Drops of Gold (2 page)

“‘God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman,’ I insist.”

“Oh, Mater. Not that one.” Charlie, the youngest, groaned lightheartedly.

What Layton wouldn’t give to be sixteen again, the only weight on his shoulders that of pleasing a mother overly fond of holiday traditions.

“I did not give life to a gaggle of gentlemen only to have them object to such a fitting carol.” Mater gave them a look with which they were all too familiar. Since their childhoods, she’d had the uncanny ability to shame them into behaving with a single glance. She hadn’t lost her touch.

Philip, the eldest, made some flippant comment. Layton heard the laughter around him just before the others began the first strains of “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman.”

Layton’s thoughts turned to Father. That carol had been a favorite of his. Layton continued singing mechanically, even as his memories took him miles, years, away. He could remember distinctly where he’d been when news of Father’s death had reached him. Cambridge. Philip had told him in a stuttering, thick voice, obviously trying to be the strong, unshakable head of the family he’d suddenly found himself required to be.

Philip had been so young—he couldn’t have been more than nineteen. Layton had only been a year younger. There’d been no warning. Father had never been ill. He’d been as active and fit at forty-nine as most men half his age. No one anticipated a failing heart.

It still seemed so senseless. Layton glanced at Mater as the carol continued around him. Nine years, and she still wore the blacks of full mourning.

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy . . .

The words lodged in Layton’s throat as memories flooded his mind: carefree moments of childhood, talking with Father as they walked the grounds of Lampton Park, long discussions about life and family, a smile sneaking across Father’s face as he tried not to laugh at yet another of Layton and Philip’s pranks.

Around him his brothers began the second verse, and Layton closed his ears to it. That horrible afternoon at Cambridge: riding to Nottinghamshire with Philip, watching him struggle with his composure, Mater’s tear-streaked cheeks, Father’s bleak funeral.

Layton didn’t know how he’d reached the window. He had no recollection of dropping out of the carol or of leaving his brothers, but there he stood, staring at an empty landscape.

He took a deep breath. It didn’t even feel like Christmas, not the type of Christmas he’d known. No Father. No Caroline. No Bridget.

“I had hoped Mater would leave that particular selection off the list.” Philip spoke lightly from directly beside him then added more somberly, “It always makes me think of Father.”

“Me too.” Layton tried to force thoughts of funerals from his mind. There’d been too many in the past nine years.

“He’d have enjoyed being here for Christmas.” Philip sounded regretful.

Regret
. Layton chuckled humorlessly, soundlessly. He knew regret well.

“And he would have adored Catherine,” Philip added, indicating their hostess.

“True.”

Their best friend, Crispin Cavratt’s, new bride was a particularly adorable woman. Father had always had a soft spot for females. He’d wanted a houseful of daughters. He sired seven sons.

“That means seven daughters-in-law,” he’d once said with that smile of his that pulled his nose to one side.

He didn’t live long enough to see a single one. He never saw his sons grow into men or his beloved wife enjoy being a grandmother.

“It has been good . . . having you here . . .” Philip stumbled over his words. The two of them never used to be awkward. “I wish you could stay longer.”

“I can’t.” He only wanted to get back home, where he could be alone.

“You know you can talk to me.” Philip laid his hand on Layton’s shoulder. “About anything.”

Layton shrugged free, keeping his eyes firmly fixed ahead. “There’s nothing to talk about.” The time for talking had long passed.

Philip didn’t press the issue. The next moment, he left the room, followed shortly thereafter by a lady for whom Layton suspected his elder brother had developed a partiality. If he didn’t miss his mark, that connection would grow into something permanent. Layton was happy for his brother, even though watching the budding romance left a decided weight in his stomach.

The Jonquil brothers had dispersed throughout the west sitting room and were chatting with the Kinnley guests. Layton watched each of his brothers in turn. The family resemblance was ridiculously strong. They all had the same golden hair and blue eyes. Each of the brothers was tall and slim, except for him. He alone was built like a prizefighter.

Layton sighed. That minor physical difference had never bothered him before. But lately . . . It was just one more reason he didn’t fit into his own family.

