Winter Wonderland (19 page)

Twenty-one

Barnaby, uncertain of the meaning of Livy's response, said nothing to anyone that afternoon about being betrothed. And Livy, hiding away in her room, had neither the opportunity nor the inclination to make any announcement. But in the mysterious way that such news has of disseminating itself, the whole household was buzzing with it within an hour. Honoria heard about it from her abigail when the girl was brushing her hair, preparing to dress it for dinner. Honoria let out a little scream. “How did you
hear
it?” she cried, clasping her hands together at her breast. “Are you
sure
?”

“Everyone's whisperin' about it,” the girl said. “Even Mr. Cummings won't deny it, an' he ain't one to permit us t' spread gossip.”

That was enough for Honoria. Pulling her dressing gown tightly around her ungirdled waist, and with her long gray hair hanging unplaited down her back, she ran first to the Earl to tell him the news and then down the hall to Barnaby's room. “Dearest!” she exclaimed as soon as he opened his door, “I'm so delighted I could weep!” And she threw herself into his arms.

He patted her affectionately on her back as he led her to the nearest chair. “Calm yourself, my dear,” he warned. “I'm not yet certain that Livy is happy about this.”

“Of
course
she's happy. How can you think otherwise? Why, she told me herself that she finds you the kindest, most good-natured and handsomest man alive!”

Barnaby was not taken in by his sister-in-law's hyperbole. “I suspect, my love, that it was you put those words in her mouth. Nevertheless, you must promise me not to say a word of this betrothal until Livy herself affirms it.”

Livy did affirm it that very evening at dinner. She made a shy announcement during the serving of the second course. And when the whole family reacted with boisterous delight (rising to their feet, surrounding the pair, pounding Barnaby on his back, kissing the blushing Livy and loudly toasting the couple's health), Barnaby was relieved to see that Livy did at last look happy.

A short while later, upstairs in the schoolroom, Miranda sat on the window seat staring out at a pale winter moon. The boys were not there, having been invited to join in the celebration of their uncle's betrothal, but Miranda had declined to go with them. “It's a celebration for the family,” she'd explained as she sent them off in the care of the butler, “not for the staff.”

She remained in the schoolroom alone, not noticing that the fire had died. She'd not even lit a candle to dispel the darkness. She merely sat gazing out at the sky. It was a sad-looking moon, she thought, coldly bluish white in color and fuzzy in outline because of a layer of clouds that partially obscured it. It barely gave light to the snow.
Pathetic
, she muttered.
Like me
.

Indeed, she
was
pathetic, sitting there in the corner of the window recess with her feet curled up under her and her arms crossed over her chest, shivering with cold and letting a veritable flood of tears drip down her cheeks. It was pathetic to weep over the betrothal of a man who had shown his dislike of her from the first moment they'd met. How could she have been so foolish as to permit herself to fall in love with him? Anyone with a grain of sense could have foretold that she would end up in tears.

She'd not used good sense in this matter. She'd let a kiss blind her to the facts. Barnaby Traherne had kissed her, and she'd made herself believe it was a meaningful act. But evidently it had meant nothing to him, for he was now betrothed to the insipid Miss Ponsonby. Of course, if Miss Ponsonby's kisses had the power to drive the memory of that other, extraordinary kiss from his mind, perhaps “little Livy” was not as insipid as she seemed!

Miranda tried to stop weeping by turning her mind to other matters, like her future. But how bleak her future suddenly appeared to be. Her prospects now seemed to have turned as cold and unexciting as that fuzzy moon. Thinking about Barnaby had given her days a little spice, the stimulus that comes from speculation. Each day a sense of expectation—the possibility of surprise—hovered in the air. With Barnaby lurking about to watch her handling of Jamie, to criticize her, to assault her in the corridor, there had been a zest to her days. Now that zest was gone, and nothing seemed likely to take its place. All she could look forward to now was his leaving. When he was gone, she could set her mind on forgetting him. The rest of the days of her life might not be eventful, but they might eventually be free of pain. That, at least, was something to look forward to.

