Page 22 of The Derbyshire Dance (Kendall House #3)

Chapter seventeen

Christmas

O n a usual year, Bel would have scoured the woods with Jer and Tam for greenery to festoon the house, but this year, she had no heart for it.

What was the point of decorating with Charlie gone on his endless voyage and no one in the house but herself and Aunt Lucy?

It seemed too cold-hearted to retire listlessly to the study to do some bookkeeping on Christmas morning, so she sat listlessly in a chair in front of the fire instead while Aunt Lucy bustled about the parlour fidgeting with the weights on the longcase clock and adjusting the lace curtains more than once.

Finally, she stopped to make an announcement.

“Bel, dear, I have invited a guest to join us for dinner.”

Bel eyed her stormily. “I have a strange feeling that I know exactly who this guest is.”

Aunt Lucy had the grace to squirm beneath her floppy lace cap. “Yes, I think you might. Mr. Townsend’s sermon was so fervent about our duty to the poor, and the fatherless, and the stranger that I thought it incumbent on me to—”

“Surely you did not invite the vicar!” said Bel, her mouth falling open in horror.

“No, no,” said Aunt Lucy, her tone full of reassurance. “I invited the duke!”

Bel closed her mouth. She did not wish her aunt to encourage the Duke of Warrenton’s flirtation, but at least his presence was marginally preferable to Mr. Townsend’s. She sighed. “You’ll only encourage further gossip with this.”

“If a little gossip gets you closer to happiness, then I’m willing to risk it,” said Aunt Lucy.

“No, no, don’t ‘tsk, tsk’ me. I’m older than you, and I know what I’m about.

I won’t have you regretting the time you didn’t make an effort to secure something better for yourself than this meaningless spinsterhood. ”

“Meaningless?” Her work to keep the fields sowed, the crops harvested, the sheep sheared, and the market stall open was meaningless?

Bel’s back stiffened and the firelight glinted off the burnished brown of her variegated hair.

“How dare you say such a thing! You may only care for fashionable clothing and folderols and all the follies of the metropolis, but Charlie will value my good, honest labour for what it is and the profit that’s accrued from it. ”

“And what if Mr. Brownlee is right? What if Charlie never comes back? I’ll pass on before you do, Bel Morrison, and you’ll be all alone, working yourself to the bone until you’re nothing but bones yourself. And you’ll have no one to leave it to. No one.”

Bel’s tanned face was suffused with red.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream.

She wanted to protest that nothing Aunt Lucy said was true.

But deep in her heart, the weeds of despair had been growing over the last two weeks until the flower of hope had almost been choked out.

Perhaps Harold Brownlee and Aunt Lucy were right.

Perhaps there was no return for Charlie.

Perhaps everything she did to secure and improve his inheritance was all in vain.

“Er, am I interrupting something?”

Once again, the duke had let himself into the house at the most awkward of moments. Bel could hardly blame him since neither she nor Aunt Lucy had been in any condition to hear the knocker.

“Indeed, you are,” said Bel, more sharply than she meant to. “You seem to have a talent for interrupting at inauspicious moments.”

“Your grace,” said Aunt Lucy with a forced smile, trying to cover over the embarrassment of being overheard arguing, “how kind of you to join us for dinner.”

“The kindness is all on your side,” said the duke, gallantly ignoring Bel’s discourtesy. “I think Archie was quite relieved that I had received an invitation, for his mother Mrs. Garrick had threatened to invite me to their cottage to keep me from being all alone.”

Bel exhaled audibly. “Yes, the prospect of one being all alone does seem to be distressing to some people.” She sent a fierce look in Aunt Lucy’s direction.

“Well, regardless,” said the duke, “ I’m pleased to have company at Christmas.” His smile was still affable, but his eyes showed a refusal to enter their argument—however much of it he had overheard.

After a few moments of desultory talk, they sat down at the dining room table.

Jenny served a roast goose, the smell of which had been permeating the house for the last four hours.

There was fish and vegetables and cheese and venison.

Bel reflected that the duke could not complain about such a hearty and flavourful repast, even if it was not so finely sauced or garnished as London food might be.

At Aunt Lucy’s urging, the duke stood to carve the roast goose for the two ladies and even complimented the brown, crackling skin of the large bird.

