Greetings of the Season and Other Stories (26 page)

“You wouldn’t have had to.” She gestured toward the nearby corner of the room, where the duke was holding court from his thronelike chair, his gouty foot propped on satin pillows. Martin and Jasper were leaning over his shoulders, rapt in the stud book he held. Benjamin was asleep in his lap, peppermint-sticky face pressed against the duke’s previously pristine white waistcoat.

“So will you, my darling Sabina—will you finally be my wife after a very long engagement?”

“Of course I will, Connor. That’s what I really wanted for Christmas, you know,” she confessed with a tender smile. “Not one measly waltz. I wanted your love, for all time, as you’ve got mine.”

“And I really want a red-haired choir of my own,” he said, before finally sealing their vows with a kiss that had waited more than a decade.

*

The enormous clock in the hall started chiming the hour, and the church bells in the village started tolling. It was twelve o’clock, and Christmas had finally arrived. Everyone had collected their wraps and their children for the trek back home, as soon as one more toast was made. The wassail cups were all refilled as the duke signaled for the company to gather near the vast hearth.

“The name of Hamilton is an ancient one,” he began, loudly enough to wake sleeping babies. “Handed down from generation to generation, from father to son since the time of the Normans. With the names goes the title, and with the title goes the land and the responsibility for everyone on it.”

“Hear, hear!” was heard from one who’d already had too much of the heady brew.

“Now I hand it to my son,” the duke continued, turning to Connor, “along with this sliver from last year’s Yule log, to carry on the tradition, to carry on the family into a long and happy future.” Among shouts and cheers, he set flame to the bit of wood. “Just make sure you have someone to pass it to, while I’m still around to see.”

Connor looked at the burning stick in his hand, then turned to Martin, bending to his level. “I am not your father in name or in blood,” he told the boy, “but I would be your father in heart. Will you and your brothers help light this fire, until your mama blesses us with a son of our own? And then you’ll help him be the man he should be?”

Martin almost tripped in his hurry to light the Yule log before the match burned out, and all their luck with it. His hand in Connor’s, together they lit the new log from the old. When it caught, Martin called out, “To the House of Hamilton, long may they prosper.”

Jasper shouted to be heard over the cheers and clapping: “And all of us with them!”

And Benjy, from his mother’s arms, mumbled, “And to good deeds.”

Epilogue

So the church had its extension, and a new roof, to boot. The viscount had his choir, and the new viscountess a new green velvet dress every Christmas. The donkey was in many a Nativity pageant, with many a red-haired Joseph and a few redheaded Marys. The duke shouted at all of the children impartially, and the vicar wed Sophia Townsend, the seamstress. Oh, and Viola Gaines? She went home with the bishop.

Christmas Wish List

1

“Christmas is coming,” proclaimed the vicar.
“
Rejoice.” His voice rose in volume and in fervor as he expounded on the holiday season, the holy child, the princely gifts, the hope for mankind. “And we must not forget the less fortunate at this time of sharing,” Reverend Buttons went on. And on, reminding his parishioners of the indigent, the ill, the orphans, and how much more blessed it was to give than to receive. As his voice rose, his eyes did too, directing the congregants’ gazes to the water-stained ceiling of the old stone chapel. “Be generous, my friends.”

Or be wet when the roof collapsed, Miss Geraldine Selden correctly interpreted the vicar’s unspoken message. Well, she and her brother were having too hard a time keeping a roof over their own heads to contribute much to the church fund. While Reverend Buttons started to decry the selfish greed rampant in the world, his favorite theme, Gerry let her mind wander. She mentally counted the jars of jams already put up, the shirts she’d been sewing for months, the shillings she’d managed to set aside for the Christmas boxes. There were apples and tops and cornhusk dolls for the children, packets of sugar tied in pretty ribbons for their mothers, a twist of tobacco for Old Man Pingtree who lived behind the livery. The Seldens were doing what they could, despite their own meager finances. But Gerry would
not
think of their straitened circumstances, not now.

