Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
Christmas came. Phillip stayed in Cambridge.
“Probably making merry around the Wassail bowl with friends from his college,” Thomas said.
Thomas had urged Harry to invite her family to spend Christmastide at Sommerleigh.
The invitation had long been overdue, he argued, and her stepmother and her sisters should see where she lived.
Harry sighed and said she would put her work aside for a bit when the boughs of evergreen and sprigs of holly were gathered to decorate the house on Christmas Eve.
“I’ll write to them,” she said, but she never did, so Thomas himself wrote.
The Drakes would have no grand company, he promised in his letters.
No need for their lady’s maids. Let the maids go home for Christmas.
They should come straight to Sommerleigh from Derbyshire where Catherine and Arabella had been staying with friends.
Harry’s older sister Mary and her husband, the Viscount Tregaron, were at his family seat in Wales this Christmas, but Mary sent her love along with her regrets.
When Catherine and Arabella arrived, Arabella practically burst out of the carriage to hug Harry, who was standing on the front steps.
“Oh, Harry, how beautiful you look and the house, it’s so grand, I can’t believe you are the mistress here.
Begging your pardon, good afternoon, Lord Drake.
” She curtsied even as she put her arm around Harry’s waist and nestled into her sister’s side.
Harry very lightly laid her arm across Arabella’s shoulders and made no protest.
“Good afternoon, Miss Arabella, you are most welcome. And Mrs. Lovelock.” Thomas turned and bowed to Catherine who had just been handed down from the carriage by one of the footmen.
Catherine curtsied appropriately, but she did not look at Thomas.
Her gaze was arrested by Harry. She came up the steps slowly and held out her hands.
Harry took her arm from around Arabella and gave both her hands to her stepmother.
Harry allowed a kiss on the cheek and then whirled and took Arabella into the house, promising her some chocolate to warm her.
Catherine turned now to Thomas, and he noticed a clenching of her jaw. He gestured towards the door, indicating she should enter. She reached out and grabbed his sleeve.
“Harry looks . . . so well.”
“The country agrees with her, Mrs. Lovelock.”
Still, she held his arm in her grip. “I am pleased. I suspect I owe you an apology.”
Thomas laughed. “Let’s hold that in abeyance.”
Catherine smiled uncertainly, released his arm, and swept into the house.
They passed a most pleasant week full of walks around the grounds and tramps in the meadows and forest, games in front of the fire in the drawing room, and enormous meals crowned by a monstrously large flaming plum pudding on Christmas Day.
The weather was dry and mild for the most part, but there was the miracle of a few flakes of snow on Christmas Eve.
Arabella and Harry both went out into the garden and tried to catch the falling flakes with their tongues, laughing and running about.
Thomas thought that was the best bit of Christmas. Seeing Harry laugh for so long.
Dr. Andrews was meant to spend Christmas Day with them, but he sent word he had a sick patient whom he needed to tend throughout the day and night.
And pneumonia and influenza were rampant throughout the surrounding area, so he might very well need to stay away for all of Christmastide in case of contagion.
Harry was openly disappointed. “Mama Katie, I did so want you to meet Dr. Andrews.”
Catherine said she was astounded by her stepdaughter’s appetite and her ability to walk for miles on their rambles and had wanted to meet the doctor as well. “Perhaps you might invite us again,” she said to Thomas.
Harry knit her brows together. “As soon as I am done with the proof.”
Thomas and Catherine exchanged looks behind Harry’s back, and Thomas was glad to have the unspoken sympathy and understanding of his mother-in-law.
On the second day of Christmastide, his best friend James Cavendish, Marquess of Daventry, made a surprise appearance.
Thomas had written to invite him as well, but James had not answered.
Thomas and James had not seen each other since—perhaps October during one of Thomas’ trips to London?
—and James said, “I thought I must see Sommerleigh again, and, of course, Lady Drake in her new abode.”
James was, as always, full of quips and lively conversation. Thomas thought even Harry was delighted with him.
She was, but not for the reason he thought. Harry whispered in Thomas’ ear that she was chiefly glad to see James because he quite entertained her stepmother, her sister, and even her husband, and she might manage to snatch a few hours in her aerie.
Thomas felt an unexpected wash of pleasure. Harry calling him husband. The closeness of her lips, face, body to his as she came up on her toes to reach his ear. Her sharing a secret, even if that secret was that she longed to get away from him and back to her one true love.
Although he had come with very little luggage, James stayed on through Twelfth Night, the same as Catherine and Arabella. James offered to accompany Mrs. Lovelock and Miss Lovelock back to London on Epiphany, and Thomas was glad the ladies would have an escort.
As Catherine came out the front door on the morning of January sixth, poised to descend the steps to the waiting carriage, she said quietly to Thomas, “No, I was right.”
He looked at her questioningly.
“I do owe you an apology,” she said and curtsied and climbed into the carriage.
Even before the carriage was halfway down the drive, Harry had disappeared into the house and was making her way to her aerie.
Tempus fugit. Time flies.