Bel, on the other hand, felt the crackling of tension in every polite exchange of conversation.

What was the duke’s motive in coming for dinner?

She was not so foolish as to think that he yearned for the company of a countrified spinster, but every time she raised her eyes to his face, she discovered that his eyes were already lingering on her own features. What did this man want with her?

When they had each sated their appetites, Bel stood up and began to clear the dishes from the table onto the sideboard. The duke stared at her, puzzled. “Surely, that is work for the servants?”

“Jenny was good enough to make the Christmas meal and serve it, but then she and Jer departed to visit their own parents. They took Tam with them, for he hasn’t a family of his own.

Christmas is for everyone, not just the rich.

She’s helping Mrs. Coleman at the Boxing Day ball tomorrow night, but we won’t see her till then. ”

The duke stood up and began to clear his own plate and used silverware. “Then allow me to assist you.” He helped her gather up a tray of dishes while Aunt Lucy looked on with a knowing smile.

“There’s a good deal of goose left,” said the duke, bearing the platter with the bird to the wood-topped table in the middle of the kitchen .

“Indeed,” said Bel. “When I picked out the goose, I knew it was far too much for three. I had intended to bring some to Mrs. Hogg and the other tenants.”

“ Had intended ? ”

Bel sniffed. “Well, now that our Christmas has turned into a dinner with guests, I daresay, you and Aunt Lucy expect me to play the fine lady and sit in the parlour and pretend that I love to hear the latest on-dits and tittle-tattle of the ton.” She looked out the window.

“It will be dark soon. If I do not go to Mrs. Hogg’s house now, she will have to wait till tomorrow for her roast goose. ”

“Then, by all means, let us go now. I’m sure your aunt will excuse us on an errand of mercy. I have my own present for Mrs. Hogg.”

“You do?” Bel was completely mystified what that could be. Had the duke even met Mrs. Hogg? How peculiar that someone so self-absorbed would think of someone other than himself. As they left the kitchen, the duke retrieved his beaver from the entrance hall. Beside it sat a package of sweetmeats.

“So, you brought a gift for Mrs. Hogg,” said Bel sardonically, “but none for your hostesses.”

“You’ve made it quite clear,” said the duke, adopting a tragic air, “that you’ll stomach no sweetness from me.

” He put on his greatcoat and placed the beaver on his head at a rakish angle.

Bel could not dispel a feeling of attraction for this man, attraction that began somewhere near the seat of her heart and curled all the way down to the tips of her toes.

“It’s Christmas Day,” she observed, abandoning all sense of caution. “Perhaps I could make an exception.”

The duke looked at her curiously, his dark eyes passing over her face and figure as she donned her warm pelisse and placed the practical bonnet on her head.

“You’d like me to be sweet to you?” He took the strings of her bonnet and tied them into a neat bow, letting the backs of his knuckles brush against her chin. “I can oblige.”

Bel felt a tremor of anticipation that had nothing to do with the cold blast of air from the open door.

The duke had been the epitome of a gentleman at dinner.

Would he continue to be so on their brisk walk to the tenant cottages?

Or would he live up to his reputation and to Mr. Townsend’s warnings?

One part of her hoped for the latter. The weary listlessness that she had felt this morning had melted away at Nigel Lymington’s briefest touch.

It was a distraction most welcome—was she courting folly to entertain it?

The Duke of Warrenton would be gone soon enough, hiding from his debts and his responsibilities in some other locality.

What harm could there be in neglecting caution just this once before he disappeared from Derbyshire forever?

With Aunt Lucy peering at them out the lace curtains, Bel and the duke set off down the lane, bearing the basket of roast goose, the package of sweetmeats, and an unspoken question about what would happen next.

“Marzipan!” said Mrs. Hogg. “Let me see it.” Her old fingers grabbed for the box of sweetmeats as Nigel handed it to her.

She peered inside, took a sweet, and greedily stuffed it into her gummy mouth.

She gave a sniff and looked at the basket Bel had placed on the table.

“I sh’pose the goose is cold as a jellied eel. ”

Nigel could barely understand the woman’s garbled words as she sucked on the marzipan treat. “We could heat it for you,” he offered, looking at the forlorn fireplace in the little cottage. At least there were some embers glowing that he might be able to fan into a fire.