He made an undoubtedly unnoticed exit but stopped only a few feet from the door. Layton could hear Philip’s voice from the back corridor, his words made indiscernible by echoes. It was just as well.

Layton made his way to the front staircase and up to his bedchamber. Jones, his valet, would be celebrating Christmas below stairs with the rest of the servants. Layton draped his coat over the back of a chair then sat on the edge of his bed.

Spending time with his family wore on him. Spending time with
anyone
had worn on him the past few years. Layton untied his cravat and unwound it, letting his breath slowly escape. The square of linen dropped into a crumpled heap on the bed beside him. He closed his eyes and deftly unbuttoned his waistcoat.

“God Rest Ye Merry, Gentleman” echoed in his heavy mind, the feelings of loss and emptiness it inspired clinging to him like a wet shirt. Layton shook his head in an attempt to clear it. When had Christmas become such an unpleasant affair?

He dropped onto the bed, staring up at the heavy canopy. Why had he agreed to come to Suffolk? Surely Mater would have understood if he’d declined, if he’d insisted on staying with Caroline. Yes, she would have understood, but she would have been disappointed.

Layton closed his eyes and draped his arm across his forehead.
Disappointed.
Was there a person in all of England he hadn’t disappointed? If Mater wasn’t already on that list, he certainly didn’t want to see her added to it.

He would leave in the morning. In mere days, he’d be back home.

His breathing grew more even, his arm resting more heavily on his head. Sleep approached, and Layton dreaded it. He could postpone the inevitable if he rose, paced his bedchamber. Perhaps he could throw open the window and allow the cold winter air to awaken his dulling senses. In the end, it would do no good. Sleep would come eventually, whether he wished it to or not.

The uncomfortable sensation of sleep slid slowly over him. For a moment, nothing. Then came darkness and the fuzzy images of dreams.

He was frantically flying down the corridors of the house he’d lived in for six years. He was lost. Lost within the walls of his own home.

Layton threw open the first door he reached: an empty bedchamber with pale-blue bed curtains, plush cream carpeting, and sunlight filtering through thin draperies. His heart began to race. He ran on, jerking open the next door only to find the same empty bedchamber.

On and on he ran. Every door opened to a duplicate scene, but every door was wrong. Layton ran harder, his breath coming in gasps. Somewhere in the distance a sob pierced the air.

Layton tried unsuccessfully to push his legs faster. Each door led to the same serene scene as if mocking the desperation of his search. The echoing sobs grew more harrowing as fog drifted into the unending corridor. Layton opened countless doors, no longer stopping to look over the repeated scene.

The crying grew louder.

He was close. So close. If only he could find the right door.

The fog became suddenly thick, the air bitterly cold. Layton stood frozen before a doorway. The sobbing had stopped. Only the sound of his uneasy breathing rent the silence.

The door he faced opened on its own. It led to the same bedchamber, but this one was dim and cold. Layton closed his eyes as he stepped inside.

“No,” he whispered, shaking his head.

Not a sound penetrated the darkness. He opened his eyes to study the eerie scene. Heavy drapes covered the windows, not a ray of light breaking through them. Four walls of pale-blue curtains enclosed the bed.

Layton inched closer, his heart never slowing.

“No,” he whispered again, stinging pain grasping his throat as he fought back the urge to fill the room with his own sobs. “Too late. Too late.”

A single candle burned low on a small table at the head of the heavily curtained bed, casting a shivering glow. Layton stood frozen beside it, not wanting to pull the curtains back but knowing he must.

His fingers grasped the front curtain—it crumpled soundlessly—then clenched it in a desperate fist. Still he stood, unable to move, unable to pull it back. He’d come so far. Yet there he was, one movement from retribution.

He took two slow, deep breaths. He couldn’t even hear his own breathing now, as if the very life had been sucked from the room.

Layton clenched the heavy fabric tighter. In one swift motion, he flung the curtain back.

“No!”

Layton sat upright in his bed, sweat dripping from his forehead like rain. His pulse raced. His lungs struggled to gasp for air. His eyes fought to adjust to the darkness of the room.

That dream.

