Christmas in the Country Read online

  While her elders embarked upon this important subject, Cecily glanced down at her deep-rose velvet carriage dress, trimmed with black satin. Her Parisian bonnet was of black velvet lined with rose sarsnet and embellished with a wreath of roses about the crown. A charming ensemble, Mama had said at the inn this morning, and perfect for the occasion.

  Cecily enjoyed pretty gowns. Nonetheless, now she had been out for nearly a year she began to find tiresome the nuances of ever-changing fashion and the fuss over wearing precisely the right clothes at the right time. One spent so much time choosing and fitting and changing one’s dress. Only listen to Mama trying to decide between her straw-coloured and her lavender crape!

  Wondering whether Lord Avon would want to marry her if she stopped dressing perfectly, she gazed out of the window. In the leafless hedgerow a flock of chaffinches squabbled over hips and haws and cow-parsley seeds. Smart in brown and white coats, pink waistcoats, and blue-grey caps, the little birds never gave a thought to their adornment. Cecily smiled at them.

  The hedgerow gave way to cottages clustered around a church, a few shops, and a small inn. Hedges and fields returned for a short distance, then the lane ran between woods and a sinuous wall of amber Bath stone until they came to the gates of Felversham.

  The tall, wrought-iron gates stood open. “I daresay dozens of relatives will arrive today and tomorrow,” said Lady Flint as the gatekeeper came out of his lodge and waved them on. “And dozens of friends after Christmas. Last time your papa and I came to stay every bedchamber was occupied, and there are upward of three score, not counting the servants’ quarters.”

  With so many guests, Lord Avon and the Pembrokes would surely be too busy to spare much time and attention for Cecily. She resolved to enjoy her last days of freedom before submitting like a dutiful daughter to her parents’ wishes and Society’s expectations. Without stooping to actual impropriety, she would ask herself “What do I choose to do?” instead of “What ought I to do?” If Lord Avon decided after all that she was not suited to be his future duchess, so be it.

  The carriage drive ascended a gentle rise between an avenue of bare chestnuts. From the top, Cecily saw the magnificent Classical façade of a vast mansion stretching across the opposite slope of a shallow valley. Felversham eclipsed her own not unimpressive home.

  A pair of riders cantering down from the house distracted her attention from the splendid view. Crossing a bridge over an ornamental water, they disappeared into a patch of woodland. When they emerged from the trees a moment later, she recognized Lord Avon on his superb black Thoroughbred, Caesar.

  Signalling to the coachman to continue, Lord Avon turned his mount to trot beside the carriage as Cecily lowered the window. He was a fine figure, erect in the saddle, his blue riding coat fitting smoothly over broad shoulders. Beneath the glossy beaver, fair locks brushed forward in the modish Windswept style framed his handsome, smiling face.

  All in all a sight to gladden any female’s heart, Cecily acknowledged. No doubt she would come to love him in time. She stifled a sigh.

  “Welcome to Felversham, ladies,” he said, his light, pleasant voice raised over the sounds of hooves and wheels on gravel. “Lord Flint apprised us of your approach, so Cousin Iain and I rode out to meet you. I’ll perform proper introductions when we reach the house,” he added as Cecily peered past him at his companion.

  “Cousin Iain” briefly raised his hat to her. A grave-looking gentleman of much the same age as Lord Avon, he had black hair cut short, with close-trimmed side-whiskers, and a square chin which reminded Cecily of Papa. She could see that he was not so tall as Lord Avon, his bottle-green coat did not fit so perfectly, and his horse, a bay gelding, was not half so fine.

  “Iain Mac-something,” whispered her mother. “The Duchess’s sister married a Scotsman, a nobody. They both died young and the orphaned children, a boy and a girl, were brought up at Felversham. He inherited a small competence, I believe, but chose to become a lawyer. Or is it a clergyman? No matter. He is still received as one of the family and his sister married Viscount Sutton, so be sure you do not slight him.”

  “Of course not, Mama.” Cecily turned back to the window as Lord Avon remarked upon the mildness of the weather. “No snow for Christmas this year,” she said regretfully.

