Marian's Christmas Wish (19 page)

Lord Ingraham sniffed the air. “Alistair, I fancy I can
almost smell the sea. It is a good omen.”

Alistair only grunted.

“Tell me, lad,” the earl asked as they quickened their
pace. “These pudding wishes. Is there a time limit? I mean, must they come true
by a certain date?”

“Twelfth Night,” Alistair declared firmly. “That is the
Wynswich rule. Sir, why do you ask?”

Marian giggled. “I think he has made a wish about a
ladylove, Alistair. I shall browbeat Reverend Beddoe when we return to Picton,
and discern the truth, for I think our vicar knows.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” said Lord Ingraham. “I was
merely curious.” He tucked his arm through Marian’s. “And you are a nosy
baggage.”

Marian laughed. The sound sparkled in the crisp air.

“You must not encourage her, my lord,” Alistair said.

“I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.” Ingraham tightened
his muffler about his throat. “God, it’s cold!” He looked at Marian inquiringly
and tightened his grip on her arm. “‘Blow, blow, thou winter wind . . .’”

She thought a moment, skipping to keep up with him. “‘Thou
art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude.’” She laughed. “‘Thy tooth is not so
keen, because thou art not seen. . .’”

“‘Although thy breath be rude.’ Marian, except for your
nosiness, you are excellent in every way.”

Alistair grunted again. “I think the two of you have
gone quite to pasture yourselves.”

The earl nudged Alistair. “Had you an education, lad,
you could quote Shakespeare, too.”

Alistair opened his mouth to protest, but Ingraham
overrode him. “Think how useful such a skill will be when you are trying to
keep yourself awake while standing a West Indies watch.”

They passed the great cathedral of Bath, which was
surrounded by carriages, and grooms walking blanketed horses back and forth.
Marian looked at Gilbert, but he did not even slow down.

“Mother never did hold much with fashion,” Lord
Ingraham explained to her unanswered question. “We go to St. John’s.”

Christ’s Mass was well under way when they quietly
climbed the worn steps and entered the little church.

“Alistair, claim us that spot on the last row,” the
earl whispered.

Alistair moved forward, genuflected swiftly, and slid
into the pew. Ingraham did not move. Marian watched his face, reading on it the
anxiety that overcame his habitually well-bred expression. She waited a moment
and then stood on tiptoe, pulling at his shoulder. He leaned down obligingly.

“Gil, have you a coin left?”

“It belongs to the Widows and Orphans,” he whispered
back, even as he reached into his pocket and handed it to her.

She took the coin and dropped it in the little
collection box beside the row of candles. She found an unlighted one, held it
into a flame, and set it carefully in its holder. She could think of no prayer
except “Please, Lord,” which she whispered to herself.

In a moment she felt the earl’s hand on her shoulder.
He stood there beside her and then briefly touched her cheek with his. The
tears started in her eyes as she followed him to the pew Alistair already
occupied.

If there was a sermon, Marian did not hear it. The
priest’s words were a pleasant blur that reached her across a great distance.
She sat nestled close to Lord Ingraham, enjoying his warmth and fighting to
keep her eyes open. Alistair had already succumbed to sleep. He was gently
snoring on her other side, and the temptation was great to follow his example.
It had been an exhausting day, which had followed an even longer night. She
thought of her mother, and Percy and Ariadne, and herring and Cossacks and
innkeepers, until her mind was a muddle and she wished only for bed.

“Wake up, brat.” The earl prodded her to her feet and
pulled her after him to the front of the church.

The sharp, choking smell of incense shook the fog from
her brain, and she was fully awake again, taking in the greenery that banked
the altar and Christmas colors of the altar cloth. Obediently she knelt beside
him and waited for Communion.

The priest came quickly down the altar railing, dipping
the wafers in the wine, murmuring, and passing on to the next parishioner. He
moved swiftly, competently, and then he came to the earl.

“The body of Christ,” he whispered, and looked down at
Gilbert Ingraham. He paused then, and Marian looked up.

There was no shock in the priest’s eyes, but only
wonder. Silently Marian blessed him. The priest gave him Communion, but he did
not move on. For a moment that seemed to stretch out and fill the whole church,
he placed his hand on Lord Ingraham’s head. “Welcome home, my lord,” he finally
murmured.

