Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand (12 page)

Impulsively she touched his sleeve, then drew her hand away, embarrassed at her forwardness. "I'm sorry," she said simply. "It's hard to let go, isn't it?"

She cried then, leaning back in the chair and letting the tears slide down her cheeks. To her relief, Lord Winn said nothing, but let her cry in peace. He left the parlor in a moment, and she heard him supervising her daughters in the breakfast room. She dried her eyes, blew her nose, and settled more comfortably in the chair. Her eyes closed and she slept.

When she woke, the house was quiet, and the fire much lower in the grate. She looked around in surprise, and saw Lord Winn in the other chair again. "Goodness, what time is it?" she asked, sitting up in alarm.

"Nearly midnight, Mrs. Drew," he said. "Meggie and I put the girls to bed. Lissy cut up a bit stiff because I did not carry you up to bed and tuck you in, too, but I assured her you would rather not wake up that way."

Roxie chuckled. "Trust Lissy to worry. You could have at least wakened me for dinner,"

He shrugged. "Why? You needed a nap."

"Why, indeed?" she agreed. "Do you think there is any food left?"

"Mrs. Drew, I made you a sandwich, and found a bottle of ale from somewhere, if that won't disturb your gentility."

She laughed as he went to the kitchen and returned with the sandwich and a dark brown bottle.

"Do you require a glass?"

"Of course, my lord! I am not dead to propriety," she teased, and accepted the glass that he pulled out from behind his back.

The sandwich was delicious. "I am always amazed that sandwiches taste better when someone else fixes them," she said between bites.

"You should try my horse meat on a stick over a cow dung fire," he said. "You don't even need seasoning."

She laughed again and he joined her, after taking a swig from her bottle of ale. "You are a man of many talents. Lord Winn!" she exclaimed.

"Oh, I am," he agreed affably, putting his booted feet on the footstool again. "I've decided to go to Clarice's for Christmas," he said, changing the subject. "She's not too far from here, but far enough from Amabel, who, by the way, wished me to Hades in her last letter."

"Your sisters!" she said. "Of course, I am certain you wrote Amabel a perfectly gentlemanly letter explaining why you did not choose to entertain the Etheringhams and their daughter," she continued, trying to keep the amusement from her voice.

"Of course!" he stated in mock seriousness. "How could you doubt it? I only mentioned casually that I would not stud for the Etheringhams to cut Lettice's son out of my succession. I do not understand why she took offense at that."

Roxanna rolled her eyes, grateful that the gloom in the sitting room hid the color that she felt rush to her cheeks. "Lord Winn! You are a trial to your sisters!"

"Yes, ain't I?" he agreed cheerfully.

"You know, you could always fall in love again and marry," she commented as she finished her sandwich and set the plate on the floor. "What then?"

He was a long time in replying. "I doubt marriage is possible," he said finally as he stood up to leave. He bowed over her hand. "Mrs. Drew, go to bed. Tell Helen we will go riding in two days. I'll leave Christmas Eve morning for Clarice's place."

She walked him to the door. "Very well, sir! We will take good care of Moreland while you are gone."

He paused in the doorway, his overcoat half on. "By the way, I have taken the liberty of purchasing presents for your daughters."

She started to protest, and he put his finger to her lips.

"A riding crop for Helen and some rather pretty barrettes for Lissy. That is completely unexceptionable, Mrs. Drew."

"Well ..." she stalled.

"All you need to do is say 'Thank you, Lord Winn, you shouldn't have,' and leave it at that." He shrugged into his coat.

"Thank you, Lord Winn, you shouldn't have," she repeated.

He winked at her and closed the door.

She shook her head and climbed the stairs. "Telling his sister he wouldn't be a stud . ..," she muttered as she opened her bedroom door. "Brothers are a dreadful trial."

Roxanna saw Lord Winn only briefly in the next two days, and then from the window as he rode out to Retling Beck with Tibbie and his solicitor. They must have returned long after she finished chipping paint for the day, and by then she was involved in the Christmas baking she had been putting off and did not think about him much.

