Marian's Christmas Wish (29 page)

“My brother,” she gasped, struggling to free herself
from the coachman. “Oh, please! He is across the field.” She looked at Sir
Reginald. “And he is a spy. And that man there also. Please, is there a
constable nearby?”

“I’ll send me second boy on with the coach. We’re not
far from Clareton.” Towser called up to two passengers who sat, gaping, on the
roof. “Hop down, lads, and help us.”

Marian stood by the side of the road as the men pulled
the body of Sir Reginald out from under the coach wheels and laid him by the
Frenchman, who was now sitting bound and tied to the fence.

“Send back a constable,” Towser ordered as he waved on
the mail coach and turned to Marian. “These two lads and I will see you across
the field. Your brother, you say? The younger one?”

She nodded, suddenly too tired to speak.

Towser took her by the hand, gently working the piece
of glass out of her fist. They started back across the field. Halfway across
she fainted; Towser picked her up without losing a step and carried her the
rest of the way.

Marian was conscious when they came to the fence. “I
can’t imagine what made me do that,” she apologized, her face bright red with embarrassment.
“You can put me down. I’ll not do it again.”

Towser ignored her. He handed her across the fence to
one of the men from the mail coach, who set her on her feet, keeping a careful
arm about her. She took several deep breaths until her head cleared. There was
no movement or sound about the carriage. She started to cry.

“Mare!”

It was not Alistair’s voice, and yet, it was. She
raised her head from Jeremy Towser’s shoulder. “Alistair?” she called, her
voice scarcely louder than a whisper. She limped toward the carriage as Towser
patted Lord Ingraham’s horses into calm.

Alistair lay stretched out on the ground, his head
resting in the footman’s lap.

Openmouthed, Marian stared from one to the other. She
felt herself growing faint again, so she sank to the ground.

Blood dripped down the front of the earl’s beautiful
overcoat, but Alistair smiled at her. “Mare, close your mouth,” he managed to
say.

“But . . . but . . .” she stuttered. “And the footman.
But you were dead!”

The footman grinned. “Naw, miss. I think I sprained my
ankle when I fell, but it’ll likely heal.”

“But we saw you die.”

He grinned wider. “Pardon me, but you saw me dive in
the mud. Seemed like a good place to stay until the shooting stopped.”

“And he shifted the back wheel just as Reginald fired,”
said Alistair. “Which is why I have a hole in my shoulder instead of my throat,
Mare. Quit staring like that. I could use a hand up.”

“Certainly,” Marian said faintly, and reached for him.

His eyes fixed on her hand. “Oh, Mare! I didn’t mean
for that to happen.”

She shook her head and looked down at her hand, which
was only now beginning to throb. “Never mind. That glass kept me alive long
enough for Jeremy to come up.”

Marian sat where she was and let Jeremy Towser drape
Alistair across her lap. Her arms went around her brother and she placed her
good hand tightly over the wound in his shoulder. “Think what a conversation
piece you will be at St. Stephen’s,” she said as she held him close.

Alistair’s eyes were closing. “Mare, don’t be silly. I
think I would like to go home now.”

“And so you shall,” she said softly, smoothing the hair
out of his face and succeeding in smearing more blood around them both. “I can
hock my pearls, and maybe we can talk Mr. Towser into a ride on the mail.”

The other passenger from the mail coach tramped farther
into the woods on the footman’s direction, and crouched by Lord Ingraham’s
coachman. He shook his head and pointed to a spot right between his eyes.

Marian shuddered and hugged Alistair.

Towser helped the footman away from the wheel, and the
able-bodied men pushed the carriage out of the mud and onto the road. The
coachman climbed into the box and turned the horses about. “Get the footman in,
lads,” he called down. “And be careful there with that young lad. Lady—Marian,
is it?— you can let go. He won’t disappear.” Towser laughed out loud. “I think
he may have nine lives. Maybe you do, too.”

“We do,” said Alistair. “It’s the Wynswich luck, Mr.
Towser.” He sighed peacefully and then fainted as the men hauled him into the
coach.