So what if she and her brother Eustace, or Stacey as everyone called him, were forced to live in their former gatekeeper’s cottage? They had each other, didn’t they? And the rents from Selden House went to pay the mortgage and their father’s other debts, so Stacey’s patrimony would not be lost entirely. They had their health, their friends, enough food to eat, and enough funds to celebrate the holiday season.

Without repining over what used to be, Gerry daydreamed about what was to come: the smells of fresh-baked gingerbread and fresh-cut evergreens, the red velvet ribbons she was going to wind around the bannister railing, and the red-berried holly she’d gather for the mantel. There would be caroling and wassail and the annual ball at Squire’s, the children’s Christmas pageant, the Christmas Eve lantern walk to church, and the Christmas pudding she and Mrs. Mamford would put up this afternoon, after everyone in the small household had made their wishes. Christmas was coming, what joy!

*

“And what are you going to wish for, Miss Gerry?” the cook-housekeeper asked. “You’d ought to be asking for another London Season, where some handsome nob will sweep you off your feet and carry you away to a life of luxury.” Then Mrs. Mamford and her husband, who acted as butler, groom, and valet to Sir Eustace, could retire to a little cottage near her sister’s, without regrets. That was Mrs. Mamford’s wish, anyway, and her husband’s.

Gerry looked up from the nuts she was chopping and laughed. “What, Mamie, you think some wealthy peer is going to fall madly in love with the dowerless daughter of an impoverished baronet who’d driven his wife to an early grave and his son’s inheritance to the money-lenders? Not likely. No, I shan’t waste my wishes that way. Besides, I like keeping busy. What would I do as a lady of leisure?”

“I know what I’d do,” swore Annie, the maid, from next to the sink. “I’d never look at another pot or pan or potato peel again. I’m going to wish for a new dress, I am, to catch the eye of Rodney, over at the smithy’s. He can afford to take a wife now, and I aim for it to be me, instead of that red-haired Kitty Trump.”

Gerry made a note to purchase Annie a dress length of calico. She might have to forgo new gloves for her own Christmas outfit, but every young girl deserved to have her dreams come true. In years past, Gerry remembered wishing for a special doll, a new cape, and once wanting to be older, so she could attend the holiday parties with her parents, foolish chit that she was, trying to hurry her adulthood. She might as well ask for those years back, but at five and twenty, Miss Selden knew better than to wish for what could never be. Another Season? No, she never missed the silliness, the empty chatter, and the endless gossip. She did not
mis
s the fancy clothes either, for who would see her in the country in her homemade dresses, to titter behind their fans? The money was better spent on new equipment for the Home Farm, to add to their paltry income.

“So what are you going to wish for, Miss Gerry?” Annie wanted to know.

Gerry tucked a long brown lock of hair back into its braid before attacking the bowl of raisins. “Oh, I suppose I shall wish for peace on earth, an end to war, an easy winter.”

Mrs. Mamford clucked her tongue and tossed a sliver of fruit to the cat at her feet. “Go on with you, Ranee,” she told the cat, “and you, too, missy. Them’s for bedtime prayers. Pudding wishes are for something special, something for yourself.”

Gerry stopped chopping to t
hink
. She might secretly dream of a house and family of her own, but that was as goosish as wishing for the pot at the end of the rainbow, and the past years had made her much more practical than that. She was actually hoping that this season of hope would bring her something far more substantial than a castle in the sky, something like a new student for pianoforte or painting lessons, something that would add to her small cache of coins, so that she could buy her brother a horse.

Gerry regretted the family’s decline much more for Stacey’s sake than for her own. They’d come about, he always declared when she worried aloud about their future, and she believed him, but how was he ever to find a bride or support a family? He swore he did not mind working the fields alongside his farmhands, nor tutoring Squire Remington’s doltish sons for extra income, but Gerry saw him look out the window every time a rider went past, and knew he was missing the Selden House stables. The most promising filly to be auctioned off for their father’s debts had been Jigtime, Stacey’s favorite. Gerry s
mil
ed as she added her raisins to the batter. For today, she would not wish for the moon, only for a mare.

* * *

Christmas was coming, alas.

