Waiting Game (2 page)

“Yes, sir,” responded the butler, obviously gratified. “Thank you, sir.”

He disappeared through the baize door, and reappeared a few minutes later bearing a dusty bottle of brandy. Behind him, a footman carried a large, shallow bowl. When the footman set it precisely in the middle of the table, Pickett could see that it was filled with raisins. As the butler poured the brandy over the raisins, the gentlemen began removing their coats.

“You’ll want to tuck up your sleeves, Mr. Pickett,” cautioned Mary’s husband, Arthur, a ruddy-faced man of about forty with bushy sidewhiskers. “Four years ago, I managed to set my ruffles on fire, and this lot has never let me forget it.”

Pickett was extremely reluctant to remove his black coat. For one thing, it seemed a shocking familiarity to appear in his shirtsleeves before a group of relative strangers, and in mixed company at that; for another, he had no desire to expose his rather threadbare waistcoat. But as even his mentor had taken off his coat and pushed up his sleeves to the elbow, he realized that refusing to participate would only call undue attention to himself. With a sigh of resignation, he shrugged out of his coat and draped it over the back of his chair, then unbuttoned his shirtsleeves at the wrist and rolled them halfway up his forearms. By the time he had finished, the brandy had been set alight, and the brandy-soaked raisins in the bowl glowed with blue flame.

“May I play this year, Mama? Please, please,
please?
” begged a dark-haired damsel, bouncing up and down in her eagerness to participate.

“Not this time, Janet,” Mary answered. “Maybe next year, when you’re a wee bit older.”

“Patrick has
all
the fun!”

Pickett was somewhat taken aback to hear the child call her grandfather by his Christian name, until he realized she was not speaking of Mr. Colquhoun, but a rather smug-looking lad whose strong family resemblance, combined with his greater height, identified him as her elder brother.

“Patrick is two years older than you,” their mother pointed out. “If you can watch without pouting, perhaps he and Papa and Grandpapa will share some of their raisins with you.”

 By this time, Pickett had deduced that the object of the game was to snatch the raisins from the fire without singeing one’s fingers—or, in the case of Mr. Colquhoun’s son-in-law Arthur, setting one’s clothes on fire. Upon discovering that her grandfather’s guest was so benighted as to have never played before, little Janet took it upon herself to advise him.

“The thing is to do it quickly,” she informed him, quite as if she were an expert. “If you hesitate, even for a moment, the fire will burn your fingers.”

In spite of the debacle of four years earlier, Mary’s Arthur snatched a raisin from the flames without mishap, to a smattering of applause as well as a few complaints that there was to be no repeat of the dramatics that had so enlivened the proceedings four years earlier. Fanny, the expectant mother, proved to be too indecisive, reaching a tentative hand toward the bowl only to draw it back when her fingers grew too warm. After three repeats of this process, her siblings jeeringly informed her that she had wasted enough time, and must now yield her turn to someone else. Young Patrick went next, grabbing a raisin from the bowl and popping it into his mouth in a single swift movement before promising his ill-used younger sister that on his next turn he would surrender his trophy to her. At last it was Pickett’s turn, and although he had never played the game before, it soon transpired that his years of picking pockets gave him a distinct advantage. To his surprise, he quickly established himself as the most skilled of the group—a position which resulted in his becoming a great favourite of the children when they discovered that he could snatch not only one raisin, but two in the same turn, one of which he bestowed on whomever of the youngsters happened to be closest at hand. This led, not unnaturally, to a silent competition which had ended with one small boy (he rather thought it was Isabella’s youngest) taking up a position of strength on Pickett’s lap.

“I’ve always said Mary’s son Patrick was the best, but you put him quite to shame,” exclaimed Fanny, as Pickett bestowed yet another prize on the child in his lap. “
How
, pray, do you do that?”

“Best not say, perhaps,” Pickett said apologetically, casting a sheepish glance at his mentor.

