Elisabeth Fairchild (10 page)

Double entendre
, and none to share it with.

Her face brightened. She was, he thought, fairly luminous. “I should like that.”

“Yes,” he said. “Before the light fades.”

Before my light fades.

***

They went to the chapel, borne on the wave of his enthusiasm, pulse pounding with
anticipation and the impetus of a new plan, up the stairs and down the hallway. He
swung wide the wooden doors and paused on the threshold, the chill breath of the marble
floor taking his away. No fire to warm it, the chapel was the coldest and quietest
room in the house, but for stray footsteps in the night.

“Beautiful.” She stepped past him, down marble steps, footsteps echoing. “Just as
I remember it.”

He remembered, too. A weight of chill memory. The funeral service had taken place
on just such a frigid day. The light had trickled through the stained-glass windows,
brightening the same places on the floor.

The air smelled to him of dust and tears, and cold, carved stone. His brother’s coffin
had stood just there, and here his uncle, all in black, not green, his tragic face
like carved stone.

Their footsteps echoed in the barrel-vaulted, white-plastered ceiling, not so high
as he had once thought. His perspective of the walls they walked was changed as well.
He remembered stone archways, the family’s armorial plates glowing in colored glass.
The wall of faux arches no longer deceived his eye, and the angels who flew faux skies
looked tired today, neglected—faded to pale memories of their former glory. He had
looked for James’s angel on the day of the funeral. There were a host to choose from:
rococo cherubs smiling, chubby cheeked, from walls and ceilings, from the backs of
the walnut pews. None even vaguely resembled her.

Strange, how he could not recall that angel face today any more than he could recall
James’s. Memory blurred, softened at the edges, no longer stabbing to the quick of
him. He kept seeing Belinda Walcott’s face where an angel should have been.

How intently he had looked for her—James’s angel—while his mother wept and railed
bitterly under her breath, “Why? Why must you take him? My baby.”

Why had it been James? Why not him?

Copeland had not been able to bring himself to look into the coffin draped in black
velvet, heaped with sprigs of ivy and juniper, evergreens to carry his brother into
the ever green other world.

Renaissance angels, fully winged, gowns flowing, bore aloft the family crest. They
more closely resembled the figure he had seen standing on the pond’s bank. A gilded
glory. A blur of light. Like his thoughts, quick and persistent.

One could not help but think of Heaven, and yet the place seemed empty to him, so
very empty, but for memories.

This chapel was a place of weddings and christenings, too, he thought.
And none of these for me.
He chuckled as he crossed the room.
Dour fellow.

A Christmas service. They were planning a Christmas service. He and Miss Walcott.
He must see the place with fresh eyes, fresh purpose. “Must have the maids in for
a cleaning,” he mused. Cobwebs laced the snowbound windows.

Miss Walcott walked to the altar, her head veiled in what seemed a floating mist,
so thick was the dust; the color of her dress bleached by the intensity of snow’s
reflected white light through the window. Her footsteps echoed hollowly, like footsteps
in the night.

He studied the back of her head, wondering if he would ever have the privilege of
seeing the weave of golden hair unbound.

“Did you come here last night?”

She turned to regard him with fathomless gray-blue eyes.

Did you come into my bed?

An enigmatic smile tilted the lips he dreamed of kissing. “Why should I?”

Sunlight illuminated her eyes. He wished to illuminate the secrets hidden there—her
past—her feelings for him.

“I thought you might be restless. Indulging in a bit of prayer? We heard footsteps.”

The heart-shaped chin lifted. She gave a dismissive toss of her head. “I have given
up on prayers.” She sounded faintly angry. “Mine were never answered.”

“Are you miffed with God, then?” He sighed, not really expecting an answer. Pique
was his own reason for avoiding the chapel. His prayers, too, seemed to have gone
unanswered.

“Perhaps one of Broomhill’s ghosts walks here.” Her voice sounded brittle—tired.

“What made you give up on Him?”

She hesitated, mouth rearranging, gilded brows knitting and unknitting. “I prayed
for . . .” Her voice dropped. “. . . for love, for deliverance, for promises kept.”

He studied her face, as he had once studied angels. “No answer?”

She frowned. “None that I expected.”

Gooseflesh rising, he rubbed his coat sleeves. “Chilly in here. The stone floors keep
this place cold.”

