The Christmas Carrolls (18 page)

The question was whether his horse was going to be able to carry him back to Blakely’s.

* * * *

Informal dancing was to be that evening’s entertainment at Winterpark. Additional young people, friends of the various Carroll daughters, had been invited from nearby to make up the sets. The friends’ parents joined the elders at cards, helping to amuse Their Graces. The duchess was pleased as punch to lord it over the local gentry, while the duke set up a flirt with a plump widow. Lady Carroll having refused his advances, the duke had been at loose ends. He’d almost been at the end of Lord Carroll’s steel, long friendship, gouty foot, children’s marriage, and all. Now Carlisle was happier about being stuck in the country, especially since his wife was watching, and the widow was ten years younger than Her Grace. He made sure he led the cozy armful out for a waltz between card games, too.

Max wasn’t dancing. He could dance, but he couldn’t dance and make conversation at the same time, as expected by the giddy debs he’d partnered in the past. He’d borrowed a page from Lord Carroll’s book, therefore, and brought his cane along, the cane he hadn’t used or needed for over a fortnight. Then he wrote a chapter of his own by tapping his chest and coughing whenever someone approached him and asked why he wasn’t dancing. Lady Joia thought to introduce him to some of the local lasses, who were clearly delighted that the comeliest competition in the neighborhood was finally being taken out of the lists. Max coughed.

Evan swirled by, a pretty girl in his arm. She was wearing a pink gown with too many bows, Max decided, like a gift package tied by a War Office committee. The Carroll ladies all wore simple gowns that fell straight from high waistlines, adorned with bits of lace and ribbon. When Evan led the confection his way at the end of the set, Max coughed.

He would have sat by Lady Holly at the pianoforte, turning her pages, but Mr. Rendell was there, demanding a dance, so Miss Almira Krupp, the duchess’s companion, took her place. Max backed away, coughing. The butler kept sending footmen his way with glasses of lemonade. Max hated lemonade, but he felt better with something in his hand, not so conspicuously shirking his social duties, so he drank it anyway. Then he could waste some more time visiting the necessary.

When he returned, however, Miss Krupp was playing a waltz. The duke was dancing with his new light-o’-love. Viscount Comfort and Mr. Rendell partnered their betrotheds. Evan twirled around another fussily dressed female who was obviously enamored of his uniform. And Merry, Lady Meredyth, was being held in a too tight embrace by a gangly youth in high shirt points and padded shoulders. She was talking nineteen to the dozen and the juvenile—Max could see his spotty complexion—was laughing back as they swooped and swirled the length of the drawing room. Max choked, for real.

“May I fetch you something, Sir Maxwell?” the butler asked, appearing at Max’s side on the instant. “Hot tea? Perhaps one of Cook’s tisanes?”

Next the old fellow would be asking if he needed a mustard plaster for his chest, by Jupiter, Max fretted, and loudly enough for the company to hear over Miss Krupp’s playing. But the downy old butler’s eyes were twinkling, Max noted, so he nodded. Yes, there was something Mr. Bartholomew could do for him. Max tipped his head in the companion’s direction. “Another w-waltz?” he asked, half pleading.

Bartholomew whispered to Lady Joia, who, with a glance in Max’s direction, relieved Miss Krupp at the pianoforte. “I’ve been wanting to play this new score I just purchased,” he heard her tell the scrawny spinster. “I hope no one minds that it’s another waltz.”

Having seen some of the byplay, Mr. Rendell minded that he couldn’t hold his beloved for one more dance, to please some plaguey stray pup Evan had dragged home. Then Holly patted the bench beside her and smiled up at him. Ren relaxed. This was better than a dance. The whelp was forgiven and forgotten.

Max didn’t notice. He was making his way across the room to where Merry stood among a circle of befrilled females and their feckless swains. “M-my dance?” he asked, holding his hand out to her in front of them all, proving he really was a brave soul.

If she glowed like candlelight before, Max thought, Merry’s answering grin was a whole bonfire, warming him to the bones.

“I thought you weren’t dancing because of your chest, old man.” Evan was trying to be helpful. Max kicked him, behind his partner’s skirts.

“I’m sure one dance won’t hurt, will it?” Merry asked hopefully.

No, it wouldn’t hurt. Holding Merry in his arms, feeling her touch on his shoulder, Max couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t feel his game leg, and his heart seemed to be beating louder than the music. It felt glorious.

