Tenth Day of Christmas
Kestrel woke up alone. Last night Hank hadn’t come up. Mary Francis had to get back to the stables and Hank back to Windy Nook. Kestrel rolled onto her side, hugged a pillow, and imagined it was Hank’s long, strong body. It even smelled a little of him.
She would see him again today. Or tonight.
This confidence was reinforced by the four gifts piled on her tea tray—a palm-sized wooden box holding a fire-starting kit, a silver ring with a cut-out peace symbol, a pair of the softest socks she’d ever pulled onto her often-cold feet, and a set of steamy Regency romance novels.
Seeing the gifts all together, they were puzzle pieces that added up to a clear picture: Hank thinking about Kestrel.
Of course it was Hank. It had always been Hank.
Kestrel was getting better at doing up her hair, so she didn’t bother Juliette. The corset sat just so; the empire waist felt natural around her ribs. It was a seat belt feeling—security without confinement.
Maybe Tom will think I look pretty, she thought automatically.
But it was hard to pretend fantastical love when something potentially real was offered.
Kestrel’s still-broken heart twinged, warning her that if she let it get broken a second time, there might be no recovery.
She promised herself she’d be careful and opened her bedroom door to find a very eager Gussie waiting.
“Good morning!” said Gussie.
“Yes it is,” Kestrel said in a completely normal manner, nothing suspicious in her tone whatsoever.
Gussie tilted her head sideways. “What is afoot, Miss Spinster?”
“Nothing,” Kestrel said, again in the most natural, unaffected way.
“Why are you grinning like that? And swaying as if there is music playing in your head. And now you blush!” Gussie gasped. “Kestrel, you are in love!”
Kestrel valiantly made guttural sounds of mock and denial.
“It’s that Mr. Kern, isn’t it?” asked Gussie.
“Noooo,” said Kestrel, turning her head (and her blush) away as if to examine the painting on the wall. It was a ship on rough seas, frozen in the moment just before it capsized.
“I remember well the game of Charades when you and Mr. Kern’s souls were exposed as being so entwined. It puts me in mind of Austen’s line: ‘There could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison.’ Is that now how it feels to you?”
It was one thing to feel hopeful at midnight in Austenland and quite another to hang on to that hope the next morning while staring at a sinking ship. If Gussie read her so easily, Kestrel feared she had already let her heart expand past the point of safe return.
“I see you are ready for some Austenian matchmaking,” said Kestrel, deftly changing the subject. “Why don’t you see if Charming is up—”
“I staked out her room first thing this morning and followed her. She’s in Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s study now. I thought we could invent a ruse to send Edwin there too!”
“Augusta Chen, you don’t do anything by halves, do you?”
“Never. I’ve been waiting for you. Why did you sleep in so late? What were you doing last night?” Gussie raised her brows.
Kestrel felt her face flush again. “Um . . . Let’s go find Edwin!”
“Yay!” Gussie said, then added the more Austenian, “Make haste!”
They put on their outdoor gear and ran to the stables, where Edwin was sitting in the yard drinking a hot tea, both his cup and his breath exhaling puffs of white in the cold air. Their urgent calls set him on his feet.
“What’s the matter? What happened? Is Charming all right?”
“The light in the study is out,” said Gussie.
“The . . . bulb thingies need to be replaced,” Kestrel said, trying to keep it vague and Regency appropriate. “They sent us to come tell you.”
Edwin looked at them suspiciously. “Which light in the study?”
“The one that dangles.” Kestrel mimed a clawed hand reaching downward.
“From the ceiling!” Gussie added happily.
“How many bulbs are out?”
Kestrel and Gussie glanced at each other.
“Er, all of them?” said Gussie.
Edwin frowned at her. “All the bulbs in the study chandelier are burned out?”
“Yep,” confirmed Kestrel.
“All thirty or so of them?”
Kestrel blinked. “Weird, isn’t it? That all of them would burn out at once like that. Spooky even.”
“Eerie,” said Gussie. “Uncanny. Perhaps even . . . supernatural?”
Edwin’s suspicious frown deepened.
Kestrel turned to go, saying coyly over her shoulder. “Charming is in there right now . . .”
“On my way,” said Edwin.
Kestrel and Gussie positioned themselves in the threshold of the morning room so they could observe Edwin as he arrived, wheeling a wooden box and a ladder.
He entered the study door and closed it behind him.
And then they watched the closed door. Minutes ticked by.
The waiting made Kestrel’s legs itch, but she reminded herself that she must avoid direct engagement with Charming for the rest of her entire life or she’d have to go out and bury herself in the snow.
Kestrel sighed. “We have no idea if she’s still there or if Edwin is even talking to her. Gussie, why don’t you go in—?”