“Yes.” She ran a gloved hand along the back of one of the carved walnut pews, brushing
dust from angel faces. “You do not use the place?”

She pushed away from the pew, stepped into the shadow of one of the arches. Her hair
went ashen in the fogged light from snow-draped windows. Her eyes when she turned
to look at him were dark gray pools, a shade to match the carved sepulchral urns that
rose from the base of each arch.

“No.”

“Do you blame Heaven?”

“What for?” His voice gave him away, for of course he did. Was it not Heaven that
took his breath away? Denied him weddings and christenings with his imperfect heart?
And James? Might not Heaven have saved him?

She kept looking at him, as if she knew, as if she, more than the blind angels surrounding
them, saw directly into his flawed heart and soul with a clarity of vision and understanding
that slowed his breathing with expectancy.

“In pain and loss do we not always turn to Heaven for answers?”

He laughed, an uneasy echoing sound, and looked away. He had yet to tell Henrietta
the whole truth about James—or anything at all of his failing heart. Even Marcus had
no inkling of his physician’s prognosis. He could not reveal himself to a stranger,
and yet the words sat poised on the tip of his tongue.

She stood watching, pale and still.

He turned his back on her, searching for something else to speak of. The dusty, cobwebbed
chapel gave mute answer.

“How shall we decorate the place?” The words sounded thick. Thought and feeling crowded
his throat.

Quiet hung between them, thicker than the dust, heavier than the atmosphere, until
she said with unexpected conviction, “I know just how it should be done.”

“Really?” He wondered what she envisioned.

“Leave it to me.”

“If it please you.”

She turned, her gaze encompassing the room. “It would please me immensely.”

“You will call upon the servants for assistance? Ask them for whatever you should
need?”

She nodded.

“Excellent. I shall see to the kitchen, then. The invitations.” He feigned enthusiasm.
He would enjoy himself.
He would.
It was to be the best Christmas ever, was it not?

Her focus remained on the chapel. “You must come and see how I get on, later in the
day.”

“But, of course,” he said with a bow, and left her.

***

Belinda followed the savory aroma of Christmas: cinnamon and cloves, brandied plums
and candied ginger, roasted goose and simmering onion, pastry shells and braided bread.
Into the heat and bustle of spits turning, flour and feathers flying—an immense heat.
The faces of the kitchen staff shone with it, and yet she was not warmed. She would
let revenge warm her—Hell’s fire—she was still set on it. Too long had revenge been
her soul’s driving purpose to give it up in an instant.

Lord Copeland was met with a great deal of bowing and scraping, a household eager
to please. They would do anything for him, as she had been ready to do anything for
a Copeland, a Copeland who had taken all and given nothing.

She went largely unnoticed, a shadow among the shadows, eclipsed by the heir to Broomhill
and all its history.

He surveyed the well-stocked larder with satisfaction, and telling Cook what he intended
for the suggested Christmas fete, met with cheerful enthusiasm.

Bolton, too, received his holiday suggestions with a collected smile, and an efficient,
“I shall inform the staff, my lord.”

Copeland then said, “Oh, and by the way, my guest would like the chapel decorated
for a service. It is in need of a good cleaning. You will assist her in any other
way she requires?”

“Your guest, my lord? But, of course, my lord.” Bolton gave his habitual bow as Copeland
turned his attention to young Paul, who came in, apple-cheeked, with a hopeful report
of how the road-clearing progressed.

“Lawks!” the maid named Maddie whispered, rubbing at her specs. “The chapel’s not
been touched for years. It’s too afraid I have been to spend much time alone upstairs.
And knowing how the master does avoid the place, I did not think it mattered.”

“Come,” said the young woman who daily tended Belinda’s fire. “We’ll take up our buckets
and brooms together. Poor Master James’s ghost has no reason to torment us.”

Belinda perked up at that. She smiled and nodded, pleased by their initiative.

The pastry chef waved a flour-covered hand at Maddie before she could go. “There are
three kings in the attic.”

“What are you on about?” Maggie stopped, hands on hips. “Is this more of your ghosties
nonsense?”

The heavyset fellow punched at his dough, sprinkling a ghostly veil of flour. “Dummy
boards, love. Shepherds, kings, an angel or two. Mary and Joseph.”

