A Winter Scandal (26 page)

She went to the window and parted the drapes, gazing out into the night. The snow cast back an almost bluish light under the glow of the moon. Thea looked past the trees to the church. Beyond it somewhere lay the Priory. She wondered what Gabriel was doing now and whether he thought of her.

It would not be the same for him, of course. The things she felt—the wonder, the pleasure, the aching sense of loss at his absence. It was not his first time; he was doubtless well accustomed to the pleasures that were so new for her. Anyway, she had always heard that it was different for men. They could feel desire and lust for a woman without any sort of affection. She was not fool enough to think that Gabriel loved her—not, of course, that she loved him, either. She did not.

Did she?

Thea moved restlessly away from the window, letting the draperies fall back together. She did not love Gabriel. She could not. It was absurd. She had known him only weeks, after all, and even though he was a far better man than she had first thought, even though he was charming and handsome and the three of them had seemed almost like a family back there at the kidnapper’s cottage, none of that meant that she
loved
him. She did not.

Did she?

Thea awakened to the pealing
of the church bells. She smiled as she lay there, her heart rising within her. The unease she had experienced the evening before was gone in the pale golden light of Christmas morning. Raising up on one elbow, she glanced over the side of her bed. Matthew was awake in his basket, all covers kicked off, babbling to himself as he played with his toes.

She slipped out of bed and opened the draperies and stood for a long moment, admiring the way the sun sparkled on the snow. Humming, she went to the dresser and pulled out a brown wool round gown. If she handed Matthew over to Lolly to feed and dress, she might be able to tack on the blond lace she had bought at the haberdashery in Bynford last week, which would make the gown look much more festive.

Thea left for the Christmas service an hour later, well pleased with her efforts. The color of the dress was still dull, but the bits of lace at the high collar and cuffs softened it nicely. She had not put her hair in its usual braided crown, but had pinned it up in a cascade of curls at the crown of her head, leaving the shorter curls in front to feather around her face.

A defiant imp inside her was tempted to take the baby to church, but after a brief struggle, her more reasonable nature won out. Matthew had already been exposed to a great deal of poor weather, and she was lucky that he had not fallen ill. It seemed to be tempting fate to drag him out in the cold again, just to show that she did not care about the village gossip. So, leaving him in the warm kitchen under the watchful eye of Lolly and Mrs. Brewster, as well as that of Peter, she donned her cloak and bonnet and sallied forth to join the other worshippers.

Thea felt rather proud of her brother, who had not only written a good sermon, but also delivered the words he had written with more feeling, she thought, than was his wont. Apparently Daniel was of the same opinion, for he was in a merry mood after church. He set himself to his traditional task of preparing the wassail bowl while Thea helped Mrs. Brewster and Lolly in the kitchen.

Sometime later, a knock sounded at the front door, and Thea opened it to find Damaris standing on the front stoop with Lord Rawdon. Her face must have registered her surprise, for Damaris smiled and offered an explanation: “Lord Rawdon and I met as I was coming up High Street. Imagine our surprise when we discovered we had the same goal in mind.”

Damaris’s large blue eyes were sparkling, and Thea wondered whether it was from amusement or irritation. As she remembered, Lord Rawdon had been rather rude to Damaris when they had met the other day. Of course, he had been rather rude to everyone, Thea reflected. She hoped she had not made a mistake in inviting him.

Daniel, too, appeared somewhat wary as he greeted Rawdon, but when the man offered him a bottle of the inn’s best brandy, Daniel thawed a good deal and invited Rawdon back to his study to sample some of the drink. Thea took Damaris’s pelisse and muff and led her into the sitting room, where the Yule log was still burning merrily.

“I nearly swallowed my tongue when Lord Rawdon told me he was coming here,” Damaris said quietly, leaning in closer to Thea. “Whatever possessed you to invite him?”

“I’m not sure. Daniel was rather taken aback by it as well. But I—it just seemed the proper thing to do on Christmas. Was he rude to you?”

