Barbara Metzger (2 page)

The next Christmas, when they knew Papa was not coming for them, Juneclaire wished Maman would be stronger in her loss, but she was not, and then Juneclaire was nine years old and alone. For the next ten years she tried not to wish for what could never be.

Juneclaire tried to be grateful for the grudging charity, truly she did, winning the respect of the servants, at least, with her quiet acceptance of her lot. They considered Juneclaire a true lady, sweet and caring, not like some they could mention, with jumped-up airs. Of course, Juneclaire’s being a lady set her apart. The staff could take pity on the orphaned chit, and they could be kind to her when Lady Stanton was not looking, but they could not be her friends, not if they wanted to keep their positions. Aunt Marta did not condone familiarity between the classes. For the same reason she did not permit her niece to play with the village children. Juneclaire wasn’t good enough to merit a governess or new frocks or a maid to wait on her, but she was too genteel for the locals: her mother was a Stanton. So Juneclaire had no friends.

She did have her cousins, however, if two loud, unruly imps of Satan could be consolation to a gentle female. She was as relieved as everyone else on the estate except Lady Stanton when Rupert and Newton finally went away to school. In earlier days they had made her life an endless hell of creepy things in her bed, slimy things in her slippers, crawly things in her porridge. She was the unwilling plunder when they played pirate, the dragon’s victim when they played at knights. They tied her up, locked her in closets, terrorized her in dark attics. And if
her
hair got mussed,
her
pinafore got soiled, she got a lecture from Aunt Marta and no supper. Dearest Rupert, Juneclaire’s age, and baby Newton, a year younger, were just high-spirited, according to their fond mother. The Root and the Newt, as their not-so-fond and often-hungry cousin termed them, had no redeeming virtues whatsoever, except that she could listen in on their lessons and ride their ponies when the boys outgrew them.

If Christmas seasons were never joyous for Juneclaire at Stanton Hall, now they were less so when the boys came home for holiday with the only knowledge her scapegrace relatives seemed to have absorbed at Harrow: carnal knowledge.

At age eighteen, Newt was a thin, spotty-faced budding tulip, with yellow pantaloons, high shirt collars, and roving hands. Nineteen-year-old Root was short and stocky, with sausage fingers and damp lips with which Juneclaire was growing altogether too familiar. She’d taken to avoiding dark corridors and to carrying a darning needle slipped through her lace collar as a weapon. Even if Juneclaire were willing—and hell would freeze over first—she thought she’d be without more than her supper if Aunt Marta caught her in one of her darlings’ embraces. Root and Newt were so stupid, though, they thought she was just playing hard to get, as they nursed their various pinpricks.

Aunt Marta would not have anything as indecorous as a kissing bough in her house, of course, but the brats had discovered a patch of mistletoe and took great joy in bedeviling Juneclaire in public places, where she could not retaliate. Unaware of her own prettiness, Juneclaire could not understand why they did not share their ardor with a willing housemaid, the way Uncle Avery did. She did not think she could mention this to the randy rattlepates, however, nor could she complain to her aunt, who would only find Juneclaire at fault for her wanton looks. No matter how hard Juneclaire stared at her mirror, she could find nothing sirenlike about brown hair, brown eyes, and thick brown eyebrows. Her mouth seemed too full and her nose too short, especially in comparison with her beautiful mother’s miniature. And Juneclaire knew for a fact there could be nothing seductive about the shapeless, drab gowns she wore at Aunt Marta’s insistence. They were so high-necked and loose-fitting that Root was eighteen before he even discovered she had a bosom. Unfortunately, octopus-armed Newt was not as mutton-headed.

Juneclaire could have gone to Uncle Avery with her problems, she supposed, but he would likely have patted her head and handed her a shilling, the way he used to when he found her in tears. Now she stood taller than the short, portly frame Root had inherited, and she had a fair stock of shillings. She also felt too sorry for her uncle to bring him more difficulties. The poor man hated what he called mingle-mangles, which meant he avoided his lady and her sons every chance he got, contenting himself with his pigs and sheep and cows—and housemaids. To say he was henpecked was a vast understatement. If he were a slice of bread, there’d be no place to spread jam. So Juneclaire made sure her door was locked at night and wished every year would be her last Christmas at Stanton Hall. This year just might be the one.

