pudding—I can’t wait to try it m’self.”

  With a nod for them both, Mrs. Wright left, and after sharing a smiling glance, Callum and Honor returned to their respective tasks.

  Callum finished searching through two more books, then Honor glanced up at the mantelpiece clock, gave vent to a frustrated sound, and started to gather her papers.

  Alerted to the time—after five o’clock—Callum glanced out of the windows, confirming that dusk had come and gone, and it was nearly full dark. He looked at Honor. “Are you heading back to your cottage?”

  She nodded. “Mrs. Hatchett—the cook-housekeeper from the vicarage—has been cooking for us as well, but Uncle Hildebrand won’t stop to eat unless I’m there to force the issue.”

  Callum only just bit back the words He always was one to skip meals.

  He reordered the pile of texts he’d yet to read, then rose. “I’ll walk with you d
own the drive.”

  She threw him a brief smile, and together, they quit the room. Hendricks, the Longfellows’ majordomo, met them in the front hall and assisted them into their overcoats, then bowed them from the house.

  They set off across the forecourt, with Honor clutching a cardboard folder containing the professor’s papers to her chest. With his hands sunk in his pockets, Callum matched his stride to hers as she walked briskly down the winding drive.

  The skeletal trees cast shifting shadows over the gravel, their bare branches creaking ominously in the wind. “I hate that sound,” Honor confided. “It’s so…haunting.”

  Callum cast her a teasing glance. “I’ll save you from the bogeyman.”

  She rolled her eyes, but her lips had curved.

  They reached the lane and halted. Honor turned to him and nodded. “No doubt I’ll see you next time I’m in the library.” She tapped the folder. “I’m not even halfway through.”

  Callum looked past her down the lane. It curved to the right; the cottage to which she was heading was out of sight around the bend, and the way to it was drenched in shadows.

  He waved her on. “I’ll walk with you until you can at least see the cottage.”

  She hesitated, but he stepped out, and she turned and fell in beside him. “Where are you heading? I don’t want to take you out of your way.”

  Through the gloom, he sent her a self-deprecatory smile. “I’ll drop in at the Arms for some of their pie before hying to my cottage. I don’t have anyone to cook for me, although given I’m rarely there, it would be wasted effort, I fear.”

  Her steps faltered. “So I am taking you out of your way.”

  “It’s only a few yards.” Callum waved her on, and with an almost-silent huff, she resumed walking alongside him.

  They rounded the bend, and the cottage came into sight.

  Callum forced his feet to halt. “There you are.” He nodded at the cottage and smiled at her. “I can see you to the door from here.”