The Perfect Christmas: With Bonus Material Added Read online

  Sitting across the table from him, he noticed that she wore a gown that was as dismal-looking as the one she’d worn the day before. Gray, with the same brown shawl wrapped around her shoulders. With her hair pulled back tightly, she ought to look austere, but instead, it drew attention to the classic perfection of her features.

  Such a simple woman, and yet… Yesterday she’d breathed fire at him.

  He deserved it.

  “What happened to your wife?” Her question should not have surprised him.

  Ah. What had happened to Francine? The question that had haunted his own soul for over a decade.

  “She was attacked. On Bond Street.”

  Miss Cline blinked.

  “We’d not been married five years. Bart was three and Charlotte had just turned one.” Henry shook his head, still unable to comprehend the events of that day. In the past decade, his anger at himself had simmered into a deep self-loathing, for multiple reasons. “We were in London for the Season, and she’d gone shopping with some friends. A man…” he swallowed hard, “apparently wanted her reticule. Slammed her to the ground. She hit her head.” The lump in his throat thickened his voice. “She didn’t wake up for four days, and when she did…”

  She’d invited him along that morning, but he’d declined, preferring to discuss some horses with a few fellows at White’s.

  “I should have been there to protect her. I was at my club.”

  She’d been unprotected, vulnerable.

  Henry stared into the empty teacup before him. He’d not discussed these events with anyone in years. And yet…

  The memory followed him from one day into the next, one year into the next…

  “It left her in an altered state?” Miss Cline enquired in a sympathetic tone.

  He pictured his beautiful wife, unable to eat on her own. Unable to speak but for a few garbled childish-sounding words. The unfocussed gaze her eyes had taken on. “You could say that.” He hadn’t meant his voice to come out sounding so angry. But it had made him angry.

  All of it. Some physicians had offered false hope, and some had said she wouldn’t live more than a month. In the end, they’d all been a little right and a little wrong.

  Miss Cline nodded. “I’m so sorry.”

  What was she sorry for? He leaned back as a servant entered the room and then proceeded to pour hot tea into the cups set in front of each of them. Francine had been unable to ever enjoy hot tea again. After one attempt by her nurse, she’d burned her mouth and chin.

  They’d been careful her food was never very warm from that day forward.

  Miss Cline added cream but no sugar to her cup. Hers was chipped. His was not.

  He drank his tea black.

  “You say you just met Olivia, the countess, last spring?” Miss Cline was kind enough to change the subject. She could have delved into his tragic past; he supposed she had every right. But no, she would be sympathetic instead. “I haven’t seen her since last March, since before she married the earl. She left Misty Brooke to have a Season with her sister and the next I heard, all of her belongings were being sent to Lord Kingsley’s estate.”

  “Lady Kingsley is most enchanting,” he offered. And she had been. The family connection between Henry and Kingsley was a loose one. He had, in fact, been slightly surprised to receive the invitation. “I believe Lady and Lord Kingsley had only been married a month when I was lucky enough to become better acquainted with my cousin this summer. You mentioned that she is a friend of yours?”

  Miss Cline nodded. “A very good one.”

  He felt some small relief to hear it. Henry imagined what Eliza’s life had been like after he’d left her. After he’d ruined her.

  “Was it horrible for you?” he surprised himself by asking. “After?” He wasn’t sure if he was looking for reasons to feel better about what he’d done or more reasons to berate himself.

  She paused with the cup just in front of her lips and tilted her head slightly. “It felt quite tragic, at first.” She blew on the tea and then allowed herself a sip. She did not expand on her answer until she’d set the cup back in its saucer.

  “Mathew’s parents banished me from the inn, of course. Mrs. Wilson wrote to my mother and as a result, my parents told me not to bother returning home. But my brother has always been my defender. Thomas took me in and never made me feel as though he judged me for any of it, and he very well could have. When not a single person in the village would even speak to me, he provided me with protection and companionship, in addition to a place to belong, a purpose. He made it a point to preach often on the subject of forgiveness. On God’s grace.” She shrugged. “Eventually, people seemed to forget. It’s difficult to turn one’s nose up at a person who brings them a basket of preserves or turn someone away who is willing to help them in their time of need.” She smiled sheepishly. “Matthew married a local girl the next summer. The two of them work with his mother at the inn.” And then she raised her brows and twisted her lips. “Not so tragic, after all.”

  Chapter Six

  More than meets the eye

  Eliza dropped her gaze and stared unfocused at her toast as she replayed her own words again in her mind. People had forgotten about the scandal she’d found herself in at the tender age of eight and ten. Even if they hadn’t forgotten, they’d forgiven her.

  Her brother had never once used her incident to belittle her.

  And in truth, she hadn’t missed Mathew as much as she ought to have. She had not been happy working at the inn whereas, her life at the vicarage was quite satisfying.

  “I’m glad.” Lord Crestwood sounded… relieved?

  Eliza looked back up at him and blinked a few times. Not that what she’d done had been the wisest course of action to take, but what would she be, who would she be, if she’d married Mathew twelve years ago?