 

“What, are you still at this foolish task, you lazy girl? You should have been finished hours ago. I need you to make out the place cards for tomorrow’s dinner, Claire.” Aunt Marta could not bring herself to give Juneclaire her proper name, considering it too foreign, too affected for one in her niece’s position. Lady Stanton unwrapped an apricot tart and held it up to her sharp nose before biting into it. She poked her bony fingers into the various boxes and trays. Lady Stanton had as much meat on her bones as she had human kindness in her heart. “I am placing you between Captain Fancroft and Squire Holmes. You may ask the captain about the war, but remember that no gentleman expects or wishes a lady to be knowledgeable. Whatever you say, do not disagree with him. Squire Holmes is interested in his children and the hunt. You shall
not
express your queer notions of sympathy for the fox. Do you understand, miss?”

“Yes, Aunt Marta. No, I shan’t, Aunt Marta,” Juneclaire replied from long practice.

“And see that you don’t take off your gloves. No need for anyone to see your hands ain’t as smooth as a lady’s.”

“But I
am
a lady, Aunt.”

“Hoity-toity, miss. You’ll stop putting on airs, too, if you hope to snabble an eligible
parti.
”

Juneclaire rather thought she did, even if she wouldn’t have used those terms. This year she was being permitted to join Aunt Marta’s annual Christmas Eve gathering, in hopes that she would attract some gentleman’s eye. There was to be no London Season for Juneclaire, not even a come-out ball in her honor, for Aunt Marta was too nipfarthing and too ashamed of this product of a runaway match between Miss Clara Stanton and her dancing master. Even if Jules Beaumont had been son to a
duc,
he was the third son of an early victim of the Terror, the family wealth confiscated by the upstarts. Juneclaire saw nothing to be embarrassed over in her heritage, even if her parents did not marry until reaching France, and in a Catholic church at that.

Now she raised her chin and said, “I do not think my birth will count against me with a true gentleman, not if he cares for me.”

“Poppycock, just see that you don’t give them a disgust of you. Holmes needs a mother for his brats, and Fancroft wants an heir while he can still sire one.”

“But . . . but aren’t there to be any younger men at the party?”

“Not for you there won’t be. What did you think, some storybook hero was going to fall in love with your doe eyes? Young men don’t offer marriage to dower-less chits with tainted names. They offer
carte blanche.
” Aunt Marta checked the hems of the handkerchiefs.

Ah, well, perhaps the captain would be knowledgeable on closer acquaintance, or the squire kindly. She wouldn’t mind children, not if it meant a house of her own, away from Stanton Hall, if the gentleman Aunt Marta picked out was nice. She made the mistake of asking.

“Nice? What has that to do with it? You’ll take the first one that offers for you or you can go to the poorhouse, for all I care. It’s time and enough someone else paid your bills and bought your clothes.”

Juneclaire knew the threat of the poorhouse was only that. Aunt Marta would never let the neighborhood see her treat a blood relation in so miserly a fashion, nor would her aunt part with an unpaid servant so easily. No, Fancroft and Holmes must be warm enough in the pocket to offer Lady Stanton handsome settlements for her niece’s hand, which meant Juneclaire dared not refuse. And what choice did she have, after all, but to marry a man of her aunt’s selection? She never met any strangers, sequestered away at the Hall and traveling no farther than Farley’s Grange, and she was ill equipped for anything but marriage. She was not well-enough educated to go for a governess, she was too shy to go on the stage, and she did not sew quickly enough to be a seamstress. Mostly, she did not have enough patience to continue on as her aunt’s lackey.

With the optimism that came with youth and the season of surprises, Miss Beaumont hoped for better than an aging roué or a beleaguered widower. If only Juneclaire could have made her pudding wish, she would have asked for a handsome cavalier, no matter what Aunt Marta said.

At least she had her pretty new gown. White velvet it was, with a high waist and low neck and tiny puff sleeves. Aunt Marta meant her to look like a debutante of the ton: respectable, virginal, à la mode. If all went well, she could be married in the same dress, avoiding additional expense. Juneclaire had spent some of her precious shillings for green ribbon to trim the gown and had woven a crown of holly for her hair. She thought she would do very well, with her mother’s pearls and the Norwich silk shawl she knew Uncle Avery meant to give her. Perhaps there would be a young beau who did not need to marry for money or consequence. Aunt Marta didn’t know everything, Juneclaire thought with a smile. She didn’t know about Uncle Avery’s housemaids.

