Elisabeth Fairchild (14 page)

Chapter Twenty

Throughout the morning, one or another of the staff popped their heads in the door
and offered assistance with the painting project. Lord Copeland graciously refused
the offers, and politely accepted the compliments that came his way at how quickly
the painting progressed.

A nuncheon was brought to them. Megan, the maid, claimed that she would be happy to
set aside her chores if his lordship required any help.

Belinda watched their exchange with interest, hoping he meant to decline the girl’s
kind offer. She enjoyed the depth of their conversations when it was just the two
of them.

“Thank you, my dear, but we manage quite well on our own.” His cheerful refusal brought
a smile to Belinda’s lips. “What think you of our efforts thus far?”

The maid stood back from the Nativity scene that was beginning to take shape. “Lovely,
my lord. They begin to look quite presentable. Only the baby Jesus is needed to complete
the picture. How nice that you make the Season merry without the house full of guests
to cheer you.”

“Ah, but I’ve a house full of staff to cheer me, Megan,” he kindly reminded her. “In
addition to my guest. Do not underestimate your importance in making my every Christmas
comfortable.”

Belinda smiled, wondering if she underestimated her own importance to him this Christmas.

Megan smiled brightly, bobbed a curtsy, and said, “Thank you, my lord. I hope you
will not think me too forward in saying so, but the staff was quite downcast when
the snows came. It seemed all our preparations were for naught. With the whole neighborhood
invited, we look forward to tomorrow’s festivities. Thank you for that, my lord.”

“You are quite welcome. I look forward to it as well.”

The girl left them. As he sat beside her, closer than before, Belinda said, “They
know? Your staff?”

“What?”

“Of your illness?”

He crossed his arms, as if to block any more uncomfortable questions, and replied
quietly, “Only Bolton.”

“Ah, then the staff have been told enough to know they must keep an eye on you?”

He shook his head and leaned in her direction to dip his brush, and in so doing managed
to brush her shoulder in a comradely manner. “No. Only Bolton knows.”

She laughed and shook her head, and reached past him for a rag, her hip bumping his.
“Why else do they check in every quarter of an hour?”

“Are they so regular?”

“I could set the clock by them.”

“You do not think they do it for your benefit? A young woman alone with their master?”
He leaned closer, the look in his eyes playful. “We’ve a quarter of an hour’s reprieve
if you are right. How shall we pass the time, Belinda Bee?”

She smiled ruefully and made no move to avoid contact with him. She liked very much
sitting shoulder to shoulder with this kind young man. “They cannot fear you mean
to do ill by me in the company of a virgin, an angel, and three wise men. Can they?”

He ran paint-spattered fingers through graying hair, smile fading, his expression
one of amused chagrin. “I suppose you are right.”

She lifted a hand to follow his. He shied from it with a startled look.

She halted, midair. “Forgive me. You’ve paint in your hair.”

He reached up again.

“Stop!” She waylaid him, grasped his hand, turning it palm up, that he might see where
the paint had come from.

“Allow me.”

“Anything,” he teased, with the amused expression she grew used to, an amusement designed
to guard what really hid in his eyes. His lashes fluttered as she ran her fingers
close to his scalp, through the springy wealth of his hair, catching wet flecks of
blue between her fingers. A pleasant sensation tingled through her hands, fingers,
and palms, all the way to her elbow, and then, as if strings joined fingers to backbone,
she shivered, not from cold but from the frisson of unexpected heat that shot through
the length of her.

Two more passes before she felt she had gotten it all, two more moments when she could
see he was as affected as she.

“There,” she said at last, the slightest of hitches in her voice, in her breathing,
as she closed her fingers, unwilling to let go her grasp on his hair, any more than
she was willing to stop looking into his eyes, searching for traces of understanding,
need, or desire. “I think that’s . . .”

He surprised her into sudden silence, catching her hand before she could pull away,
catching her waist with guiding strength, drawing her into his arms, staring deeply
into her eyes a moment before he kissed her.

When they were both quite breathless, he cradled her head against his shoulder and
asked, voice low, “Will you tell me of him?”