  “No, but for the New Year, perhaps, if you believe the old country maxim that a heavy crop of berries foretells a hard winter.” He waved at a holly bush bright with scarlet berries, standing sentinel at the edge of the now-nearby copse. “With luck we shall be able to skate on the—”

  A crack, a wail, and a heavy thud interrupted him. With a shouted “Whoa, there!” the coachman pulled up the carriage, while Caesar reared as Lord Avon reined him in. Mr Mac-something swung down from his saddle and ran forward.

  “What is it?” Cecily leaned out of the window. “What has happened?”

  “A child just fell out of a tree,” Lord Avon drawled, his tone amused, “right in the middle of the way.”

  “Oh dear, is he hurt? Can I help?”

  “Good Lord no. A scruffy brat, and Iain is seeing to him. I am sorry you have been disturbed, ladies.”

  But Cecily had opened the door and jumped down, ignoring her mother’s faint, reproachful “My love!” As one of the footmen in the Flint blue-and-white livery scrambled down from the back of the coach and scurried too late to let down the step, she hurried after Lord Avon’s Cousin Iain.

  He knelt on the gravel beside a small, sprawled figure and a large broken branch. Heedless of the rose velvet, Cecily sank to her knees opposite him. He glanced up, astonishment in his hazel eyes.

  “Lady Cecily!”

  “Is he badly hurt?” she asked anxiously.

  “He’s had the air knocked out of him.” Mr Mac-something’s matter-of-fact voice was a rich baritone. “I don’t want to move him until he’s breathing more easily.”

  Beneath a grubby, torn jacket, the boy’s skinny shoulders heaved as he gasped for breath. The man stroked the tousled head. His gloveless hand, so gently reassuring, looked strong and competent, with well-kept nails on the blunt-tipped fingers. Cecily raised her eyes to his face. Rather heavy dark brows, together with a firm mouth and the determined chin she had already noted, gave him an uncompromising air.

  “Iain, move him aside so that the ladies may proceed,” said Lord Avon impatiently, towering over them on horseback.

  “In a moment.”

  Brows knit, his lordship dismounted. “Lady Cecily, allow me to hand you back into the carriage.”

  “Not just yet. I may be of use.” She could see he was irritated and knew she was not living up to his image of her. Well, he would just have to accept her as she was.

  The boy whimpered and she turned back to see him trying to raise himself. Tears cut streaks through the grime on his face, chalk-pale except for a red patch where the gravel had scraped his cheek. “Me arm,” he moaned.

  His left arm, folded beneath him, was bent at an unnatural angle. Cecily winced at the sight. She helped to shift him onto his back, then she took his other small, dirty hand in a comforting clasp.

  “What a brave boy,” she softly commended him.

  Marvelling, Iain stared at her. Jasper had described her as well-favoured. Just now, gazing down with compassion at the hurt child, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

  But the child needed him. He tore his eyes away from Lady Cecily’s lovely face.

  He had recognized the boy as his uncle’s gamekeeper’s son. “Ben Diver, isn’t it? You have broken your arm, lad, but it will mend, never fear. Don’t try to move it.” He looked up at his bored cousin. “I’ll have to cut his sleeve, Jas. Have you a knife on you?”

  “Not I.”

  “My mother’s maid will have scissors, sir.” Lady Cecily started to rise but the child clung to her hand.

  Lady Flint’s footman, coming up, had overheard Iain’s request. “I’ve got a pocket-knife, sir,” he said, producing the implement from
his pocket and unfolding the blade. “It’s pretty sharp.”

  “Thank you.” As he slit the threadbare sleeve, trying not to jolt the injured limb, he continued, “I shall need two straight sticks, about a foot and a half long, if you can find such.”

  “Her ladyship sent me to fetch my lady, sir—”

  “I shall go to Mama shortly, John. See if you can find what the gentleman needs.”

  “Very good, my lady.” Reluctance and disapproval in every rigid inch, the footman moved off into the wood. He was undoubtedly destined some day to become the starchiest of butlers.

  “Lord Avon,” said Lady Cecily with a note of slightly apprehensive appeal in her sweet voice, “perhaps you would not mind explaining to Mama?”

  Jasper bowed and said ironically, “I shall endeavour to do so, ma’am.” He strode away, leading Caesar.

  Iain had laid bare the crooked arm. “A simple fracture,” he said relieved. “I’ll set it and splint it before we move him.”