Damaris considered the idea for a moment, then shook her head somewhat tentatively. “Not rude, really. It’s just—his eyes are so cold and, I don’t know, watchful. I haven’t the slightest notion what he’s thinking, which is a bit annoying. There is something about him that makes me want to take him down a peg.” She chuckled. “Terrible of me, I’m sure.”

“He is arrogant, there’s no denying that. But I think perhaps he may not be quite the villain Gabriel believes him to be.” Thea related the story of Matthew’s abduction and Lord Rawdon’s attempt to help.

“He rode out in that storm to look for him?” Damaris raised her eyebrows. “That is impressive, especially given the way Lord Morecombe feels about him.” She paused. “Do you think he is not the baby’s father?”

“I don’t know. It is hard to escape the similarity of their coloring, but, as he pointed out, there are other men with blond hair and blue eyes, and Matthew’s hair is not quite as pale as Lord Rawdon’s. Nor are his eyes the same shade of blue.”

“Few are. Rawdon’s are like ice.” Damaris gave a little shiver. “And, of course, babies’ eyes often change color as they grow older.”

“Last night, when Lord Rawdon looked at the baby, there was something in his eyes. Not affection, really, but more sorrow, perhaps, or loneliness. I’m not sure; it was quite fleeting, and perhaps I am refining too much on it. But I felt it would be wrong of me to let him sit at the inn alone on Christmas after he had tried to help us find Matthew.”

“Quite right, I’m sure. But tell me the rest of it. I presume you must have found the babe.”

“Yes, and took him away from the dreadful man who abducted him. But the man escaped.”

“Thank heavens you were able to find him and bring him back in that storm.”

“Yes, it was quite fortunate.” Thea decided not to correct her friend’s assumption that they had returned with the baby during the storm. She trusted Damaris to keep her secret; there was no one she trusted more. But she found that she did not want to reveal anything about her time with Gabriel, not even to her dearest friend. She simply wanted to keep this close to her heart.

The meal went off more smoothly than Thea had expected. While the two men had been sampling the brandy and the wassail, Daniel had discovered that Lord Rawdon’s ancestral home was not far from Hadrian’s Wall. There were, Daniel told them, his gray eyes sparkling, even remains of a Roman fort on Rawdon’s property. That had been enough to establish the Earl as a valued guest in the vicar’s eyes.

They had barely finished eating and were still sitting at the table, talking, when a cannonade of noises erupted in the street outside.

“What in—” Rawdon’s eyebrows arched.

Thea chuckled. “I think the children must be parading.”

“The children?”

“Yes. Do they not do this in your town? On Christmas, all the children go through the streets banging on drums—or pots or whatever they can get their hands on to make a fine noise. Usually they do it earlier in the morning. Perhaps the weather slowed them down.”

She went to the window, and the others joined her to watch the children rattling by in a ragged procession. The boy in front carried a much-worn little drum strapped around his neck, and he beat it with more enthusiasm than rhythm. Behind him, in more or less a line, children hopped and skipped, some tooting little horns, others banging away on drums and pans with sticks or their hands or whatever they happened to have. They made their way down to the church and started back up the road.

“It is almost time for the morris dancers,” Thea said.

“Do they dance here?” Rawdon asked.

“Yes, on the road in front of the church. There’s room, you see, for people to stand and watch here by the churchyard,” Daniel explained.

“Well.” Lord Rawdon offered a faint smile. “We certainly should not want to miss this.”

They all bundled up and went outside, including Lolly and the baby and their guard, Peter, who had been having their own Christmas feast in the kitchen with Mrs. Brewster and her husband. Outside they found a number of villagers who had already congregated in the area in front of the bridge to the church, and more people were arriving by the moment, gathering on either side of the road. Thea greeted several people she knew and waved to others who were too far away to speak to.

Thea glanced over at Lord Rawdon, who was standing a little apart from the rest of them, a faintly bemused look on his face. Thea wondered what he was thinking. Thea turned to check on Lolly and Matthew, as she had been doing every few minutes since the family came outside. She wondered how long it would take for her to get rid of the worry that Matthew would suddenly disappear.