She nestled in the shelter of his arms, enjoying the promise of his embrace.

“I have told you my deepest secrets,” he said. “Will you not tell me yours?”

She did not want him to let go of the moment, to end the closeness. She did not want
to tell him.

“Come, come,” he coaxed, and kissed the palm of her hand, lips warm as sun on snow,
melting her.

She closed her eyes, savoring the feeling. What a picture they might paint together.
How gentle his touch. She made a fist, to hold on to the kiss, the memory, to hold
on for eternity. She opened her eyes to stare down at white-knuckled fingers, wondering
how she could have been such a fool.

“I thought he loved me.”

He stilled, like the angels on the ceiling, like the shepherds and kings, waited for
more without speaking, the flat of his palm drifting the length of her spine, such
comfort in his touch.

She rose to pace the room, surprising him, surprising herself.

“I came halfway across England.” How distant the memory, like a mist upon her mind.
“I was convinced that he cared for me.” She plucked at her ring finger with a familiar
sense of rage and betrayal. Would it haunt her forever? “He did not love me at all.
What he really wanted was my dowry, and he was willing to go to unbelievable lengths
to get the money.”

“You meant to marry this man? This idiot?” he asked, voice tight.

She made a bitter noise. “I did marry him.”

The shock that registered on his features touched and shamed her. She ought not to
have blurted it out so baldly. She plucked her brush from the water, dabbed it dry,
allowed him time to recover, focused on the paint in her brush. Brown. A muddy brown.
Like the reason she was here. Like her ongoing purpose with this man—the color of
the future she contemplated with or without him.

“Do I call you
Miss
Walcott all this time in error?” He sounded stunned—hurt. The wrong Copeland. She
wounded the wrong man.

She looked at the shepherd’s hand, at the wet spots on the crook which she had freshly
painted. Too dark. Much too dark. “I am still Miss Walcott,” she murmured, her voice
falling away, faded as the paint.
Always will be.
“The marriage . . .” The truth embarrassed her, but she was much too old for schoolgirl
blushes. She steeled herself to say aloud, “The marriage was never consummated. Ended
before it began.”

***

Silence gathered between them. The angels held their breath. The kings gazed heavenward.
Belinda sat, head bowed, fiery braids catching the ruby light from a stained-glass
window.

Copeland rubbed at a persistent blue smudge on his thumb, amazed she told him so much,
and yet convinced she did not tell him the whole.

He must say something, could not allow another moment to tick away into infinity without
saying something.

“A good thing, that.” The words caught in his throat, came out rather gruffly.

She looked up at last.

He must finish what he had started, no matter that it sounded foolish to him now.
“A good thing, I say, for you would have married a fool and a blind man.”

She meant to look away again, but he caught her chin on bent finger, lifting her head
that she must look him in the eyes. “A fool not to recognize what a lucky man he would
have been.” The words rang with conviction. “A blind man not to see, what he had in
you, my dear.”

Beneath the benevolent gaze of a dozen angels, five shepherds, three kings, and the
parents of a miracle, she rose to kiss him on the lips, very softly, infinitely sweet.

***

She painted a face on the baby Jesus, as Lord Copeland arranged the figures of the
Nativity scene. She gave the little bundle of rags a nose, then a mouth. What had
become of the innocent child?

Betrayal. Cynicism rose like bitter gall. Was she wrong to trust the man before her,
this Copeland?

“You have matched the artist’s style nicely.”

He complimented her. She distrusted compliments, and yet her lips still hummed with
the vibrancy of their kiss, her ears still resonated to the tune of his kind words.

“Ironic, is it not, that your initials match those of the original painter?” He pointed.
“See.”

She saw the
BW
on the king’s crown, again in the angel’s sandal. She was surprised he had found
the tiny, cleverly hidden lettering in the painstakingly complex patterns. She wondered
if he would uncover all of her secrets as skillfully.

“The painter captured faces well. Don’t you agree?”

He turned the same keenness of attention on her that he had devoted to the angel.
A phantom smile played across the lips that brought her such unexpected happiness.
A gift to her, this Christmas, this attentive Copeland who would seem bent on reviving
lost hope, lost trust, lost love.

