The Christmas Carrolls (19 page)

Having appraised Max’s skill yesterday, the head groom, Jake, gave him one of the few young stallions kept for riding. “‘E’s a rare ‘andful, ‘e is, but worth the effort.”

Atlas was one of the sweetest goers Max had ever ridden, once he’d shaken the fidgets out. The big chestnut was fast and agile, responsive and eager. He’d make a steeplechase winner for sure, Max thought, if he didn’t get the bit between his teeth. Keeping Atlas to a controlled cadence took all of Max’s concentration, beyond noting the other riders, grooms and smallish jockeys, a grinning Evan on a rangy gray.

Max and Atlas were sailing over the jumps as if they were knee-high instead of shoulder height so Jake came and raised some of the bars. Now even the big horse had to pay attention.

They were flying. Evan and some of the grooms had pulled up to watch them take one last circuit of the hurdles. Max showed Atlas the next obstacle and started to collect him for the jump when, from the corner of his eye, he saw another rider racing toward the same barrier. The fellow could deuce well turn aside, Max decided. He wasn’t giving up the jump and there wasn’t room for two horses across.

But then—Lud, why did he have to look?—Max spotted auburn curls under the other rider’s knit cap. Breeches and boots, though—no, it couldn’t be. She wouldn’t. She would. And a gentleman always yielded to a lady.

Max pulled Atlas’s head over at the last second, turning the horse to make way for Merry and her roan gelding. Atlas made the instantaneous maneuver with no problem except the insult to his dignity, which he showed by going up on his hind legs.

Max was in the wrong position, looking over his shoulder to make sure Merry’s horse made the jump. The next thing he knew, he was sailing over the bars after her, without his horse.

Merry and Evan were running toward him almost before Max hit the ground. First he heard the sound of his leg snapping under him, then he heard the two of them screaming at each other.

“Look what you’ve done now, you blasted hoyden. You have no business being in the building, being in breeches, being in the way!”

“I was all ready to turn aside, I swear. I was positive he’d keep going, and why shouldn’t I be?
You
never yielded a jump to me in your life!”

“But he’s a bloody gentleman, brat, and he thought you were a bloody lady!”

Things were going to get bloody indeed, Max thought, lying there in the sawdust. He levered himself up as best he could and shouted, “Halt!” in tones that had been heard over enemy cannons. Max had never stuttered during battle yet. The grooms who were running toward them stopped in their tracks. Even Atlas stopped his mad gallop. White-faced, Evan sank to his knees beside Max. On his other side, Merry did the same, only tears were running down her cheeks.

“I am fine,” Max lied, knowing the pain would start in seconds. He was determined to make himself understood first, before he passed out, which, he sincerely hoped, would be before Jake or the local sawbones tried to set his leg. He looked at Evan first. “Don’t you ever, ever speak to a lady that way again. Especially not this lady.”

Evan nodded, biting his lip, so Max turned to Merry. He wished he could offer her his handkerchief. “Don’t cry, my lady. You were not at fault. I wasn’t paying attention, is that clear?”

He looked at both of them and Jake, who was feeling his limbs for breaks. “Lady Merry is not to be blamed. Tell Lord Carroll I said—”

Chapter Twenty-one

Merry was still crying at Max’s side when he awoke. Lud, was he still in the sawdust? He’d hoped, when the blackness overcame him, to have the worst of it over when he came to, the worst being Merry’s heartrending sobs. He focused on his surroundings and discovered he was in a bed that was not in his room at the Manor. They must have carried him to one of the guest chambers at Winterpark. He couldn’t feel his leg, which experience told him meant he was drugged. So the doctor must have come and gone, thank goodness. Now all he had to worry about was Merry’s misery.

“It was not your fault,” Max whispered through dry lips. “Please don’t cry.” At least the laudanum had relaxed his tongue enough for him to speak without hesitation.

Merry jumped up and grabbed for his hand, jostling the bed. Now he could feel his leg. “I’m so sorry,” she wailed. “I’ll never forgive myself. Please, please get better. Oh, Max, say you’re not mad at me. I couldn’t bear it if you hated me.”

Max didn’t answer, having slipped back into blessed unconsciousness.

The next time he awoke, he had to go through the entire scenario: a weeping woman, a strange bed, “Don’t cry.” This time he was able to pay more attention to his surroundings. “Lud, this is a gentleman’s bedroom, Lady Merry. You shouldn’t be here!”

