Authors: Father Christmas
* * *
Graceanne almost purred with pleasure on the sleigh ride home. “I think this was the nicest Christmas I’ve ever known, surely the best the boys have had. The pageant, their first snow, Christmas trees and sleigh rides, rocking horses and a puppy.”
“And a pen wipe.”
She laughed. “It’s the stuff dreams are made of, a memory they’ll cherish all their lives. I know I will. Thank you for making it so very magical.”
Her warm regard almost made up for that missed kiss under the mistletoe, Leland told himself. Almost. That and how she’d said this was her favorite Christmas, not one from her childhood, not one with Tony. It had been one of his finest Christmases, too. His youth wasn’t spent in a strict religious household like hers, but his parents were cool and distant, his tutors and servants merely polite. He never remembered such joy as a child, and never the pleasure of creating such happiness for others. Recently there’d been only stuffy house parties, inane flirtations, the repetitive rounds of London celebrations.
But today, with his family near him, or the closest he had to one, his house brimming with children’s laughter, yes, today was magical. Almost enough to make him wish that—no, it could never be. For now he’d be content with a nearly perfect day. After all, only one boy puked on the ride home. On Prudence.
The glow of Christmas continued. On Boxing Day, when all the tenants and servitors came to toast their lord’s health and receive his blessing, and his largess, in return, Leland wanted his cousins at Ware. It was important for the boys to meet those dependent on the Warringtons, the duke felt. Graceanne felt this was foolish, when the boys weren’t remotely likely to inherit, but, as the duke pointed out, this was part of their heritage, too, prospective noblemen or not. Every man from titled gentleman to yeoman farmer should know the source of his income, respect it, and care for it. That’s what this day was about.
Respecting the source of
her
income, Graceanne accepted, although she was nervous about the reception she was likely to get from the duke’s tenants—and their wives. So she dressed with extra care and took her place near the duke and his aunt in the Great Hall, shivering despite the warmth from the two huge fireplaces. Milsom handed her a glass of sherry.
Once the visits began, she realized she had nothing to fear. She’d known most of these people all her life. They weren’t suddenly going to think ill of her for appearing at the duke’s side; most thought it about time she and the boys took their rightful place. She didn’t receive one slighting remark from the women, not one suggestive leer from the men, except from His Grace, after he’d raised his glass one time too many. After the tenth or twelfth farmer’s toast, Graceanne and Milsom made sure Leland’s cup was filled with the children’s punch, not the potent lamb’s wool.
The boys had a wonderful time, helping hand out presents, playing in the snow with the tenant children, being introduced and admired by everyone. The old-timers told Graceanne the twins were the spitting image of His Grace as a lad, and a rare hellion he was, too. They told Ware that it was good to see children in the old fortress, good to see a new generation of Warringtons running up and down the ancient halls. Continuance, that’s what one old gaffer called it, so they toasted continuance, and Ware was well satisfied. The water closet wasn’t working properly and Willy’s ball was missing, he’d have the devil’s own headache on the morrow, but his line had continuance. And the physician reported that Aunt Eudora would make a full recovery.
* * *
The week after Boxing Day, Leland called at the vicarage often, going sledding with the twins once before the snow melted, making sure the rocking horses were delivered, consulting about Duke the dog’s training. He brought a collar and leash his stableman had crafted, fruit from Ware’s succession houses, a box of toys from his own nursery days. When Graceanne protested that he should save such treasures for his own son, he replied that since that son was not even a twinkle in anyone’s eye, the twins may as well enjoy the stuff rather than let it molder in an empty nursery. Besides, she could send the box back when he got around to having a son; Willy and Les would have long outgrown such childish pursuits as tin soldiers. Judging from how His Grace spent hours on the floor with the twins configuring miniature battles, Graceanne doubted a boy ever outgrew the pastime.
He was everything thoughtful, and she was careful not to be alone with him.
She refused the invitation for another party at Squire’s house on New Year’s Eve because of her mourning period, and couldn’t help feeling that Leland decided to visit friends in Oxford for the holiday on that count. Prudence reported he’d already accepted, then canceled, throwing Mrs. Maxton into a swivet. Pru was in the sulks again because she wasn’t to go either, the vicar’s excuse being that she was still too young, her mother was too weak to chaperon her, and there might be bad influences among the unknown guests. Pru hardly came out of her room the entire week, claiming an indisposition, which was almost as much a relief to Graceanne as Leland’s departure. Pru’s petulance was aggravating; Leland’s kindness and consideration were all too tempting. Speak of bad influences!