She waited for him to say that he knew, that she did not fool him in the least, but
beyond the arching of his brow he did nothing to confirm her fear, merely smiled and
said, “Care for a stroll, Miss Walcott? While there is still light? Or do you prefer
to continue painting?”

***

Too long had Kirkland Brougham been cooped up indoors, in the chapel, with a woman
stirring thoughts neither holy, nor chaste. He longed now for movement, and deep,
cooling breaths.

“A walk would be lovely,” she said with a laugh. “I shall just go to my room for a
wrap and meet you outside, shall I?”

He made his way downstairs, stopping briefly to discuss the following day’s Christmas
Eve preparations with Bolton. Donning his overcoat, he stepped outside into the beauty
of falling snow, white flakes drifting, whirling, enticing him further into the nipping
chill.

He knew he preceded Miss Walcott. He had not heard her on the stair, nor the opening
and closing of the old oak door, and yet with a start he thought it must be she who
stood like a hooded statue on the far side of the graveled carriageway, next to the
iced-over fountain, arms outstretched.

She cut a dark silhouette against the bird-peppered snow. A dark woolen cape draped
her shoulders, the hood overshadowing forehead and eyes. It must be her, though the
clouded sky did little to illuminate her features. The only brilliance was the snow
itself, throwing a faint echo of light upon her heart-shaped chin, the faintly smiling
lips.

In her hands, birds flew, wings whirring, jostling one another for the birdseed cupped
in darkly gloved palms.

So beautiful was this unexpected, even magical sight of her, so breathtaking, that
he did not notice his footsteps were the first to break the pristine perfection of
white that led to her, as she tipped back her head, the hood sliding away, unveiling
a laughing face, lifted to the heavens. Sparrows, tits, and wrens rose in an explosive
welter of buff and gray to scatter, alarmed by his approach.

“So light their touch.” She watched them go. “Almost as if they were not really there.”

He thought of the woman who came to him in the night, of the lightness of her touch.
“As if you held Christmas in your hands,” he said.

The pale oval of her face was dreamlike, framed by the brilliance of her plaited hair,
her eyes grayer than the sky, pupils blacker than the hood bunched at her shoulders.

“But that would mean Christmas has flown,” she said sadly.

“Not yet,” he protested. “Not quite yet. Can you possibly claim to have enjoyed yourself?”
he asked. “With no one here, and little to do?”

“No one?” She looked him in the eyes. “I have enjoyed having you all to myself, my
lord No One.”

He had just been thinking the very same thing of her. Odd how she seemed to hear his
very thoughts at times.

“Only two more days for my lord and lady No One,” he said, and would have wrapped
her in his arms had there not been rows of windows behind them, the eyes of the house,
and the house full of servants to see them.

She closed her eyes, smile fading, and echoed wistfully, leaning toward him just enough
to give him hope. “Only two.”

“And then it is Christmas.”

“Yes,” she whispered, wistfully. “Christmas.”

“Come along.” He took her gloved hand and, tucking it into the crook of his elbow,
headed down the avenue of oaks to the lane, afraid he was as greedy as the birds,
afraid he forgot too readily his feelings for Henrietta. It terrified him that he
kept biting back a declaration of the intensity of his feelings for a music teacher
he had known only a few days, her history still unclear to him.

“You will stay to see the new year in with us, won’t you?” His tone sounded too eager,
and yet he could not recall it, would not. Surely she knew by his actions how much
she affected him.

She released her hold on his arm, bending her head to study the tips of her shoes
as they peeped from beneath the tolling bell of her cloak. They were quaint, old leather
shoes with wide pewter buckles. Crimson heels flashed festively through the powdery
white snow, a style his beloved grandmother had worn when she was a girl. He wondered
if they were a style still favored on the Isle of Man.

“I am sorry to say . . . ” Her gusty sigh ghosted her regret quite visibly. “ . . .
I’ve only until Christmas Day.”

Disappointment struck him a blow. “Then back to your pupils?”