Christmas Belles (6 page)

Partly amused, partly exasperated, Trent moved to close up
the sea chest himself when Doughty had gone. As he lowered the lid, he noticed
the steward had missed one of the chunks of statue.

Reaching down, Trent drew forth the saint's decapitated
head. The stone eyes did seem to regard him with a cold blankness that was a
little macabre. But as Trent was not in the least superstitious, he marched to
the stern and forced open one of the windows. Without further thought, he cast
the head of Saint Nicholas into the foam-capped depths of the Channel.

Chapter Two

The time had come to put away all black bands, ribbons, and
other signs of mourning. If only memories were as easily packed away, Chloe
thought with a sigh. Slipping the mourning ring from her finger, she laid it to
rest in the top drawer of her dresser with the other treasured reminders of her
father, the fob and watch he had worn as a young man, the small wooden carving
of Saint Nicholas, Sir Phineas's final letter to her.

A year and a half had passed since the notice had come from
Captain Trent bearing the dreadful tidings. The first torrents of her grief had
eased to become a gentle rain. She could even derive some solace at the thought
that at least now Papa must be reunited with her mother. She did not doubt that
from some distant heaven both her parents kept watch over their four daughters.

Chloe almost envied them, for there was little of heaven
apparent this day in Norfolk. The sky beyond the nursery room's latticed
windows was a most dismal winter gray. Tension seemed to crackle in the air as
sharply as the green logs on the fire.

At least Chloe felt the tension, though she was not sure
either Lucy or Agnes did. This waiting for the arrival of Captain William Trent
was like anticipating the onslaught of a storm. Captain Trent—her guardian. It
became a formidable word when applied to a stranger. To feel oneself at the
complete disposal of a gentleman one didn't even know was frightening.

Chloe wondered how Agnes could look so unconcerned. The girl
sprawled on her stomach before the hearth, propped up by her elbows as she
perused a book. Agnes seemed to be developing a squint, doubtlessly from
eyestrain. At the moment, she was engrossed in Euclid's Elements, a treatise on
geometry. The title alone was enough to give Chloe a headache.

Wistfully, she turned her gaze to Lucy instead, but her
older sister did not seem to be thinking of anything more than the stitches she
was setting into one of Chloe's old gowns. Perched on the edge of the
four-poster bed, Lucy frowned as she struggled with the needle. Snapping the
thread, she suppressed a vexed exclamation as she pricked her finger. She held
up one smooth, white hand, carefully examining it for any sign of a scratch.

"There, Chloe," she said, tossing the gown at
Chloe. "That is the best I can do:'

Chloe caught up the folds of blue wool gratefully. She had
been standing in her shift the entire time while Lucy stitched. A draft
whistled through the nursery windows that not even the blazing fire could
offset. Chloe's arms prickled with gooseflesh.

Hurriedly, she wriggled into the gown while Lucy came to
lace up the back. Chloe surveyed herself critically in the long pier glass. The
image reflected back was a spritely young woman with flowing honey brown hair.
She had always expected to be much taller when she reached the age of eighteen.
She supposed that she might as well give over wishing for any more inches.

With the gown smoothed into place, Chloe saw that Lucy had
managed quite well with the hem. There really had been no need to let it down
by much. However, the bodice was still uncomfortably snug.

Chloe stood sidewise, ruefully surveying the outline of her
curves. "And to think I could not wait until I had acquired a bosom,"
she murmured. "It has turned out to be a great nuisance."

"It wouldn't be if your gowns fit you properly,"
Lucy grumbled. "You might spend some of your allowance to have more
fashionable ones made."

Lucy certainly had done so. She was smartly attired in a
high-waisted yellow gown, set off by a spencer of apple green taffeta. With her
golden blond beauty and willowy figure, the effect was quite charming.

Each of them was now possessed of a generous quarterly
allowance, owing to the pension and death benefits Papa had received from the
government. Chloe would sooner have been a pauper condemned to a workhouse if
only that would have meant the return of her father.

Lucy continued to regard Chloe's old gown with an expression
of distaste. "You might at least have ordered yourself one new frock for
Captain Trent's visit, Chloe. I cannot imagine what you have been wasting all
your money upon."