Eventually the brandy burned down, the last raisin disappeared, and the family returned to the drawing room. But even this simple procedure proved cause for merriment when Isabella caught Pickett beneath the kissing ball and planted a smack on his cheek, to the hilarity of all witnesses and his own blushing embarrassment. Once everyone had assembled in the drawing room, Mr. Colquhoun presented each of his grandchildren with a silver shilling. This appeared to be an annual event, as most of the children had already formed decided opinions as to what to do with their new wealth. Pickett, observing the proceedings with a reminiscent smile, was reminded of his days as a collier’s apprentice and Mr. Colquhoun’s habit of giving him a penny whenever he delivered coal to the magistrate’s court at Bow Street. Delighted as they were with their grandfather’s gift, Pickett suspected these privileged children could not begin to imagine the depth of gratitude he’d felt to be given a coin of only a fraction of its value.

While Mr. Colquhoun took care of the children, his wife gave each of her sons-in-law a pair of knitted wool gloves. Great was Pickett’s consternation when she presented the last pair to him.

“I haven’t—I didn’t bring anything,” he confessed to his hostess.

“And how could you, when you didn’t know until yesterday that you would be joining us?” she responded, pressing the gift upon him.

Realizing that further protests would be impolite (and acknowledging his own need, given the hole in the thumb of his own gloves), Pickett allowed himself to be persuaded to accept. Unfortunately, the exchange had attracted the notice of several of the others.

“But Grannie, those gloves belong to—”

Whatever the lad would have said was stifled as his fond mother clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Yes, little Adam is quite right,” Mrs. Colquhoun told Pickett. “This pair was meant for his Uncle James. But I may make my son a pair any time, while we have you with us for this one day only.”

Pickett smiled up at her, grateful for her honesty. “In that case I owe thanks to James as well as to you. But did you say you made them?”

“My dear Mr. Pickett, every good Scotswoman can knit!”

“Everyone except Fanny,” put in that lady’s husband, to hoots of laughter and the maligned Fanny’s indignation.

At last Isabella nudged her husband and pointed toward their youngest, the little lad who had claimed Pickett’s lap during snapdragon, now fast asleep on the carpet in spite of the noise generated by his older siblings and cousins. The Colquhoun ladies rose as one, declaring the need to see the children put to bed. Pickett, recognizing his cue, followed suit.

“I’d best be going, too,” he said, “I’ll have to be back at Bow Street in the morning. My employer, as you may know, is a harsh taskmaster,” he added, feeling on sufficiently solid ground with the family to make a joke at their patriarch’s expense.

He was not disappointed. Isabella chided her father for his cruelty to poor Mr. Pickett, with whom (she said) she had fallen quite madly in love, and both Mary and Fanny insisted that their father invite him to dinner again very soon.

Ironically, having been hesitant to accept the invitation, Pickett now found himself reluctant to leave. But duty beckoned, and so he thanked Mrs. Colquhoun for her hospitality, shook hands with his magistrate, and, after reclaiming his hat, muffler, and gloves from the butler, stepped out of the warm and well-lit house into the cold December night. It seemed strangely quiet outside after the cheerful din of the Colquhouns’ Christmas celebration, and while it was certainly more peaceful, he did not anticipate with any eagerness his return to the dark and lonely flat in Drury Lane. In truth, a few hours spent with his magistrate’s large and lively family had left him longing for things he’d never even known existed. At that moment he craved nothing so much as an evergreen-bedecked home of his own—not two shabbily furnished rooms over a chandler’s shop, but a house, certainly not so grand a house as Mr. Colquhoun’s, but something—something—

Something to which he would not be ashamed to bring a bride. And if he were honest, the bride of his rosy imaginings bore a striking resemblance to Lady Fieldhurst. He heaved a sigh of frustration, suddenly impatient for the same annulment hearing he’d spent the last month dreading. The sooner the thing was done, the sooner he would stop hoping for things that could never be.

Silence fell over the Colquhoun household, all the children having either departed for their London homes with their parents or, in the case of those visiting from Scotland, been tucked away upstairs in the nursery beneath the attic. Alone with his wife, Mr. Colquhoun removed a half-empty mug of wassail from her hand and set it down on the nearest available surface.

“Leave it, Janet,” he said. “You have servants for that.”

“Yes, I do,” she responded, regarding him with a baleful eye as she picked up the mug again. “And what use you think they’ll be after you gave them a bottle of the best brandy is a mystery to me.”