Lady Stanton was checking the names on the filled baskets, peevishly hurrying Juneclaire along toward her next chore. She removed the bottle of rose water from the package marked Lily; Juneclaire’s smile faded. Then Aunt Marta caught sight of Pansy.

“What is that . . . that
creature
doing here?” she shouted, her thin frame going rigid in anger. “I told you yesterday Cook was looking for her in the kitchens! I abhor these unseemly friendships you insist on striking up, Claire, and I won’t have it. What if Squire Holmes found out? Captain Fancroft would be revolted, I am sure. I won’t have your disobedience. Do you hear me?”

Juneclaire was sure the whole kitchen staff heard her, and she blushed with embarrassment. Pansy ran to hide behind Juneclaire as Aunt Marta slammed the door behind her. Lady Stanton stomped off, insisting for the rest of the household who might have missed her earlier screaming that she hadn’t raised up a penniless orphan out of the goodness of her heart just to be made a laughingstock, and where was that bobbing-block of a husband of hers when she needed him to do something about his niece and her willful ways.

“Don’t worry, Pansy,” Juneclaire whispered, leaving the boxes and baskets, leaving the pantry, but not leaving Pansy in the kitchen.

Now, Juneclaire might have been willing to sacrifice her hopes and dreams on Aunt Marta’s altar of greed and meanness, for she was a dutiful girl. She might have put on the prettiest gown she’d ever owned and put herself on display for her aunt’s guests, hoping to impress them with Lady Stanton’s beneficence. She was even ready to try to charm some overweight old seaman into a declaration to please her aunt. But not Pansy. She would not let Aunt Marta sacrifice Pansy just to puff off her own consequence, just because Pansy was little and lame.

Well, wishing hadn’t brought Maman or Papa back, and it would not bring her any handsome and wealthy knight riding to her rescue. Wishing was certainly not going to save Pansy. That Juneclaire had to do herself. So she did. She gathered her few belongings, including the velvet gown and her heaviest cloak, a gray wool that used to be her aunt’s. The rabbit lining looked more like rat fur after all these years, but she would need the warmth if she and Pansy were to reach London, where Mrs. Simms, the old housekeeper, resided. Juneclaire hastily estimated that by nightfall she could reach the market village of Strasmere, where not many people would recognize her, especially with the hood of her cloak up. Tomorrow she could find a farmer going to Bramley, the nearest posting stop, and then in a day she would be in London. She counted out her hoard of shillings and nodded. They ought to be enough. Juneclaire wrapped half of them and her mother’s pearls in a stocking, which she tucked inside the loose bodice of her gown. The rest she placed in her reticule, along with Mrs. Simms’s last letter. She wrapped a white muffler around her neck, knotted off an unfinished pair of mittens, and put them on, not caring that one was shorter than the other. Then she went to the kitchens, where she filled every nook of her carpetbag and every pocket of her cloak with bread and cheese and apples and sliced meats. “For the poorhouse,” she told the gaping scullery maid. “So they have a better Christmas, too.”

Juneclaire left Stanton Hall without looking back. She did not leave a farewell note. She did not leave for her aunt’s Christmas dinner.

Unfortunately, Juneclaire’s almost-instant planning did not take into account Pansy’s lameness. The poor dear couldn’t walk far or fast. Miss Beaumont had also not considered that many others would be on the road for the holidays and that there would, indeed, be no rooms at the inn at Strasmere, or the next down the road, or the next. Sheltered as she was, Juneclaire never would have guessed that most innkeepers and their wives would not accept a single woman, traveling without servants, on foot, and in dubious company.

“I run a respectable establishment, I do,” she heard over and over. “I’m not having the likes of such a one at
my
inn. I’m not.”

Juneclaire raised her determined chin and lowered her thick eyebrows. She was not going back to Stanton Hall, not even if she had to sleep under hedgerows. She would get to London, even if she had to walk the whole way, carrying Pansy.

L
ord Merritt Jordan, the Earl of St. Cloud, wished he did not have to spend Christmas at home. He flicked the whip over the leader’s left ear as the curricle straightened after a turn that sent the outer wheels two feet in the air. His groom, Foley, took the liberty of long years in service, and a short glimpse of eternity, to speak up. As soon as his insides righted themselves, Foley shouted from his perch behind the driver’s seat that he’d rather eat his mincemeat pie than be one. “An’ the way you been cursin’ about havin’ to be somewheres you don’t want, I can’t figure why you’re drivin’ like the Devil hisself is behind us, my lord, and catchin’ up fast.”