He mopped his face with the bedsheet as drops of sweat stung his eyes. How many years had he been haunted by the same dream? He could not recall the last time he’d slept an entire night without it.

Layton dropped his head into his hands and tried to force the lingering images from his mind. He felt closer to seventy-seven than twenty-seven, and yet, a lifetime stretched out in front of him, decades of dreams he couldn’t escape, living with heavy regrets and guilt he had no right to wish himself free of.

She’d received an odd welcome, to say the least. After the young maid, whose name she’d discovered was Maggie, fled the doorway, Mrs. Sanders, the housekeeper, showed Marion inside, muttering all the while about servants putting on airs. Every member of the small staff watched her with more than a hint of wariness. Several of the faces she’d briefly encountered regarded her in much the same way one would a cut of fish that had turned.

Curious, to be sure.

Not a single smile could be seen on any of their faces. The entire house felt somber. Marion half expected to find the windows and doors draped in black. Mrs. Sanders spoke little beyond a few grumbled words indicating the room that was to be Marion’s.

Mrs. Sanders turned at the door and looked Marion over. She squinted through her assessment, something Marion would not have guessed she’d been physically capable of doing, considering she wore her silver hair in a bun so tight the corners of her eyes pulled from the strain.

“The last one left in something of a hurry,” Mrs. Sanders said.
The last governess
, Marion guessed. “You’ll have time in the morning to straighten. Duties will be cut back in honor of the holiday.”

“Yes, Mrs. Sanders.”

The house was indeed silent as Marion plaited her overly red hair and twisted it into a bun at the nape of her neck. Papa’s pocket watch read five thirty. The household staff, she had been told, broke their fasts between half past five and six o’clock every morning.

“Five thirty,” she had repeated upon being told of the ridiculously early breakfast hour.

Looking back, Marion smiled at her perfectly subservient tone. She’d practiced, after all. Keeping the enthusiasm and cheerfulness from her voice was difficult but not entirely impossible. Perhaps she would make a decent governess.

But then, she had yet to try her hand at teaching children. Suppose she discovered herself completely inept. Marion smiled, imagining herself tied to a tree somewhere on the grounds while a bevy of wild-eyed children wreaked havoc on the peaceful Farland Meadows. What a mess that would be!

Marion choked down a laugh as a knock echoed from the door of her room.

“Come in,” she called out, a hint of amusement still obvious in her tone.

Maggie stepped inside, a tray in one hand, a candle in the other. “Yer breakfast, Mary.” She brought the tray to the table where Marion sat.

“My breakfast? But why—”

“Mrs. Sanders says how yeh’re to take yer meals here.” Maggie set the tray down. She kept her eyes diverted. “An’ how I’m supposed to leave the tray by the servants’ door in the schoolroom. But this bein’ Christmas Day, I thought yeh’d like it brought to yeh.”

“I would much prefer to eat below stairs.”
With people.

Maggie looked a little uncomfortable, still unable, or unwilling, to meet Marion’s eyes. “But ’tis a real treat up here. Havin’ it brought to yeh an’ all.”

“Oh, I know,” Marion quickly reassured the young maid. “It just seems an awful lot of extra work. And for a governess, of all things. It—”

“Mr. and Mrs. Sanders says it’s best that way.” Maggie spoke as though the couple claimed a level of authority equal to the prime minister’s himself rather than the butler and housekeeper they were.

“It seems like a great deal of trouble,” Marion pressed.

Maggie didn’t relent. “Jus’ the way things are.”

Marion twisted her mouth and pondered the declaration.
The way things are.
Well, things could always change. She fought down a satisfied smile. She’d never failed to make the best of a situation.

“When does Miss Caroline awaken?” Marion asked, changing the topic to the child she’d been hired to look after.

“Not for another hour, a’ least.” Maggie walked to the door.

“Happy Christmas,” Marion called after her with a bright smile. Farland Meadows could use a touch of joy.

Maggie’s countenance didn’t lighten at all. In fact, the girl seemed distressed. “’Taint much happy ’bout today, holiday or no. ’Taint much happy here ’t’all,” Maggie said. “Master’s rather somber, he is.” She disappeared into the darkened schoolroom.