  Cecily realized he was neither lawyer nor clergyman. “You must be a physician, sir? I am afraid I don’t know your surname.”

  “Macfarlane.” An unexpectedly charming smile lit up his serious face. “But Cousin Iain will do, as we shall soon be related by marriage.”

  She felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “That had best wait upon the event, Dr Macfarlane,” she said primly.

  “As you wish, my lady.”

  His stiff tone and set mouth suggested he took her words to mean she considered him encroaching. Inadvertently she had offended him. Worse, he now believed her the sort of haughty, supercilious female who disdained those less favoured by fate. She did not know how to explain she simply wished neither to broadcast nor even to contemplate her approaching betrothal, still less the marriage to follow.

  “Are you a Lady, miss?” Round-eyed, the boy forgot his pain. “A Real Lady? Lor! That’s why I clumb the tree, miss...my lady, to see the pretty ladies a-coming, an’ the footmen up behind. I wants to be a footman, I does, in a fancy coat an’ all, but me da says I’m to be a gamekeeper like him acos I got no brothers.”

  “Gamekeepers are important men,” Cecily told him. “My Papa, who is a Real Lord, often asks his gamekeeper’s advice.”

  “Yes, his Grace does, too, and the lords what shoots with him, but...” Ben broke off and gazed up in alarm at the Real Footman who reappeared with two sticks in his white-gloved hand and a look of distaste on his face. “Wotcher going ter do to me arm, Dr Iain? Will it hurt?” He clutched Cecily’s hand tightly.

  “Yes, but you are a brave boy. Lady Cecily says so.” As he spoke, Dr Macfarlane untied his neckcloth and unwound it till it hung loose. He took John’s sticks with a nod of approval and laid them on the ground. “My lady,” he said, “I’ll need your footman to hold the lad still while I manipulate the bone.”

  John’s horrified expression as he glanced down at his spotless white breeches almost made Cecily giggle. “I shall hold Ben,” she said firmly.

  “Oh please do, miss--my lady,” cried the frightened child. “I’ll be good, honest.”

  Dr Macfarlane looked from one to the other. “Very well. It will only take a moment, I trust.”

  Determined not to let him despise her for squeamishness, she watched his deft hands straighten the broken bone. Ben moaned and jerked once. As the doctor wrapped his neckcloth around the splinted limb, the boy’s cheeks took on a greenish hue.

  “I’m awful giddy, Dr Iain,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

  Macfarlane felt his forehead. “You’ll soon feel more the thing, laddy, as long as you’re not jolted about on horseback. I’ll send for the gig, and in the meantime you’d best have my coat to keep you warm.” He started to undo the buttons.

  “Oh no, Dr Iain,” Cecily cried, reaching out to stop him, “we have plenty of rugs in the carriage--John, pray fetch one at once--and plenty of space to carry Ben up to the house.”

  Their eyes met and held. A current of heat tingled through Cecily’s body to the tips of her toes. She had won back his regard. Odd that his opinion should matter so much to her, even if he was Lord Avon’s favoured cousin.

  Moments later she was ensconced in the carriage with Ben’s head in her lap. From the opposite seat, her mother gazed with shocked dismay upon a daughter run mad, whereas Dilson looked as if she contemplated giving notice. Lord Avon, however, appeared to have recovered from his pique. A slight, amused, indulgent smile hovered on his lips as he closed the door and bade the coachman drive on.

  “Cecily, what in heaven’s name has come over you?” Lady Flint exclaimed.

  “You have always taught me, Mama, that it is a lady’s duty to see to the welfare of her dependents.”

  “But this ragamuffin is not your dependent—”

  “Yet,” Cecily murmured.

  “...And besides, two gentlemen and two footmen could surely have managed without your aid!”

  “Yes, Mama. I did not think.”

  It was true, she had not thought before acting upon impulse, but she was not a bit sorry. All her life she had suppressed her impulses, had tried to be perfect to compensate Mama and Papa for the row of little graves in the churchyard at home. She had behaved the way they and her governess and Society ordained. Soon she would have to behave the way her husband ordained. For just a few days, the Twelve Days of Christmas, she would please herself.