They left one of the mail-coach passengers by the side
of the road to direct the constable to the body of Lord Ingraham’s coachman.
The Frenchman whose horse had been crammed at the fence had disappeared.

Towser quickly got the feel of the horses and guided
the carriage slowly toward Glidewell Common, the town the Wynswiches had passed
no more than an hour ago. But it seemed leagues and leagues away to Marian.
Alistair drifted in and out of consciousness, but his face was calm.

“I owe you my life, brother,” Marian said to him during
one of his moments of lucidity. “You were quite ready to die for me.”

He only smiled at her. “Oh, Mare, don’t be missish.
Besides, sister, if it comes down to that, you’d have done the same for me. I
know it.”

She touched his face. “How is it that you knew what to
do?”

“I
just guessed. When the riders started following us,
I
guess I knew then what was
going on.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re not the only smart Wynswich.”

“No, I am not,” she agreed. “And lately
I
think I am the most foolish one
of all.”

Alistair started to speak, and Marian put her fingers
over his lips. “Hush, now. We have a mountain of explaining to do when we get
to Glidewell.”

While the doctor slapped a hasty bandage on her hand
and then took charge of Alistair, Marian explained the whole story to the
constable, whose skepticism turned to shock and great anger as she told of
spies and secrets and Napoleon.

“You need only verify this with Lord Gilbert Ingraham,
who resides in Bath,” she concluded.

“I know of him, Miss Wynswich.” the constable said. “If
you’ll sign this statement we have taken down, we’ll see that you return to Bath with it.”

Her chin came up. “I’ll sign your statement,” she said
quietly, “but I am hoping Jeremy Towser will consent to help us toward Picton
instead.”

The constable rubbed his chin. “I don’t know, miss.”

Marian began to cry. “I just want to go home.” She
dabbed at her eyes and then sobbed in good earnest, to the extreme uneasiness
of the constable.

Towser came to her rescue. “I think Jeremy Towser can
accommodate you, miss, provided Alistair is fit enough.” He turned to the
constable. “I suggest that you bundle the bodies and the footman into Lord
Ingraham’s carriage and drive that back to Bath.”

The doctor was not difficult to persuade. While the innkeeper’s
wife cleaned up Alistair and tucked him in a nightshirt belonging to her husband,
Marian changed into another dress from her bandbox. Her hair was a hopeless
mess, but she tugged out enough of the snarls, twigs, and bits of rock from the
road and braided the rest. She let the doctor swab iodine onto her skinned
knees and help her into her boots again, promising that she would have her hand
looked at in Picton.

The landlady took the green dress, all bloody and
mud-covered, between her forefinger and thumb. “Miss, you’ll want me to dispose
of this, won’t you?”

Marian nodded and pulled on her cloak. “Wait,” she
said. “I think
...
I think I will put
that dress in Lord Ingraham’s carriage.” She took it back. “Lord Ingraham may
find it useful,” she said. Lady Ingraham, she thought, perhaps this is how I
can help you.

Without further chat, Marian marched down the stair and
into the inn yard, where she handed the dress to the footman. “Give this to
Lord Ingraham,” she directed. “Tell him
...”
She thought a moment and shook her head. “There is no message. Indeed, it needs
no message.”

The footman took the dress. “I hate to be the one to
give him this. He’ll be on the road to Picton in jig time.”

“Not unless his superiors from the Foreign office tell
him so,” she commented dryly.

Alistair was ready to travel when she returned to the
inn. Jeremy and one of the innkeeper’s sons deposited him in the empty mail
coach that waited.

Marian propped one of the landlady’s pillows behind his
head and covered him with a blanket. “Will you be all right?” she asked.

The doctor’s sleeping powders were rapidly claiming
possession of her brother. Alistair opened his eyes long enough to say. “Home.”

“Yes,” Marian agreed as she pulled the blanket higher
across his bandaged shoulder.