When she still did not comprehend he said impatiently, “For making up a Nativity scene.”

“Ohhh!” Realization dawned.

“What about the manger?”

Young Paul, who had stopped to warm himself by the fire, said, “Something in my potting
shed might do.”

“Sounds like a bit of fun.” Lucy took up her bucket.

“Do you mind if I come with you into the attic?” Belinda asked.

“Bring a wrap with you, my dear,” Maddie called over her shoulder. “It will be cold
up there.”

Chapter Fifteen

Copeland warmed himself, body and soul, in the heart of the house, the rhythmic pulse
of life and death, and sustenance. The savory perfume of roasting capons and baking
bread, the cheerful bubbling of pots on the hob, the crackle and spit of fat in the
fire, the ceaseless productive bustle offered a sense of useful purpose in tune with
the Season. Christmas was, after all, to be a feast, the shared plenty of the harvest
in the coldest, bleakest month of the year. With a few words he increased the level
of activity to a fever pitch, as boxes and baskets were pulled from every nook and
cranny to be packed with gifts of food and wine for the tenants and neighbors.

Slipping away from the happy scene, pleased with his progress, he spent the rest of
the morning writing invitations. Everyone within walking distance must come to a Christmas
Eve celebration, and on Christmas Day, a chapel service.

His heart was happy in the task, no unusual rhythm to upset the feeling that possessed
him, of oneness with the Season. And now and then, as he dipped his pen, he thought
of the woman upstairs, his unexpected guest—and then he thought of Henrietta, and
wished she might be there to share their fun—and then he thought of his odd dream,
and wondered.

He would not allow himself to compare the women. There was no comparison. It would
be most disloyal to Hen. Instead he focused on the careful shaping of his lettering.
The joy he meant to shape just as carefully brought a contented smile to his lips.

Aglow with satisfaction, he called for a sleigh to be prepared that he might make
his deliveries personally, and went to see if Miss Walcott cared to go with him.

A beehive of activity, the chapel smelled of soap, straw and beeswax wood polish put
to good use. The angels’ faces gleamed. The floor was freshly scrubbed, and a row
of candelabra stood ready to be positioned along the aisle. Straw had been heaped
in a corner where half of a barrel formed a manger, heaped with more straw. About
it clustered seven faded and nicked dummy-board figures: Mary, Joseph, a shepherd,
an angel. Three kings.

Joseph and the shepherd had cracked supports and could not stand, but the original
paintings had held up well.

“Wherever did you find these?” he asked.

“In the attic,” Belinda spoke from behind him, so close he gave a little jump of surprise,
his heart beating faster just to hear her voice. He had not seen her when he walked
in, though his eyes had roved the room with no other purpose in mind. “Aren’t they
wonderful?”

“Marvelous,” he murmured, amazed to find she looked cool and calm, not a hair out
of place, her complexion so pale it would seem she had not lifted a finger to help
in the transformation of the room, when it was all her doing, her idea.

Maddie stopped her work to look at him through dust-smudged spectacles, hair flying
in wisps about her dear old face.

“Mr. Cassidy told us where they were hidden.”

“Ah!” He nodded. “If anyone would know it would be Mr. Cassidy.”

Maddie nodded. “A knowing one, that Mr. Cassidy. Tells me there is naught to be afraid
of here at Broomhill, ghosts or no ghosts. And I believe him, I do. What would spirits
have to be angry with me about, now, I ask you?”

Strange how the talk always seemed to find its way back to ghosts.

Copeland stared into the eyes of the dummy-board angel and thought of James, the pond,
and the fair creature who had stretched out her hand to him. She had looked a bit
like this angel. Had she not? He could no longer remember, time blurring her features,
his memory. He had thought once she looked like Miss Walcott, so uncertain was his
recollection.

“Mr. Cassidy is correct. There is no reason at all, for anything or anyone to haunt
you, Maddie.”

The wooden angel stared back at him, gaze steady, unblinking. “Look at the detail,”
he murmured. “The gentleness of spirit captured here.”

Miss Walcott gazed upon him, upon the angel. Light caught in her hair—angel hair—her
expression calm, like the wooden one in his hands.

Maddie looked up at the two of them over the rims of her spectacles. “A touch of paint
here and there. They will be lovely.”

