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One from Lily, she saw, recognising her sister’s hurried scrawl. And one with a grander seal, pressed into fashionable green wax. Barton Park, the return address read.
A letter from Barton! Rose felt the warm touch of excitement, and not a little tinge of curiosity. She hadn’t heard from Barton Park in quite some time. She knew Jane had been busy with having little heirs to the earldom, and Emma had recently married David Marton, one of their neighbours.
Rose quickly changed into her nightdress, carefully laying aside her sensible grey-silk gown, and climbed into bed to read the precious missives. She opened the one from Barton first. It was written in elegant dark green ink on thick, creamy stationery.
My dear Miss Parker—or may I call you Cousin Rose?
I am so sorry we have not met since Cousin Lily’s wedding. We do miss your family so much and speak often of how your letters make us laugh. Your tales of being with Aunt Sylvia—dear lady, but, well, she is Aunt Sylvia after all—are better than a comic novel and cheer us to no end. You are a brave lady indeed.
We also speak often of that lovely midsummer ball when Lily and her vicar became engaged. It seems so very long since Barton has enjoyed such an evening.
Hayden has duties in the House of Lords which often take him to London, and as you know we now have four dear children—William, Eleanor, Emma and baby Edward.
Emma and David are also expecting a happy occasion soon and Emma still has her little bookshop in the village. She does insist on scrambling up and down the library ladders, frightening her husband no end, but she declares she has never felt better in her life!
I do envy her. My own times bring nothing but sleepiness. I often nod off by the fire quite like Aunt Sylvia!
Rose smiled at the image of Jane, nodding off by the fire as her children dashed about. She pushed away the hint of envy such an image gave her and continued reading.
In short, dear Cousin Rose, I have a great favour to ask. Emma and I have decided to revive our old Barton parties, this time for the Christmas holidays. It has indeed been a long time since we had such festivities here and the children would so enjoy it.
Their governess, though, wishes to return to her family for a few weeks and I am quite overwhelmed. If Aunt Sylvia could spare you, and if you think you could bear us and our noise, would a position here suit you for a time?
I remember how you loved music and my own little Eleanor shows great talent at the pianoforte and harp already. Aunt Sylvia is, of course, invited as well, if she can ever leave her own hearth. Fingers crossed that she is quite comfortable in situ, though!
I do hope so, dear Rose, as we would dearly love to see you again and have your assistance with our little monsters. If you like us, perhaps a longer stay here at Barton might be possible?
With much hope,
Your cousin, Jane Ramsay
Rose lowered the letter with a thoughtful frown. She well remembered when they discovered the disaster of her late father’s debts, the wreck of her mother’s annuity and the near loss of their cottage. Jane had been all that was kind at the time, offering assistance of every sort from financial gifts to a new home at Barton. Yet Rose and her mother had been so loathe to take charity, even from family. The position with Aunt Sylvia was just that—a position, with wages for tasks and long hours. Not perfect, not merry or fun, but it got them by and let her mother stay in her home.
She wondered if Jane’s offer now was also charity, carefully disguised as a temporary governess–music teacher position, but she found she didn’t quite care. She closed her eyes and remembered Barton Park, how pretty it was, how welcoming, how full of fun. She remembered her dance there with Captain St George, the bright, hopeful way he had made her feel. Maybe she would find a spark of that again, there at Barton at Christmas?
She tucked the letter under her pillow, along with Lily’s to save for a morning treat, and blew out her candle. She closed her eyes again and hoped to dream of music and mistletoe and dances with handsome partners...
* * *
‘Jane, surely it is nearly midnight. Put that away and come to bed,’ Hayden Fitzwalter, Earl of Ramsay, said, patting at the feather pillows next to him on their large, luxurious feather mattress.
Jane laughed, but she didn’t look up from the pile of papers on her writing desk. She knew if she saw her gorgeous husband, his dark hair tousled, half-naked in their lovely warm bed, she would never finish her work at all. Even after years of marriage, those gorgeous blue eyes of his were too tempting indeed.
‘I only have a few more invitations to write and they must go out with the morning post,’ she said, her pen scratching over her creamy paper. ‘We are going to have the grandest Christmas house party Barton Park has ever seen! We will have carols and wassail, and sleigh rides...’
Hayden laughed. ‘Sleigh rides? What if there is no snow, my love?’
‘Then we shall make some. It’s the first Christmas we’ve all been together at Barton in ages.’ They spent most of their time now in London, or at Hayden’s earldom seat. But Barton, where her own parents had once been so happy and raised Emma and herself in a golden childhood, was always home. ‘When Emma and I were children, our parents made the holidays so magical. Such games and music, and wonderful sweets on the tables. Green wreaths and dancing. I want it to be just like that now for the children.’
