Christmas Carol (39 page)

“How well did you know your aunt, Mr.
Montfort?” Carol demanded. “I have worked for her for nearly six
years. During that time, I do not recall any contact between
you.”

“Because there was none. Her estate was left
to me only because I am her sole remaining relative. Now let me ask
you
, Miss Simmons— how well did you know my aunt?” When
Carol, trying to decide how much she should tell him, did not
respond at once, he went on. “You did not know her at all. Oh, you
may have seen her every day for six years. You may have done her
bidding, perhaps even to her satisfaction, though I doubt if she
would have told you so if you had. Lady Augusta Marlowe did not
make friends of her employees, nor was she ever generous to them.
Do not attempt to convince me that her character was otherwise, or
I shall begin to suspect you of some unscrupulous intentions in
spite of your security clearance. She did have a security check
done on you, did she not? I would expect it of her.”

“Yes, she did, but she wasn’t as suspicious
as you think. At least, not—not—”

“Not at the end, when her mind was failing?”
he suggested, frowning at her.

“How dare you imply that I tried to influence
a senile old woman? That is what you are saying, isn’t it?” Carol
felt like crying. How could this man look so much like the Nicholas
and the Nik she knew and loved, and yet be as cold and suspicious
as Lady Augusta at her worst? “Your aunt and I understood each
other. As for you, I think you don’t care about anything but her
estate. If you cared about her, you would have made an effort to
see her once in a while.”

“She would not have allowed me to enter the
house. Did she never tell you the scandalous tale of her quarrel
with my mother?”

“Perhaps you ought to explain that business
to me.” Carol was rapidly growing annoyed with him. “All I know
about the great Marlowe family feud is that Lady Augusta and her
sister once got into a major fight and stopped speaking to each
other. Then your mother married and went off to Hong Kong, and the
two sisters never made up their quarrel and never saw each other
again.”

“Those are the basic facts,” Nicholas
Montfort agreed.

“Why did they fight?” Carol asked, speaking
more softly now in hope of coaxing him to tell her all about it. “I
don’t know why I feel the way I do about this, but it seems to me
to be vitally important that I should know what caused the quarrel
between your mother and your aunt. Perhaps then I could better
understand what motivated Lady Augusta.”

“I remember her, you know.” Nicholas
Mont-fort’s face softened with a smile. “We all lived in this house
when I was a little boy. In those days, my grandfather was still
alive. When my father died, Grandfather insisted my mother should
return home, to stay with him and Aunt Augusta. She was older than
my mother. I was missing my father and she was remarkably patient
with me.”

“I know Lady Augusta never married,” Carol
prompted gently.

“She had a beau. That’s what she called him.
He had been a dashing pilot in the Royal Air Force during the war.
Afterward, he went into his family’s business. He came here to
lunch one day, shortly after we arrived. He took one look at my
mother and promptly forgot all about Aunt Augusta. There was a bit
of a dustup about it,” Nicholas added dryly, “and a battle royal
when my mother decided to follow him to Hong Kong and marry him
there.”

“I can imagine.” Carol let out a long breath.
“So that’s why the two sisters never spoke again. If Lady Augusta’s
heart was broken by her own sister’s actions, it would explain why
she became such a crusty, suspicious old spinster. I can’t blame
your mother, though, not if she loved your stepfather.”

“She did. And he loved her. I have seldom
seen two people so happy together. He died a week after she did,
and I truly believe his death was caused by a broken heart. He just
did not want to go on without her.”

“Did you go to Hong Kong with your mother?”
Carol asked, to change the fascinating subject a little without
entirely leaving it.

“Not immediately,” he said. “I went to school
here in England. Afterward, I started in the London office of my
stepfather’s business. Later, I went out east to work directly with
him, as his partner. I took full control of the company on his
death. Now, with Hong Kong scheduled to be returned to the Chinese
in just a few years, I have been considering moving our
headquarters back to England.”

“You could live in the old family
homestead.”

The suggestion elicited an amused chuckle
from him. “You have a peculiar effect on me, Miss Simmons. I seldom
talk so much. Or perhaps it is the result of returning to this
house and finding myself quartered in rooms that were my
grandfather’s when I was last here. On the other hand, it could be
no more than jet lag that is making me so talkative.”