“Indeed. They are just a little tired, a little worn.” As tired and worn as he had
felt of late.

His guest remained mute. He wondered why.

“Leave off for the moment, all of you.” He infused his voice with strength. “We are
loading a sleigh with gifts and invitations for the neighbors, and as I intend to
see them all delivered by dark, I require your assistance.”

They traipsed downstairs, and with ready spirit and good cheer clad themselves for
outdoors to load the sleigh. It fairly bristled with parcels when they were done.
A place was left for the driver. Beside him, quite cramped, room for one more.

“I do not think it wise that you should go alone, my lord,” Bolton insisted as Copeland
settled himself and took up the reins.

“But, of course, you are right, my good man. Do you care to come?” he asked Belinda.

Bolton said, “If you wish, my lord. But perhaps better you take someone whose old
bones do not feel so much the pinch of the cold.”

Bolton’s hearing was not what it had once been. “How kind of you to offer, Bolton,”
Copeland said gently, “but it was my guest I meant to ask.”

The old man looked quite stricken. “Your guest, my lord?” His chin waggled uncertainly.
His pure white hair wisped in the wind. “But, of course, my lord. Foolish of me to
presume otherwise.” He assumed as straight a posture as his aging body could manage,
his voice returning to its customary control. “Is there room for the stable lad? To
fetch and carry parcels?”

To save me from unnecessary exertion? Dear Bolton.

Belinda squeezed past him, jamming herself into the seat.

Copeland shrugged. “No place to put him, my man.”

“What of the dog, my lord?” Bolton’s agitation revealed itself again in the faint
movement of his hands, though his voice did nothing to betray him. “He would love
a good run. Shall I allow him to follow?”

“I think not this time.” Copeland knew Gabriel’s presence would make Belinda uncomfortable.
“All in, my dear?” He drew the lap blanket across their legs, pulse racing with delight
at their confined circumstances, for they must sit shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.
How deliciously wonderful to set off into the white landscape alone with her.

“All in,” she said with a smile.

He waved the stable lad away from the horses and cracked the whip above their heads.

They set off with a scrunch of snow and the jingling of belled harness, chill air
biting their cheeks. The household staff slid away behind them, laughing and waving,
urging, “Have a lovely day!”

All but Bolton, who watched them go with a decidedly worried look.

***

Copeland knew why he fretted, dear old fellow. He patted his pocket to be sure he
carried with him his vial of medicine and, finding it there, would not allow himself
to perpetuate that worry. It was stimulating to be alone, and so intimately, in Belinda
Walcott’s company.

He would be happy today, in this happy task, with such happy company. He would. Yuletide
cheer caught up in a sleigh. He would allow himself to be stimulated by the company
of a charming young woman, despite doctor’s orders.

“Mmmm.” Miss Walcott took a deep breath and, exhaling, watched the white cloud of
breath float away. “It begins to feel like Christmas.”

“It does,” Copeland agreed, guiding the horse away from the lane that had yet to be
completely cleared, and onto the bowling green, now covered in snow’s blanket. “You
have helped to make it so.”

“Me? How so?” She smiled. He knew without turning that she smiled. He could hear it
in her voice, as cheerful as the jingling harness.

“I believe you are a Christmas sprite come to lift my fallen spirits.”

She met this with silence before asking in a changed voice, though in what way it
changed he could not quite identify: “And why did your spirits fall, my lord?”

He laughed, and lied. “I no longer remember. But the last few days would have been
very dull without you.”

“I am flattered.”

“My Christmas spirit,” he said.

She smiled. He knew because he turned to see, and finding her smiling felt his own
lips curve upward in response. Yes, indeed. It promised to be the merriest of days.

***

Through a fairyland they went, sunlight dazzling the eye as it peeped through the
clouds and took new life in myriad glittering crystal snowflakes, a thousand gleaming
icicles dangling from branch and fence, spears of glittering ice rising from every
grass blade.

Birds exploded from the hedges before them, sparrows, thrushes and larks—a dark blur
of flight against the white.

“Do you think we are due a thaw?” he asked.

Belinda gazed at the clouds and hoped it was not so. She liked their solitude, their
snowbound privacy. She had no longing for the world to come rushing back to them,
no desire to return to anonymity. She considered this snowy respite their oasis in
place and time—none to compete for her host’s attention.

