Marian's Christmas Wish (22 page)

He raised his hand to her. “Until later,” he said.

Marian climbed the stairs slowly. Halfway up to the
first landing, she stopped and looked back, wishing for a moment that he would
follow her. And what would you do, then? she asked herself. Don’t you even
consider it, Marian Wynswich, was her next thought.

She knew she would not sleep the remainder of that
night, and she did not, but lay on her back, hands folded across her stomach,
staring at the ceiling. She heard Alistair and the earl talking quietly to each
other as they came upstairs later, and then their doors closed.

The old house creaked and settled, and she thought she
heard the whisper of snow outside. It wasn’t until the maid crept into her room
the next morning to start a fire in the grate that Marian rolled over and
allowed her eyes to close.

When she woke, it was bright midday. Marian sat up in
bed and looked about her. Everything was the same, and yet, somehow, it was
different. The lace curtains were more beautiful. Even the brass can of hot
water on the dressing table had a brighter shine to it. She got out of bed and
looked along the Royal Crescent. Snow had fallen, after all, but only enough to
dust the street. Servants from each great house were already at work sweeping
it away.

Marian watched them for a moment, resting her elbows on
the sill, allowing herself to think no great thoughts. Her mind, usually so
lively, was a curious blank, almost as if some hand had reached inside her head
and scooped it clean, leaving every thought to follow new and original, as if
it had never happened to anyone else before.

Her feet grew cold, and as she turned to hop into bed
again, she noticed a note was shoved under the door. Marian held her breath and
snatched it up from the floor before diving back into bed and ripping open the
envelope. She read the missive once and then twice: “Marian. Just trust me.
Ingraham.”

That was all. She turned it over. Nothing. “How
singular.” she said out loud. “I shall have to ask him about this.”

After another moment of contemplation among the feather
pillows, Marian rose and dressed. As she was washing her face, Marian wondered
what she would say to Lord Ingraham when she saw him. Thank the Lord it was
past the hour for breakfast. The thought of sitting down to bacon and eggs and
discussing the weather, or even books, with a man she had kissed in such wild
abandon only hours before, brought a rosy glow to her cheeks that no amount of
cool water would dash away. Ariadne would never have behaved in such hoydenish
fashion, Marian scolded herself, not even with the Reverend Beddoe.

Marian sat down on the bed and then flopped onto her back
again. I don’t think I was ever so swept away before by winning a chess game.
This is odd, indeed. I shall have to ask Lady Ingraham if her parlor fireplace
is drawing properly. Something obviously went to my head.

There was a brisk knock at the door. Her heart thrummed
a little faster for a second and then resumed its normal gait. Marian sat up
and smoothed down her dress. “Come in.”

Lady Ingraham entered. “Good morning, my dear. Washburn
saved you some breakfast downstairs. Hurry up and eat. I have been commissioned
to deliver Alistair to Broad Street to Gilbert’s tailor, and while he is
suffering at the hands of that exacting man, you and I will walk over a block
to Milsom and see what we see.”

“Cannot Gil take Alistair to his tailor?” Marian asked.

Lady Ingraham sighed. “My dear son is gone up to London. Just like that. He left directly after breakfast.”

Marian stared at Lady Ingraham. “He can’t be gone like
that!”

“Ah, but he is! He seemed in no very cheerful mood
either, and muttered something about business that could not be postponed.” She
sat down next to Marian. “I don’t understand it. He seemed almost bitter, as if
he hated what he was doing, and then he smiled at me in the oddest way and said
that he would return in a few days with a grand surprise.”

The women looked at each other, and Lady Ingraham
patted Marian. “I have given up attempting to divine the whys and wherefores of
the male sex. Whoever it was that thought women changeable obviously never had
any dealings with men.”

She hurried out. Marian finished dressing, pulling on
the clever little half-boots that Lady Ingraham had declared did not fit her
and left in Marian’s room the night before. She sat in thought until Lady
Ingraham called up the stairs for her to get cracking.

Breakfast was strangely tasteless. Marian eyed the cook’s
excellent sausage with suspicion, and left it on her plate. The egg went down
easily enough, but she barely savored its flavor.

Snow still sparked on the Common, which was the centerpiece
of the Royal Crescent. Other women were about in their carriages.

“The shops are open, Marian,” Lady Ingraham said, “mainly,
I think, so we will bestow gifts on the shopkeepers. Once we have relieved
ourselves of your brother, we will take a stroll down Milsom Street. I seem to
recall a particularly beautiful bolt of deep blue that would look becoming upon
your back.”

“Lady Ingraham, I cannot expect you to do that for me,”
Marian protested. “The two dresses you have given me and my own green wool are
enough. Besides, Alistair and I will be leaving quite soon.”

Lady Ingraham took immediate exception to this. “You
cannot. Gilbert made me promise to keep you here until his return. And so I
shall.”

They abandoned Alistair to the scant mercies of Lord
Ingraham’s tailor and continued to Milsom Street, where the stores were crowded
with after-Christmas shoppers. The blue wool was duly admired and purchased and
taken directly to Mme Bresson’s dress shop in the next street. Mme Bresson
herself took Marian’s measurements, exclaiming over her tiny waist and trim
figure, and promised to have the dress by New Year’s Eve.

“Do you plan a party, Lady Ingraham?” the dressmaker
asked.

“No. Just a quiet evening, I am sure. Isn’t that right,
Marian?”

“What? What? I am sorry, but I was not attending,”
Marian replied.

Wandering back to Milsom Street, Lady Ingraham led
Marian in and out of shops, trying on hats, considering gloves, and settling
finally on a pair of white silk stockings for Marian and a bottle of rose
water.