The earl’s cheeks were streaked with tears. Marian
longed to tuck her arm through his, but it was her turn for Communion. The
priest continued down the row, and those at the altar rose to their feet.

The chapel was a blur. Marian could only follow the
earl down the central aisle, her hands clasped together, thumb over thumb. When
he turned in, she followed blindly and dropped to her knees, even as he did.
She was dimly aware that the woman already seated in the pew next to him went
to her knees.

Marian rested her forehead against the cool wood, worn
smooth and shiny by centuries of petitions. She added her own wordless plea and
sat back on her heels.

Lord Ingraham still knelt beside her, his arms around
the woman kneeling beside him in the pew. Where was Alistair? With a start
Marian realized that they had not returned to the back row, but knelt in
another pew, one much closer to the altar, a pew of privilege. She scarcely
breathed as the earl held the woman in a wordless embrace.

Marian could see little of her, except for the
salt-and-pepper gray hair that peeked from under a bonnet both sober and
expensive. The woman’s hands were locked tightly together across his broad
back, the knuckles white, as if she did not wish to let him go ever again.

A connonading from the guns of Napoleon’s Grand Armee would
have been insufficient to awake Marian Wynswich Christmas morning. Had the
little general rooted his entire artillery directly below the second-story
window on the Royal Crescent and ordered his men to fire on Marian Wynswich’s
window until she crawled to the sill and waved a white flag, it would have been
a fruitless effort. As it was, she surrendered to hot buttered toast, placed
quietly on the bedside table.

Oh, heavenly smell. Marian sniffed and tried at first
to burrow deeper into the feather pillow that smelled so divinely of lavender.
But lavender is not toast. She opened her eyes and looked into smiling eyes
very like Gilbert Ingraham’s.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, blinking against the sunlight that
streamed through the delicate lace curtains and landed on the bed like a
benediction, after the snow of yesterday.

“Merry Christmas, my dear,” said the woman, who sat
with her hands folded neatly in her lap. “I would have wagered that you would
not have wakened for hours yet, but Gilbert told me to save my breath to cool
my porridge. He insisted that the application of toast and eggs—and plenty of
them—would bring you around.” She laughed softly. “It appears that he is right,
Marian. May I call you Marian?”

Marian nodded and sat up in bed. “Yes, of course,” she
said automatically as her eyes went to the well-laden breakfast tray on the
table. “And you must be Gil’s—Lord Ingraham’s mother.”

“I claim that rare privilege,” she said. “I am Gilbert’s
much tried and put-upon mother.” She placed the breakfast tray across Marian’s
lap, eyeing the gruel, bacon, eggs, toast, and tea dubiously. “I told him it
was too much, considering that in only a few hours we will attempt a family
Christmas dinner, but he told me you were equal to it.”

“Well, I am,” said Marian calmly. “I should be
embarrassed, I suppose, but I am hungry.”

Lady Ingraham took a cup of tea off the tray and seated
herself again. “You do not mind if I keep you company?”

Marian shook her head and took a bite of toast. She
rolled her eyes and Lady Ingraham laughed. The older woman sat back in her
chair and sipped her tea while Marian made rapid inroads on the meal before
her.

By the time she finished the eggs and bacon, Marian had
looked up several times at Lady Ingraham, and she liked what she saw; a trim
lady with delicate features, enormous blue eyes, and Gil’s salt-and-pepper
hair. She was older than Marian would have thought, but her back was straight,
her head erect.

“You are wondering how Gilbert came to have such an
aged mother?” Lady Ingraham asked at last as she set down her cup.

Marian blushed. “I did wonder that.” she admitted, and
then added hastily, “but surely it is not my business.”

The woman shrugged. “Perhaps it is. How are we to know?
Let me say that Gilbert is my youngest child by many years. Indeed, his father
and I had entered into that time of life when an expected baby causes smirks in
men’s clubs and lady friends to look askance. I was remarkably
enceinte
at my eldest daughter’s
come-out in London. Goodness, what a Season.”

Marian laughed.