At any rate, she tried not to, but this was rendered difficult by the discovery of a large goose on her doorstep the following morning. Lissy stared at the plucked and bound bird and looked up at the sky, her eyes big. Roxanna turned away to avoid laughing at her daughter. "My dear, I think it may be a gift from Lord Winn," she said, when she could speak.

Lissy nodded. "Not from heaven?" she asked.

"Well, not precisely, my dear! Here, help me carry it in."

Lissy's "goose from heaven" found its way to Meggie in the kitchen, and then onto the cold side porch with the other perishables she had baked earlier.

"It will be cookies today, girls," Roxanna announced to her daughters over porridge. "Your favorite kind."

Helen looked up from her bowl, her eyes troubled. "Papa's, too?" she asked. "Please, Mama, I don't want to forget him," she burst out when Roxanna hesitated.

Helen pushed back her chair and ran from the room. Roxanna bit her lip, poured the rest of her oats into Lissy's bowl, and followed Helen upstairs. The door was closed, so she knocked on it quietly, and then entered.

Helen lay on her side, facing the window, staring out at the bleak landscape. Roxanna sat beside her, rubbing her back as Helen cried. "I thought I would like Christmas," she said at last after she blew her nose on the handkerchief Roxanna held out to her. "Why is it so hard this year?"

Roxanna leaned against the headboard. "Helen, I think it is hard because we want to remember Papa, and we want to go on, at the same time."

Helen looked at her through red, swollen eyes. "Will it be any easier next year?" she asked as she rested her head in her mother's lap.

"I suppose we won't know until next year, my dear," Roxanna said honestly. "We won't ever forget Papa, but I suspect our feelings will change and mellow."

Helen was silent. Roxanna hugged her close, looking forward to the dark and cold of January as never before. "My dear, we will make those cookies with almond paste that Papa liked so well. I wish we could gather holly and greens like we used to, but we don't have a gig."

Helen blew her nose again and managed a watery smile. "Oh, it will be all right if we just have the cookies. And will we read from the Bible on Christmas Eve?"

Roxanna smiled at her daughter, because she knew it was expected of her. "I don't see how we can possibly avoid it!" she teased, keeping her voice light. "Now you wash your face, and we'll go downstairs and start on the cookies." She gave Helen a little pat. "Didn't you promise to go riding with Lord Winn this afternoon?"

Helen nodded. "Five Pence needs the exercise."

"Five Pence?" Roxanna asked. "You finally named your pony?"

"Lord Winn did, Mama," Helen said from the depths of a washcloth. "He said my pony was as fine as five pence. He's almost as good at naming as you, Mama."

The morning was devoted to cookies, and the whole dower house smelled divinely when Lord Winn rapped on the door that afternoon for Helen. He stepped inside the house when Roxanna opened the door, took a deep breath, and staggered back against the doorsill while Felicity laughed and clapped her hands. Even Helen grinned, to Roxanna's relief.

He took Helen by the shoulder. "My dear, you cannot possibly expect me to take you riding without a little restorative. I'd like at least one of each of those smells, please."

She and Felicity hurried off to the kitchen for some cookies as Lord Winn watched them go, an appreciative smile on his face. "Charming," he murmured. "Mrs. Drew, you and the late vicar are to be congratulated on your offspring."

"Why, thank you!" she exclaimed. "Now, you will eat with us tonight? I know Mrs. Howell has left for Darlington already."

He bowed and accepted promptly as the girls returned. He scooped up a handful of the cookies Helen held out to him. "Come, my dear. Our horses are turning into hay burners. Race you?"

They returned just as dinner was ready. Roxanna spooned up bowls of potato soup, Lord Winn said grace this time, and they began dinner. Lord Winn ate in silence, then held out his bowl for more.

"Mrs. Drew, Helen has informed me that the sitting room is quite bare without greenery," he said as he lifted his spoon again. "I have advised her that we will take the gig on that road toward Whitcomb tomorrow morning for holly and whatever else appeals to us."