Alistair was waiting for them when they returned to the
tailor’s. He made a face as he left the shop. “Mare, you should see the student’s
robe for St. Stephen’s. I shall look like a monk. Marian, are you paying
attention?”

“Oh, I am sorry. Did you say something?” she asked,
startled by his elbow in her ribs. This will never do, Marian told herself. I
do not know what is the matter with me.

She spent the evening in front of the window, looking
out at the snow and tracing circles on the frosty pane. Lady Ingraham was
accumulating a list of clothing requests to forward to her son’s Bath tailor.

“I should have this delivered tomorrow,” Lady Ingraham
mused as she pored over the list, “for who knows when Gilbert will be off
directly to some new post?” She put down the list. “In fact, I have decided
that must be the big news that took him to London. I am sure of it. I wonder
where in the world he will go now?”

“Yes, where in the world?” echoed Marian. To her
chagrin, tears came to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Thankful that Lady
Ingraham was occupied with the list, Marian remained at the window until her
eyes were dry again. She joined her hostess finally and took up Lord Ingraham’s
copy of
The
Odyssey
she
had spirited from the library.

It had long been a favorite book, but she found her
attention wandering. She sat, book in her lap, staring into the fireplace,
which was drawing perfectly tonight. Marian looked once at the doorway, but the
maid must have removed the mistletoe.

The morrow brought two letters from Percy, one to Lord
Ingraham, which was taken to the bookroom to await the earl’s return, and the
other addressed to Marian, which ended up on the breakfast table. It was a letter
full of admonition and stern counsel. Alistair read through it and then tossed
it back to his sister with a shudder.

“One shouldn’t be subjected to sermonizing over eggs
and toast.”

“Perhaps not, Alistair,” said Marian slowly as she ran
down the closely written lines. “God knows we deserve it, I might add.”

Alistair sighed, but said nothing. He finished his
coffee in silence, and then took a closer look at his sister. “Mare? Are you
quite the thing? You look like your stomach hurts.’’ When she did not answer,
he pecked her on the cheek. “I am off with Surtees.”

As soon as Marian rose from the breakfast table, the
letter still in her hand, Lady Ingraham called for the carriage. “A drive will
be just the thing, Marian. Child, are you homesick? You’re so quiet!”

They drove to Milsom Street again, where Lady Ingraham
picked up a hat she had ordered before Christmas, and then drove out to the
parade grounds, which were almost bare of snow. “It is so lovely in the summer
to see the young ladies promenading about in their white muslins, eyeing the
soldiers in their regimentals.” Lady Ingraham touched Marian’s hand. “You will
return in the summer?”

In the summer I will be ensconced in the vicarage,
Marian thought as she gazed out the window. “Of course I shall,” she replied. “Only
think how diverting that will be.”

When they returned to the house, a package was lying on
the hall table. Washburn handed it to Marian. The handwriting was the same as
the note she had received yesterday. Her heart pounding, she tore off the brown
paper and held up a copy of
The Poetics.
A note was stuck in the pages. “The dealer was
completely out of those copies with Aristotle’s autograph,” it read. “Trust
this will suffice. Yours, Ingraham.”

Lady Ingraham looked over Marian’s shoulder at the
book. “I am glad he remembers his obligations. I was beginning to think he had
fled to London because you beat him at chess.”

Marian pleaded a headache that night, so Surtees and
Alistair escorted Lady Ingraham to a recital by an Italian soprano in the Upper
Assembly Rooms.

“After all, Mare, Surtees says I need to acquire a
little polish,” Alistair said as he squeezed his shoulders into the coat he had
borrowed from his new friend. “Although why I’ll need polish tacking back and
forth among the Caribbean islands, I’m sure I don’t know.”

Marian thanked him for his sacrifice on her behalf and
waved to them from the front door.

It was the truth; her head did ache. Marian dutifully
drank the headache powders that Lady Ingraham’s dresser bullied her into
taking, and then climbed in bed. She closed her eyes and willed herself to
sleep, but she could not.

The moon rose and shone in the bedroom window,
spreading across the bed. Marian threw back the covers and went to the window.
Wrapping herself in a shawl, she curled up in the window seat. Lord Ingraham’s
book was lying open by her feet. She picked it up, thumbing through the pages,
and suddenly realized that she was in love with Gilbert Ingraham.

So many idle thoughts had been flitting in and out of
her brain the last two days that she nearly chased that one away, too. But she
could not. It was there to stay. She loved Gilbert Ingraham, plain and simple.

The knowledge of her feelings, finally admitted,
covered Marian like a blanket warmed by the fireplace. She basked in the
feeling, smiling at the moon and laughing out loud. “Marian Wynswich, you are
such a fool,” she chided herself. “You’ve probably been in love with Gil ever
since he rescued your kittens from under Sir William’s bed!’’ It wasn’t until
Gilbert Ingraham had absented himself from her life that she realized half of
her was gone.

Marian cried a little then, sitting in the window seat,
and then hopped back in bed, her headache gone. She put her hands behind her
head and watched the moonlight cross the bed and creep up the wall. “Hurry
back, Gil,” she whispered and closed her eyes. “I have something so wonderful
to tell you.”

Marian felt better in the morning, full of energy
again, ready to joust with dragons. Marian, you are the luckiest woman alive,
she told herself as she danced about the room and then stopped in front of the
mirror. She looked deeper into her eyes. “Maybe I am prettier than I ever
thought.” she said. She felt beautiful, easily the most enchanting woman who
had ever lived.

“Marian! Are you about?”

It was Lady Ingraham, and her voice was tremulous with
excitement.