Graceanne always hated New Year’s Eve. She disliked that false, spirits-generated joy of noisy fetes at the embassy in Portugal, and she used to dread the prayerful, contemplative New Year’s Eves the vicar celebrated. She’d always felt stranded in the parsonage with nothing but her life speeding by, reminding her of what she was missing. New Year’s Eve made her feel alone. This year was looking rosier. She no longer had to worry about her sons’ futures; now she could dream for them, with hope.
Les could be a soldier like his father. The cavalry, of course. He’d be brave and dashing, ready for anything. She’d start praying now for an end to war. And Willy might take up the law. He had more patience than Les for books and quiet pursuits. The clergy likely wasn’t an option: This household was enough to make anyone a nonbeliever. Perhaps both boys would go into trade, sail off to new lands to find fortunes. No, she couldn’t bear that. Leland would say she was tying her apron strings too tightly, but she was having enough problems facing pony lessons in the spring; she couldn’t contemplate her sons’ leaving. That was the problem with New Year’s Eve, and being alone.
Then it was Twelfth Night, when three castaway kings from the village made the rounds, handing pennies to the children. And the decorations had to come down lest they bring bad luck in addition to the vicar’s wrath. So Christmas was over, the magic and the melancholy.
The duke was leaving. Of course. He had his glittering London life to lead, parties, not piquet with his aunt. He had the theater, not the blacksmith, the butcher, and the innkeeper’s brother done up as Wise Men. Lobster patties instead of flavored snow; high-bred horses instead of highly polished ones; bucks and bloods and blades for friends, not babies. And ladies of his own class.
Graceanne told herself it was good that he was leaving. The boys were getting too used to him and his extravagant lifestyle. He spoiled them. With their own competence they could enjoy a comfortable life, but they were not nabobs’ children. And it was better he left now, before they were too dependent on him.
Graceanne knew she was in as much danger of relying too heavily on Leland for companionship, for intelligent conversation, and shared joy in the children. She had an allowance. For the first time in her life she could be independent, make choices about her life and her sons’ lives—after he left. It was too easy to let him decide the boys were old enough for ponies, not old enough for a tutor, that skating was too dangerous, but rolling down hills
sans
sleds wasn’t. Those should have been her choices, but he’d smiled and teased and made her loosen the leading strings.
She would miss him, too much already. She feared that the longer he stayed, the more she’d miss him when he left. And he would leave. ’Twas better he went now, before he took part of her heart with him.
* * *
“What, the widow sent you haring back to London in the dead of winter with a flea in your ear about claiming one of her children? Told you it was a bacon-brained idea.”
“No, Crow, you told me it was an excellent idea, that she’d be more than happy to part with one of the nuisances.” The two men were in White’s, which was less than a quarter filled. Crosby Fanshaw was in his peacock plumage, Leland was in much more somber garb. His mood matched. She hadn’t quite sent him off with a flea in his ear, not at all. It was more like a tickle, a tingle, a whispered siren’s call. He’d had to leave Warwick if he was to stay a gentleman. But he wasn’t happy about it.
Fanshaw polished his quizzing glass. “Well, can’t figure women at the best of times. There was m’sister, trying to foist her brats off on the mater constantly. So I suggested she send the worst of ’em, the middle boy, off to join the navy. Midshipman, don’t you know. They take ’em small. Make a man out of the little savage. Caught the brat using my four best neckcloths to tie his sister to a chair. He said they were playing Joan of Arc. My four best, I say! Anyway, m’sister starts shrieking, babies start wailing, m’brother reads me a lecture about family feeling, and I start packing.” He shrugged his padded shoulders. “Bachelor quarters is better’n that, even if town is thin of company. Tailors ain’t so busy, besides.” He raised a glass. “Glad to see you back, though.”
The duke stared into his glass of cognac, swirling the amber liquid around. Ware House wasn’t exactly bachelor quarters, but it was certainly quiet and empty and dreary after the Hold. No decorations, no neighbors calling, no children’s laughter, no—
No, it was just after-holiday megrims, he told himself, that had him blue-deviled. He’d get over it as soon as he found a new diversion.
“So what was she like, Tony’s widow? A drab? A dasher?” Crosby wanted to know.
Leland studied his drink some more. “No, not a drab, once she had some decent clothes. Not a stunner, either, that was the sister. A regular Diamond, that one.”
Crow perked up. “Ah-ha, a bit of dalliance there?”
“What, my wards’ aunt? Besides, the chit is seventeen, a mere babe.”
“You’re the one who said it was experience that counted, not years.”
“Yes, but this one is a gorgeous bit of fluff and knows it all too well. That’s about all she knows. Graceanne, ah, Mrs. Warrington, has it all over her for intelligence.”