A ragged cheer arose from the crowd, and Thea glanced up the road toward the center of town. A group of men were marching toward them along the road, all wearing white, full-sleeved shirts and bright green vests. Green ribbons were tied around their upper arms, the loose ends fluttering. More green ribbons, as well as a band of jangling bells, were tied just above the knees of their breeches. Each man carried a short staff. Despite the cold, none wore jackets. They had been, Thea was sure, fortifying themselves with alcohol at the inn and perhaps at homes along the way, and they were well warmed. When the dance was over, Thea knew that Daniel would offer them refreshment from his own wassail bowl.

The dancers acknowledged the crowd’s cheers with friendly shouts and waves of their cudgels. They formed two lines, and as three of their compatriots played a lilting tune on pipes and a drum, the men started their traditional dance. They danced forward and back, stamping their feet and knocking their staffs against the ground and against each other’s staff, all in an intricate arrangement of steps. The infectious enthusiasm in their movements, cheerful and noisy, was hard to resist. When Thea glanced at Lord Rawdon, she saw that even he was smiling.

She was glad she had invited him. The day was turning out better than she had hoped. If only … but, no, she told herself firmly, she would not take away from her happy mood by thinking about how Gabriel was not here to share the day with her.

Just as she thought it, Thea glanced up and saw an elegant carriage making its way down the street, driven by a coachman in full livery. Only one party around here could be arriving in such a fine equipage, she knew, and Thea’s heart swelled in her chest. Gabriel was here.

Gabriel awoke on Christmas morning
and reached for Thea before he remembered that he was back at the Priory in his own bed. He had spent only one night with her, yet it seemed unnatural that she was not there by his side, warm and soft. He closed his eyes, waiting for his heart to slow down and his blood to settle from the heated dream he had been having. It had involved Thea, of course, and it was better not to remember it too closely or he would find himself in a sorry state to start the morning.

He swung out of bed and rang for his valet, hoping that movement would help dispel his thoughts of Thea. Ridiculous as it seemed, he had been feeling as if something were missing ever since he’d left her at the vicarage the night before. He had gone upstairs to his room last night as soon as he returned, having no desire to see any of the others or explain what had happened. But once he had bathed and changed and lain down, he had found himself curiously unable to sleep. The problem, he knew, was that he missed having Thea in bed beside him.

Even stranger was that the feeling was still there this morning. He decided to drive over to see her after breakfast, then remembered that it was Christmas. She would be feasting with her family and friends. No doubt she would go to church this morning; she was the vicar’s sister, after all. Any call he made on her would have to wait until this afternoon. He wondered if it would cause gossip in the village if he called on her on Christmas Day. He was beginning to think that almost anything he did would cause gossip in the village.

His valet brought tea and toast to ward off Gabriel’s hunger until the feasting began. Gabriel ate, staring out the window toward the ruins of the abbey in the distance, then shaved and dressed in the clothes Barts had laid out for him. He glanced at his watch after he attached it to his vest and was appalled to see how little time had passed. The day was going to prove endless, he feared.

He had slept late, and dressing was a long process, made even more so by his valet’s obsessive attempt to tie Gabriel’s neckcloth in a perfect and intricate arrangement of Barts’s own devising. Barts’s earnest and heartfelt desire was to create a new style of tying a neckcloth, one that would equal or surpass all others, and which he would have the satisfaction of naming. Their visit to the country had allowed him the opportunity to experiment without having to expose his creations to the criticisms of the polite world, and he had indulged himself upon every occasion when Gabriel did not balk at the lengthy procedure. Today Gabriel had given him free rein, intent only on passing the time until he could reasonably call on Thea.

Therefore it was almost noon when he made his way downstairs, and he found that his friends had already started imbibing their holiday cheer. He was immediately bombarded with questions about what had happened the other night when Miss Bainbridge had appeared in the middle of the night, forcefully pounding on the front door. Alan and Myles, having been absent during the scene itself, had heard about it in great detail the next day, and all of them, it seemed, had spent Christmas Eve speculating on what had happened to Gabriel.