“And so, when most of my childhood friends were contemplating
the blessing of occasional, widely spaced visits from grandchildren. I was
collecting tadpoles in ponds and pulling Gilbert out of trees.” She smiled at
the memory. “I would not have traded a moment of it.”

She removed the tray from Marian’s lap and placed it
outside the door. “And now, my dear, I must thank you . . .” Her voice
faltered. “Thank you for returning my son to me.” She sat down again and took
Marian by the hand. “I was so sure I had raised a son of great intelligence.
How could he even think for a moment that he would suddenly become repugnant?”
She touched her hand to her forehead. “What time we vain creatures waste! My
dear. I cannot begin to repay the debt I owe you.”

“No payment required,” Marian said softly as tears
started in her eyes. “It was merely a Christmas wish that came true.”

Lady Ingraham dabbed her eyes. “Well, I wondered what
Gilbert meant when he alluded to that last night, only he called it a pudding
wish. He described how your brother got him drunk and onto that mail coach.”

Marian silently blessed Lord Ingraham for fudging that
infamous detail. “I was so distressed with Alistair. I assure you, madam, but
the opportunity! How could we pass it up?”

“Indeed!” Lady Ingraham laughed and Marian joined in.

There was a quick knock, and the door opened. “Marian,
when you laugh like that, I know the pangs of hunger have been assuaged and it
is safe to enter. But only with your permission.”

Lady Ingraham looked him up and down. “You know you
should not! Where are your manners?”

He laughed. “I left them with my luggage in Devon, ma’am, where all good manners go to die! Humor me. It is Christmas.”

“So it is.” Lady Ingraham agreed in a softer voice. She
looked at Marian. “Do we allow him entrance?”

“If he behaves,” said Marian.

“Very well, sir. You have heard the terms.”

Marian straightened her bedcap and tucked the coverlet
around her. “Gilbert, how grand you look. H’mmm, and you smell so divine.”

He grinned and came closer, barely brushing her cheek
with his. “Do you like it? Mama tells me that a little splash of this on my
face will get me whatever I want.”

Lord Ingraham did look better than she remembered. His
face was shaved, his hair trimmed, his shirtpoints well-starched, his trousers
impeccable. He winked at her and tugged on her hair that peeked out from under
her bedcap, and Marian’s heart flopped.

Ah, God, heartburn. Have I finally eaten too much? she
thought.

“What? What? No takers on my comment?” he quizzed.

“No, indeed,” Marian replied. “You are much too
indulged already. Sir, where is my brother?”

“Alistair is sleeping the sleep of the innocent,
something he rarely does, I am convinced,” said Lord Ingraham. “And when he
awakes, I will present him with a list of required clothing and accoutrements
for St. Stephen’s, and the direction of my Bath tailor, which should occupy him
fully on the morrow. And by the way, my dears,” he added. “The road east is at
least partially open. I expect Louisa and her brood to pile in here at any
moment.” He heard a noise in the hall and stuck his head out the door. “And it
looks like the maids have come with a tin tub. Marian, I bid you farewell.”

“One moment, sir,” she said. “Did you carry me up here
last night? I really don’t remember anything.”

“I thought it was a kind gesture when you practically
fell out of your chair in Mama’s parlor. And, I might add, you behaved in a
totally ladylike manner.”

Marian blushed.

Lord Ingraham bowed to his mother and edged out the
door as the maids entered. He paused on the threshold. “One more thing. I wrote
to Percy and your mother this morning, using all my diplomatic arts. I trust we
will brush through this. Delivered the letter in person to the Post. The mail
coach will be running south by noon, they tell me.” He blew Marian an air kiss
and left.

Lady Ingraham had watched the exchange between her son
and Marian. “I do not know what magic you have been working on my son, but I
assure you, it is welcome.” She went to the window. “The last time I saw him
was at least two years ago, and he was not smiling then. So preoccupied.” Lady
Ingraham paused a moment, absorbed in her own thoughts. “There are times when I
wish he would abandon the diplomatic corps, marry, and set up his nursery at
Collinwood. I seem to recall a young woman in London two years back
...”
She traced her finger down the steamy
pane of glass. “But these are trying times, are they not, my dear?” She
remained at the window in thought for another moment, then blew a kiss to
Marian and left the room.