“You haven’t said anything very shocking, and
I won’t repeat a word of it,” Carol murmured. She was acutely
conscious of the warm, quiet room with its candlelight and gleaming
silver and crystal. Nicholas was seated at the head of the long,
mahogany table, and she was at his right with the silver tea
service in front of her.

“Is that a decanter of port I see on the
sideboard?” he asked. “Would you care for a glass, Miss
Simmons?”

“Thank you.” Carol did not usually drink
port, but she would seize any excuse to remain with him like this
for a little longer. She noted with pleasure the easy grace with
which he rose to lift the decanter of wine off the sideboard. The
way he moved had not changed from either the past or the
future.

Nor was there any change in her heart in
regard to him, whether he called himself Nicholas Marlowe the Earl
of Montfort, or Nik the leader of a band of rebels, or plain Mr.
Nicholas Montfort. She had been steadily falling deeper and deeper
in love with the same man under wildly different circumstances. Now
here he was, in her own time, and her love for him meant nothing at
all, because he did not know her. Carol considered her
extraordinary situation for only a moment before she became aware
of a slight nudging sensation within her mind.

No, Lady Augusta
, she thought in
response to the sensation,
I won’t forget what I have to
do
.

“This is the third time you’ve done that.”
Nicholas set a stemmed crystal glass of port down in front of her.
“First you look desperately sad, as if your heart were broken, then
you smile as if you have just remembered a wonderful secret.”

“Perhaps I have, and perhaps I ought to
reveal at least part of it to you,” she murmured. Raising her eyes
to his she said in a crisper voice, “You won’t be able to do any
business tomorrow because it is Sunday—or on Monday, either,
because Boxing Day has been postponed until then. You can’t meet
with Lady Augusta’s solicitors or make any official decisions about
her estate until Tuesday at the earliest. In the meantime, I would
like to show you a few things. Call them my secrets if you like.
Will you go to church with me tomorrow?”

“Church?” He laughed. “I haven’t been to
church for years, but yes, if you like, I will go with you. It is
the season for churchgoing, after all.”

She told him the time of the service and then
she rose, using the late hour and his long journey as an excuse to
end the evening. The nudging in her mind was growing stronger,
urging her to leave the dining room before she was actually ready
to do so. As a result of this peculiar sensation she hoped— indeed,
she prayed—that Lady Augusta would be waiting for her in her
bedroom when she got there, because she wanted an explanation for
the events of the last few hours.

Her room was empty. Only the scent of
paperwhite narcissus greeted her. Carol looked around, unable to
believe she was alone. Surely Lady Augusta was present, even if
Carol could not see her.

“Am I right, then?” Carol asked the air.
“Have you sent Nicholas Montfort to Marlowe House at this exact
time because you want him to help me change the future?” Having
received no response to these questions, Carol nonetheless
continued speaking aloud to an empty room.

“Lady Augusta, are you going to provide some
help, or do you expect me just to fumble around until I figure
things out on my own? Come to think of it, that is what you let me
do in the other times, isn’t it? You took me to the past and the
future and gave me a few pointers for getting along in each, and
then you disappeared and let me learn my lessons for myself. And in
both of those times you did nothing to stop me from falling in
love. Can it be that loving Nicholas and Nik was part of your
overall design for me?

“In case you don’t know it yet, Lady
Augusta,” Carol went on, “just in case you can’t read my mind, I
ought to tell you that tomorrow I am going to introduce Nicholas
Montfort to the people at St. Fiacre’s Bountiful Board, and I am
going to try to convince him to make a large donation out of your
estate.”

There was no need for an introduction.
Nicholas already knew Lucius Kincaid.

“We went to school together,” Nicholas said
to Carol as soon as he saw the rector march in behind the choir and
take his place at the altar. “What is he doing in a place like
this?”

“I plan to show you what he’s doing, right
after the service,” Carol whispered in reply. A short time later
she noted with great interest the startled look on Lucius Kincaid’s
face when he saw Nicholas kneeling beside her at the altar rail,
and then the happy grin he tried to keep under control as he went
about his priestly duties. Even more interesting was the way in
which the two men greeted each other after the service was over.
Laughing, pounding each other on the back, they utterly destroyed
all of Carol’s preconceptions about Englishmen being reserved.