And there was always memory. She could, in future, content herself with reviewing her few happy memories, as she used to do when her husband's behavior was at its worst. She used to finger her little cameo and remember that happiest month in her life when they were traveling on honeymoon in Italy. A pathetic kind of consolation, admittedly, but better than nothing.

Instinctively she uncrossed her arms, her fingers feeling for the cameo that had always hung round her neck on a silver chain. Nothing was there. She'd forgotten—the highwaymen had taken it. Even that innocuous solace was denied her.

A fresh flood of tears was about to flow when a knock at the door stopped them. Miranda brushed her cheeks free of wetness. “Come in,” she said hoarsely.

“Miranda?” The door opened. Delia, her face eerily lit by the candle she carried, peered into the darkness. “Are you here?”

Miranda unfolded herself from the seat. “Yes, here I am.”

Delia stepped over the threshold. “What are you doing sitting in the dark?” She went to the bookcase, took down another candle from the top shelf and lit it with her own.

Miranda blinked in the sudden light. “I was only … looking out at the moon. Did you wish to see me?”

“Yes. Miranda, my dear, why didn't you come down when we sent for you?”

“I'm sorry. I thought it was a family affair.”

“Yes, so the boys explained.” Delia set the two candles on the low schoolroom table and sat down at it. “But you must have understood that we wanted to include you.”

Miranda did not answer. She remained standing in the shadows, trying to compose herself.

“I am not scolding,” Delia assured her, looking over at the shadowy figure with a knit brow. “Was there any reason why you decided to stay up here alone?”

“I only … I thought … that is, if I may be honest, Delia, Mr. Barnaby Traherne has no liking for me. My presence at his celebration would not have added to his pleasure.”

Delia did not deny the truth of that. “Do you know
why
Barnaby has no liking for you?” she asked in her forthright style.

“No, not really. But one doesn't have to have reasons for taking someone in dislike. Sometimes it's purely instinctive. I don't much like him, either.”

“Don't you?” She cocked her head, trying to get a better look at Miranda's face, but the light of two candles was not enough to penetrate the shadows. “Do sit down, Miranda. You seem like a ghost standing there before the window, with the moonlight outlining you with eerie light.”

Miranda laughed mirthlessly and came forward. “Shouldn't you be downstairs?” she asked as she sat down on one of the low chairs.

“I won't stay long enough to be missed.” She looked across the table at the younger woman, noting the red-rimmed eyes. She believed she knew why Miranda had been crying. “You're wrong about Barnaby, you know,” she said bluntly.

“Wrong? In what way?”

“In what you just said—that his dislike of you is instinctive. That dislike has nothing to do with instinct. I've learned he has quite specific reasons for his dislike.”

Miranda immediately stiffened. “If you are referring to his disagreements with me about handling Jamie,” she said defensively, “I believe those differences have been settled. Besides, he disliked me long before that.”

“Yes, he did. Since his nineteenth year, I'm told.”

“What?”
Miranda's eyebrows rose in astonishment. “What on earth are you talking about? You know we met on the stagecoach, less than a fortnight ago.”

“No. That's not so. I'm told you met at the Lydell ball eleven years ago.”

“The Lydell ball? Eleven
years—
?” She gaped at Delia openmouthed, the words not making sense. She did have a vague memory of a ball at the Lydells' during the season before her betrothal. And, yes, she did remember that Rodney was there, and Fred Covington and Lord Yarmouth and a few other of her swains. But she had no recollection of Barnaby, not the slightest. “I would have remembered,” she muttered, blinking into the candle flame in an effort to bring it all back. “A man like Barnaby, tall and handsome and distinguished … I would have remembered …”

“He was scarcely distinguished,” Delia said gently. “Not at nineteen.”

“No, I suppose not … but even so …”

“It was his first ball, Honoria tells me. He was gawky, and very shy.”