The maids left a can of hot water by the side of the
tub, and Marian made it last a long time, pouring a little in, and then a
little more, until she had stretched her bath out and her skin was quite
wrinkled. She sat in contemplation of her knees until she heard a carriage and
horses draw up in front of the house, followed by the sound of knocking. She
listened, a smile on her face, as she heard a woman shriek, and then the earl
laughing. That is Gil’s sister, she thought, and she has just discovered that
he is home.

Marian felt a sudden longing to be home herself, back
with Lady Wynswich and her crotchets, and Ariadne. She rested her chin on her
knees and closed her eyes. There was a wedding to plan. An unexpected twinge of
envy gripped her, and she sat up to the fact that the bathwater was getting
cold, and she was woolgathering.

While she was drying herself, the maid scratched on the
door and tumbled another scuttle of coal on the fire. She was followed by Lady
Ingraham’s dresser, who placed two dresses on the bed.

Marian sighed with pleasure. The one on top was the
kind of dress she only would have dreamed about, simple and butter yellow, with
long sleeves and a high neck. A row of the most exquisite lace peeped from
wristbands and hem. Marian looked at the dresser, a question in her eyes.

“Lady Ingraham has set aside several dresses for her
niece to carry to London for the Season. These two will not be missed.” She
leaned closer and continued in conspiratorial fashion. “And I do not scruple to
add that Lady Elizabeth hasn’t the coloring for either dress. She would
disappear, totally vanish, in yellow.”

“Oh, please thank Lady Ingraham for me,” Marian said.
She wrapped the towel tighter around her and touched the yellow dress, her eyes
wide with delight.

The dresser draped a paisley shawl on the bed. “In case
you get cold,” she said brusquely. “I don’t require two.”

“Thank you,” Marian said as the dresser nodded and
swept from the room.

Thoughtfully, Marian pulled on the undergarments that
had been left with the dress. The frock was a trifle long and a shade wide, but
by the time she arranged the sash about her middle, pleating here and there, no
one but the sharpest-eyed dressmaker would have given it a thought.

The dresser returned later, and arranged Marian’s long
hair on top of her head. “You are so short, this will give you a little height.
Too sad there is not a curl to be seen,” the dresser scolded, and then looked
in the mirror at her handiwork. “Of course, yours is not a face that needs the
distraction of curls to take away from some defect of nature.”

It sounded like a compliment, but Marian was not sure. “Miss,
tell me,” she ventured timidly, “who is below?”

“Lord and Lady Hammerfield and their several children.”
the dresser replied, “and they are probably romping about the best parlor and
upsetting things. Not Lord and Lady Hammerfield, of course.”

Marian smiled but said nothing.

“Lady Hammerfield is Lord Ingraham’s older sister. She
lives to the east of Bath.”

“Has he other sisters and brothers?”

“No brothers. He has another sister slightly younger
than Lady Hammerfield, who is visiting the Irish estates with her husband and
children this season.” She fiddled another moment with Marian’s hair and leaned
closer. “Lady Hammerfield is harmless enough, but do look out for Lord
Hammerfield. He has a cutting tongue.”

Mystified, Marian looked in the mirror. Her eyes met the
dresser’s. “I will say all that is proper.”

“The less the better around Lord H.,” the dresser said.
“Well, I expect you will do now. Mind that you drape that shawl about your
shoulders.” With no more conversation, the dresser left the room.

Marian turned back to the mirror. She felt a slight
chill already. She shrugged it off and touched her hair. It wouldn’t have done
to have told the dresser that her mother had never yet allowed her to pile her
hair on top of her head that way. It made her look much older. Seventeen, at
least.

She took a deep breath and left the room, wishing that
Alistair was close by to hang on to, wondering how to make her entrance in a
roomful of strangers. She nearly turned and fled back upstairs, but Washburn
awaited her at the foot of the stairs.

He bowed. “Miss Wynswich, follow me, please,” he
directed, and left her with no avenue of escape. He ushered her into the
parlor, and all eyes turned in her direction. Marian gulped and crossed the
threshold, looking about her for support.