Chapter Thirty-Six
Christmas Eve arrived with hardly anyone in the group even realizing it. Duke’s time had been divided between planning and preparing with his aunt and uncle for their pending departure for London and baking with Eve in the mornings. He’d also done all he could to help her look after her sister, who had taken a bit of a turn for the worse, even after Dr. Wilstead’s more optimistic evaluations of late. And he found himself wondering about his parents—if they had regrets, if they would ever actually change.
All that meant he, as much as everyone else, had lost track of the date and was caught entirely unaware when Artemis announced that they would all be going out to gather greenery for Christmas boughs, wreaths, garlands, and such.
Time had gone so quickly. The house party was nearly over.
Dr. Wilstead seemed a little unsure of Nia’s participation in the outing but agreed that she could go along, provided she was bundled against the cold, not required to exert herself in any way, and vowed to be very forthright with the rest of the group regarding how she was feeling as the excursion went on.
Three of the estate wagons, each with a generous layer of straw laid inside, awaited them outside the doors of Fairfield. They were obviously very utilitarian vehicles, but the white horses pulling them would not have looked out of place at the front of a royal carriage. Duke had heard stories of the impressive horses bred at Ballycar before it was lost, but nothing could compare to the famous snow-white horses at Fairfield.
“Oh, Eve,” Nia whispered to her sister. “They are the most beautiful horses I’ve ever seen.”
“And you’ve not even seen most of them,” Eve said. “An enormous stable full of pure-white horses.”
Duke stood at Eve’s side, where he tried to be whenever possible.
“Do you suppose I’ll feel well enough before our time at Fairfield ends to... to actually ride one?” Nia sounded hesitantly hopeful but also entirely exhausted.
“We’ll make certain of it,” Eve said.
But Nia didn’t look convinced. “We have no control over how long I will be ill.”
“I intend to threaten Colm if he attempts to send us away before you’ve had your dreamed-of ride,” Eve countered, earning a smile from her sister. “As everyone here now knows, I am more than capable of speaking my mind when I decide to.”
Duke set an arm around Eve’s middle, pulling her gently against his side. “If you do threaten him, let the Pack know. They’ll help you follow through on whatever consequences you deem necessary.”
“But Colm is part of the Pack,” Eve said with a laugh.
Duke pretended to be caught unaware. “I knew I was forgetting an important detail.”
“Did you also forget that he’s your cousin?” Nia asked.
He dropped his mouth agape. “I have a cousin?”
Eve leaned a bit against him. “I love when you laugh.”
“I didn’t actually laugh.”
She smiled. Heavens, that dimple of hers. “You laugh with your eyes.”
There was an unexpected amount of revelation in that simple declaration. Duke was not one for laughing out loud often, but that didn’t mean he didn’t laugh inwardly quite regularly. And Eve had sorted that about him. He wasn’t certain anyone else ever had.
Duke pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“I do hope I am placed in a different wagon than the two of you,” Nia said with a theatrical show of nausea.
Eve laughed again.
Duke drew her ever closer. “I love when you laugh.”
“That is fortunate, because I laugh often. ”
It was one of the many things he loved about her. She brightened every room she was in and lifted his spirits with ease.
“Friends.” Charlie’s voice echoed through the entryway. “Allow me to cut through the drudgery that inevitably accompanies festive activities to propose a ruthless competition. It is Christmas, after all.”
Artemis shook her head, barely hiding a smile.
“We depart as three teams, each in its own wagon, and vow to gather an assortment of Christmas greenery that will outshine that obtained by the other teams.” Charlie seldom looked as excited as he did when formulating a bit of entertainment. “Three wagons. Three teams. Only one winner.”
“What will the prize be for the winning team?” Newton asked.
“Is not the pride of winning enough for you lot?” Charlie pretended to be shocked.
In perfect unison, Colm, Toss, and Tobias shouted back, “No!”
Charlie turned to Artemis, a look of inquiry on his face.
But she shook her head. “This is your scheme, Charlie. I’ll not rescue you from it.”
His grin firmly in place, he looked over at his mother. “Any brilliant ideas, Mater?”
“My most brilliant idea: to never side against Artemis.”
The Huntresses cheered that declaration. Eve’s shoulders shook with a laugh.
Charlie, good gun that he was, grinned through it all. “I may not know at the moment what the prize will be, but I will think of something. And that something will be well worth the effort to win.”
“Are we to choose teams, or will you be assigning them?” Scott asked.
“I propose that Mr. and Mrs. Greenberry be the head of one, M. and Mme Fortier will be the head of the second, with Mater the leader of the third. The... more experienced generation can undertake whatever machinations they deem necessary to create the team they each wish for.”
Aunt Penelope, standing near Duke, asked him a little under her breath. “‘More experienced generation’? By that, he means old, I assume.”
“I’d assume the same thing,” Eve said.
Duke nodded. “The Jonquils have a tendency to walk about with their foot permanently in their mouth.”
“Quite a trick, that.” Uncle Niles shook his head. “It must be brutally injurious to one’s back.”
With Duke’s parents and grandmother gone, there was so much more lightness to his aunt and uncle. To himself as well.