“More snow on the horizon,” she said.

“I will not have it!” He called to the sky. “Not another flake, do you hear?”

Snow continued to drift down, dusting her lashes, sparkling in the darkness of his
hair, falling as time falls, she thought, minute upon minute, an endless dusting of
white.

She chuckled and held her hands wide to the gray sky that closed in on them. “No one
listens.”

He leaned back and laughed, opening his mouth to catch snowflakes on his tongue.

In that moment of glee in the midst of his ruined Christmas, she found him immensely
appealing. She had to lean back to taste the melting cold herself, the branches of
the trees flickering darkly against snow-laden clouds. Like life, she thought, bright
and dark—gone in an instant—this day, this moment, this feeling of trust, and happy
companionship—how precious—how brief.

A black-and-white dog came racing to meet them, barking ferociously, frightening the
horse, leaping at her side of the sleigh, hackles raised, teeth bared.

Copeland gathered up the reins, steadying the horse even as he threw his body as a
shield between her and the dog.

“No!” He shouted—the violence of the word, of the motion of his arm as he commanded,
“Down!” shaking her.

The vigorous rise and fall of his chest pressed against hers, his warm cheek grazed
her temple. One wool-thickened arm pulled her close. The power of his words stilled
the dog. The rage of barking fell away.

For a moment the sleigh raced along, harness jingling, the two of them bundled in
wool and each other’s arms, snow dusting her cheeks, his lashes, snow gathering in
his hair. Time froze, or did it race too fast to see? Her cheeks were nipped by the
wind. She wondered if he would warm them with his lips, sure that he must kiss her
at last. Would he taste of the peppermint on his breath, sweet and cool?

A break in the trees, and the glory of Heaven opened above them, a brilliant white
blur, while the heaven of his arm still encircled her, protecting her from harm, warm
and bracing. She longed for more, for mistletoe, for the gift of his mouth on hers,
their breath mingling.

Then his head rose, chill air racing in where he had been, and he smiled the engaging
smile of the charmer that he was. He wanted her—she could see the desire in his eyes,
but his voice came gently, and with it the white wisp of his breath, its warmth crystallized
by the hand of winter. “Unpleasant bit of business, that. I beg pardon for jostling
you.”

She could not quite believe it when he returned his full attention to the horse needing
guidance around a fallen tree.

She straightened and drew her cloak closer, no warmth in the wool. Their all too brief
embrace had not been in the least unpleasant, and no apologies necessary for jostling
her.

He meant the dog, of course, chasing, barking, afraid of her—they were all afraid
of her—but she silently thanked the beast for the heavenly moment it opened up to
her. She would not have found herself clasped in Lord Copeland’s arms without the
fearsome dog. She wished with all of her heart in that moment for a pack of dogs,
slavering, yowling hounds to chase after them, that Lord Copeland might find opportunity
again to shelter her in his arms, perhaps to disprove entirely her fast-withering
belief that Copelands were beyond caring what became of her.

***

The cottages they visited were tucked into blankets of snow, smoke pouring from the
chimneys. Icicles dangled alongside frozen clumps of mistletoe. Yew hung over low
doorways. The jingling of sleigh bells sent children tumbling out to meet them, noses
berry bright, cheeks like winter roses. When they were met with the news that the
sleigh bore presents, the younger children asked Lord Copeland more than once, “Are
you Saint Nick?”

The tenants, who lived in freshly snug wattle-and-daub cottages, joyously accepted
his gifts of sausage, ham, or a goose, and met his invitation to Christmas Eve celebrations,
and Christmas morning services, with broad smiles and assurances that they would not
miss it for the world. The Lord of Broomhill Hall modestly accepted a multitude of
thanks for the recent thatchings he had ordered among the improvements to his tenant
holdings. Here was a newly chinked fireplace, and there a cracked window repaired,
and every house the warmer for it.

“But of course,” he said, again and again, as if there were no question. The right
thing had been done.

He proved as gracious in his invitations as he was modest in accepting praise. He
had a way of making everyone feel specially invited, their company especially desired.
Belinda watched with growing respect and increased appreciation. How very different
this Copeland was from the other she had known.