“Home,” he said again, struggling against the sleeping
powders. “Mare, the pearls are in my coat pocket,” he said, his words slurring
together. “For Jeremy Towser. Whole mail coach to ourselves. Imagine that.” He
closed his eyes.

Towser still stood by the coach door. “No need for your
pearls.” he said gruffly. “The company can manage without them.” He shifted his
weight and cleared his throat. “But there is one thing I want, miss.”

“Anything, Mr. Towser,” she said.

“If you think Alistair will sleep through, ride up here
beside me and tell me the whole story.”

And so it was that Marian Wynswich. bundled in her
cloak and wrapped about in Jeremy Towser’s muffler, came riding up to the front
door of Covenden Hail after midnight in the mail coach. Word had traveled ahead
of them, and the hall was blazing with lights. As the coach rolled to a stop,
the door was flung open and Percy ran down the steps. He held up his arms for
Marian, and she found herself caught in a breathless embrace.

And then Ariadne was there, and Lady Wynswich, and even
the Reverend Beddoe, all of them standing close together with their arms around
her.

Jeremy Towser watched all this from his perch high
above. He sniffed a little, cleared his throat loudly, and looked the other
way, muttering something about “the strangest people who live in Devon.”

Marian had only a fleeting memory of Percy carrying her
into the house and upstairs to her room. She remembered a tub of warm water,
where her mother and Ariadne washed her, crying over her bruises and cuts, and
the smell of shampoo in her hair. She remembered a good fire and a warming pan
in the bed, and then friendly darkness. She woke up once with tears on her
cheeks, calling for Alistair, but someone—it couldn’t have been her mother, but
it must have been—sang her back to sleep with a melody she recalled from the nursery.
She remembered nothing more.

The sun was low in the sky when Marian opened her eyes
and looked about. For the smallest moment, she was back in the bedroom on the Royal Crescent. For another moment, one that made her start up in terror and set her heart
pounding, she was running and running. And then she was in her own room again,
with its shabby wallpaper, comfortable armchair, and old books piled on the
desk. She snuggled herself down deeper into her old mattress and cried out
suddenly; every part of her body hurt.

“Marian, where does it hurt?” Percy roused himself from
her armchair and pulled himself closer.

She winced and reached for his outstretched hand. “Percy,
everything hurts!” The look of dismay on his face required an immediate amendment.
“No, no, that is not true. My ears are excellent.”

He sighed and poured her a drink of water. She took it
from him and he raised her up so she could drink. “That’s the girl. Jeremy
Towser said Sir Reginald threw you to the ground several times.”

“But I didn’t feel a thing yesterday—yesterday?—except
my hand.” More wary this time, Marian pulled her bandaged hand out slowly from
under the covers.

“The doctor had to put a couple of stitches in your
palm,” Percy explained. “Your knees . . . Well, they’ll be better soon enough.”

Marian turned carefully onto her side and looked at her
brother. Why did I never realize before how handsome he is? she thought. And
how much he cares for us? Why does it take something like this to make me
realize what I have here?

“Percy,” she said.

He looked up from his contemplation of her hand. “Yes?”

“Nothing. Just . . . Percy.”

He kissed her forehead. “Alistair woke up an hour ago
and asked for you. He turned rather belligerent when I would not let him get up
and come in here, but he is running a slight fever, and the doctor said on no
account was he to exert himself. Ariadne stands guard.”

“And Mama? Oh, I do hope she has not been a trial.”

Percy added another log to the fireplace and came back
to the chair, sitting down heavily. Marian’s heart went out to him. He has been
watching all night and day, from one room to another. Oh, Percy, God keep you.

“Mama has borne up surprisingly well. Toss a real
crisis her way, and she is a brick. The Reverend Beddoe did worry me at first.
I thought he would go all to pieces. However, Ariadne is quite expert with the
vinaigrette.”

Marian laughed, winced, and put her hand to her side.

“The doctor fears you may have broken a rib or two.”

She tried to sit up. “I should go see Alistair.”