“I hope you will join our team, Nia,” Aunt Penelope said.
“If you’d like me to.”
Aunt Penelope put an arm around Nia exactly as a mother would a child who’d been ailing. “We’ll see you settled in our team’s wagon. And as we pass Colm, we’ll ask him to join our team. He knows Fairfield better than any of the other participants, other than his father and I. We will have a clear advantage.”
The two “more experienced” participants and Nia walked toward Colm, standing near the door.
“Unfair,” Duke called after them with a grin.
“Your aunt has been so attentive to Nia,” Eve said. “I’m so very grateful to her.”
“She lost two of her children to illness. I think she worries when other people are ill, but I think she also wants very much to help in any way she can.”
Eve leaned more fully into his one-armed embrace. “You are like your aunt and uncle in a lot of ways. You will fit into their household perfectly.”
“I always did feel more at home at Fairfield than at Writtlestone, though I made absolutely certain to never so much as hint at that in front of my parents.”
Teams were being organized all around them. But Duke was perfectly content standing with an arm around Eve. Outside of this group of dear friends, he would not have been permitted the show of affection. And in mere days, they would be counties apart for months. Even when he saw Eve again in London—Mater would be making the journey for a brief time during the Season—they would be among Society, and the rules of propriety would be far more strictly enforced. Duke meant to hold her while he could.
Mater, with Charlie and Artemis in tow, moved to join them. “Care to be on the third team?”
“I would be honored,” Duke said in the same moment Eve said, “That would be brilliant.”
“We tried to recruit Fennel,” Charlie said, “but he was too busy explaining to the Fortiers why he should be on their team. Traitor!”
“Scott and Gillian would be a good addition to the third team,” Eve said.
Mater leaned a bit closer and lowered her voice. “You and I are proving shockingly well suited, my dear Eve. I had the same thought and already asked them.”
“Perfect.”
There really was something bordering on perfect in the way the teams had divided themselves. Toss and Daria had joined the Greenberry team, as had Tobias. He was Daria’s brother, and he and Colm had become particular friends very swiftly during the Season. Newton and Ellie had joined with the Fortiers, a good fit for Lisette’s quieter demeanor. Fennel had been accepted by their team, and while he could absolutely be as riotous as the rest of the Pack, he could also be perfectly sedate.
And Mater had assembled a team that allowed her to spend time with her son, with Scott, whom she considered a son, and with Eve, who had been most recently brought into the circle of Mater’s loving embrace. And the rest of the team were the people who deeply loved her children and honorary children. Duke hadn’t the first idea if they’d any chance of winning the competition, but he found he wasn’t overly bothered by the possibility either way.
“If we hurry,” Charlie said, “we can select the best team and wagon for ourselves.”
As they walked through the door, Duke said, “Every vehicle, whether serviceable or fashionable, is excessively well maintained at Fairfield, and every horse is beyond compare. We’ll not claim any advantage that way.”
“Then, we must choose the best driver among us,” Artemis said.
“That’s likely Duke or Eve,” Scott said.
“Excellent.” Charlie pulled his features into a melodramatic expression of relief. “They can sit up on the driver’s bench and gaze longingly into each other’s eyes as much as they wish, and the rest of us won’t have to watch it.”
“I hope at least one of them plans to gaze longingly at the road ,” Scott said dryly.
Gillian and Artemis exchanged quick glances before bursting immediately into laughter. Mater looked sorely tempted to join them.
Duke didn’t mind, and he suspected Eve didn’t either. Everyone who remained at the house party was happy for them. Even their teasing was done in the spirit of love and friendship.
They were soon situated, with Duke and Eve on the bench, a warm blanket spread over their laps. Eve didn’t particularly want to drive, so Duke took the reins. The others sat in the back of the wagon, watching the trees and hedges for signs of Christmas greenery. Duke felt certain that he knew which area of Fairfield his aunt, uncle, and cousin would aim for in their search. He had a different location in mind.
“This has been such a lovely house party,” Artemis said from the back of the wagon. “I am so pleased that all the Huntresses and the Pack are here.”
Charlie added, “And that Mme Dupuis is not here. She would have made this absolute lark utterly miserable.”
“I only hope Lisette isn’t chastened by her parents for her chaperone’s dismissal,” Gillian said.
“She won’t be.” Mater spoke too firmly and with too much confidence for her response to be a mere guess.
“Lisette prefers not to talk in any detail about this,” Artemis said. “At first, I was simply curious, but I’m lately finding myself a little worried, primarily because Lisette sometimes looks a little worried.”
“Set your mind at ease,” Mater said. “You will, in time, know what it is your friend isn’t telling you and why she and her aunt and uncle are being so close-lipped about it.”
“You are telling me to be patient?” Artemis asked with what sounded like a laugh.
With the same amusement, Mater answered, “I wouldn’t dare.”
Duke had often, over the years, wished his family were as loving as Charlie’s. Eve was being brought into the Jonquils’ warm embrace. He couldn’t possibly be more grateful for that.
“Draw up, Duke,” Artemis said. “There’s mistletoe in that tree.”