  Chapter 3

  A frisson of nervous anticipation coursed through Cecily’s veins as she descended the grand staircase at her mother’s side. She was going to meet her future parents-in-law, but what really had her in a flutter was the feeling that she was going to meet herself, for the first time.

  Now, in the brief no-man’s-land between childhood and marriage, she hoped to learn who was this person who for nineteen years had lived the rôle of obedient daughter.

  At the bottom of the marble stairs, in the spacious, domed hall, Lord Avon and Dr Macfarlane stood chatting. Lord Avon came to greet the ladies. The look he gave Cecily she recognized as more approving than admiring—she had changed out of the soiled, crushed rose velvet and was once more neatly and appropriately clad, in blue-and-green striped lutestring.

  “My mother is eager to make your acquaintance,” he said to Cecily, offering Lady Flint his arm, “and to renew her aquaintance with you, ma’am. You have both met my cousin, Dr Macfarlane,” he added mockingly.

  The doctor, himself restored to decency with a fresh cravat and clean unmentionables, made his belated bow. Lady Flint nodded, gracious but with a hint of rebuke. She held him responsible for her daughter’s momentary lapse. Cecily swept a low, graceful curtsy, glad to see his delightful smile in response. They followed the others across the hall.

  He was not much taller than she. The short black hair she had glimpsed when he raised his hat showed a distinct tendency to unruliness. No doubt if he wore it longer it would disport itself in ungovernable curls at odds with the self-discipline she sensed in him—and quite inappropriate to his profession.

  “How is Ben, Doctor?” she asked softly, picturing the poor child laid down upon his bed of pain.

  “He’s in the kitchen, stuffing himself with mince-pies and regaling all and sundry with the tale of how he rode in a carriage with two Real Ladies.”

  Cecily laughed. “He has made a quick recovery!”

  “Given proper care, children are remarkably resilient. I have often thought I should like... No matter! I don’t wish to bore you.”

  She would have pressed him but they entered a reception room where several small groups of people sat or stood about in quiet conversation. Perhaps a score in all, they were dwarfed by the size and splendour of the room. The walls were hung with gold-patterned red silk panels between white pilasters, and the lofty coffered ceiling was painted with scenes of Classical Greece.

  Lord Avon turned to find her gazing upward. “An odd conceit, I have always thought,” he observed with a smile, “to make one crane one’s neck to admire paintings on t
he ceiling.”

  “Was it painted by Angelica Kauffman?” Cecily asked.

  “I believe so. I did not realize you are a connoisseur of art.” His tone was questioning.

  “I cannot claim to know a great deal, only I am particularly interested in Angelica Kauffman because she was a woman.”

  His laugh was condescending, as at a forgivable feminine foible. Dr Macfarlane looked intrigued, but as he was about to speak Lord Avon offered Cecily his arm.

  “Come, let me make you known to my mother.”

  Lady Flint was already talking to a silver-haired lady who sat near the fire on a sofa, her limbs raised on a footstool. The Duchess turned her head and gave Cecily a smile of such sweetness that it almost reconciled her on the spot to her future marriage.

  “My daughter, Cecily, Duchess.”

  Cecily curtsied.

  “Welcome to Felversham, my dear. Do you mind if I keep you to myself for a little while, for a comfortable cose, before Jasper bears you off to meet the rest of his relatives?”

  Her greeting made it plain she regarded Cecily as virtually her son’s betrothed. “Of course not, ma’am,” Cecily said perforce.

  The Duchess cast a speaking glance at Lord Avon, who said, “Lady Flint, I believe you are acquainted with my aunt, Lady Missenden?”

  As they went off—neither reluctant to leave her alone with the Duchess, for was not Cecily a pretty-behaved, compliant young lady?—her Grace invited Cecily to sit down beside her. Dr Macfarlane lingered a moment to adjust the shawl about his aunt’s shoulders. She looked up at him, blue eyes sparkling with mischief.

  “Thank you, Iain. How do you suppose I go on without you when you are in Bath?”

  He grinned sheepishly. “Well enough, I daresay, but Mrs Fredericks has gone to her brother’s house for Christmas, has she not?”

  “My companion, Lady Cecily,” the Duchess explained, adding tartly to her nephew, “I do not call upon Henrietta to rearrange my shawl, I assure you.”