Chapter Twenty

“I am worried about that man, Bradford.”

Lord Carroll patted his wife’s knee, there on the sofa beside him late that night. “What are you worried about, Bess, that the duke will cause a scandal in the neighborhood with Thaddeus Brady’s widow? Don’t fatch yourself, my love. Carlisle is only acting the rake to rile that sour prune he’s married to. He knows what’s due his name and distinction, and his son’s bride. Just today Carlisle told me that he thinks our Joia is the perfect wife for the viscount. No niminy-piminy miss, he called her,” the earl related proudly. “ ‘Od’s truth, she’ll keep Comfort from following in his father’s wandering footsteps, if that’s the man you’re fussing about.”

“No, not Comfort and not his father. The man I referred to is the friend of Evan’s who has our Meredyth moonstruck, that young officer.”

   Lord Carroll sipped at his wine. He was allowed one glass these days, so he would be in condition to walk his daughters down the aisle without his cane. He meant to make that glass last, and this, too, his favorite time of day with Bess—unless he counted the moments after, when he followed her to her bedroom, or she to his. Or when he woke in the morning with her head on his shoulder, all warm and rosy. These days she was out of his bed at dawn, it seemed, she was so busy with the wedding plans, the house party, and preparations for Christmas. Bess might be marrying not one but two daughters off to nonpareils, but the tenants would have their baskets, the servants would have their Boxing Day gifts, the children of their dependents would have their treats. Lord Carroll patted Bess’s leg again. What a good wife she was, what a good friend. He’d give her the stars and moon if he had them. He did have the son....

“Bradford, this is no time for wool-gathering. What are you going to do about that man, Sir Maxwell Grey?”

“What would you have me do, my love, tell Comfort to toss him out into the cold? Ask Rendell to challenge the boy to a duel? Good thing to have around, sons-in-law, when a suitor goes beyond the line. Thing is, young Grey hasn’t overstepped himself, has he, Bess?”

“Of course not, Bradford. I’m not implying Sir Maxwell is not a gentleman.”

“I’m glad, for I’d hate to see the last of him. He seems a decent lad to me. Good head on his shoulders, good seat on a horse, and good, solid plans for his future. He’s a steadying influence on that firebrand Evan.”

“I am not concerned with the man’s influence on Evan. It’s his effect on Meredyth that has me worried. You said yourself she’s too young to think of marrying.”

“Calf love, my dear. No one is talking about marrying them off.”

“Talking’s another thing. The man is so ... shy.”

“Is he?” Lord Carroll took another sip. “He didn’t seem so to me. We had a long coze about sheep and hogs after you ladies left the dining room.”

The countess tried not to frown—she didn’t want more wrinkles before the wedding—but she knew what her husband was like when on one of his hobbyhorses. “Did you let the man get a word in edgewise?”

“Of course. It was Grey asking the questions, after all. He seems to be a quick learner, asked intelligent questions. No, I wouldn’t say he was shy. Mayhaps he’s only that way around the ladies. Been raised by uncles, don’t you know, then school and the army. Can’t hold it against a cove if he’s not a ladies’ man.”

“No,
but—”

“And he’s bold enough when he needs to be. Did you see the way he waded through mitten’s circle of beaux to claim her for that waltz?”

That was what had Lady Carroll in a flutter. It was one thing for her baby to indulge in hero worship, quite another when the unlikely hero returned the compliment. “Everyone saw it. Even the duchess commented.”

“Well, a good soldier knows when to go on the offense. He had a fine leg, too, for a wounded soldier. I thought you said he limped.”

“He did,” Bess answered wryly, “before that waltz.”

The earl chuckled. “So that’s the way of it, eh? Our little tomboy has an admirer. She had to make the jump into a woman sometime, Bess.”

“Yes, but I’m afraid she’ll throw her heart over the first fence. You know how she’s always bringing home unfortunate creatures? I fear she thinks of Sir Maxwell as another of her strays.”

The earl patted his wife’s hand once more and kissed the worry lines on her forehead. “If it will make you feel any better, I’ll take the boy around the estate with me this week. I’ll tell him he’ll learn more from the tenant farmers than from books, which is God’s own truth. Between that and riding out with Evan, the lad’ll be too tuckered out to get up to trouble when he is around. Besides, my love, it’s only for another two weeks.”

“A lot can happen in two weeks.”

