It was Christmas. They were celebrating the birth of Christ. Nicholas had told her he had celebrated Christmas in this church every year for twenty years, and now, after ten years, he was back. She knew he had been christened in this church, and only three weeks ago he had been married here. He belonged every bit as much as each of the villagers, as much as Cyril did, and a great deal more than Jacqueline, who Georgia did not think belonged in church at all.
She felt Nicholas’ hand go to her elbow, and she realized that they were supposed to stand for the processional.
Somehow she made it through the rest of the service.
“I do like the vicar enormously. He’s a very kind man, isn’t he?” Georgia said on the way home, trying to ease the discomfort Nicholas was so obviously feeling.
“Yes, and an intelligent one, thank God. He may be forced to be bipartite, but he doesn’t let it intrude.”
“He’s the first vicar I’ve met who shakes everyone’s hand with no hint of disapproval.” Georgia pulled at the finger of her glove.
“I wonder who you think should have been given the disapproval. Surely not us?”
“I had only wondered. He must have heard the gossip.
Nicholas laughed. “Gossip? The man has been vicar for a good forty years. I’m sure he’s heard a great deal worse in his time. We haven’t done anything particularly interesting or exciting, save for flying in the face of Jacqueline’s desires, and those I can assure you he’s not interested in. The vicar is not a political creature. His career is not likely to rise or fall on Jacqueline’s schemes, although he will never become the Archbishop of Canterbury, not that he’d want the position if it were offered him.”
“Nicholas?”
“Yes?”
“You’re unhappy, aren’t you?”
He looked at her with surprise. “Unhappy?”
“Yes. I understand why, of course—it must have been very unpleasant for you to have to undergo such an experience. But I don’t like to see this expression on your face, not on Christmas. Can we forget about the gossip and Ravenswalk and all of the other problems, just for today? I know it’s asking a great deal…” She trailed off, not wanting to admit that she, too, had been hurt and shaken by the coldness directed their way, although she was accustomed to being shunned. But Nicholas was not, and it had felt like death on a day that most especially celebrated life.
He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Yes of course. You’re quite right, Georgia. It is not a day for these angry feelings. We will forget about the rest of the world and public opinion and have our own day of quiet celebration.”
“There’s pheasant,” she said encouragingly. “And a carrot soup, and bread pudding to finish. And other things in between. And I have a present for you.”
“But you’ve already given me a warm scarf for my birthday, Georgia. You needn’t give me anything else.”
“Well, I shall, because it gives me pleasure to do so. You have given me so much already.”
“What?” he asked curtly. “What have I given you? This house over which you insist on slaving eighteen hours a day? A new dance you have learned in order to skirt around the floorboards? What have I truly given you, Georgia? What have you let me give you?”
She thought about it with great seriousness, for it was important to her to say it correctly. “Your kindness, for one,” she said. “Your conversation. Your smiles even when I’ve done something foolish, and your patience. You have not caviled at my lack of breeding, nor my ignorance. And you have offered up your home and let me help you to try to make it whole again. But most especially, you have respected my privacy. All of those things have a price beyond measure to me, but the last means more than I can ever tell you.”
He turned his head sharply toward the window, and she could see nothing but his dark hair. Perplexed by his reaction, she wanted to ask him why he was disturbed, but the carriage drew up to the house just then and the moment was lost.
Nicholas seemed to have regained his spirits by the time they sat down to their Christmas meal. He made pleasant conversation throughout, touching on nothing more important than the progress of the roof and the planned changes for the kitchen. But Georgia did not miss the restlessness in his demeanor and she did not know how to make it better, or how to ease whatever burden he was feeling. She imagined it was all tied up with Christmas and Ravenswalk and his family, and she did not want to intrude with questions. But she did want to make the remainder of the day a happy one for him, and so she chattered away, trying to keep his mind off his troubles.
“Come,” she said when they had finished the pudding. “Let me give you your present now. You will want to take a long walk after such a meal, and you will need this first.”
‘I have something for you also,” he said. “It’s over here.”
He rose and collected a large flat package that was lying in the window seat, and he brought it back to the table and put it in front of her. “Here,” he said with a little smile. “Something I promised you. It’s come from London.”
“Nicholas! You shouldn’t have bought me anything else—but I’m delighted that you did,” she said, looking up at him with a grin. “I haven’t had a present in years, and two in one day! And there was the mare too.” With fingers shaking from excitement, she untied the string and pulled the paper away. Before her disbelieving eyes appeared bolts of material, soft rich wools, delicate muslins in an assortment of colors, linens, even a length of velvet in a lovely deep blue. She stared at them. “Nicholas … oh, Nicholas. I don’t know what to say!”