Duke brought the graceful team of horses to a stop.
“She’s correct,” Eve said, looking up into the nearby tree.
“Brilliant, Artie,” Charlie proclaimed.
They all began climbing out.
“That looks to be holly in the hedgerow.” Gillian motioned a bit farther ahead.
“Let’s go gather some.” Artemis rushed off with her, a basket at the ready.
Scott and Charlie pulled from the back of the wagon the stepladder and garden shears placed inside for just this purpose, then eagerly crossed to the tall tree.
Duke remained on the bench, keeping watch over the team.
“I believe I’ve discovered your dreamed-of future.” Eve snuggled closer to him.
“Have you?” He shifted the reins to one hand and set his other arm round her.
“Wagon driver,” she said with a laugh. “Don’t deny it.”
“If every drive ended this way, I’d absolutely be living a dream.”
“Are you saying that I am your dream?”
Duke kissed the top of her head. “That is precisely what I’m saying, Aoife.”
Mater climbed up and sat on Eve’s other side, the driving bench now entirely full. “While I have a moment alone with the two of you, we need to have a quick conversation.”
“About what?” Eve asked.
“As we have already established,” Mater said, “I have a vast history of losing my intended lady’s companions to the more pleasant, at least in their estimation, prospect of marriage. I suspect the wind is blowing in that direction for the two of you.”
Their current arrangement surely would give any onlooker that impression.
“Should you decide to follow the established pattern, Eve,” Mater said, “please know that I will be incredibly happy for you. Know also that I will tease you mercilessly about abandoning me.”
He could feel Eve laugh. He liked that.
“I also felt I ought to assure you that I will remain at Fairfield for however long Nia needs to remain, regardless of whether or not the two of you inform me that Eve will be jaunting to London to join Duke and leave me to make my way to Lampton Park alone.”
“I don’t know if this will set your mind at ease or sink your opinion of my family lower than it no doubt already is,” Duke said, “but I do not yet know how my parents will behave or how they will treat me and those connected to me after all that occurred here. Until I know what I would be asking Eve to endure, I cannot, in good conscience, ask her to do so.”
“Niles told me what your father said to Penelope.” Mater spoke quietly. “It speaks well of you that you hesitate so much to expose Eve to that degree of cruelty.”
He tightened his embrace. “I am learning to accept that Mother and Father will never be truly kind. I’ve managed to secure some distance from them, but how long that will last or how much peace that will actually afford I cannot possibly guess.”
Mater nodded. “You can’t know until you experience it.”
Eve looked up at him. “How long do you suppose it will take to have a better idea?”
“I wish I had a good answer for that.” He truly did. Not knowing how long they’d be apart was nearly as difficult as not knowing if his parents would prevent that wait from ending happily. “I need to see how they behave when I tell them I’m making a home with my aunt and uncle. I have to see what they do when we cross paths in London and what their course of action is when the Season is over. I don’t yet know how they will react when I don’t return for Christmas next year.” That bit gave him the tiniest moment of regret. Christmastime had been one of the few clusters of pleasant experiences with his parents. But they’d managed to ruin this one. “I don’t yet know how they will react to my decision to tiptoe into the world of politics or what they might do to cause difficulty there.” He hoped Eve could see that he wished things were different. “It could be years. I hope not. But I cannot deny that it very well might be.”
Though the question had been Mater’s, he offered the answer to Eve. “All my estimates tell me that I will likely need three or four years.”
Eve didn’t cry or rage or demand that he make everything right immediately. She actually smiled. “In those three or four years, you won’t have to live at Writtlestone, which is a wonderful thing for you. And Mater and I will travel to our hearts’ content and see so many sites. And we’ll be in London for a portion of the Season, so I will see you then. And we can write to each other.”
“You aren’t going to demand that I fix this?”
“You are fixing it,” she said. “Just because doing so will take time doesn’t mean it won’t work.”
She was remarkable. Living without her for potentially years would be excruciating. But knowing they could have a life together would make all the effort and waiting that lay ahead of them well worth it.
“Might I make a suggestion?” Mater sounded as if she meant to make it regardless. And then she did. “Should you decide in the near future that you mean to more formally declare your intention to eventually marry, you would do well not to make that declaration publicly nor to sign marriage contracts yet.”
“Are you afraid one of us will change our mind?” Eve asked.
Mater shook her head. “A years’ long engagement would lead to whispers in Society, and neither of you is currently on such firm social footing that those whispers wouldn’t do damage.”
“A secret engagement?” Duke quickly appended. “Eve has been burdened with quite a few secrets of late. I wouldn’t want to add to that burden.”
“It sounds to me,” Mater said, “as though you two have a lot to discuss.”
The greenery gatherers were making their way back to the wagon. Mater alighted once more, exclaiming over their offerings as they all retook their places in the back of the wagon.
“I’m going to miss you while we’re apart these next years, Duke,” Eve said.
“I will miss you too.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
He took up the reins in both hands once more and set the horses in motion.
Eve leaned against him, an arrangement of tenderness and trust. He would more than just miss her while they were apart over the years to come; his heart would be left in her keeping.