Elisabeth Fairchild (11 page)

She asked, as they jingled along the lane, of his brother, and his brother’s new wife.

“You will meet them,” he assured her. “When the snow melts.”

She did not particularly care to make the couple’s acquaintance, but she did not tell
him so. He would not understand, and she had no wish to explain.

She was saved from any expectation of a response by their arrival at another of the
cottages.

Belinda did not often step out of the sleigh. They had too much ground to cover before
nightfall. For the most part she stayed bundled beneath the lap blanket and watched
Lord Copeland leap from the sleigh to greet his neighbors. There were always eager
hands to do the unloading. There was almost always a dog involved in these exchanges,
more often than not, growling, sniffing, stiff-legged, especially when they got wind
of her. Copeland recognized her distress in these instances. He showed no inclination
to linger.

“My Christmas spirit and I have more deliveries to make, and every desire to get home
before dark,” he would say with a wave in her direction when asked to come in for
a cup of hot, spiced cider or a sip of ale.

There were exceptions. A babe, bundled against the cold, must be cooed over. She and
Copeland exchanged the tenderest of looks over his downy head and waving fists. And,
at the last of the cottages, a cheery old woman came out to them with her husband.
Mrs. Forsythe said she appreciated the kind invitation but much feared they would
not be able to attend.

“Offer her the services of your sleigh,” Belinda suggested as she patted the old woman’s
cold hand.

And indeed, the assurance that they would be warmly conveyed to and from Broomhill
changed Mrs. Forsythe’s mind and brought smiles to both the old faces.

“God bless you and your beautiful Christmas spirit!” the old man called out to them
as the Earl turned the horse back the way they had come. The lord of Broomhill Hall
nodded and waved and jingled the reins, setting the horse into motion. Though the
sleigh traveled lighter now, the great bundle of packages and food all gone, Belinda
was happy to note that Lord Copeland saw no reason to move away from her on the driver’s
bench, so that they set off for Broomhill as they had set out from it, hip to hip
and shoulder to shoulder.

This was what it was like, she thought, to be Lady Copeland, mistress of Broomhill.

She had wondered often. Far too often.

***

Copeland overflowed with happiness, from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.
Joy filled him, the gladness of the Season, of giving, of bringing gladness to others.
He was giddy with it, as if he had drunk mulled wine at each of the cottages.

A great part of that happiness, he realized, as they rattled back toward Broomhill,
no more gifts for giving, snug beneath the same lap blanket, was Belinda Walcott’s
delightful company. She was not a woman given to incessant babbling, nor did she go
for long stretches without a word. Just right, she seemed, in so many ways.

The sound of her voice resonated pleasantly. The topics on which she chose to discourse
pleased him. Babies beamed at her and reached out busy hands to grab at her nose and
hair. Cats wound themselves around her legs, in and under her skirt, which they batted
about in play. The smiles she sent in his direction were well appreciated. The touch
of her shoulder sent a bone-chilling, nerve-rattling thrill through him no matter
how often it bumped his.

He thought of Henrietta throughout the day, Henrietta whom he had thought to marry,
for in acknowledging his growing affection for Miss Walcott he also must admit to
a sense of growing clarity and understanding for a lifetime’s feelings for dear Hen,
who was his friend, a dear, dear friend, and yet she did not make his blood race,
his heart pound. He was not intoxicated by her perfume, nor was he constantly goaded
by a desire to take down her hair. It would have been wrong to marry her, he decided,
lacking this added level of connection.

He found himself measuring the two women against one another in oh so many ways. For
though he had known her no more than two days, he began to fancy himself deeply infatuated
with Miss Belinda Walcott. The height of irony, really, that just as he decided to
remain a bachelor forever, he should find himself falling in love.

He thought it was just exhilaration, a racing pulse due to the afternoon’s merry work,
the afternoon’s exertions, the bobbing brush of her body to his upon the sleigh’s
bench, but then an alarming dizziness set in. The dark branches above his head swayed
in a strangely blurred, circular pattern. He pulled back on the reins even as his
arms went weak.