He pushed her back gently. “You’ll not go anywhere. He
will keep. Are you hungry?”

She shook her head and then gingerly reached back and
touched a bump on her crown. “I will never eat again.”

Percy grinned and stretched. “You may never eat again,
but I will. Go to sleep, Marian.” She closed her eyes obediently.

“One thing more, sister,” Percy said. “Gilbert Ingraham
waits below.”

Marian snapped open her eyes. “He couldn’t be here!”

“Then I do not know who is pacing the floor below like
a caged lion. And from the looks of him, Lord Ingraham leapt up from the dinner
table in Bath, pulled on his boots while he was already in the saddle, and didn’t
stop until he got here this morning. He wants to see you.”

“No.”

“Just no? Nothing more?”

“Nothing more,” Marian whispered, and turned herself
over until she faced the wall.

Dinner was fish broth, which Lady Wynswich fed to her,
all the while holding forth about events around Picton in the last few days.

Marian folded her hands over her stomach and listened with
equanimity. A week ago, such a conversation would have driven her distracted,
but now, she enjoyed listening to her mother.

“There, my dear,” Lady Wynswich said finally, and put
down the spoon. “Not too much at once, says the doctor. And you know how he
scolds if his instructions are not followed.”

“Yes, Mama,” Marian said meekly.

“Oh, my dear, dear Marian,” she exclaimed, kissing her
on both cheeks. “There is someone in the parlor who would like very much to
come up and sit with you awhile.”

“No!”

Lady Wynswich’s eyes filled with tears, and she groped
in her bosom for a handkerchief. “He is so weary, poor dear. He almost fell
asleep over dinner.”

“Then he should go to bed.”

Lady Wynswich arose with some dignity and took the tray
with her.

Marian moved her hand. “Mama, wait. Have you placed him
in the best guest room again?”

“Of course. Some of us are not entirely dead to duty
around here.”

Marian drew her lips together in a tight line. “I
merely want to comment that the feathers are coming out of the pillow in that
room, and the water pitcher has a crack in it.”

“I’ll see to it, dear,” she said as she backed out the
door with the tray. Her eyes had a decided twinkle in them, which her daughter
elected to ignore.

Marian did not know how she could sleep that night,
after sleeping through the day, but she did, rousing only once to grope about
for another blanket. The room had grown colder, and she wondered if more snow
were on the way.

Percy got up from the chair and pulled the blanket up
around her. He rested his hand against her cheek. Her eyes closed, Marian
smiled and kissed the palm of his hand.

“Good night, brat,” she thought she heard Percy say,
but Percy never would have said that. She was too exhausted to figure it out.

Marian thought to ask Percy in the morning when he came
in the room again after breakfast, sat down, and promptly fell asleep, but did
not. Is it that I do not wish to know, she asked herself as she cautiously
flexed her knees. This subject bears contemplation.

The house was still quiet, resting peacefully in that
luminous light that comes with snow. Moving slowly, quietly, so as not to waken
Percy, Marian dangled her legs over the edge of the bed. She looked down at her
knees, skinned and scraped raw, and raised her nightgown higher. Deep bruises
traveled like fingers up her thigh. She shuddered. Those were Sir Reginald’s
finger marks. Jeremy Towser, you were right: the world is full of rascals.

Even the soles of her feet pained her. but Marian
walked quietly to Alistair’s room and slipped inside. The Reverend Beddoe
watched her, blew her a kiss, and raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

She put a finger to her lips. “I merely wanted to see
him for myself,” she whispered. She looked down at Alistair as he slept. His
forehead was cool, his breathing steady. “I love you,

Alistair,” she said, and left the room as quietly as
she had come.

The door to the best guest room was open a crack.
Marian stood outside it a moment and then peeked in. Clothes were scattered in
a trail from the door to the bed, as if Lord Ingraham had not a thought in his
head except sleep, and soon.

