Chapter Six
“We didn’t keep Christmas at all last year,” Lady Margery explained. “The wounds were too fresh and our loss was too great.”
This was the Charltons’ first celebration since coming out mourning for the late Duchess of Brantingham. Aurelia might’ve feared that she’d intruded upon what should have been an intimate family gathering, yet they made her feel so welcome among them that she couldn’t help but join in on the fun.
She perched on the sofa, stringing glass beads onto a long rope of twine, while Lady Margery Charlton searched the Christmas tree for the perfect branch upon which to loop it.
Lady Fanetta and Lord Peregrine sorted through boxes of ornaments which had been placed beneath the boughs.
The Duke held a tray of gilded walnuts and candy canes, which were to be tucked into any bare spaces.
Lady Margery took the finished end from Aurelia’s hand and knotted it around a branch. She began to circle the tree, draping the string of beads with an artful eye. “If I’ve grown skilled at tree-trimming, it’s because Selly always leaves the job to the last minute.”
“You’d never be satisfied if anyone else were to do it,” His Grace argued magnanimously.
The elder Charlton sister smiled from behind the branches. She was a sweet lady—only two years older than Aurelia, and she sensed that they would’ve been dear friends, if never relations. At any rate, Lady Margery would make an exemplary hostess until His Grace married.
Aurelia liked her immensely. “What do you hope to do whilst you’re in town, my lady?”
The two women passed the beaded rope between them. “I should like to see the new production of Hamlet being put on by Henry Irving and Ellen Terry,” said Lady Margery. “It doesn’t open until the end of the month, but everybody clever is talking about it.”
“That sounds lovely,” said Aurelia. “We had some small productions come to Cheltenham, and we put on a few ourselves when I was at school. I’ve always believed that Shakespeare’s works must be seen to be truly appreciated.
” She turned her attention to Lord Peregrine, who fiddled with a nutcracker bauble.
“What about you, my lord? Any grand plans for the festive season?”
“Dance, flirt, duel—I’m not choosy.” He looked up and grinned. The lad resembled his brother were the duke a decade younger and thinner. He was a lanky youth, bright-eyed and handsome. “I wouldn’t say no to seeing Ellen Terry in the flesh, as I keep her photograph by my bedside at Eton.”
“Miss Terry is twice your age,” argued Lady Margery. “Why not find a nice, young debutante to moon at? Whatever happened to Katherine Goodwin? She had you wrapped ‘round her finger practically from the nursery!”
He chucked the nutcracker at his sister. “Lady Kitty is too young to be taken seriously. She only plays at love.”
Lady Margery caught the little painted ornament with ease. “Which means she has broken your heart.”
Aurelia hated to see the young man teased, especially about such sensitive matters.
She’d suffered her own set-down in romance and understood how it felt to be hurt.
She hoped to buoy the lad’s spirits—and possibly even her own.
“You’re young, Lord Peregrine. There is still plenty of time for love. ”
“Not if he wants Miss Terry,” Lady Margery laughed. “She’s thirty years old!”
The three younger Charltons erupted into peals of laughter, yet the Duke frowned. “Mind your tongue with that ‘old’ talk.”
Lady Margery whispered from between the branches, “Poor Selly is twenty-seven and feeling every minute of it.”
His Grace did not rise to his sister’s teasing jibe, but merely grunted his displeasure as he placed a candy cane upon the tree.
Aurelia stole a glance at him, smiling at this tall, handsome gentleman who was clearly in the prime of his life.
He reached high above her head to hook another candy cane onto the uppermost boughs.
He stood so close that she could’ve hugged him. Aurelia wasn’t sorry to feel an attraction for the man who might’ve been her husband. The Duke of Brantingham had been her dream since she was sixteen, and a leopard could not easily change its spots.
Despite their agreement to be friends, her foolish heart yearned for him.
His Grace’s arm brushed hers as he hung a gilded walnut. The warmth of his skin radiated through the wool of his jacket, and he bent very low to ask, “What do you want to do, Miss Goldsworthy?”
“For Christmas?” She blinked at him. Smiling brown eyes gazed into hers, and she felt a blush stain her cheeks. “I suppose I’m at your mercy, sir.”
He laughed. “Oh, I doubt that.”
Aurelia grinned as she recovered her composure.
He was only a man, after all. The Duke of Brantingham was her match in every way that mattered, and she wouldn’t be cowed by him now.
“I meant to say that I’ll be happy to go along with whatever plans you all have for Christmastide.
I should love to see Hamlet with Lady Margery and Lord Peregrine if invited to do so, but that still leaves rather a lot of days to fill. ”
“You’re a good sport, Miss Goldsworthy.”
“I’m not, Your Grace! I’m greedy, as I’ve never had a proper Christmas before, and certainly not one in London.
I want to go to parties, visit the picture galleries, and dash about Bond Street shopping for presents.
” She stepped nearer to him, drawn to the Duke’s side without a thought for anyone else in the room.
“I wish to be included in everything, if you’ll have me. ”
***
Selwyn knew that Miss Goldsworthy hadn’t meant anything untoward by her words or her manner, yet he couldn’t help but feel a more profound impact somewhere in the vicinity of his heart.
‘If you’ll have me.’
She had left her home to join him in his. She’d brought a trousseau worth of trunks and an open mind to Brantingham House, and now, in the face of so much disappointment, she was glad to be included in the plans of a family that would never be hers.
Truly, he couldn’t imagine that Mama would have maneuvered a girl into his life for the sake of seeing him wed, but neither could he fathom why anyone would play a trick on either of them.