His heart, that same blissful heart he had once considered offering to Henrietta Gooding,
that he now considered sharing with Belinda Walcott, missed a step, pounding in his
ears. He knew he must get at his medicine vial quickly, the tincture of foxglove.
His fingers would not work, seemed made of wood. He tipped sideways on the seat. With
a muted jingling the reins slid through his fingers, and he slipped from the bright,
snowbound world into one of utter darkness.

Chapter Sixteen

He slumped against her, the weight sudden, unexpected. The horse slowed to a walk,
then hastened its stride as jingling reins fell from gloved hands.

“My lord?” Belinda caught up the reins. With a firm tug she shouted an emphatic, “Ho
there!” and stopped the nervous horse.

Copeland slumped hard against her chest, so heavy she turned to him with urgent hands
and darting gaze. His complexion took on a gray cast, his lips a faintly bluish tinge.
Too cold. Too still. Here it was, when she least expected it.

Revenge—handed to her without effort, soft as the falling of a snowflake. A very final
sort of revenge. She might sit and watch him move from the cold world of the living
to the colder one of the dead. A Copeland had sat waiting while her voice grew weak
with calling, and the air grew stale. He and his dreadful, sniffing dog.

Yes,
her anger hissed like skates on ice.
Here it is at last! Revenge. The perfect revenge. You let it slip through your fingers
once before—in the boy. Do not allow it to slip away again.

For an instant she sat motionless, felt
him
slipping away, no struggle, no pain, just darkness closing in, forever looming.

Then, wind stirred the trees, cracking ice. A dead branch struck living wood with
a
thock, thock, thock
. Snowflakes fell like lace upon the dark wool of his lapel, and dark silk of his
hair, temporary crystal perfection, melting away as they touched his cheek, his chin—still
warm.

Her soul rebelled. She could not do it. Could not let him give up without a fight
any more than she had the lad, could not let the fragile heat within him cool. Life
was a gift. She must bang against the closing lid. It was not within her to rob another
of all and more than had been stolen from her. It went against all that was vital
and worthy left in her.

She could not exact such a revenge on the wrong Copeland. He who met her with nothing
but kindness, deserved nothing but kindness in return. The past was snowflake melted,
the present, precious, perfect, crystal clear.

His hand slid limply from inside his coat, and with it something that glittered.

She caught it as it fell—a stoppered glass vial of amber brown liquid. “My lord. Your
medicine. How much is required?”

He gave no answer. Hastily she opened the bottle and dribbled the liquid between flaccid
lips.

“Drink,” she whispered, fingers on his throat, a pulse there, the throb of life beneath
her fingers. She stroked his flesh, soft, warm, living. “Please, drink,” she begged,
her lips to his ear, inhaling the clean scent of his neck, the smell of wood smoke
and evergreens in his hair. “Do not die! Please, swallow.” Panicked hands shook as
she wiped away what she had spilled upon his chin, and bent to listen to his chest,
watching for the warm mist of his breath.

She closed her eyes, for a moment hiding in darkness, no sound but her own breath,
coming fast and shallow with excitement—expectation—waiting for love to find her.
She remembered the smell of wassail on her breath, the sticky sap of mistletoe on
her hands.

The memory angered her. She opened her eyes to the brilliance of the sky, the glittering
impermanence of ice-locked trees. “Don’t do this!” She gave his shoulders a shake
and struck his breast in her agitation, and raised her face to the heavens. “Don’t
take him. Not like this. I beg you!”

A thrush spread wings and sprang from a branch above, a sudden flash of brown and
speckled white. Its perch was left swaying darkly against pale clouds, a branch bare
but for a clump of mistletoe, the berries like clustered pearls against the sky.

Mistletoe to taunt her afresh.

“No!” Her voice echoed in the stillness.

She clutched this Copeland to her, attention fixing on the beauty of features grown
dear, and for the first time in many a year warmth bloomed within her heart, a ball
of heat so strong it melted away the cold knot of anger she had long clung to.

“Don’t go!”

She leaned close to watch his mouth, willing it to move, willing him to breathe,
aching with need. “Do not lightly release your claim on this world. Life is precious.”
She ran her finger along his lip. “Fragile.”