“Say that you are pleased. I hope I chose well. There are some fashion plates on the bottom that the dressmaker recommended. I hope everything is suitable.”
“Suitable? Nicholas, this is wonderful—but so extravagant! These materials are the sort of thing that Jacqueline would have.”
“Precisely. Now, go and change into your outdoor clothes and we’ll go for that walk.”
Georgia jumped up from the table, cradling the package in her arms. “Thank you,” she said quickly, and ran out of the room. Then she stopped and ran back again, putting her head through the door. “I’ll be back in no time, and then you shall have your present.”
Nicholas looked at her, that unfamiliar expression in his eye, and it made her feel quite peculiar. “Go on, Georgia,” he said, his voice slightly rough. “I want to have a quick word with Binkley.” He disappeared in the direction of the kitchen.
Georgia found Nicholas waiting by the door in the front hall, also changed back into his everyday clothes. Actually, he wasn’t exactly waiting: he was examining the plaster around the front windows. She had never yet seen Nicholas in a state of idleness. He was a man of perpetual movement. Even when he was sitting still, she could see that his brain was active in one fashion or another. It was little wonder that he slept so little. Night after night she had heard him pacing the floor, or coming up to bed in the early hours before dawn. One night she had crept downstairs herself, thinking to get a glass of milk from the pantry, and she had seen Nicholas in the dining room working steadily at a large pile of papers. He had not heard her, and she had not announced her presence, quietly slipping back up the stairs. But she could not help but be curious. What could Nicholas be doing in the middle of the night and with such intense concentration? She very much doubted it was anything to do with the house.
“Nicholas?” she said and he looked over his shoulder and quickly stood, brushing off his hands.
“And where is this present you have promised me so breathlessly?” he asked, smiling at her.
“We have to go to the stables. It is nothing grand, for you know I have no money, but I hope you will like it despite that.”
“Georgia. You know better than to think that money is a consideration. I’m touched that you thought of anything at all. Really, I am.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, walking down the steps and starting toward the east, where the stables were nestled in a clearing of oak. “As I told you earlier, you have given me so very much already.” She didn’t wait for an answer, not really wanting to hear it. It was Christmas Day, and she would have nothing spoil it.
She heard the squeals before Nicholas did, but then, she was listening for them. “Come inside,” she said with a grin, opening the door to the tack room, and then she stood back.
A small body came shooting toward them like a bullet, almost a blur in its speed. Nicholas took an automatic step backward then dropped to his knees in surprise as a wriggling body of fur flung itself against him.
It was no prize as far as dogs went, a bizarre mixture of terrier and hound, and still a pup at that, but it had heart and voice, and it gave vent to that voice immediately in an infantile attempt at a howl, then began to lap at Nicholas’ hands with a frenzied tongue.
Nicholas laughed and picked the little wiry body up in his large hands, holding it up over his head. “And who are you?” he asked, looking over the undercarriage of the dog. “Ah, a young man? A very young man by the looks of you.” He gently placed him on the ground again, where the pup proceeded to pull at his shoe. “Thank you, Georgia,” he said quietly, turning to look at her. ‘He is a wonderful present.”
“You are very welcome,” she said. “He is from one of the tenant farms. Lily told me about the litter. He was the scrappiest of the lot and I felt he had the most intelligent gleam in his eye.”
“Yes. He does look fairly acute. Now he needs a name, don’t you, my friend. Let me see: how does Raleigh sound?”
“Raleigh? It sounds perfect, but what made you choose that?”
“I’ve always had an admiration for the man. He was a scrappy devil himself. Come along, Raleigh. Would you like to join us in a stroll around your new property?”
As if he not only had understood, but also had been doing it all the days of his brief life, the puppy took up position at Nicholas’ heel, wagged his wiry tail vigorously, and with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, set off with his new master and mistress.
Jacqueline threw her hairbrush across the room in a fit of rage. Seeing Nicholas with his whore in church today had been almost more than she could bear. She had felt his presence behind her, had almost been able to feel the heat radiating from his strong, vital body. She had heard not one word of the service, her mind filled with images of Nicholas, hot, sensual images. In the years of his absence she had forgotten just how powerful he was, how he emanated sexuality from every pore.
But now, seeing him again, knowing he was just a mile away, she had started to burn again as if the ten years had not passed. And yet he had grown only more attractive with the years, a man now in his prime. Her hatred of him fueled her passion. Oh, yes, she remembered. She remembered everything. There was not another man alive whose nakedness had inflamed her so, and she had sampled many men since that night.
