Chapter 16
Christmas Day started off quietly, giving Chris time to reflect on being free and home, his father’s health, his brother and mother’s deaths, and Emma, who in all her kind-hearted mystery had found a way to send a pirate to rescue him.
How? Something was missing, but he didn’t know what.
Catching up on seven years had been a lot to digest, more than he could fathom.
Before he’d sailed, he’d asked his mother to watch over Emma until he returned.
She’d promised him to keep Emma safe. Undoubtedly, she had.
He paced his room, furious at himself for placing his mother in such a dangerous position. If it hadn’t been for the promise she’d given him, she might still be alive today. Then, perhaps, Emma would be dead.
No. No. No. The fault was his. He accepted that as he stopped by the window, taking in the clear sky, a shade of blue that mirrored the color of his mother’s eyes. If she could see him now, what more would she say then welcome home, my son? Well done.
Then it hit him square in the face. He was just as stubborn as she’d been.
No one could tell him what to do. If his mother had decided to protect Emma, or even just to help the Claverings, no one would have been able to stop her from caring for the sick.
She’d always helped the needy. He’d seen her offer tenants the same attention and care as nobility and gentry.
Why not more so to a neighbor—and the parents of the woman he loved?
Rather than allow Emma to care for her parents and possibly die, his mother had sacrificed her own life to ease the Claverings’s plight.
What a relief it must have been for the Claverings to know that their daughter was safe and in good hands. Aye, his mother had had a hulking heart. She’d done what she did for the Claverings, for Emma, for his father, for Noel, for the tenants loyal to Milne Manor, and for him.
Running his fingers through his hair, he turned away from the window and the carriages lining the circular road before the house unable to hide in his room any longer.
His great aunt and several cousins had arrived to partake of Christmas dinner, hardly aware that he was in residence.
Father had advised that Chris’s presence should be a surprise.
The subterfuge led Chris to believe his father was up to something but he agreed to go along with the scheme, desiring only to please the man who meant the world to him and make up for the years he’d been absent.
It was the least he could do to repay all that his father had lost.
He should have been there for him. He should have—
The door to his bedchamber opened and Hardy entered through the secret paneling. “Excuse me, sir. Yer father requests yer company downstairs. Dinner is soon to begin.”
“Aye.” He stretched his neck. “This secrecy has me baffled.” In truth, he wanted to be near Emma, to escort her to dinner, not be surrounded by well-meaning relatives who’d question him come Sunday.
“Be a good man and help me look presentable. I’ve been preoccupied, and it’s been a long time since—”
“Think nothin’ of it, sir,” Hardy said quickly moving into action, selecting a cravat and matching waistcoat for him.
“No one is aware of yer presence. The viscount was quite adamant that no one should know until ye make yer grand entrance.” He helped Chris shrug into his waistcoat. “May I be frank?”
“In my opinion, frankness is always the best policy. I earned my knighthood for my actions in the Atlantic, but I am not defined by the honor. I am a man, just like you and request to be treated as such.”
“Ye are more than a man, sir, if ye don’t mind me sayin’ so. Ye are the heir to a viscountcy, and therefore owed deference.”
“I’d prefer friendship,” he said candidly as Hardy began to arrange his cravat.
Hardy paused. “Right, ye are,” he said, making sense of the material and creating a finely contrived knot. “If we are to be friends, sir, then allow me to inform ye that yer cousin, Mr. Townsbridge, expected to inherit after ye were declared dead.”
“Me? Declared dead? I haven’t been gone seven years.”
“Understood. But it’s almost been seven years, sir, since we last heard of ye, and it seemed probable that ye had died. With yer brother proceeding ye in death, the viscountcy will fall to yer father’s brother’s son, who just so happens to want to call an inquest.”
“Mr. Townsbridge,” he said flatly, “wants to be the next viscount?”
“Aye, sir. His servants arrived before him to share as much. The man has an apparent thirst for nobility.”
“Is that so?” More like security and any blunt that could be had from it.
Chris contemplated this news then began to laugh at the sheer comedy of it.
Townsbridge could not successfully run Milne Manor.
The man was no better than Lyddon, a letch and a gambler.
He’d bleed the estate and its tenants dry before selling to refill his coffers.
The idea that Townsbridge thought his scheme to take on the viscountcy would succeed drove him to a fit of laughter.
“I see nothing has changed in my absence.”
“It appears not, sir.”
“Then,” he said rousing himself to make a point Townsbridge would never forget, “I shall prepare myself to make a grand entrance.”
“Most acceptable, sir. Yer presence here is most welcome,” Hardy offered slyly, helping him into his dinner jacket.
“Well then,” he said. “I am armed, thanks to your key intelligence. Do I look ready to deflect Townsbridge’s broadsides?”
“Aye, sir. Ye are in fine form, though I shall have to have yer uniform altered. Ye aren’t as robust as ye used to be, sir. If ye don’t mind me saying.”