"I can," Agnes chimed in, without looking up from
her book. She still possessed the remarkable ability to read and follow a
conversation at the same time. "Chloe opens her purse to every beggar who
walks down the lane, to say nothing of slipping money to old Mr. Kirk to do
some carpentry work on the west wing of the house."

Chloe scowled at Agnes, tempted, not for the first time, to
take one of Agnes's heavy tomes and thunk her over the head with it. Chloe
waxed sheepish as Lucy fixed scolding eyes upon her.

"Oh, Chloe, you know full well Windhaven belongs to
Captain Trent now, even if he has been good enough to let us stay on here. He
has hired his own bailiff to look after things, and you shouldn't
interfere."

"Mr. Martin?" Chloe pronounced the spindly
bailiff's name with loathing. "He's a clutch-fisted old fool. All he will
ever do is thrust his pointed nose in the air and declare that he has no
authority to waste the captain's money on needless repairs. Meanwhile,
Windhaven is going to rack and ruin."

"Windhaven always was a ruin," Agnes said with
gloomy satisfaction.

"Then the captain needs must do something to save
it."

"No, he doesn't," Agnes replied. "He may not
choose to fling his fortune away on Windhaven. Parts of the house are already
quite hopeless."

Chloe opened her mouth to hotly refute her sister's comment,
but  Mr. Kirk had said pretty much the same thing when Chloe had gone
through the old west wing with him.

"See those doors, Miss Chloe? They don't hang right,
and those stairs are starting to list. Like as not, the foundation has gone
bad. Perhaps the house was not built proper to begin with."

"It has managed to remain standing for two hundred
years, Mr. Kirk," Chloe had informed him proudly.

"Well, I daresay it will never hold up for another two
hundred. I wouldn't even give it twenty. By far the cheapest course would be to
knock it all down and start over again."

Knock down Windhaven? The old carpenter's suggestion had appalled
Chloe. What! Sweep away over two centuries of grace and charm and history? She
would never permit it except... Chloe constantly had to stop and keep reminding
herself that Windhaven was no longer in truth her home. It belonged to this
captain now. But surely he must realize the value of the estate.

"Why else would Captain Trent be coming here?"
Chloe insisted. "Except to see about restoring Windhaven."

Lucy gave an impatient sniff. "To arrange something
about our futures, I hope, instead of worrying about a creaky old house. I do
not intend to spend the rest of my life buried at Windhaven It was very
tiresome and arbitrary of Captain Trent to advise Emma that we should all
remain quietly here in Norfolk until he gets around to deciding what to do with
us. Not even permitting me to visit my own cousins in London! Why, it's
positively barbaric."

Although Chloe was not exactly in charity with the captain
herself, she felt obliged to be fair. "I suppose it was the most sensible
course for the captain to follow. He would be held accountable if any harm came
to us, traveling about. I daresay he doesn't want to make any hasty decisions
until he becomes better acquainted with us."

"Well, he has had plenty of opportunity to do that. He
should have called upon us during the past year."

"He is a naval captain, Lucy," Agnes said, her
voice laced with sarcasm. "There is the little matter of trying to stop
Napoleon's plans to launch an invasion fleet."

"I don't see any need for Captain Trent to feel obliged
to do it single-handedly. There are plenty of other men in the navy, you
know." Lucy strutted before the mirror, pausing to pinch some color into
her cheeks—an unnecessary gesture, as her face was already flushed with
indignation. "Captain Trent or no Captain Trent, I don't intend to miss
the London Season this year."

"Much good it will do you." Agnes smirked as she
turned another page. "The allowance you have been drawing scarce
constitutes a fortune."

Lucy tossed her golden curls. "I don't care. Other
women have made successful matches with nothing more than beauty to recommend
them. Why shouldn't I?" A hardness crept into Lucy's eyes. Chloe had seen
that look come over her sister too often of late, and she did not like it. In
some strange way, it diminished Lucy's beauty.

"By this time next year," Lucy declared, "I
am going to be wed to a lord, at the very least, and be hideously, fabulously
wealthy."

"And very much in love too, I hope," Chloe added
anxiously.

Lucy gave her a look of lofty disdain. "Do strive for a
little maturity, Chloe. Love has nothing to do with marriage."

"It did for Mama and Papa."