She thought she had taken care of him for good, had destroyed his precious house, had seen to it that he would never return. But he was back. He was back, and her blood was on fire. “Damn him! Damn them both!” She closed her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek so hard that she tasted blood. The thought that Georgia was now lying in his arms, was tasting his pleasures, receiving his caresses, made her ill. Of all the people in the world for Nicholas to marry, why her? It was like history repeating itself.
She rubbed her forehead hard. She still couldn’t understand how it had happened at all. Georgia must have found a way to seduce him, the clever slut, although Jacqueline had taken such care to hide the girl away so that just such a thing couldn’t happen. But happen it had, and under her very nose.
Well, why should she care? Jacqueline examined her face in the mirror with cold satisfaction. She was the Countess of Raven, with power and position. She might have had her birthright stripped from her through no fault of her own, but she had regained it and more. Ravenswalk was one of the finest houses in Britain, the fortune one of the largest. And she had complete control over both. She had shown her sisters. She had shown everyone. She had everything she wanted.
Everything except Nicholas. The throbbing started again between her legs at the very thought of him, and her hand went to her breast. She cupped it, her eyes half-closed, imagining it to be his hand, remembering the feel of his palm just there.
And then she dropped her hand abruptly. There was no point in tormenting herself with memories. As for Nicholas, his life was clearly ruined, and if young Georgia thought she had married into position, she was very much mistaken. She had married herself to a man who would never be accepted back into the fold of polite society: Jacqueline had already seen to that. Let them live in their ruin and suffer. The villagers would shun them, the gentry would scorn them, their lives would be miserable.
As for herself, she would accept the invitation from the Marchese di Castagnaro and winter in his villa. She needed some hot-blooded diversion. Yes, that was what she would do. She would leave at the beginning of the new year. She certainly wasn’t going to stay around Ravenswalk and watch Nicholas and his doxy any longer.
She was hungry tonight, very hungry. If she couldn’t have Nicholas, she’d help herself to the next best thing. She dabbed perfume between her breasts, adjusted her dress, and started through the dark, quiet house to the east wing.
Georgia immediately started sewing. She created a table in the back of the sitting room and she drew patterns and cut and stitched to her heart’s content. A week went by and then two, and she had a new cloak, Nicholas two warm shirts, and she had started on a day dress. Life had settled down to a comfortable routine. Nicholas worked on the roof all day while she and Lily cleaned and scrubbed and dusted, or, on fine days, worked outside. Come nightfall, she would work on her sewing while Nicholas read by the fire, or wrote letters, or did simple tasks.
Life with Nicholas could not have been more different than life with Baggie had been, she thought, cutting a thread.
Baggie had never been at home in the evenings, choosing to spend his time at the tavern. Nicholas had not once been to a tavern, at least that she knew of, and she enjoyed his quiet companionship in the evenings. Baggie had never spoken to her about much of anything except farm business. Nicholas spoke to her on a broad range of subjects, and if there was something he wanted, he requested it. He had never once treated her as a servant.
Raleigh snored in his sleep and shifted on his blanket, and Georgia rubbed his little side with her toe, eliciting a sigh of contentment. She looked up from her stitching. Nicholas was oiling the library books, his hand moving in methodical circles over the leather spines. He looked content, and it occurred to her that he no longer had such
a.
careworn expression on his face, that he looked more at ease. It has been a gradual change: he’d been as tightly coiled as a spring when they had first come to the Close. But now, five weeks later, it seemed as if they had always lived this way, in a quiet harmony.
She wouldn’t say he was happy. He was a very private man who kept himself close to the chest and let no one in. She had only once seen him display any real emotion, and that had been when he had thought himself to be alone. Another time, there had been a brief flash of anger when he had seen the state of the garden, but he had quickly stifled it. No, most of the time he kept his feelings to himself, giving little hint of what they might be. She had tried hard to puzzle him out, but she had not always been very successful.
For instance, there had been the time when she had measured him for his shirts. He had behaved most oddly, coloring and pulling away as if he didn’t like to be touched. He had left the room immediately afterward. And yet when she had given him the shirts, he had smiled with pleasure, that wonderful warm, gentle smile of his, as if no one had ever made anything for him before.
He was an enigma. She liked him very much, for he was kind and generous, and she trusted him not to hurt her. But he was still a mystery to her. With Baggie, she had known exactly how he would react to everything. With Nicholas, it was all guesswork.
“Georgia? What are you dreaming about now?”
She jumped, startled out of her thoughts. “Oh! Nothing. I was just thinking.”
“And what were you thinking about?”
“About this, about living here.”
“Hmm. Should I fear for my life?”
“Don’t be foolish. I like our life here, Nicholas.”