‘And so it shall be, if you will it so. Everything you create in our lives is magic, my love.’
She looked over at him and smiled. ‘Our lives are magical—now. If I can help someone else find the same thing...’
‘Ah, I see.’ His tone was full of smug satisfaction and he crossed his arms behind his head as he laid back on the pillows. ‘Trying a bit of matchmaking, are you? Who do you and Emma have in mind now?’
Jane pursed her lips. ‘No one at all, of course. If people just happen to meet at our party and just happen to like each other—well, how can that be a bad thing? Magical things do happen at Christmas.’
‘So they do. Who are you inviting, then?’
Jane glanced over her list and named a few of their London friends she thought might enjoy Barton. Her old family house was small compared to Hayden’s grand seat and there was not space for very many. There was definitely no space for Hayden’s old rakish friends, from the dark days before they mended their marriage and started their family.
‘Also, Mr and Mrs Hewlitt, though I’m not sure he can be spared from his clerical duties for the holiday,’ she said.
‘That is too bad. I remember when they became betrothed at Barton.’
‘I know, wasn’t it terribly sweet?’ Jane said. ‘I also asked her sister, Miss Rose Parker. I’m sure you remember her, too.’
‘Of course. A most sensible and cheerful lady. Her performance of Beethoven at the pianoforte was impressive.’
‘I hope she is still sensible and cheerful. She has been working as companion to Sylvia Pemberton.’
‘Oh, that poor girl!’ Hayden exclaimed. ‘Will the kraken release its captive to come to Barton?’
‘I am afraid I performed a bit of a subterfuge, since I know how proud Rose is and how their family has been brought so low of late. I told her we would need a governess for the children while Miss Essex is gone for the holidays and that Eleanor shows a proficiency for music, which she does.’
‘Jane! You’ve just moved her from working for one monster to four.’
Jane laughed. ‘Hayden! They are very well-behaved children, everyone says so.’
‘Well behaved in public, maybe,’ Hayden muttered, but Jane could hear the affectionate pride in his voice.
‘The nursemaids will all still be here. I did have to lure Rose here somehow, or she wouldn’t leave Aunt Sylvia and would have a miserable Christmas.’ And there would be no chances for her to meet eligible young men if she didn’t come to the party.
‘Quite right. Who else have you invited, then?’
Jane hesitated as she looked down at the last invitation on her desk. ‘The St George brothers, at Hilltop.’
‘Is that quite wise? Harry has not been home long, and he has not received any visitors yet. He might not be quite—recovered.’
‘When Dr Heath called last week, he told me he found Captain St George’s health to be much improved last time he was at Hilltop, though not entirely as he once was, of course. A Christmas party might be just the chance to cheer him up! After all he has been through—being wounded and losing Miss Layton...’
‘You mean Lady Fallon?’ Hayden said quietly.
‘The Dowager Lady Fallon now, not that it matters,’ Jane answered. That sudden marriage, after Captain St George left for Sicily, had surprised everyone. But if Jane had learned one thing in life, it was that everyone had secrets they hid deep down inside. Everyone deserved a second chance. ‘If the Captain does not yet feel like a party, he can always refuse. But I am inviting him, as well as his brother, Charles, who I hear is back from the Continent now.’ And Charles had always been such fun; maybe Rose Parker could use a bit of that fun in her life.
‘You must do what you think best, my love. Yet now it really is time to come to bed. It grows much too late.’
‘And much too cold, with you so far over there,’ she said with a laugh, thinking how lucky they were indeed to have had their own second chance. Their life together.
She sealed up the last invitation, the one bound for Hilltop Grange, and snuffed out the candles before she hurried into the warm haven of her husband’s loving arms.
Chapter Two (#u6c94411c-bb8c-56ea-bce8-484a43a54129)
‘Aye, ’tis a pity. Hilltop Grange was once so grand. Now look at it. Falling to bits.’
‘Some who has it all haven’t the sense to appreciate it. Fritter it all away. Shameful.’
‘Oh, you two,’ the barmaid tsked to the two old men as she plopped fresh pints down on their sticky, scarred table. ‘Always grumbling ’bout something and not doing a thing about it. Now that the Captain is back...’
‘Will he be any better than that brother of his? Or the father?’ one old man muttered. ‘Been gone for years, ain’t he?’