“So the widow wasn’t an antidote after all?” Crosby refused to believe his friend had spent nearly a month in the countryside without getting up a flirtation with some fancy piece or other.
Leland smiled, but at his memories, not at his friend. When he saw Graceanne Christmas morning, with that veil over her blond hair, singing in the choir, then on Boxing Day, when she held the children to wave to the departing tenants, he’d thought her more beautiful than any Madonna ever painted. Even sledding, her hair coming undone, her nose red, and her cheeks rosy, she’d been so enchanting that he would have tumbled her right there in the snow if it weren’t for the children, and a still-healthy respect for her self-defense methods. No London Incomparable had that vibrancy, the brilliant warmth he saw in Grace that made her so very exquisite. Despite their beauty, the town belles were as sterile as a framed portrait in comparison.
“No, Mrs. Warrington was not an antidote,” he finally answered. “Very attractive woman, actually. You said yourself Tony had good taste. The usual nice blond hair, pretty blue eyes.” Like summer sunshine was nice, like azure tropical seas were pretty.
Crow nodded, careful not to disturb his neckcloth. “New arrangement, don’t you know. Devised it m’self. Call it the Fanshaw Fall.”
Leland studied the intricate arrangement, happy enough to change the subject. Two or three pieces of linen had to be used to give that thickness, that height, that stranglehold. “Looks deuced uncomfortable to me. You’d do better to name it the Crow Killer.”
“Your taste in women was always better than your taste in clothes,” the Tulip retorted, not a bit concerned over his friend’s less than enthusiastic response to his sartorial ingenuity. He was also not a bit deterred from pursuing details of Ware’s latest
affaire.
“So the pretty widow was warm and willing, eh?”
Now Leland laughed, but without a great deal of humor. “Not at all. She is a vicar’s daughter to the core. You know, good works, good thoughts. I do believe she is that rarest of
aves,
an honest woman.”
“Good grief, that’s the worst kind.” Crow shuddered delicately. “Good thing you fled, old man, you might have found yourself leg-shackled.”
“Don’t be absurd. You should see the family she comes from. The father’s a moralizing old jackstraw who’d rob his parishioners blind if he thought I’d let him get away with it. The mother’s a cripple, in spirit more than body, I think. And that sister is bound to land them all in the scandal broth. I don’t know what Tony was thinking of, to ally himself with such a sorry bunch. At least the children turned out all right.”
“So your heir passed muster, did he?”
“My heir is the best—no, one of the two best children there could be. You should just see them, so bright and sweet and trusting. learning their letters already, they are.”
Crow wrinkled his nose. “Now you’re sounding like m’sister-in-law cooing over her latest rug rat. At any rate, you’ve got your heir and can stop worrying about sticking your spoon in the wall and the Crown getting all of Ware.”
The duke’s fingers drummed on the table next to him. “But I don’t have the rearing of him—them—dash it. She’ll spoil them, smother them. That vicar will try to bleed the spirit out of them. I can take a hand if things get bad enough, but they aren’t mine. I have to step back and let Graceanne do her job.” As much as it rankled him, she was the boys’ mother. “And your mention of sticking my spoon in the wall reminds me I have a job I’d like to ask of you.”
“Not a very useful sort of chap, you know, but anything I can do.”
“I’d like you to stand guardian to my wards if anything should happen to me.”
“Me? Children?” The quizzing glass dropped to the end of its ribbon. “Haven’t you been listening, Lee? I’ll send ’em off to the navy! How old are the brats, anyway? They must be old enough for school!”
“They’re practically babies, you clunch, and I’m not asking you to be nursemaid. Graceanne is a good mother, just a trifle overprotective. But if something happens to me, Willy will be rich beyond Vicar Beckwith’s wildest expectations. You’d have to protect the boys and their mother from him.”
“Unless she’s remarried by then.”
Graceanne remarried? Leland hadn’t thought of that at all. And he didn’t like the notion above half. What, some other man raising Ware’s heirs, most likely living in Ware Hold, holding his widow? No, Tony’s widow, confound it! “Damn and blast! She cannot remarry!”
“Can’t stop her, in the blood it is. Widows remarry. Especially ones with looks and full purses, which she already has. You cock your toes up, some lucky chap gets himself a real plum, calling a duke his son.”
“Deuce take it, there’d be fortune-hunters and basket-scramblers sniffing ’round her skirts before I was in the ground.”
Crow nodded. “If not sooner, on expectations.”
The two friends were silent for a moment, contemplating. At last Leland pounded the leather armrest of his chair. “Blister it, none of that would happen if I had a wife and babes of my own!”