“The door is open, and Mama says it’s all right. Miss Krupp, the duchess’s companion, offered to sit here, too, for propriety.” The duchess had actually done the offering, sending Miss Krupp to make sure the ragtag female didn’t cause any more rumpus and riot.

Miss Krupp? Max groaned, and not because he was in pain. Then he looked around. The only chaperon he could find was Merry’s dog, Downsy.

Merry just hunched her shoulders. “Miss Krupp doesn’t like dogs. But it doesn’t matter, there’s no one else to help sit with you during the day, this close to the wedding. One of the footmen will be on call to look after your needs, but Mama says I’m useless for anything else anyway, and I’m not fit to be seen by company. She doesn’t want Downsy downstairs either.”

Max could understand Lady Carroll’s decision. Merry’s eyes were all red and swollen, and the dog was an undisciplined lummox. “Still, I don’t want to be a burden. With all the guests...”

“No, it’s no bother, really. Evan wanted to take you home to the Manor, but Papa and Bartholomew thought you’d do better here. Two of Comfort’s friends were officers home on leave, so Evan took them to Blakely Manor so you could have their room instead. Evan’s in alt, as you can imagine, although he’s not talking to me.”

“I’ll tell him again that it wasn’t your fault.”

“He thinks it scandalous that I was wearing breeches. Mama made me burn them.”

“That’s too bad. I thought they were... pretty. You looked fine in them, and you rode like... like an angel.” Max wasn’t used to paying pretty compliments. That was the best he could do, after falling off his horse for her. His laudanum-laced words must have been the right ones, though, and well enough spoken, for her tears stopped.

“Oh, Max, do you think so? Do you mind if I call you Max? Then you can call me Merry. I
told
them you didn’t stutter. Do you want some lemonade? Broth? Cook brewed some willow-bark tea. Do you have the headache, too?”

He would soon. “Sh, Merry. You don’t have to fuss. It’s only a broken leg. I’ve had worse.”

Max had had a lot worse, in field hospitals, medical tents, and casualty ships. Here his every need was met, most of them by the most darling girl this side of heaven. Merry brought him food and drinks and cool cloths for his head. She read to him about raising cows. Whoever did that for him on the officers’ ward?

Miss Krupp poked her bony nose into the room at odd moments, sniffed for signs of depravity and dog, then left. The footman made sure Max lacked for nothing, and Evan came often, with dice and cards and the other army officers.

Even when he was alone, though, when he could hear the faint sounds of music and laughter from the happy gatherings downstairs, Max was at peace. Later, after they had all gone home or to bed, he still felt content. He studied his books and dreamed of making his farm a success. It would never equal Winterpark, naturally, but it would make a decent living. When it did, in a few years, he’d come back to Berkshire and ask Lord Carroll for his daughter’s hand. The earl would likely laugh at this presumptuousness, but Max would try anyway. Of course, Merry was sure to get snabbled up as soon as she made her formal bows to Society. She’d be claimed by an aristocrat with a real title to his name, a real estate instead of a few acres of land, and a real fortune. Certes he’d have a smooth tongue, without benefit of laudanum.

Max hoped the flash cove would love and appreciate Merry as she deserved. As he would, were she his.

* * * *

“I do not like the situation one bit, Bradford. The child will not leave the lieutenant’s sickroom. Some of the other guests are beginning to whisper among themselves. And that Almira Krupp is no help as a chaperon, for heaven knows where she is half the time.”

Lord Carroll was trying to massage some of the tension out of his wife’s neck and shoulders. Now he tried to relieve her mind: “Don’t worry about Merry, Bess. Nothing can happen with Grey’s leg in that huge cast. Let her ease her conscience by sitting with him. Missy won’t pull such tricks again, I assure you.”

The countess was nearly purring under her husband’s stroking fingers. “I suppose. And she is being pushed aside by all the wedding to-do.”

“And the lad did us a service by not strangling her, so we owe him more congenial company than the footman and that pinch-faced prude. Besides, Max is good practice for when you take our girl to London. With a little Town bronze, she’ll be snapped up before the cat can lick its ear.”

“I thought we’d agreed she was too young.”

“She is, but if an eligible parti should happen on the scene and Merry were willing, I wouldn’t say no.”

