Chapter 30
Thirty
Jewel
JEWEL LICKED her lips, perusing the selection of sweets.
More than a few now graced the Christmas Eve table, including creamy custard, spiced gingerbread, sugared almonds, and a platter of marzipan shaped into tiny edible sculptures of berries, fruits, and wreaths. There was also a giant strawberry tart, courtesy of Aunty Violet’s father’s greenhouse.
Aunty Kendra already had some of everything on her plate. Across the table, Diana and Elspeth were busily choosing sweetmeats for Rowan, having contrived to sit on either side of him. But the plum pudding had yet to appear, because two family members were missing.
“We’ve all been waiting for you for the pudding!” Jewel’s cousin Adam told his parents when they finally entered the dining room.
“Your father hasn’t eaten.” Aunty Cait was fairly glowing with renewed good humor. “You’ll have to wait a wee bit longer.”
“No one has to wait,” Uncle Jason disagreed as he took his seat. “I’ll eat the rest of this fish and some Christmas pie while everyone else enjoys the plum pudding. I don’t want to keep anyone from their pudding—most especially my dear, pregnant wife, who’s been craving plum pudding for days.”
Jewel wasn’t the only one who gasped at that news, although she noticed that none of the older generation seemed surprised. “Then let’s not keep Cait waiting!” Aunty Violet exclaimed as she rose from her chair. “I’ll go tell Hilda we’re ready for the pudding.”
After Violet left, the chamber was conspicuously quiet for a moment.
A very short moment.
“You’re having a baby?” Aunty Cait’s eldest son burst out. “After all this time?” He exchanged glances with his brothers. All three of them seemed in shock. “How did that happen?”
“Honestly, Griffin?” the youngest, Jamie, scoffed. He was fourteen. “Even I know how that happened.”
General laughter broke out, followed by a hubbub of questions and congratulations. But all of that abruptly ceased when the plum pudding was brought in flaming and they began singing “Sir Christèmas,” a tradition that Violet had brought to the family long ago.
“Nowell, nowell, nowell, nowell
Who is there that singeth so: Nowell, nowell?
I am here, Sir Christèmas.
Welcome, my lord Sir Christèmas!
Welcome to all, both more and less!
Come near, come near.
Nowell, nowell.”
To Jewel, the room felt magical with all of their voices raised in melodious song. The fathomless darkness beyond the windows seemed to magnify the soft, warm candlelight inside and the brighter flames that danced around the lit pudding.
“Dieu vous garde, beaux sieurs, tidings I you bring:
A maid hath borne a child full young,
Which causeth you to sing: Nowell, nowell.
Christ is now born of a pure maid;
In an ox-stall he is laid,
Wherefore sing we at abrayde: Nowell, nowell.
Buvez bien, buvez bien par toute la compagnie.
Make good cheer and be right merry,
And sing with us now joyfully: Nowell, nowell.
Nowell.”
As the verse came to an end, a hush fell over the chamber. Jewel savored the comfortable silence for the brief time it lasted, until a footman stepped forward to take the pudding to be sliced and served.
“Now it feels like Christmas is really here,” she declared.
“It truly does,” Rowan agreed, the sparkle in his deep green eyes annoying her for some reason she couldn’t fathom.
“Did you know that Christmas pudding was banned by Oliver Cromwell? He believed the ritual of flaming harked back to pagan celebrations of the winter solstice. My parents met during that time, when celebrating Christmas wasn’t allowed.
Not that that stopped my mother,” he added with a flirtatious wink.
She tried to glance away, but he was still looking at her, clearly expecting her to say something. Vexed, she shifted on her seat. “Thank you for the history lesson,” she muttered ungraciously.
A puzzled frown crossed Elspeth’s features before she turned to him and touched his arm. “What did your mother do?” she asked brightly, drawing his attention.
Which was fine with Jewel. She wanted nothing to do with Rowan.
Why was that?
Once upon a time, she’d have been thrilled to have him flirt with her. While he regaled his adoring audience with his mother’s antics during the time Christmas was outlawed, she tried to figure out why he aggravated her now.
Many years ago he’d hurt her, but at twenty-one, she was old enough to know he hadn’t hurt her on purpose.
What had felt like cruel rejection at ten had been no more than a boy being a boy, and a rather typical boy, at that—she’d watched her own brothers behave the same way at that age, after all.
That Rowan hadn’t remembered the incident shouldn’t have come as a surprise, given how little it had meant to him.
And although she’d been terribly rude to him from the moment he’d walked in the door, he was being perfectly nice to her.
In fact, he was perfectly nice to everyone. Even Elspeth and Diana, who were both acting like lovesick ninnies.
Since when had he become so nice? In truth, Jewel decided, “perfectly nice” didn’t even begin to describe grown-up Rowan.