“Do you?” he said comfortably. “I’m happy to hear it. But then, compared to what your life was like at Ravenswalk, anything would seem like paradise, even this.”
“Even this? But this is wonderful! I feel as if every day we are making a difference. Every day the house becomes more and more awake. Don’t you feel it?”
“You are whimsical, aren’t you? But I know a little of what you mean. I do feel a great sense of accomplishment at the end of every day. We no longer have rain and snow pouring on our heads, and the very worst of the damage has been cleared away.’’
“And soon enough the weather will grow warmer and I can begin to work on the garden in earnest.”
Nicholas shook his head. “I don’t know what you can do, Georgia. Everything is dead. It would probably be best to plow the damned thing under and let it go to grass.”
He sounded so sad, so bitter, and it hurt her. It was horribly unfair, what had been done to him. Well, the least she could do in return for all he had done for her was to give him back his garden.
“I can make it grow again, Nicholas,” she said with determination. “My mother taught me much about growing things. She could just look at the earth and things would sprout up. Her vegetables were the biggest in the village, her flowers the heaviest with bloom. She said she talked to the plants and they talked back.”
“Did she? It’s odd. My mother said the same thing. She said that there was a spirit in all living things and each place had its own god. She would talk to the god of her garden, leave little offerings. It’s very pagan, I know, but it seemed to work, for the garden flourished. But I think the god must have left this place long ago in sheer disgust.”
“We shall see, Nicholas. The first thing to do is to give the soil air and light, and then we will know better what might come back to life. And I will start seedlings, so that when it is warm enough, they can go outside. We’ll breathe life back into it together.”
Nicholas put down his book and came over to her. She couldn’t read his face. He gently took one of her curls in his fingers and rubbed it between them, then dropped his hand and moved slightly away. She was left feeling oddly shaken by the gesture. It was the first time Nicholas had touched her in such a way, and she didn’t quite know what to think of it. It had been such a tender touch. She looked down and wondered why she suddenly wanted to cry.
“You amaze me, Georgia,” he said, moving over to the fireplace and looking down into the flames. “You work hard all day, doing your best under a miserable set of circumstances, and you never once complain. And now you want to take on even more.’’
“I told you, it makes me happy to see things come back to life. And this house especially, for I told you how sad I used to feel about it.”
“Yes. You said it was like an orphan. And you said you had been orphaned. Will you tell me about it, Georgia? I know so little about you outside of these walls.”
“There isn’t much to tell,” she said, snipping another thread and thinking back to those early, happier days. “My father died when I was seven. He was a good and gentle man, and he and my mother were very happy together, although we were poor. My father was a soldier, but he’d developed trouble with his lungs and had to retire from his regiment. So he became a schoolteacher instead, until he was too ill even for that. After he died my mother went on alone, sewing for a living, and ministering to the sick, and growing her plants. And then she died of a fever when I was twelve.”
“Where did you go then?”
“As I had no relatives, I was sent to the vicar and his wife.” Her face darkened with memory.
“I see. I don’t think you were very happy with the vicar and his wife,” Nicholas said, watching her carefully.
“Not particularly. They were good to take me in. But it wasn’t home.” She stabbed the needle into the material, and it went straight into her flesh. “Ouch!” She stuck her throbbing thumb into her mouth.
“Perhaps it was just a little bit more than the fact that it wasn’t home?” Nicholas asked, looking at her thumb.
Georgia looked up at him and saw the amusement in his eyes. “Very well,” she said with an answering smile. “If you must have the truth, they didn’t like me and I didn’t like them.”
“And you stayed with them until your marriage?”
“Yes. I was with them for five years. They were very happy to see me go.” She thought again of the day that Mrs. Provost had come into her attic room, accusing her of things she didn’t even understand, and her marriage three weeks later to a man she’d not even known. Three long weeks of being locked in her room with bread and water once a day, not knowing what her future was to be. But it was the first time in five years that she hadn’t had to cook the meals and scrub the floors and wash the linens, or clean and dust and polish. And she had felt safe from the vicar, locked away in her bedroom, with Mrs. Provost keeping the key, for the vicar had recently developed that alarming male habit of pawing and poking and trying to plant his wet mouth on hers.
“And then?” he asked again.
“And then I married Baggie Wells.” Baggie, whom she’d first laid eyes on when she’d been taken into the church. But she didn’t bother to add that.
“And were you happy?” he asked quietly.
Georgia wondered at the suddenly shuttered expression on his face, and then she realized he was upset by her story, for he always shuttered his face when he was upset. She felt bad for having complained at all, but she was unwilling to lie outright.
“Georgia?” he asked again into the silence.
