Ninth Day of Christmas #3
Kestrel felt very strange seated in a fancy dress and doing something as calm and mundane as making crafts while her insides were screaming. But she threw herself into the crafting as if she were battling Napoleon at sea, and soon her thoughts turned down.
They were working with pastillage, a soft, white sugar paste that dried hard. The color gave Kestrel the notion of making a polar bear family, but she ended up with a series of what looked like tiny abominable snowmen.
“Oh my, how absolutely divine!” exclaimed Mrs. Wattlesbrook.
Kestrel grinned with surprise. Had she made something wonderful after all? But no, Mrs. Wattlesbrook was examining Gussie’s creation—Cinderella’s carriage drawn by two horses, their manes caught in the wind.
“I say, Miss Chen, that is a masterpiece, and it shall be the centerpiece of our Twelfth Night dinner.”
“Thank you so much,” said Gussie. “And don’t forget Kestrel’s.”
“Oh yes, Miss Spinster. You have created . . . something. We could put yours in—”
“The loo?” said Gussie.
Kestrel snorted.
The gentlemen had returned, and they gathered around to admire Gussie’s creation and make hmmm sounds about Kestrel’s as if examining an esoteric postmodern sculpture.
Someone leaned from behind to speak low in Kestrel’s ear. “Miss Chen’s is most impressive, but I know which one I’d prefer to nibble on.”
It was Tom. She’s almost forgotten about Tom. The past couple of days, her every breath had been conscious of Hank or trying to be unconscious of Hank or questioning whether her subconscious had picked sides and was flat-out rooting for Hank.
Nevertheless, Tom’s whisper had elicited a trail of goosebumps down her neck. She smiled up at him. “Mine are tea stirrers. They conveniently dissolve in hot tea so you never have to look at them again.”
“Why, Kestrel, you didn’t tell me you were an entrepreneur inventor.”
“There is so much you don’t know about me, Tom.” Like how I was kissed this morning. Kissed all over.
“I say, Neville,” said Tom, “do bring us all some tea. We wish to dissolve Miss Spinster’s invention. And not a moment to waste!”
“Is there more sugar paste?” asked Gussie. “I could make a castle to accompany my carriage.”
“How about we go for a walk instead,” suggested Kestrel.
“You are just afraid I’ll outshine you at pastillage manipulation,” Gussie said, her eyes twinkling.
“My pastillage days are over,” said Kestrel. “I hereby swear to never take up sugar paste again.”
“And the art world thanks you for your sacrifice.”
Kestrel insisted to the gentlemen that she and Gussie were fine on their own.
Really, she felt artificial and confused around Tom while her skin was still tingling with Hank’s touch.
And she wanted to avoid Andrews and Jerome, because their presence reminded her of Charming’s condemnation.
A clandestine operation with Gussie was the only reasonable alternative.
Once they were outfitted in boots, pelisses, muffs, and warm bonnets, and walking out the front door, Gussie asked, “So, what delightful machinations are we enacting?”
“I’d like to go to Edwin’s place. Charming kicked out her ex-husband this morning—”
“Happy thought indeed!” Gussie exclaimed.
“Exactly, but she’s feeling pretty low, so I hoped we could get this Edwin romance rolling sooner than later.”
The snow still lay thick over the lawn but had mostly melted off the shoveled paths. Kestrel closed her eyes, lifted her face to the winter-gold sun, and welcomed it like a flower.
“I am sorry about my part in our antagonism,” said Gussie.
“Yes, me too, so let’s not talk about it.”
“But as Austen wrote in Mansfield Park,” said Gussie, definitely going to talk about it, “‘Selfishness must always be forgiven, you know, because there is no hope of a cure.’”
“Austen is a whiz at writing great sentences,” Kestrel said, hoping to push the focus away from herself.
“That book is so quotable. I am also partial to the moving pictures adaptation: ‘Of course I love her, but there are as many forms of love as there are moments in time.’”
Kestrel seemed to hear the quote as though in Hank’s voice, and it struck her with a dull, sick feeling.
Of course he loved Kestrel. But there were many forms of love.
Two years ago he’d loved her, but he’d still left her.
And even though he’d come to England, grown sideburns, and kissed her completely, the reasons he’d left her two years ago hadn’t changed.
This was all closure. Here in this between place, she might be his temporary lover, but in the real world, she could never be his family.
Gussie piped up with another quote. “‘Let us have the luxury of silence.’”