  When Henry showed up in Misty Brooke, she’d been coming to realize Mathew and she had very little in common. Even before Henry had come along, she’d begun experiencing a myriad of doubts.

  Had she truly loved Matthew, would another man have caught her attention so easily?

  Which was no excuse at all, however…

  Eliza appreciated that she could delve into a good book before bed. She enjoyed the fact that she could go visiting and help others when they were in need. If she’d married Matthew, she’d still be toiling under the watchful eye of Mrs. Wilson. She’d be raising her children with her mother–in–law questioning her every decision.

  “I am sorry for saying… what I did. Yesterday. I only wish…” That you had been honest with me from the beginning. But did she? That we had not taken that ultimate step of intimacy when it was wrong in every possible sense.

  But did she really?

  Of course, she did! Her conscience warred with her wayward thoughts.

  “It was inexcusable. I deserved it.” He cleared his throat. “I returned home…” He cleared his throat a second time. “For what it’s worth, it was the only time… Which, again, is not an excuse. Nor does it make my actions any less repulsive.” There was no mistaking the disgust in which he viewed his actions. His voice was heavy with it.

  She did not doubt his sincerity.

  Eliza stared down at her lap. She supposed that it did matter. She felt a small stirring of respect to know he had not sought physical gratification with other women for the remainder of his marriage.

  “And since her death?” She asked the question without thinking if it was an appropriate one or not. Not quite a year had passed. But surely…

  “No one.” He answered her, nonetheless.

  For if his wife had been incapacitated, that meant he’d abstained for… Ever since the two of them had…

  Not that other married men of the ton didn’t practice infidelity regularly, but Eliza was a woman of God.

  “It is worth something,” she spoke the words quietly into her napkin.

  Before either of them could say anything more, the door flew open an
d that younger version of Lord Crestwood came barreling into the room to take his seat beside his father.

  “Good morning, Miss Cline, Father,” he reached across the table for the jam as though he hadn’t eaten in a week. “I’m positively starving. Are we leaving today? Do you think the roads will be passable?”

  Conversation was led by Bartholomew Fairchild for the remainder of the meal until Eliza finally stood and excused herself. Both men rose politely and bowed in her direction.

  “I’ll be ready around one, then,” she commented before slipping out the door.

  She would be spending several hours in his company. His and his children’s.

  Had she forgiven him, then? The thought was a shocking one. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she’d believed him to be the cause of her fall into hell.

  * * *

  “I cannot sit backward-facing, Bart! You know that,” Miss Fairchild grumbled at her brother, her backside protruding from the doorway of the elegant carriage that had been pulled around to the front of the inn.

  “You cannot expect Miss Cline to ride backward. And I cannot either. Remember the last time…?” The siblings’ argument carried out to the front porch of the inn.

  Lord Crestwood was settling up with the innkeeper inside and Eliza felt hesitant to intrude. Nonetheless…

  “I will ride facing the back,” she said, interrupting the squabble in a firm tone.

  Both of them peered out the door at her and spoke at the same time.

  “That’s not really necessary, Miss Cline, my sister—“

  “My brother is more than willing to do the gentlemanly thing—“

  “I would rather ride facing backward than have either of you get ill.” Eliza smiled in as convincingly a manner as she could muster and then climbed in and made herself comfortable beside Mrs. Blake. Lord Crestwood would ride outside upon his mount.

  “Have you visited Sky Manor before?” Eliza asked her traveling companions as they pulled out of the yard.

  Bartholomew answered, “My father prefers we remain at his estate, Fair Lakes, when we’re not at school.”

  “I’m dying to travel to London, but Father says it isn’t safe. It’s because Mother’s attack, but he doesn’t ever speak of it.” Miss Fairchild glared at her maid’s shushing before adding, “He’s promised me a Season, however, as I’ve already mentioned, after I’ve turned seven and ten.”

  “Once he’s established someone to sponsor you,” Mrs. Blake inserted. “And he’s only concerned for your wellbeing.”

  “Just because someone attacked Mother doesn’t mean it’s a common occurrence,” Miss Fairchild argued.

  “But look what it did to her,” her brother rejoined.

  “Did her assailant ever come to justice?” Despite all that happened, Eliza felt very sorry for the woman who’d been struck down at such a young age. It was difficult to imagine what that must have been like for the people who had loved her. She had been alive… and yet… From what she understood, she couldn’t speak, or hear, or walk…

  “A man was apprehended but Mother was unable to testify and since no other witnesses came forth, he was released. Our mother didn’t recognize her own children, let alone a stranger,” the son who’d lost his mother at far too young an age answered.

  “Her brain was damaged.” And then the young woman fell silent, as though unwanted emotions had crept up on her.

  “She could do less than an infant,” young Mr. Fairchild added solemnly. “But she was our mother.”

  “You two need to learn to curb your tongues.” Mrs. Blake shook her head. “I would think those fancy schools would teach you what topics of conversation are inappropriate in polite company.” And then, to Eliza, “My apologies, Miss Cline. We don’t speak of the distasteful nature of Lady Crestwood’s final years. God rest her soul.”