Sir Eustace Selden put off answering his sister’s call to the kitchen as long as possible. He could hear the women’s laughter and smell the scents of cooking, but he had to force himself to put on a smile when he entered the narrow, cluttered room. He knew what he’d find: his sister up to her elbows in flour, smudges on her apron, with her cheeks flushed from the oven’s heat and her hair undone, looking no better than the maid,
An
nie. But his sister was no scullery maid, dash it. Gerry was a lady of quality, and every time Stacey saw her working at tasks his mother never dreamed of, he felt another pang of guilt. Christmas time was the worst, for he’d recall the celebrations at Selden House and know what she must be missing. Her merry grin only added to his remorse, for his sister was a regular Trojan, never complaining of her lack of opportunities buried in this tiny cottage, never whining over the life they’d lost. Gerry’s many sacrifices deserved so much more, more than he feared he’d ever be able to give her. By the time he reclaimed Selden House, Stacey worried, his sister would be too old for a dowry to matter, if she wasn’t worn to the bone with all her lessons and charities, the scrimping and saving they had to do for the simplest of celebrations. Deuce take it, she was five and twenty already. And he was a year older, and no closer to providing for his only kin than he’d been at nineteen.

“Come, Sir Eustace,” Annie called when she saw him lingering in the doorway. “It’s time to stir the pudding batter and make your Christmas wish. I wished for a new dress, I did, so now I’m sure to get it.”

Gerry’s wink told him the frock was as good as in Annie’s trunk. “And did you wish for a new gown too, sis?” he asked. He could afford that for her, at least, so she wouldn’t have to go to Squire’s Christmas party in last year’s dress.

“Oh no, I already have a length of green velvet that Mr. Cutler couldn’t sell because of the water marks. Once I’ve embroidered flowers over the spots, no one will know the difference. And no, I will not tell you what I wished for. Go on, make your wish.”

Stacey took the mixing spoon from Mrs. Mamford, stalling while he despaired over his sister making her own gown out of inferior goods. She should be dressed in moonbeams and dancing on clouds. Or at least dancing with some eligible
parti,
instead of the apothecary or the vicar’s nephew at Squire’s country ball. Wishing would not make it so, no matter how hard he stirred the confounded concoction. The rent money was not going to increase, nor the farm’s income, not this year. But perhaps, just perhaps, someone new would attend the ball. In that case, the baronet wanted his sister to shine. So he wished for a necklace for her, but not just any bauble. Her own pearls with the diamond butterfly clasp were the one bit of finery their father hadn’t managed to find to sell before his death. Gerry had put them on the auctioneer’s block herself, to help pay off his debts. Their sometime neighbor, Lord Boughton, had purchased the pearls, likely for one of the licentious lord’s London ladybirds. Nevertheless, Stacey wished the earl would come home for Christmas, bringing the necklace, and agreeing to permit Stacey to pay him back over time for their retrieval. Meanwhile, Sir Eustace decided to ask if he could add Latin lessons to Squire’s sons’ schooling, even though he thought he’d have better luck teaching Caesar to Squire’s pigs.

* * *

Christmas was coming, thought Squire Remington. Botheration. No hunting, no fishing, and every man jack in the county coming to celebrate the season at the Manor, same as they had since his grandfather’s time. Only his grandfather hadn’t been a widower with three young sons to raise. This year, not only did Squire have no wife to handle all the details of the annual ball, but he had no housekeeper either. His hell-born brats had seen to that. Something about a fire in her apartment. No, that was the last one. This one was the snake. And Vicar thought he’d ought to rejoice? Hah! As for charity, Squire swore he’d give everything he owned just for a little peace and quiet.

What he really wanted this Christmas was a competent chatelaine, someone to take his boys in hand until they were old enough to send away to school, if any institution was desperate enough to take them. Squire wanted someone to make sure his mutton was hot, his ale was cold, and his bed was warm. Was it too much to ask that his dogs were permitted in his house, and
his
sons’ vermin weren’t? He wished he had a loyal housekeeper, but he supposed he’d settle for another wife. A wife couldn’t up and quit.