“Captivity sheds the man,” he said flatly. He pulled down his sleeves, fuller around his arms than he remembered and gazed at his appearance in the mirror. Townsbridge and his aunt disappointed him, he thought, as he headed to the door. “Wish me luck.”
“Ye have all the luck ye need beside ye, sir.” He glanced back at Hardy, offering his most practiced quizzical glare. “In Miss Clavering, sir.”
Emma. Everything always led back to her.
He offered a smile, eager to see her again.
He wasn’t sure how deeply she was involved with her cousin, but he suspected she’d been doing more than caring for his father while he’d been gone.
The estate was pristine, its coffers full, if his perusal of the books these past few days was any indication.
That had spawned new questions. In a war filled with depravity and import tariffs, how had his father managed to keep his tenants and run an estate of this size? He felt sure Emma was the key.
Working his way down the bustling hall to the staircase, he spied Barrett waiting at the bottom. Once more, he was hit with gratitude. He was indebted to his friend for keeping him alive after every escape attempt had left him broken, bloodied, and bereaved.
“I’ve never been invited to a repast quite like this,” Barrett said as he reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Nor shall you ever again, if my informant is correct.”
Barrett’s eyes narrowed. “You must know something I don’t.”
“Aye.” He grinned, looking forward to the expression on his cousin’s face when he walked into the dining room and spoiled the rotter’s plans.
But he wasn’t given the chance to say anything more on the subject because a momentary swish of skirts on the steps signaled they were no longer alone.
Instincts honed to danger, he turned, half-expecting to come face-to-face with a servant on an errand, the cadence too hurried to be a lady’s.
“Am I too late?” asked Emma, breathlessly. Where had she learned to approach men covertly, and why?
Whoever he had been, whatever he had been thinking before this moment, none of it seemed to matter as she descended the stairs and came to a stop before him.
Bewitchingly, she wore a white gown trimmed with gold ribbon and embroidered leaves at the bodice and hem.
Her blonde hair, arranged neatly in a high twist, was set off by coral earbobs that dangled from her ears and a strand of coral beads encircling her slender neck.
The round pebbles hung like delectable sweets he longed to pluck off her skin.
Bollocks! If he didn’t marry Emma soon, he was going to make a fool of himself.
“Is everything all right, Sir Christmas?”
Waiting for an answer to her question gave Emma time to catch her breath.
She was late for dinner and hoped no one would ask why.
Ansell had sent a coded message, and she’d lost track of time deciphering it and composing an immediate reply.
Ultimately, she’d entrusted Euna with the task of ensuring that Billy left straightaway to dispatch the message before Ansell’s men set sail.
Happily, content that she wasn’t the last to arrive, she stood above Chris and Lieutenant Barrett, her independence and self-confidence mounting. It was wrong to encourage men who gazed up at her appreciatively, but she could not help longing to be desired.
Chris looked at her tenderly, devotedly, and with the greatest fondness, and a stirring sense of more. She longed for his affections and attention, his touch, his kiss, his— “Am I late?”
“You are not too late,” Chris supplied, reaching out his hand.
She hesitated only slightly before flexing her fingers over his.
His warmth penetrated her glove, sparking a sensation deep inside that shocked her to her core.
Oh, the contrast! How alive she felt in his presence!
Granted, she had held his hand and touched him before, but it had been too long since they’d briefly connected like this.
She stared at the juncture of their hands in wonderment, captivated and stunned at the same time, longing for him to pull her closer.
The lieutenant cleared his throat. “I’ll go ahead.”
“Nonsense,” Chris said. “We should walk into dinner together. The more the merrier, don’t you agree?”
They exchanged a look, sharing some sort of inside knowledge that Emma wasn’t privy to. And what did the glint in the lieutenant’s eye mean? “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
What were they planning? “If I didn’t know better, I’d have to suggest that the two of you are up to something nefarious.”
Chris drew in his elbow and placed her hand within it. “Never mind us. What is more, Barrett is eager to celebrate a family Christmas.”
“And why shouldn’t I be? The man’s talked about it for years, easing our cares with mesmerizing tales of yule logs and mistletoe. You cannot know—and I pray you never know—how desperately a man clings to such things when he’s been brought up in a workhouse.”
Her mouth went dry. She shared a look with Chris, trying to gauge his demeanor, not wanting to disrupt so happy an occasion with memories the lieutenant would rather forget.
“I am sorry for all that you have missed, Lieutenant.” She lowered her eyes.
“And for the horrific circumstances that brought you here. We shall endeavor to provide better memories of Christmas for you.”
Chris patted her hand as if approving her promise as they neared the dining room doors. “I promised Barrett years ago that if we got out of France alive, I’d make sure he experienced Christmas at Milne Manor.”
His generous heart appealed to her more than ever, and her appreciation and love for Chris soared ever higher in response to his generosity. How he must have inspired his fellow prisoners amid tribulation, sharing hope, peace, and any supportive thing to remain sane.
“Then we shall celebrate in the most festive way we’ve ever done,” she said reaching for the lieutenant’s hand. “But first, there are guests to introduce you to.”