He chuckled. “Aye, well, it’s Christmas. They’re entitled to a bit of celebrating, too. Besides, once the bottle is divided amongst all the staff, no one will have enough to get thoroughly disguised, just pleasantly elevated.”

“It’s kind you are to think of them, my love. Just as it was kind of you to invite young Mr. Pickett to join us for Christmas dinner.”

“He’s a good lad. I just hated to think of him all alone on Christmas. I only hope I didn’t throw your numbers off, inviting him at the last minute.”

“Nonsense! What do numbers matter at a family dinner?”

“True, but Mr. Pickett is not family. Speaking of which, I suppose you’d better apologize to James for depriving him of his gloves.”

“Gloves!” scoffed Mrs. Colquhoun with uncharacteristic vehemence. “What that young man needs is a wife!”

“Now, don’t you start in on him too! Poor James has enough to bear with his sisters trying to marry him off.”

“Well, I don’t say they aren’t right, although Isabella might find her brother more open to her advice if she were to dispense it with a lighter hand. But I wasn’t talking about James. I meant your Mr. Pickett.”

“Oh. Well, he’s got a wife. Therein lies the problem.”

Her eyes grew round with surprise. “He’s married? To whom, pray?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Naturally, this assertion did nothing to diminish her curiosity, and so Mr. Colquhoun was obliged to remind her of his recent trip to Scotland in the company of his youngest Runner, and to explain how it had resulted in Mr. Pickett’s being bound in a Scottish marriage by declaration with Lady Fieldhurst, widow of the late viscount.

“Married to a viscountess!” exclaimed Mrs. Colquhoun at the end of this narrative. “What do they intend to do?”

“Her ladyship is seeking an annulment, although it has yet to come before the ecclesiastical court.”

Not for nothing was Janet Colquhoun married to a magistrate. “An annulment, you say? On what grounds? They are both of legal age, and I can’t see how fraud would be a valid claim in this case.”

“No. The only possibility that even remotely applies is impotence.”

“Oh dear, what a pity! His, or hers?”

“Between you and me and the lamppost, it’s neither. But since her ladyship has been married before—during which time her husband must surely have filed his own complaint based on such a condition—and Mr. Pickett can offer no proof to the contrary, the burden falls on him.”

“ ‘No proof to the contrary,’ ” she echoed thoughtfully. “Do you mean—?”

He nodded. “Precisely. Although he assures me that he has no reason to believe he couldn’t, the situation has never come up.” He frowned at his own last words. “If you will pardon the unintentional pun.”

Mrs. Colquhoun, however, had no interest in puns, intentional or otherwise, for a new thought had occurred to her. “My love, do you suppose our James is still a—”

“I don’t know, and I beg you not to ask him,” he interrupted hastily.

“No, of course I won’t. I only wondered—mothers do, you know. But it seems to me that Mr. Pickett must love this lady very much, to make such a sacrifice for her sake.”

The magistrate sighed. “I’m afraid you’re right, my dear. He has been besotted with her from the first, but I had thought that once it was clear she would not stand trial for her husband’s murder, he would recognize the hopelessness of such an attachment, and fix his interest on a more attainable object. It appears I was wrong, however. If anything, he’s in a worse case now than he was before.”

“And Lady Fieldhurst? What are her sentiments, do you know?”

“Does it matter? Even if she loved him desperately, such a match would be impossible. Only imagine if our James’s employer were to die, and James wed his widow.”

Her bosom swelled in maternal indignation. “I’m sure our James is good enough for anyone!”

“
You
know that, and
I
know that, but try telling the
beau monde
that, and see what reaction you get! And our James is connected, albeit distantly, to Sir James Colquhoun of Luss. John Pickett, on the other hand, is the son of a transported felon, and God only knows what other bad apples one might shake out of his family tree. Any such marriage would be social suicide, and her ladyship is wise enough in the ways of her world to know it. Still, this annulment business is weighing heavily on the lad’s mind. That’s why I didn’t want to leave him alone on Christmas Day to dwell on it.”

As he passed through the drawing room door, she slipped her hand into his arm and stopped him directly beneath the kissing ball and lifted her face expectantly. “You’re a good man, Patrick Colquhoun. A happy Christmas to you.”