The fire had gone out. As her eyes accustomed
themselves to the gloom, Marian observed that the window by the bed was open
slightly and snow covered the floor like powder. He must have opened the window
himself, she thought, for the servants would never do it. Such peculiar
sleeping habits, Marian thought as she pulled the door to again. A person would
have to cuddle quite close to stay warm.

Marian decided that she would eat breakfast that
morning, and there was general rejoicing throughout the kitchen. At least, that
was the atmosphere according to Ariadne, who brought a weighted-down offering
from Cook.

“Marian, Cook seems to think that you cannot sustain
life without tea and toast and eggs and a slab of cheese the size of a roof
tile,” said her sister. “I would never argue with Cook.”

They ate breakfast together, Ariadne telling Marian of
her bridal plans. “We have decided on April the fourth. The daffodils and
jonquils will be in bloom then, and think how lovely! That will be one week
before the house must be vacated, so we will have a lovely reception in the
front parlor. Mama is making plans to visit our Aunt Taylor in Norfolk then, and I think she means to take you with her.”

And I will go gladly, Marian thought. Precious little
time alone you and Sam will have if I do not. She sighed and picked the center
out of Cook’s excellent toast.

Ariadne pulled her knitting from her workbasket,
fiddled with it a moment, and then set it down. “Marian! You can’t ignore
Gilbert Ingraham day after day.”

“It has not been day after day,” Marian declared. “This
is not the Hundred Years’ War!”

“Oh, I am sure I do not know what it is,” said Ariadne.
“He sits so patiently and then paces the floor, and has such a look of agony in
his eyes. Marian. I thought you had a woman’s heart in your breast somewhere.”

Marian ignored her outburst and ate another wedge of
cheese. Ariadne threw up her hands in exasperation and left the room. She didn’t
exactly slam the door, but she came as close to shutting it decisively as
Marian had ever heard.

“Everyone in this house has gone mad, in the short
space between Advent and New Year’s,” she said to the wall. She giggled. “It
must be the Wynswich secret.”

Percy was her next visitor. He came in as she was
brushing her hair. “Good to see you feeling more the thing,” he commented.

Marian decided that Percy was greatly improved, too,
and told him so. He smiled and sat down in her chair with his newspaper. “I did
sleep well last night, and in my own bed.”

“I thought you were in here.”

“No,” he said, and did not elaborate. He snapped open
his paper and, humming to himself, began to peruse it. “Marian, here is an item
of interest. I shall mark it so you can read it at your leisure. It is the
terms of the Treaty of Ghent.” He lowered the paper long enough to look at her.
“Treaties can be such pleasant affairs, sister. Don’t you think it a wonderful
thing when people can work out their differences?”

“Percy
...”
she began, her voice dangerously low.

“My dear, I know how you like to follow events of
national importance,” he said, assuming an air of bewildered injury, and then
totally ruined the effect with a grin that spread from ear to ear.

“Percy?”

He was silent behind his paper until Marian wanted to
throw her hairbrush at him.

“H’mmm? Oh, beg pardon, Marian. Did you want something?”

“I just wondered. Is there other news . . . of national
importance?” she asked casually.

He turned several pages and then looked up. “You do
mean in the paper, do you not?”

“Of course!”

Unfazed, he flipped back and forth. “Ah. Here is an
item you might find interesting. Or you might not. It says here that

Lord Gilbert Ingraham, Earl of Collinwood, has resigned
his position with the Diplomatic Corps. Imagine that!”

“What?” Marian gasped.

“That’s what it says. It’s only a short item, and
contains no real information, so I will not bother to read it out loud.” He
rose. “I am probably tiring you with this silly talk of inconsequentials.” He
folded the paper, carefully creasing it just so, and tucked it under his arm.

“Percy, you can leave the paper,” Marian said. “If you’re
done with it, that is.”

He put the paper on the bedside table. “It is rather
thin of news this time of year. I wonder you would want it.”

As soon as the door closed, Marian pounced on the
paper, spreading it out on the bed and ruffling through the pages until she
came to the last item. She read it and sat back in disappointment. It was only
a small notice, after all, as if the news had just come and there was no time
for more details.