Lucy appeared momentarily taken aback by this quiet
reminder, but she was quick to rally. "Oh, but that was a long time ago.
Things were very different then. These are modern times, Chloe. At present, all
I want to do is make a good impression on this dreary captain, convince him
that he need only point me toward London and wash his hands of me."

So saying, Lucy turned back to the mirror. Although her
toilette was already quite perfect, she spent the next several minutes
primping, fussing with the folds of her skirt, until Chloe began to feel
self-conscious and stole a second peek at her own appearance.

Although she hated to admit it, she was both nervous and
excited at the prospect of meeting this unknown naval officer. More than
anything, she longed to ply Captain Trent with questions about her father's
last hours. His report had seemed so curt, so unsatisfactory.

The hardest thing about losing Papa had been the suddenness
with which he seemed to disappear from their lives. They had not even been able
to mourn over him, lay him to rest in the family crypt. Papa had simply
vanished, consigned to the depths of the cold, cruel sea.

There was so much Chloe needed to know about Sir Phineas's
last days. And yet she wondered if she would ever have the courage to make
inquiries of this captain, who was a complete stranger.

"What do you suppose he is like, this Captain
Trent?" Chloe asked her sisters.

Lucy stopped primping long enough to consider this question.
"I don't know. I have never really thought about it. One of those
stiff-necked military types, I suppose."

"I daresay he is like most sea captains," Agnes
piped up. "Coarse, with a booming voice, bandy legs, and a flaming red
nose because he drinks too much rum."

"Pooh," Lucy said. "How would you know? How
many sea captains have you ever met?"

But Lucy looked a little daunted all the same. Agnes was so
well read. She had a way of knowing about these things. As for Chloe, she found
Agnes's description positively alarming. But before either she or Lucy could
press Agnes for the source of her information, they were interrupted by a knock
on the bedchamber door.

The maid, Polly, thrust her head inside long enough to
announce, "If you please, young ladies, Miss Emma is wishful of having a
word with you in the drawing room."

When Polly ducked out, the three sisters exchanged uneasy
glances. They were not usually so formal in their household. The last time they
had all been thus summoned it was to find Emma, red-eyed, the letter from
Captain Trent clasped in her hand as she steeled herself to inform them about
Papa.

"Now what's amiss?" Agnes slapped her book closed
and sat up. But her sharp tone did a poor job of concealing her anxiety.

"Do you think that anything has happened to Great Aunt
Martha?" Agnes asked.

"Oh, no, I am sure it is nothing terrible," Chloe
said, although she was sure of no such thing. But she sought to reassure her
younger sister, taking Agnes's cold hand within her own. For once, Agnes let
her.

The three of them crept downstairs to the drawing room,
huddling upon the threshold to peer inside. Emma was perched primly in Papa's
wing-back chair, her hands folded in her lap. She looked composed, not at all as
though she had been weeping, but Emma was good at concealing such things.

Since she had turned twenty-two, she had adopted a habit of
tucking her soft brown hair beneath a lace cap. Emma only wore it loose, Chloe
had noticed, on those days the Reverend Mr. Henry came to tea This afternoon
Emma's cap was fixed firmly in place.

She summoned a smile at the sight of her sisters. "Come
in, my dears. Do not look so alarmed. It is not anything so very dreadful I
have to tell you, I promise you."

Her words reassured Lucy and Agnes, but not Chloe. Emma's
eyes appeared serene, but there was great unhappiness present all the same.
Chloe heard it in her voice.

Lucy flounced onto the settee, sitting down in a swirl of
taffeta. "Then, Emma, I do wish you would not make such a piece of work
about it. You frightened us half to death with that summons."

"I am sorry. That was never my intent."

Chloe settled beside Lucy, while Agnes took up a post behind
the settee, tapping her foot. "I hope this will not take long. I am already
behind on my program of study for today."

"No, it won't," Emma promised. "It is only
something regarding Captain Trent's visit. He will likely be here late today or
perhaps tomorrow, Christmas Eve, you know."

"Yes, we do know that already," Agnes said
impatiently.

"What you don't know is the captain's purpose in coming
here." Emma's voice wavered a little. She was making an effort to look too
brave. A sudden terrible suspicion shot through Chloe.

"He's coming to say we cannot live here in his house
anymore, to turn us all out of doors."

"No, Chloe dear. 'Tis nothing like that."