The countess turned, out of reach of his touch. The purring changed to the snarl of a tigress defending her cubs. “You shall not, Bradford, rush Meredyth into any ill-advised, ill-planned marriage.”

“Now, Bess,” he soothed. “You know you are happy with Comfort and Rendell for the other girls, despite the hurry to get them shackled.”

“But I am not in a hurry to push my last child, my baby, out of the nest.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that, too, how you’re going to miss having the youngsters about. Wouldn’t it be nice, when all the girls have married and gone their own ways, to have a child around the house again?”

What child?
Bess wondered, but she did not want to ask, to find out. “We shall have grandchildren soon enough.” She stood and gathered up her stack of papers from the table next to the sofa. “It’s growing late. I must look over the gardener’s list again, of what foliage he thinks will be usable for the church.”

“I’m sure the decision between holly and mistletoe can wait till tomorrow,” the earl urged with sinking hopes as his beloved Bess walked toward her bedchamber door.

“It could, Bradford, if I had a year to plan the wedding, or even six months. But you had to get your two elder daughters married off before the New Year, for your own devious purposes, I don’t doubt.”

And Lord Carroll didn’t doubt he’d be sleeping alone again tonight.

* * * *

Since there was no fever, Dr. Petkin allowed as how Max could be carried downstairs so he didn’t miss all of the festivities. Miss the disapproving duchess, the prinked and prissy peahens giggling in corners, or the local louts hovering over Merry? He’d rather have her to himself, thank you.

Down he went, willy-nilly, carried in a chair by Evan, the footman, and the two officers whose room he’d usurped, under Bartholomew’s supervision.

Winterpark had been transformed, right down to the mixed scents of cinnamon and cloves and evergreens that greeted Max at the bottom of the stairs. Yew branches and holly were everywhere, with red bows and colored candles scattered throughout. There were swagged garlands at the windows and mantels and banister railings, and intricately woven balls of vines and mistletoe hanging over every door.

“Now, how did that get there, I wonder?” Lady Carroll pretended, to everyone’s delight, as first her husband and then her new sons-in-law kissed her in the entryway to the drawing room. Every lady who entered—except the disapproving duchess and her critical companion—was kissed by the nearest or quickest male, or the one considered most formidable, such as Holly’s or Joia’s fiancé when it was their turn. Lord Carroll made sure he got a kiss from each of his girls, declaring this his favorite part of Christmas. Except for the wassail or the carols or the decorations.

“Oh, Papa!” three voices chimed together.

Merry had come in, and Evan, closest to the door, kissed her cheek. “Peace on earth, brat. Friends?”

She gazed back at him so adoringly that Max felt his stomach lurch. When one of the officers turned to catch her under the kissing bough, Max knew he was going to be sick. He watched, though, as Merry ducked around the next daring young man and, blushing, sped over to the chair next to Max. She gave him a grin. All was well.

Until Lord Carroll started asking everyone to tell about his or her favorite Christmas. Lud, Max thought, and he hadn’t had any laudanum for two days. There were stories of getting a first pony, or the Christmas when so much snow fell that they delivered all the tenants’ gifts by sleigh. Rendell told of a candlelit procession on skis down a Swiss Alp. Lady Carroll remembered her first Christmas at Winterpark, already knowing she was to bear the next generation of Carrolls. The earl chuckled at himself. “I love each and every one of them, by George. I’d never be able to pick.”

Merry said her favorite Christmas was the last one, because they got better and better. Then everyone looked at Max. His uncles hadn’t celebrated Christmas beyond church services and a goose for dinner, perhaps handing him a shilling. In the army, sometimes it was hard to tell which day was Christmas. He looked around at the friendly faces, especially one green-eyed one with a scattering of freckles, and said, “This one.”

“Well spoken, my boy, well spoken.” Lord Carroll was beaming, making sure everyone had a full cup of lamb’s-wool punch. “A toast, to this Christmas. May it be everyone’s merriest ever.”

After more toasts to the wedding couples, to the earl and the countess, to the king and Lord Wellington, Evan jumped up. “I say, poor Max didn’t get to kiss any of the ladies! We can’t have that!” Before Max could tell him to stubble it, Evan had snagged a twig of mistletoe from the doorway and was holding it over Max’s red-haired and red-faced head. If he could have gotten out of his chair, he’d have turned tail and run.