Hearing those words, something flashed into Miranda's memory: she recalled standing on a sort of platform … a circle of admirers milling about … Rodney whispering the most charming of pleasantries into her ear … then, an interruption … the Earl of Shallcross—Yes! Lawrence Traherne, the very Earl now staying in this house!—thrusting a gawky, clumsy fool at her; a stuttering, ill-clad
fool
with a bad haircut … Oh, God! Was that
Barnaby?
Whom she teased and tormented and tossed aside, just to impress Rodney with her power over men!

“No,” she groaned at this vision of her younger self,
“no
!” And she dropped her head in her arms on the table in shame.

“So you
do
remember the incident,” Delia said.

“Yes, I remember. Now I remember. Oh, Delia, I could
die
!”

“That would be a rather severe punishment for the crime, wouldn't it?”

“No!” came the muffled cry from the buried head.

“Come now, Miranda,” Delia scoffed, “it was a set-down, not a murder.”

Miranda lifted her head. “It was the sorriest, most flagrant example of arrogant vanity imaginable! If you had been there, you'd have hated me.”

“Nonsense. And what difference does it make that I might have disliked you then? You are obviously not the same person. I like you
now
. Give yourself credit for having improved your character.”

“No, I can't take credit. The trials of life improved my character, not I.”

Delia pushed back her chair and rose. “If you're determined to flagellate yourself over your long-past depravity, Miranda Velacott, I'm not going to stay here and watch you do it.” She picked up one of the candles and started toward the door. “Good night, my dear.”

“But Delia, wait! If it was not to berate me for that depravity, why did you tell me this now?”

Delia, her hand on the doorknob, turned a level gaze on the woman slumped over the table. “Because I wanted you to see on how slight a basis Barnaby built his dislike.”

“Slight?” Miranda sat erect in stern objection to Delia's belittlement of her crime. “It's not slight at all! What I did was unforgiveable.”

“Heavens, woman, you sound as nonsensical as Honoria. You struck him with words, not sticks and stones.”

Miranda shook her head. “Contempt can sometimes be more brutal than physical injuries, isn't that so?”

“Sometimes, perhaps, but in this case, contempt may be too strong a word. It seems to me—and I made this point to Honoria as strongly as I could—that the entire incident has been overblown. Much too overblown. And for far too long.”

“Whether overblown or not, Delia, I suppose it's foolish to worry about it at this late date,” Miranda sighed. She stood up, turned to the window and gazed out at the bleak, eerily lit landscape. “It cannot matter to Barnaby now. Not any more.”

“If you think that,” Delia remarked as she threw open the door and strode out of the room, “you're not nearly as astute a young woman as I think you are.”

Miranda wheeled about. “Delia? What do you mean by that?” She ran across the room to the doorway. “Are you suggesting that he—? That I—?
Delia!
”

But the corridor was deserted. Delia was gone.

Twenty-two

It was much later than his usual bedtime when the nursemaid undressed Jamie and tucked him in. But the boy was not sleepy. He lay awake waiting for someone to come in and give him a good-night embrace. Usually his mother did it, and sometimes Mrs. Velacott, but when he was really lucky, it was both. His mother's embrace was the best, of course, but Mrs. Velacott rated a close second. He could tell that the new governess really liked him, and that gave him a warm feeling inside. Besides, she had soft hands, softer even than Mama's, and the smoothest cheeks, and she always smelled like cinnamon candy. He wished that she or Mama would come. It was hard to fall asleep without a hug.

Tonight, however, a long time passed and no one came. He got up from his bed, wrapped his comforter around him to protect him from the cold and, after feeling his way to the door (for he was not permitted to light a candle on his own), went out the door and down the corridor to the schoolroom.

The room was very dimly lit by a guttering candle on the table, but he could see someone sitting on the window seat. “Mithuth Velacott?” he asked.

She turned round in surprise, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. “J-Jamie? Why are you still awake?”

He waddled over to her, his comforter dragging behind him. “You didn't come to thay good night.”

“Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. Come, give me your hand and I'll tuck you in properly.”

He came closer and peered at her. “Were you crying, ma'am?”

“No, of course n—” She paused and thought better of her answer. “Well, yes, I was.”