  Eliza blinked. “But she was their mother. I imagine it helps to speak of her.” Eliza had sat with many of her brother’s parishioners after they’d lost a loved one. She’d discovered the most soothing thing she could do was encourage them to speak of the deceased.

  “Do you remember your mother at all, Mr. Fairchild?” she asked the young man sitting across from her. “Before the attack?”

  “Call me Bart.” He sent a sideways glance in his sister’s direction.“ And my sister Charlotte.”

  Then he furrowed his brows. “I remember my mother a little. Moments, more than anything else. I do remember that she loved her garden. I remember playing in the dirt while she tended it.”

  “I have no memories of her from before,” Miss Fairchild—Charlotte—piped in. “But Papa had a painting done. She looks normal enough in the painting.”

  “How difficult it must have been. To have her be present and alive, but her body and mind locked away from you.”

  Charlotte studied Eliza, seemingly considering her comment. “That’s exactly what it felt like, Miss Cline. As though she was trapped in another world. That she could perhaps see outside of it but never allow us in.”

  “It wasn’t so bad at first. I remember believing she’d get better eventually.” Bartholomew removed his hat and ran his fingers around the brim. “But she only grew worse. I don’t think she was trapped, so much, as gone altogether, leaving just the shell of her physical person.”

  “Doctors advised Lord Crestwood to send her away, but he never did.” Mrs. Blake apparently had given up on discretion by this point.

  “Sometimes she seemed angry and would thrash about. She hit me once, but I know she didn’t know what she was doing,” Bart defended his mother’s actions.

  “Of course, she could not have.” Eliza couldn’t help but suddenly feel great sympathy for what this family had endured.

  And for Lady Crestwood, a woman who’d had everything, but then had her life ripped away in an instant.

  “Lady Crestwood had less than a pound in her reticule that morning.” This time, it was Mrs. Blake who was shaking her head. “Meaningless, so meaningless.”

  Eliza bit her lip. They were on their way to a Christmas house party, but one would not guess that if they took one look at the sad faces in their carriage. She decided to change the subject.

  “Olivia… Lady Kingsley, that is, wrote to me that she and Lord Kingsley are of a mind to make this house party the best in all of England.” This was only a slight exaggeration. Olivia’s parents often had excluded her from their holiday celebrations and her new husband was determined to make up for it. “I wouldn’t mind a little snow once we’ve arrived at Sky Manor. We could have snowball wars and make snow angels.” She felt wistful all of a sudden, remembering one year when even her mother had played outside with her and Thomas. Their mother had been laughing and screaming when their father lifted her and then tossed her into a large drift of snow.

  She hadn’t seen them even once since that summer…

  But she was no longer going to dwell on the past. She determined in that moment to embrace the festivities to come.

  Mrs. Blake covered her mouth. “Oh, dear.” The woman had turned a rather sickly shade of green.

  “Stop!” Eliza pounded on the roof as hard as she could. “Driver! Stop!”

  The coach came to a jarring halt, giving the maid just enough time to leap—with surprising ease—out of the carriage and dash to the side of the road. By the time Lord Crestwood turned around to see why they’d stopped, Eliza was at the woman’s side and handing over her own handkerchief. Apparently, Mrs. Blake did not do well riding backward-facing either.

  When all was said and done, it was decided that Bartholomew would ride Lord Crestwood’s mount, Mrs. Blakely and Charlotte would ride on the front-facing bench, and Lord Crestwood would take the other half of the backward-facing bench.

  Beside Eliza.

  Chapter Seven

  Beside him

  It means nothing.

  And yet all along her left side, Eliza felt a charge she’d not experienced in far too long.

  God help her, b
ut she was still attracted to him.

  “Your coachman did well to stop so quickly,” Eliza found herself babbling. “Otherwise, we might all have been covered in—“ Good Lord! What was she saying? She clamped her mouth shut and just barely stopped herself from saying the word ‘vomit’ in his company.

  Only he’d witnessed her doing the very same thing the day before.

  It mattered not if she still found him attractive; chances of him reciprocating those feelings toward Eliza were slim to none.

  She now realized that when he’d come through Misty Brooke all those years ago, he had very likely been in a deeply troubled state. He’d had two children who depended upon him and a wife who might as well have been dead but had been present every day to remind him of all that he’d lost.

  He might as well have been attracted to a turnip. She’d been present and made herself… available.

  Eliza pressed her knees together to keep her thighs from touching his. When the carriage began slipping, however, she couldn’t help but slide directly into his person, pressing herself against the entire length of his side.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” she mumbled as they steadied, straining to remain upon her side of the bench. The snow, though mostly melted, had left this section of the road muddied and rutted. When they hit a particularly deep channel, she was all too aware that Lord Crestwood had set his arm around her shoulder. Mrs. Blake had done the same with Charlotte.

  It meant nothing.

  And yet she couldn’t keep a shiver of awareness from running through her body. Could he feel it?

  Another bounce and he held her even more tightly.

  The driver slid a small overhead door open, allowing a ray of sunlight to slash inside and a cool breeze to swirl around the interior of the coach. “A bit tricky up here, M’lord,” he hollered from outside. “I’ll do my best but brace yourselves for a while. Pound on the ceiling again if anyone needs to stop.”