He was too nice.
Maybe that was what irked her.
Henry was nice, but not so nice he charmed everyone in his sphere. Rowan’s abundance of niceness couldn’t be real. It had to be disingenuous. A performance.
She’d all but told him he had hurt her. Only a dunce wouldn’t hear the message implied in “Do you not remember saying something that might have convinced me to keep my distance?” And Rowan was no dunce. That much she remembered.
Was he performing for her benefit? Trying to prove he wouldn’t hurt her again? Trying to make up for hurting her in the past?
If so, she thought as a slice of the plum pudding was set before her, she was a deplorable human being. Because she didn’t want to make up with him.
She wanted to hurt him back.
“Mmmm,”Aunty Cait murmured appreciatively, having already dug into her own pudding, which was drenched in glimmering hard sauce. “Mmm, mmmm. Crivvens, I do believe this tastes better than ever before.”
A little smile curved Mama’s lips. “Thank you,” she said modestly. “Since I’m hopeless in the kitchen and have been tweaking this recipe for years, my Aunt Elizabeth offered to help me figure the measurements. She sent her suggestions all the way from Paris. I think I’ve finally got it right.”
“Was it your mother’s recipe?” Rowan asked her.
“Oh, my, no.” Mama laughed. “My family always kept a cook—I doubt my mother knew how to boil water. I found the plum pudding recipe at Greystone, tucked into an old book in the library. That happened nearly twenty years ago, and I’ve been tweaking it ever since”—she laughed again—“which just goes to prove I inherited my mother’s lack of culinary talent. ”
“Well, it’s perfect now,” Aunty Cait said. “Have you written down what you did this year?”
“Oh, yes,” Jewel confirmed. “She took copious notes.”
“Then we won’t want to lose those notes.” Looking thoughtful, Caithren took a small sip of mulled wine. “I think we should start a Chase receipt book. We’ll begin with the plum pudding. Every Christmas we can each bring a new recipe to add to the book.”
“Or an old one,” Aunty Kendra agreed enthusiastically. “But all sweets. I think all the recipes should be for sweets.”
“Of course you do,” Uncle Ford put in with a roll of his eyes. “Your preference for sweets is legendary.”
Before Aunty Kendra could retort, Jewel’s cousin Jamie yelled, “Found something!” He fished a flat, round piece from his mouth. “A silver penny!”
“That means you have a fortune in the offing,” Mama told him with a smile.
His eldest brother fixed him with a superior glare. “You’ll need a fortune,” he stated gleefully, “since you’re a third son.”
Apparently Griffin had been peeved by Jamie insinuating he didn’t know where babies came from.
Raising her cup, Aunty Kendra deftly changed the subject. “I think this delicious mulled wine would be a good addition to our family receipt book.”
“There’s a story about that mulled wine,” Aunty Violet said. “My mother made a batch with my father before he proposed. He changed the recipe, and now she swears it inspires love.” Holding her own cup aloft, she looked to her brother Rowan. And then to Jewel.
Everyone laughed.
Except Jewel.
She sipped from her cup of mulled wine, hiding a frown. How irritating it was that everyone seemed to think she should be romantically interested in Rowan. Henry was much nicer than Rowan.
Unlike Rowan, Henry was genuinely nice.
Henry hadn’t broken her heart.
Henry had never hurt her.
“Maybe we should include little stories in our family receipt book,” Aunty Cait suggested. “This one about the mulled wine, and Amy, do you have a story about the plum pudding?”
“Only that it took me nearly twenty years to get the recipe right.”
“There’s more, Mama,” Hugh interjected. “Remember how you always say the Stir-Up Sunday wishes come true?”
“That’s lovely,” Aunty Cait said. “A bonnie tradition.”
“Then it’s settled,” Aunty Kendra decided. “Every year at Christmas, each lady will bring a recipe with a story or legend behind it. For a sweet.”
Aunty Cait squealed. “The wishbone!” she cried around a mouthful of pudding. “Again!”
“Again?” Uncle Jason’s brows knitted in confusion. “When’s the last time you found a wishbone in plum pudding, given that you haven’t eaten any in more than a decade?”
“Um…”
Aunty Kendra cleared her throat. “She might have sneaked some pudding yesterday. Maybe.”
“What?” Aunty Cait’s three boys chimed in unison.
“Oh, heavens,” Aunty Kendra said. “What does it matter? Clearly she was meant to find the wishbone regardless,” she added before anyone could tell her why it mattered.
“It’s a sign of luck! It means she’ll have her girl at last.” She turned to her eldest brother.
“Jason, are you looking forward to having a daughter?”
“I’ll believe we’ll have a daughter when I’m holding her,” he said.
Aunty Cait nodded emphatically.