‘He has to care, doesn’t he? Hilltop is his estate now,’ the barmaid said as she turned away, wiping her hands on her apron. The two old men returned to the weather, to the threat of snow in the air.
None of them seemed to notice Harry sitting quietly in the darkest corner of the pub, the new owner of Hilltop Grange, nursing his ale and pondering what he had to do next.
He took a long drink from his tankard, but even that did not warm him. A few snowflakes drifted past the grimy windows, landing lightly on the cobbled streets of the village outside. A few people hurried past, stepping out of the greenery-bedecked shops, their arms laden with Christmas packages, laughing together in holiday cheer, brushing the snow off their cloaks and hats.
It wasn’t the grey winter sky that made him feel so cold, or the joy in the coming holiday that he saw in others but barely remembered ever having himself. It was a numbness at his very core that had probably always been there, ever since Waterloo, when he realised the true ugliness of life.
No, he thought in sudden, startled remembrance. It hadn’t always been thus. For one moment, long ago, it had lifted, like a tiny spark of sun through those clouds. When he held a hazel-eyed girl in his arms for a dance, and she laughed with him, those eyes shining with her enjoyment of the music and of all the life around them. He knew just for a small instant, with her, the sweetness he was really fighting for.
Miss Rose Parker. That was her name. And she’d looked like a rose, too, with the faint pink in her pale cheeks. Surely she was Mrs Rose Some-Other-Surname now, with a baby in her arms. Whoever he was—well, he was a lucky bloke indeed. Harry just hoped he appreciated what he had.
He touched the black patch over his lost eye, feeling the roughness of the skin around it, the scar that curved its way almost to his jaw. What would Rose Parker think if she saw him now? Would her smiles turn to startled fear, to quickly averted glances just like everyone else? Just like it had with Helen?
Harry gave a humourless little laugh. No, not Helen. She’d left long before the wounds; she’d left when someone with more to offer, with a title even, came around. Not that Harry could blame her, not a bit. Being a soldier’s wife would never have suited Helen, no matter how much she once protested otherwise, how much their families wished otherwise. And now with Hilltop in the state it was...
Harry finished his tankard and pushed back his chair. Speaking of Hilltop, he knew he should be getting back there. He had lingered in the village too long after his visit to the lawyer Mr Wall. Hilltop would never have its roof and windows fixed by sitting around in taverns. The problem was—he wasn’t sure yet how to fix it all. He knew the army, that was all. Now he had to learn how to be a landlord to a crumbled estate.
The barmaid appeared at his side. She looked at him with a twinge of pity in her eyes, but she didn’t turn away.
‘Another pint, then, Captain?’ she said. ‘Or maybe some wine? We just got some bottles, special for the season.’
He gave her a smile. ‘Not today, Nell, but next time. And it’s just Mr now, not Captain.’
He left the tavern, striding past the grumbling old men without a word and out into the world. For an instant, his eye was dazzled by the bright grey glare of the light after the dim tavern. He pulled the brim of his hat lower and raised the collar of his greatcoat against the cold breeze. He was still trying to become accustomed to the way having sight in only one eye distorted the horizon.
The village was not a large one, but it was very busy at that time of day, as shoppers finished their last-minute errands before hurrying home to their warm fires. He knew every shop from when he was a child—the butcher, where Christmas geese and hams now waited in his window, the dressmaker, where his mother had had so many gowns sewn up, the confectioner, from whom he and Charles used to steal lemon drops.
All the doors were wreathed in greenery now, all the window displays decked in bows. The Christmas atmosphere of his home village was so very familiar, but so very alien at the same time. A dream world.
Harry turned towards the livery stable where he had left his horse. On the corner, an old man was selling bouquets of mistletoe and holly tied with red ribbon, and Harry impulsively bought one. He wasn’t sure what he would do with it, but for a moment the red brightened his thoughts.
He passed by the bookshop that had once been owned by old Mr Lorne, but which he had heard now belonged to Emma Bancroft, or Lady Marton as she had become. He paused to examine the display in her bow window, the leather-bound volumes with their gilded lettering gleaming, the boxes of fine stationery. He remembered his mother going there every month for her new stock of novels from London.
The shop door swung open with a jangle of bells, and Emma Marton hurried out, nearly bumping into him. The young girl behind her, who must be her stepdaughter, the young Beatrice Marton, caught her as she stumbled and laughed. Emma looked as if she had not aged at all while he’d been gone, her blond curls still as sunny, her smile still dimpled. Like the village, she seemed to have stayed still while he felt centuries older.
But not everything had stayed the same. Under the folds of her green-velvet cloak, he could see the small bump of a child, one of the growing brood of Bancroft Park.