“No!” said Gussie, taking a step back. “Mrs. Wattlesbrook said the study is off-limits to guests. I don’t dare!”
If there was one thing Kestrel could always do, it was to dare.
“Okay, I will. But if Charming is our . . . well, Prince Charming, then Edwin is our Cinderella, and the place for them to fall in love—”
“The ball! The ball! The ball!” Gussie squealed, jumping up and down. In her ecstatic state she seemed to revert to an earnest nine-year-old.
“We’ll need Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s help to arrange that. Can you discover where—?”
“Yes! I will skulk her out.” Gussie flinched. “Did I use that word correctly? Skulk is normally an intransitive verb, but can it also be followed by an indirect object?”
Kestrel shrugged.
“Oh dear,” Gussie said, anguished. “I don’t think skulk can be transitive, but perhaps it can function with adverbial of direction, if ‘her out’ counts as a preposition.”
Gussie was thoughtful. Kestrel held very still, hoping nothing in her manner would encourage the continuation of this conversation.
“Perhaps I was confusing two different verbs,” Gussie finally muttered. “Is ‘skunk her out’ a saying?”
“It is now. Go skunk her out!”
“On it!” Gussie skipped away.
Kestrel quietly turned the office doorknob, prayed to the gods of interpersonal conflict that she could pull this off with no confrontations, and slipped inside.
Andrews sat at the desk looking over paperwork.
Edwin perched on a ladder replacing the chandelier’s perfectly good lightbulbs.
Charming was lying on a chaise longue, eyes closed, one arm dangling in a tragic posture, the other dipping into a bowl of chocolate-covered raisins that nestled between her ample bosoms. Kestrel’s cold feet sent icicle shivers up her legs, making it hard to walk.
How to encourage conversation between Charming and Edwin without calling any attention to herself?
“Twenty-three extra couples have purchased tickets to the Twelfth Night ball,” Andrews was saying. “That’s . . . forty-six people total.”
“Didya know,” said Charming, “that instead of selling admission, Mrs. Wattlesbrook used to pay people to come to the ball as the extra guests? How she afforded to keep this place running without me, I have no earthly idea.”
Andrews was still scowling at his paperwork. “The catering costs ninety-five pounds per person. So . . . Does anyone have a calculator? Or . . . an abacus?”
Charming snickered. “Why would we have a bird in here?”
“Abacus, love,” said Andrews. “You may be thinking of albatross.”
“I’m pretty sure albatross is a kind of tuna fish,” said Charming.
“Well, neither fish nor bird will help me with this sum.” Andrews noticed Kestrel and smiled hopefully. “Can you be a love and go fetch a calculator from the forbidden-doodah drawer?”
Kestrel wished very much that she knew where the forbidden-doodah drawer was and could save the day. She cocked her head, showing her confusion.
“Drat, I keep forgetting you’re a guest. Well, surely I can do these calculations by hand.” Andrews frowned at his paper. “Why did no one warn me my promotion to Chief Social and Entertainment Officer required year five maths?”
“Ask Miss Charming,” said Edwin from his ladder. “She knows.”
“She knows where to find a calculator?”
“No, she knows her onions. Miss Charming!” Edwin called out. “What is forty-six times ninety-five?”
“Four thousand three hundred and seventy,” she called back, eyes still closed.
Kestrel gaped. She heard Andrews emit a tiny strangled noise.
Edwin laughed. “Didn’t you lot know she’s a genius?”
“Who is?” Andrews said, eyes wide.
“Charming.”
“Charming is what?” Andrews said, eyes wider.
“Miss Charming,” said Edwin, “can you recall the square footage of Pembrook Park?”
“Of course not,” she said. “I never knew it to begin with. But there are”—she looked up, visualizing—“at least twenty-five rooms, so assuming an average of five hundred square feet per room, that’s approximately twelve thousand five hundred square feet. Why do you need to know all of a sudden?”
“I don’t,” Edwin said, his smile even bigger. “I was just showing you off.”
Andrews squealed with delight, rushed to kneel at Charming’s side, and began to kiss her all over her cheeks and forehead.
“What’s gotten in to you, you saucy monkey?” she said, laughing.
“I want you to know,” Andrews said between smooches, “that I adored you . . . before I knew . . . that you were a mathematical . . . mastermind.”
Charming closed her eyes and giggled and let herself be smooched. Kestrel’s heart swelled, happy that at least their friendship appeared mended.
“What is a saucy monkey anyway?” Charming said. “A monkey covered in sauce? I never understood that saying.”
“I’m not certain it is a saying, my pet,” said Andrews, still kissing.
“Of course it is! As in, ‘You saucy monkey you, put away all that sauce.’ Right, Edwin?”
“I’m no good with American idioms,” said Edwin, “but everything you say sounds right to me.”