She smiled cheerfully, but she couldn’t make the smile reach into her eyes. “The farm was nothing grand, but it was home. I can’t tell you how wonderful that was, having a home again.”
“I can imagine.” He paused for a moment and then spoke very carefully. “And there was also Baggie.”
“Yes,” she agreed miserably. “There was also Baggie. It lasted three years. And then it was over.” She looked down at her hands, wondering if her eyes had given her away after all. By the tone of his voice, she knew that Nicholas had guessed.
He nodded, his brow drawn down, and he turned his back and picked up the poker, stirring the fire.
“Nicholas, I don’t ever want you to feel sorry for me. That time is over and done with. It will never be like that again, I am quite sure. And you have been very understanding about it.”
He looked over his shoulder for a minute, then turned back to the fire. “What happened after Baggie died?”
She took a deep breath, relieved to have the subject of Baggie out of the way. “It was difficult. There were debts, and I lost the farm. I went to London and worked in a shop for a year. Lady Herton liked my designs, so I went to work for her. A year later I was sent to Ravenswalk. And I am very, very grateful to you for taking me away.’’
He spun around. “Damnation, Georgia! How many times do I have to tell you I don’t want your gratitude! We could go on to the end of our days telling each other how grateful we are to have gotten the other out of a scrape. But that’s not what I want. Gratitude is empty. It means nothing to me. I feel quite sure that Baggie wasn’t interested in your gratitude either.”
“Oh, please, Nicholas, can we not talk about Baggie anymore? Those memories are … are difficult.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dwell on it. But I am only human. I begin to wonder how much you expect from me.
“But that’s just the point!” she said with exasperation. “I expect nothing! I have tried and tried to make that clear to you.”
“Oh, yes, you made it clear enough,” he said, shoving his hand through his hair, equally exasperated. “I was just hoping that at some point you would decide that you’re not averse to the idea that you’re married to me.”
She stared at him. Averse to the idea? Hadn’t he been listening to her? She no longer lived in fear of the night, she lived with someone who talked to her and listened in reply, someone who was not an overgrown child, but a man of strength and intelligence and manners, a man who thought about her feelings, who respected her wishes.
“Nicholas,” she said painstakingly, “I am not averse to being married to you. You are a thoughtful, considerate man, and I know you don’t want me to say I am grateful to you, so I won’t. But you have to stop thinking that I want anything from you other than what you have already given me. And I do wish you would stop asking me if I do, for it makes me exceedingly uncomfortable.”
“Very well, then,” he said, his voice suddenly cold. “If that is what you wish.”
“Yes, it is. But why do you look at me like that?”
“Why do I…? Georgia…” He rubbed his hand over his face. “Never mind. Never mind. It’s late. I’m going to bed. Good night, Georgia. I hope that you, at least, have pleasant dreams.”
He’d sounded upset, she thought as he left, and she wondered again at the contradictions that made up Nicholas.
There was a strain between them for the next week, and Georgia knew it had to have stemmed from that night and their conversation. She realized it had not ended well, but she wasn’t exactly sure why, or what she had said to upset him. She’d been over it and over it, and she could think of nothing. He had questioned her about her past, and she had answered him truthfully. Perhaps he had found the details distasteful. Still, her feelings were hurt, and she found that she missed him more than she ever would have expected.
She moved the brush rhythmically up and down over the surface of the wall, feeling very much alone, even though she knew Nicholas was working just down the hall. She missed his companionship, she missed their quiet evenings together, the walks they took together. She missed his conversation, the small courtesies he showed her that no one had ever shown her before. She also missed his physical presence, as if something vibrant and vital had been taken out of her world, and she found that she waited just for a brief glimpse of him to reassure herself that he was still there. There was no mistaking the fact that Nicholas was avoiding her at every opportunity.
She bent over and dipped her brush in the bucket of whitewash and was just about to apply the brush to the wall again when she heard a great crash, and then a shout.
“Georgia! Where in God’s name have you gone to?” Nicholas’ voice sounded slightly panicked and Georgia picked up her skirts and ran down the hall. When she looked around the corner, paintbrush still in hand, she could see why. Nicholas dangled half in and half out of the floor of the front bedroom. Apparently a good section of the floorboards had given in unexpectedly, and she covered her mouth for a moment, trying very hard not to laugh. It really wasn’t funny, but she couldn’t help herself: it served him right for being so nasty. She laughed until she cried.
“For the love of God, woman, this is no time to be amused. Fetch Binkley, will you?”
“I can’t,” she said, wiping her eyes. “He’s gone into town for more wood.”
“Then get Martin.”
“He went with Binkley.” Georgia grinned. “I suppose I could rescue you. If I felt like it.”