Yet somebody had deliberately misled her, and he felt duty-bound to look after her.
She might not have been illegitimate, for no one knew the circumstances of her birth, but she was certainly an orphan with no lineage and only a modest living to see her settled in the world.
Miss Goldsworthy was educated, well-dressed, and charming, but she would never have the advantages that Margie or Fannie did. She would not be presented at Court and would never know the security of life as a peeress. Her best chance for a stable future would be a connection with the Charltons.
Perhaps that was all this mischief was ever meant to be—a launch of sorts. A leg-up toward a better way of living, and some puppet master’s clever hand was managing it from behind the curtain.
Selwyn did not appreciate being managed.
He did feel sorry for Miss Goldsworthy, though. She remained innocent in all this.
He pressed a sweet, striped candy cane into her hand.
“I’ve told you that you may stay here for however long you like, and you’re not beholden to us in any way.
Go to the theater if you wish. Visit the galleries to your heart’s content.
Meet people, make friends, and bring them to tea.
Let Brantingham House be your headquarters in London.
You are a free woman, Miss Goldsworthy, for the first time in your life. ”
Frowning, she turned the candy cane between her fingers. “I didn’t realize I was ever in chains…”
“I only meant that you’re at liberty to please yourself. It could not have been easy to imagine yourself betrothed to a stranger for the whole of your adult life. It couldn’t have been easy imagining yourself betrothed to me. Now, you can find out who you are irrespective of who I am.”
“Of course, Your Grace, you’re very sensible,” said she, softly as they moved around the Christmas tree. For a moment, they were shielded from his siblings’ prying eyes. “Thank you for letting me down gently.”
“Am I letting you down?” If so, then why was he the one feeling battered about the guts? “Forgive me, I thought I was getting out of your way.”
Miss Goldsworthy hung the candy cane on a low branch that had been overlooked by the rest of his family.
“Did you ever struggle with your identity beneath the coronet to which you were born? Has the nature of your true self changed as you’ve ascended the ranks of the nobility?
I suspect you understand that one’s occupation or choice of partner ought not to alter who one is within. ”
She touched her hand to her breast, palm flattened over her beating heart. She was courageous, and she was correct. “My self-worth is neither dependent upon the man who sired me nor the man I marry.”
She’d put him in his place. Selwyn had always known that he was destined for the dukedom, though he hadn’t welcomed the loss of his father to make it happen. At any rate, he did not believe he was any less of a man for having his future decided for him.
Aurelia Goldsworthy was no less of a woman—or any less of an individual—for feeling that same sense of acceptance over her own circumstances.
“You know I’ve the utmost respect for you,” he said before stepping away. They’d been apart from the others for too long, and it was best if he rejoined his siblings.
The Christmas tree was coming along nicely. Strings of beads and strands of garland swirled around the branches, which drooped beneath the weight of painted ornaments and pretty baubles, gilded walnuts on ribbons, and peppermint candy canes.
All that remained was for someone to place an angel atop the pinnacle.
“You’re the tallest, Selly,” said Margie, looping her arm through his. “Anybody else would require the fetching of a ladder to reach the top.”
He smiled at his sister. “You or Fannie could climb on my shoulders like in the old days.”
“We might make a pyramid of bodies, Perry said, laughing, “for Fannie to ascend.”
Their younger sister hitched up her skirts, ready to scramble upon her brothers’ sturdy backs. “Oh, yes, let’s do that!”
Miss Goldsworthy produced the angel and held it while Selwyn and Perry lifted Fannie into the air. It was undignified in the worst way, but heaps of fun.
“I warned you that we did not stand on ceremony here at Brantingham House,” he called to their guest over the sound of their mirth. When the tree was safely topped, they placed Fannie back onto the carpet. “You’ve thrown your lot in with a clan of wild ruffians, I’m afraid.”
Miss Goldsworthy laughed. “I’m delighted to have done so!”
Fannie collapsed onto the sofa, breathless from so many belly-laughs. “No one has asked me what I wish to do in town,” she reminded them, “yet I have the most novel suggestion.”
He snagged a candy cane from off a branch—he doubted the sweets would last until Christmas—and cracked it in half. He offered his little sister one piece while nibbling on the other. “By all means, Fannie, tell us what you have in mind.”
She grinned as if she were imparting a great secret.
“Victoria Embankment has been electrified! Every night for a week now, the lamps have been illuminated by the flick of a switch. Oh, please, Selly! Maud Abarough went on the very first night, and she said they were too magnificent. I don’t want to miss the spectacle. Don’t be a spoilsport! It’s Christmas!”
His brother and sisters looked to him with wide, hopeful eyes. Only Miss Goldsworthy’s gaze remained inscrutable. Did she want to see the switching on?
“They’re lights,” Selwyn argued. “I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. We have lights here…” He gestured to the fixtures overhead and to the candle-sconces on the silk-paneled walls. The lamps at Brantingham House and in Yorkshire had been installed at a great expense.
“Ours are gas,” declared Fannie as though he were a Luddite or some pitiable relic from the past. “Mere caveman’s fire! The lamps at the Embankment are powered by electricity—lightning bolts from Zeus’ hand!”
He could never resist his sister’s enthusiasm, and it had been such a long time since the Charlton siblings had enjoyed a jaunt. Nothing was out of reach at Christmas time.
“Very well, Fannie. If no one has any objections for tomorrow evening, we shall go and see the switching on of the lights.”