And then she kissed him, pressing cold lips urgently to his—no reaction gained, none
expected, only a whisper of hope in the white mist of her breath. She pulled back
to breathe that mist into his mouth, a single word, uttered with such urgency it startled
the horse and sent birds winging from the treetops above in a mad rush of feathered
fluttering.

“Live!”

***

Frankincense. Biting, musky—evergreen.

Her perfume filled his nose, his mouth. His lips felt heavy and warm, then chilled.
Cold air rushed into his lungs, a stinging cold, like the breeze against nose and
cheeks. His left arm tingled, his fingers felt all needles and pins, as if someone
clutched him too tight, the cold fingers of a small hand, a child’s hand. He heard
wings beating. Above him darkness flew against blinding whiteness.

A jingle of bells, the rattling of ice-coated branches, the stamp of a horse’s hoof
on snow, and Copeland peered through the dark-shadowed fringe of his lashes to sight
of the sky, a clouded, cotton sheet, through it laced the snow-caked fingers of dark
tree branches. He tried to move, but could not—weak as a newborn lamb. His mouth tasted
fuzzy. He felt pinned in place, trapped in a dream.

Hands moved on his forehead, fingers in his hair, a child’s hands, and she was asking,
in a voice vibrant with expectation, “Live! Do you hear me?”

He tilted his head. Wool scratched his ear. And still there was the sensation of fingers
gripping his, and the pressure of hand on his chest, no, in his chest, like the dream,
squeezing life into his heart.

Her dear face bent over his, her breath misted his cheek, his head moved against the
soft, yielding heaven of her lap. She shifted for a better look into his eyes. For
a moment he thought he was dreaming, for he saw such warmth in her usually cool gaze,
such joy in the set of her mouth, the dimpling of her cheek, it took his breath away
as quickly as the sensation that the hands on his heart stopped their squeezing, and
the child’s hand in his slipped away.

“How much of this are you to take?” She held up his medicine bottle, sun winking on
the elixir. He feared to look down at his chest, afraid he would find a gaping hole
there.

How earnest the concern in her eyes, the compassion. A balm to his spirit, a tonic
to his soul. He had longed for just such affection in his mother’s eyes as a child.

“Help me up.” He flexed his fingers. Nothing there. Just the cold gripping him, reluctant
to let go.

She stopped him, her will stronger than his intention as he pushed away from the sweetly
scented warmth and softness of her lap. “Do you not think it would be better to rest
here a little longer?”

He never wanted to lift his head again from the comfort of that perfumed prop, but
he could not tell her that, even in his weakened state.

“Help me up,” he insisted, and fought to raise himself, with limbs limp as noodles.
His head swam dreadfully.

Her arm went around him then, bracing him. Her hand slid inside his coat, tucking
away the bottle of digitalis. For a breathtaking moment he felt himself in the midst
of his dream again, the sweet torture of the dream where a woman plunged her hands
into his chest and squeezed his heart, and he could not move a muscle.

Her cheek brushed his. “Why did you not warn me?”

He could move this time. He turned his head. The apple of her cheek brushed his. He
closed his eyes, savored her warmth, ached with it. He had never felt so cold. He
opened his eyes to regard his coat front tightly buttoned, the dark wool smooth and
unbroken.

“No one knows but Bolton,” he whispered, voice as stiff as his fingers. “I prefer
it that way.”

“Is it a serious condition? Your broken heart?”

He must look at her again, must prove to himself the love in her eyes had not been
his imagination.

How kind, how earnest those dark gray-blue eyes—almost as beautiful as the frost-edged
air that rushed in and out of his throat with a satisfying rasp. The sky above her
head threw snow feathers. The sleigh bench beneath his hipbone was satisfyingly hard.
The horse’s trappings jingled a tune. The sleigh rocked forward a step, then another.
All his! All his!

He pushed himself upright, arms trembling, considering her question with a shaky laugh.
“My poor heart will be the death of me. But not today. Not before Christmas.”

“I am glad of it,” she said quietly. “Shall I take the reins?”

He grabbed the lines with shaking fingers that did not want to work quite right. He
watched the horse’s ears swivel, listened to the impatient jingle, and gave the reins
to her. “I am in your hands, Belinda Walcott.”