“Sorry,” said Kestrel. “I’m distracted by my thoughts.”
“Do any of them involve our Mr. Kern?”
Kestrel looked up sharply, and Gussie clapped her gloved hands.
“I am on to you!” Gussie took her arm. “And cheering for you both.”
Edwin was not found in the stable yard, so Gussie and Kestrel kept walking while talking matchmaking strategies. It was so much easier to see what would be right and good for a friend than for her own self.
That evening, Pembrook Park felt intimate without the Windy Nook contingent and Bobby.
Charming was quiet at dinner and left early, sparing Kestrel another confrontation.
But she was too ill-at-ease to eat much of the pigeon soup or veal cutlets.
By the second hour post-dinner, her anticipation of Hank’s possible nocturnal return was rising to stratospheric levels.
Andrews remarked on her agitation as they played cards.
“You have some secret pleasure, don’t you?” he whispered when their card partners, Mr. Culpepper and Gussie, had gone to the drinks cart. “I insist you tell me everything.”
“If you tell me your secrets,” she said.
“Very well,” Andrews said slyly. “Let us vow to reveal all after the ball, and so give us something to look forward to once the holidays are over.”
“I don’t want them to be over,” said Kestrel. “I don’t want any of this to end.”
Andrews nodded sympathetically.
But Kestrel was relieved when that drawing room evening was over, because it meant she could go to her room.
She took off her evening gown but stopped there.
If Hank did come, she didn’t want him to find her half naked as if expecting romance.
She pulled a robe over her chemise, corset, and stockings.
Soon her Hankering was so intense she took to pacing, pausing only to do a jiggle dance whenever her built-up energy demanded an outlet. Her attention focused on her bedroom door, so she startled when she heard rapping instead at her window.
She ran to it and threw open the curtains.
Hank was there, one story up, smiling through the pane. She gasped and opened it wide, and freezing air gushed in. He was balanced atop a leaning ladder.
“Excuse me, miss, but did you order a squirrel?”
“Are you coming in?”
“I thought you’d like to come out.”
How did he know? Anticipatory energy was zapping through her with such force, trying to stay still would be impossible. She shoved on long wool socks, outdoor boots, pelisse, scarf, gloves, and hat, and climbed down the ladder. A gray horse was waiting with reins but no saddle.
“This is Mary Francis,” said Hank, patting her neck. “Every time I go to the stables at night, Mary Francis sticks her head out of her stall and sniffs for my hand. I assume she’s nocturnal.”
“How often are you in the stables at night?”
“Most nights,” he said. “I’ve been having a hard time sleeping.”
“You?” said Kestrel.
“My mind has been overactive, keeping me up.” He tapped his temple. “Except when I was in your bed.”
The last time he’d been in her bed, he’d kissed her everywhere. She couldn’t help blushing, and then she laughed at herself for blushing, because in the past, they had done so much more. But the intimacy felt different here in Austenland.
With no stirrups or mounting post, Hank lifted Kestrel onto the horse, which she straddled by pulling her chemise up to her knees. Hank managed to hop on behind her and sent Mary Francis into an easy walk.
Kestrel’s back rested against Hank’s chest, his thighs bracketing hers. His arms were around her waist, and he held the reins in her lap. Their bodies settled into each other, and they moved with the motion of the horse.
“Is horseback riding naughty?” Kestrel asked.
“Only with you.”
Kestrel giggled like she hadn’t in years. Or maybe ever. She had some giggling to catch up on. And she certainly felt like it now, pressed against this kind, gentle man, riding a horse into a mysterious Christmas midnight. It was strange, unfamiliar, and yet felt exactly right.
She knew that she would have been one of those Regency girls—the one the maids whispered about, and mothers warned about, and good boys couldn’t help dreaming about.
In such a culture, Kestrel might have ended up a “ruined girl.” Or perhaps she could have been a clever and lucky girl who walked into well-lit ballrooms with her head held high but later sneaked down dark hallways in her nightgown seeking fun.
She would have had it all, she decided. After all, on the matter of baked goods, it actually wasn’t uncommon to both have cake and to eat said cake. No matter what century, Kes would be Kes, the kind of girl Cyndi Lauper sang about.
Hank kept to the gravel paths around the house, not wanting to risk Mary Francis in the deeper snow. First they hopped off near the servants’ entrance and made a quick and messy snowman.
“I don’t want to brag,” Kestrel whispered, “but I had practice today forming white sculptures of undetectable design.”