He remembered how once Barton had seemed as crumbling and lonely as Hilltop, and the Bancroft sisters had raised it back life. It gave him a spark of hope now to think of it.
‘Oh, Harry!’ Emma cried, her gaze flickering over his scarred face and then quickly away. ‘How perfectly wonderful to see you home. We all so feared for your health when—well, when we heard what happened and...well—’ Her words broke off and she blushed under the brim of her feathered bonnet.
He smiled down at her. ‘I left one or two bits behind on the battlefield, but am now in good health, thank you, Emma. As I see are you. You are quite blooming.’
She laughed, turning even pinker. ‘Oh, yes! In a few months, Bea here will be a sister again. You do remember Miss Beatrice Marton, my stepdaughter?’
The girl dropped a shy little curtsy as Harry bowed. She was a pretty thing, with dark hair smooth under her hood and sweet eyes; one day she would surely break hearts. ‘Of course. How do you do, Miss Marton?’
‘I am quite well, thank you, Captain St George.’
‘I couldn’t do without Bea’s help at home and here at the shop,’ Emma said proudly, taking Beatrice’s hand. ‘Especially now that Christmas is so near. I do hope we will see you at Barton.’
‘I’m afraid there is still much to do at Hilltop,’ he answered. Christmas was for family and good cheer, not for staring at wounded soldiers. He did not want to be the ghost at the feast.
‘Oh, but you must,’ Beatrice said warmly. ‘There can surely be nothing merrier than the holiday Aunt Jane has planned. Games and sleigh rides and plum pudding...’
‘Oh, Bea, I’m sure Captain St George knows how he wants to spend his holiday,’ Emma said, squeezing her stepdaughter’s hand. ‘But do know you are always most welcome at our homes, Harry, any time at all.’
‘Thank you, Emma. That does mean much to me.’ He impulsively handed her the bouquet of greenery he had bought. ‘Happy Christmas.’
He turned and walked away, but when he glanced back Emma was watching him with a thoughtful frown. She quickly smiled and waved the bouquet, the red ribbon a banner of brightness against the grey day.
* * *
Unlike the village, Hilltop did not bustle with holiday preparations and cheer. The windows were blank in the gathering twilight as Harry rode up the overgrown lane; no smoke curled from the crumbling chimneys. There were, however, a few more fallen roof slates on the portico and in the tangled flowerbeds.
As Harry swung down from the saddle, he studied the house and for just an instant he remembered what it had been like in his mother’s day, with the flowers blooming and bright against the pale grey walls, curtains elegant in every window. He could imagine a lady like Rose Parker in such a house, but not this one.
Then he blinked and the fantasy of a smiling lady welcoming him home was replaced with reality once more.
He left his horse with the young stable lad, one of the few servants left at Hilltop along with their ancient butler Jenkins, and hurried up the front steps into the darkening house. The doors to the drawing room and music room were firmly shut, the few pieces of furniture in the hall shrouded in dust cloths. Yet it was not quite as silent as he expected. The door to the library was half-open, and a bar of amber-gold spilled out. He heard the clink of heavy crystal, as if a decanter had just been plonked down on a table.
Curious, and not a little irritated that someone would break into his solitude uninvited, Harry tossed his hat and gloves on to the nearest canvas-covered table and strode towards the library.
The room was just as he had left it, half-empty and dusty, most of the books sold or packed away, but his brother, Charles, sat behind their father’s desk. His dark gold hair was over-long and mussed, his buff travel coat dusty and a half-empty brandy bottle sat before him.
He looked up and Harry saw that his blue eyes were rimmed with red. He remembered the last time he’d seen Charles, when his brother was leaving for the Continent. To paint, he said, but more likely to get away from their father. ‘My brother! The returning hero,’ Charles called, raising his almost empty glass. ‘Let me pour you a drink. You probably need it after meeting with old Mr Wall. That’s where Jenkins said you were, anyway.’
Harry sat down across from him, stretching his long legs before him. He had learned long ago not to wonder about Charles’s comings and goings. ‘I’ve just come from the tavern and it looks as if you’ve already started the celebrating.’
Charles examined his glass. ‘So I have. ’Tis the merry season, after all.’
‘So everyone keeps telling me. Where have you been lately, Charlie?’
‘Oh, here and there. Italy mostly. Then some German spa towns. Until I heard you were home.’
‘Not doing your art, then?’ Harry asked. Charles had always been a masterful artist, one who could be a professional in Harry’s uneducated opinion, though their father had scoffed at it all.