“I never thought to see you here,” Lucius
Kincaid cried. “Has the Far East lost its glamour? Are you home to
stay?”

“I am considering taking up permanent
residence in London,” Nicholas responded in a mock serious tone
totally unlike his usual voice. “Yes. Harrumph. The matter requires
serious, not to say, lengthy, thought.”

“I had forgotten how well you do that. You
have just heard a perfect imitation of Old Foggy, our tutor at
Oxford,” Lucius Kincaid informed his wife and Carol, who were both
watching this display of schoolboy comradeship in stunned
disbelief.

“Lucius, my dear,” said Mrs. Kincaid, “we
ought to be in the hall at this very minute. People are waiting for
us.”

“Come with us, Nicholas.” The Reverend Mr.
Kincaid gave his old friend a hearty shove on one shoulder to
direct him into the churchyard and thence to the back entrance of
the parish hall. Carol and the rector’s wife followed them. Inside
the hall the Sunday morning edition of St. Fiacre’s Bountiful Board
was in full swing, with volunteers serving a breakfast of coffee,
tea, or juice with sweet rolls.

“I wish it could be eggs and kippers and the
occasional platter of bacon,” said the rector. “Unfortunately, this
is the best we can afford, and I must say, we hear few
complaints.”

“What, exactly, is this program?” Nicholas
asked. The two men moved off, Lucius Kincaid talking rapidly as he
explained the purpose of the Bountiful Board.

“Mr. Montfort seems to be a nice man,”
Abigail Kincaid commented, watching carefully to see Carol’s
reaction to her words.

“If he is your husband’s friend, then he must
be a decent fellow,” Carol said as casually as she could manage.
She was longing to tell Mrs. Kincaid all about her history with
Nicholas Montfort, but she sensed that it was not yet the proper
time to do so.

“Like Lucius, Mr. Montfort is apparently not
without a sense of mischief.” Abigail Kincaid’s blue eyes were
laughing. “By the way, Lucius has eaten at least half of that box
of candy you gave me. He says he prefers the nuts and the tough,
chewy ones.”

“Of course he does. I would expect nothing
less.” Their eyes met. Suddenly, with an instinctive yet unspoken
understanding of the mysterious connection between them, both women
burst into laughter.

“Luc,” said Nicholas a short time later, “you
cannot possibly continue this work on your own. You must agree to
let me help.” Pulling out a checkbook, he began to write.

“My dear fellow, I did not bring you to this
hall to solicit money from you,” cried Lucius Kincaid.

“No, you did not,” said Nicholas, smiling a
little. “It was Miss Simmons who brought me to St. Fiacre’s, and I
am grateful to her. Here you are. I believe I can also promise
continuing support in the future.” He handed the check to his
friend.

“Oh, I say!” Lucius Kincaid stared at the
paper in his hand. “Nicholas, this is quite magnificent. Almost
unbelievable, in fact.”

“Nonsense.” Nicholas’s hand rested on his
friend’s shoulder for an instant. “You did me a good turn once. It
is only fair for me to return the favor, and with interest, since
it was so many years ago.

“Luc saved my life,” Nicholas told Mrs.
Kincaid and Carol. “While we were at Oxford, he pulled me out of
the river after a boating accident. Now, Luc, I do want something
from you in return for this check. I would like you and Mrs.
Kincaid to come to Marlowe House for dinner on Tuesday night. My
assistant and his wife will be there, too. You do remember William
Bascome?”

“Will? I wondered where he had gotten to. So,
he has been working for you.” Lucius Kincaid grinned. “It will be a
reunion of old school chums who have not seen each other for far
too long.”

Later, walking back to Marlowe House from St.
Fiacre’s, Carol filled Nicholas in on the Christmas Eve dinner at
which she and the servants had assisted the Kincaids.

“Those good people are struggling to keep the
Bountiful Board going,” she said. “I hope you can continue to help
them.” When he did not answer, she was silent for a while before
adding, “The church could use some restoration work, too.”