* * * *

Max was gratified when a messenger from the earl arrived at Blakely Manor during breakfast the next morning. He’d feared to appear too inquisitive, too encroaching, but now the earl was inviting him to ride along on his rounds of Winterpark’s fields and farms. Max was fascinated by what he saw: the modern equipment, the variety of livestock, the respect the tenants had for their lord. Sometimes in Spain he’d wondered just what he was fighting to preserve. This was it.

Lord Carroll was also impressed. Here was no dilettante, no Town dandy, no well-bred whopstraw too full of himself to get his hands dirty and too arrogant to appreciate a humble farmer’s wisdom. Perhaps the war had given the lieutenant a maturity well beyond his years, or perhaps his brush with death had taught him the value of life. Lord Carroll could understand, thinking of his own mortality.

The earl was also thinking that, if Bess was right about Merry—and she was usually right about everything—this Sir Max might be a godsend. He’d have to ask Bartholemew’s opinion when they got back.

* * * *

That afternoon the gentlemen were sent out to collect Christmas greenery for the ladies to weave into garlands and wreaths and kissing boughs. The butler had wrapped an additional muffler around Max’s neck, and the earl checked twice to make sure he wasn’t tiring himself out, dragging yew branches to the wagons. How kind everyone was, Max thought, and how foolish he’d been to dread coming to the house party.

He enjoyed himself that evening also, when he and Evan stopped at Winterpark after dinner in time to join in singing Christmas carols. Amazingly enough, Max could sing. Somehow, when he knew the words and the music, the sounds simply flowed from his tongue. It had always been thus, so he wasn’t the least nervous about lifting his rich baritone in counterpoint to Evan’s tenor and the lovely sopranos of the Carroll sisters. One silvery voice in particular made music hum through his veins.

Max slept well that night from all the exercise, and from one bright-eyed pixie singing in his sweet, sweet dreams.

   The following day brought sleet, a miserable cold dampness that wavered between rain and snow. Max’s leg was bothering him—the sawbones had warned it would in bad weather—and he was happy to sit by the Squire’s fire with the books he’d borrowed from Winterpark’s library. Evan, though, was bored and irritable. Gone were the days when he could drop in on his friend Holly and her sisters for a game or a chat. Gone, too, were the fencing lessons. Evan’s father was spending most of his time at Rendell Hall with Holly, planning the renovations for when they returned from their travels. Evan wasn’t bookish, Max’s leg was too stiff for swordwork, and Blakely Manor didn’t have a billiards room.

“Hell and damnation,” Evan swore when he lost another round of patience. “If it weren’t for this blasted wedding, I could already be on my way to the front.”

Where one was also damp and cold, or hot and dry, for days on end with nothing to do, Max warned. He was hoping Evan could find something to occupy his time and mind; he wanted to finish this book.

They were both glad when a note came from Lord Carroll asking if they could come help exercise the horses in the indoor ring. With so many guests and so many carriages, Winterpark’s grooms were overwhelmed. The earl didn’t want any of his high-bred beauties going sour in their stalls.

* * * *

Joia was preparing to lead a group of Comfort’s relatives on a tour of the house.

“I don’t know how you stand it,” Merry told her sister. “There are Ellingsworths coming out of the woodwork, to say nothing of the duchess’s relations, who have to be kept apart now, too.”

“Comfort promises
we only have to see them twice a year, and not both sides of the family at once. His mother never comes to London and his father never goes to Bath. I do think that is why he’s so keen on a place of his own in Ireland, though, and a long honeymoon trip.”

Merry knew Comfort had more interesting things in mind for that honeymoon than avoiding his family. She sighed, wondering if any man would ever look at her like the last oasis in a barren desert.

At the sound of despondency, Lord Carroll looked up from his newspaper. “Why so long-faced, mitten? Nothing to do? I’m promised to the duke for a chess game, but why don’t you visit the stables, see how Jake and the lads are doing with all the extra cattle? I’m sure Jake would be pleased if you took a few turns around the exercise ring with some of the young ‘uns. We don’t want them getting away—that is, getting lazy.”

* * * *

The Spanish Riding Academy couldn’t rival this place,
Max
thought. Dozens of horses could be schooled on lunge lines at one end, and another score or so taken over jumps at the other end. The vast arena had mirrors along the walls so a rider could check his own performance as well as the horses’. No wonder Evan claimed that all of the Carrolls were such superb equestrians. How could they not be, with such magnificent horseflesh and such a training field?