Roxanna looked at him in surprise. "But you're leaving for your sister's tomorrow, aren't you?"

"Well, I was," he temporized, dipping a chunk of bread in the soup. "I rather think the greenery is more important than an early start. Clarice can wait a few hours for my scintillating appearance."

"Very well," Roxanna said dubiously. "I wish we were not such a chore to you." He opened his mouth to speak and she interrupted. "And this is
not
in the Latin charter!"

"My dear, I didn't know you had read it," he said smoothly, then returned to the soup.

'it really is a trouble to you," she said later as he came downstairs from telling the girls good night.

"Not at all, Mrs. Drew," he insisted, and gently took her by the elbow to steer her into the parlor. "Helen needs to have some continuity right now."

Roxanna went to the window and stared out at the darkness.

"She was feeling in the dumps this morning about forgetting her papa."

"So she told me."

She turned around to face the marquess. "I seem to get deeper into your debt each day. But we do need to gather greens tomorrow." She hesitated. "I feel it, too."

He nodded and picked up his overcoat. "Excellent, Mrs. Drew! How pleasant you look when you do not argue with me!" He was gone with another wink, and she had no time to feel sorry for herself.

They didn't leave before afternoon, because Lord Winn discovered another paper he had to sign at Retling Beck to secure the sale of that manor. When he returned with a gig, they piled in and left Meggie waving at the front door and giving all manner of cold-weather advice that no one remembered.

It was almost too cold to talk. "We'll keep this short," he assured her as he reined in on the Whitcomb road. "Mrs. Drew, if you would oblige me by driving this horse up the lane and then back, the girls and I will hunt the wild holly. Come, Felicity."

He tucked Felicity, shrieking, under one arm, and broke a trail through the snow for Helen, as Roxanna sat in the gig, blessed him, and wiggled her toes to keep them warm. I wish you would not leave, she thought. It's too cold and I will worry. Then she scolded herself for being a ninny. Roxie, he crossed the Pyrenees on foot once with a starving army, she told herself. Surely he is beforehand enough to negotiate the distance to his sister's estate without coming up against disaster.

She took the horse and gig up and down the lane twice before they returned with a burlap sack bulging with greenery. It was a tight fit in the back now for Helen, so Felicity sat on her lap for the return journey. In a moment Lissy was asleep, her face turned into Roxanna's warmth. The marquess glanced at her. Roxanna flashed him her most appreciative smile.

"I'll leave right away and spend the night in Wisner. I'll be at Clarice's by the middle of tomorrow afternoon," he said, still looking at her.

I wonder why he does that? she thought, then took his arm to point out the fact that the gig was wandering from the road. I know I am not a beauty. He must be lonelier than he lets on. She stared ahead, hoping that Clarice would find one or two interesting women to drop in on Boxing Day, for her brother's benefit.

"Well, are you expecting company?" Lord Winn asked as they approached the dower house.

She looked at the horse, blanketed and miserable, tied to a tree in the dower house yard, and shook her head. "I can't imagine anyone who would visit on Christmas Eve. Come, girls, let's see who our company is."

"The horse looks familiar," Lord Winn said. He stopped the gig and jumped down to help Roxanna with Felicity. Helen pulled the burlap bag from the back and accepted a hand down. "I think I will help Helen with the bag, if you don't mind."

"You're just nosy, my lord," Roxanna teased, "wanting to know who visits a widow on Christmas Eve!"

"Guilty as charged," he said cheerfully.

Helen and Felicity ran ahead, calling to Meggie to hurry with the string and shears to create a wreath, and Roxanna came more slowly. The marquess closed the door behind them. She came into the parlor, shaking the snow off her cloak.

She did not recognize the man who sat on her sofa, but he leaped up the moment she entered the room, and then looked in surprise at Lord Winn, who followed her in.

"Lord Winn! I was told ... I thought you were gone for the holiday," he said as he tugged a wax-stamped document from his overcoat pocket.