Chapter 5

O

NCE HE’D WANDERED back across the snowy fields to the manor, Simon Goodrich was bored.

It was a very strange feeling. For as long as he could recall, he’d longed for a few hours to simply play, to climb trees or make a dog chase sticks or battle the village boys in one of their drawn-out snowball wars.

Simon had always worked. Even when he was very little, he could remember feeding chickens and carrying kindling. When the day turned too dark to work, Bernie would teach him his letters and numbers.

Then when he became “Master Simon,” it was all lessons and maths and writing. While Simon didn’t mind studying old battles, he’d much rather fight in one.

Yet this holiday, for the very first time in his long nine-year life, Simon had nothing to do.

The staff at Havensbeck was too busy to spare him even a bit of conversation. Bernie and his new brother Matthias hardly stood still for three minutes altogether. The stableboys were caught up treating Lady Emmeline’s horses for something called “shock” and now John was too grumpy for even a simple game of chess.

Moreover, the house was brimful of lady guests, all clustered around Lady Emmeline’s sickbed—or deathbed, depending on which servant delivered the gossip. Simon started to wonder if Christmas was even going to be Christmas this year. If Lady Emmeline did die, they would have to “rethink matters.” That’s what Bernie had said this morning.

“You see that it wouldn’t be right to celebrate Christmas in a house of mourning, don’t you, Simon?”

“Yes, I see.”

Bernie had made him say it out loud, which was just an adult trick. Now that he’d said it, he’d not be able to complain later when Christmas turned dark and sad and the village didn’t come to feast and dance and eat large pieces of Cook’s towering fancy cakes.

Simon walked down the main hallway of the house, the one that led from the front door all the way back to the ballroom stairs. As he walked, head down in a brown study, hands thrust into his trouser pockets, the staff moved swiftly in a complicated dance of preparation. They flowed past him carrying linens and vases, brooms and coal scuttles, always with a “good afternoon, Master Simon” as they passed.

Simon answered politely but automatically, for he was thinking hard.

He was thinking about how it used to be when he and Bernie had lived with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Isaiah. He and Bernie had been closer than close, but Bernie had still been sad much of the time though she’d tried hard to hide it.

It wasn’t her new luxurious life at Havensbeck, or the way everyone bowed and called her “milady” that had made Bernie happy. It was Matthias who made Bernie happy.

And vice versa. Simon had learned that term from his tutor and enjoyed using it as often as possible.

Simon’s walk slowed further, which seemed to make the servants move faster.

Finally, Simon stopped altogether and stood in the center of the fervor, thinking the right thought at last.

Love.

Love made ladies happy. They became very excited about it, and talked about it, and dreamed about it, like Bernie had when she’d been reading Matthias’s messages in the bottles that had been carried down the river, long before she’d ever met him.

Lady Emmeline was sleeping, Bernie had said. An injured kind of sleep, not a good sort. Too deeply, and for too long.

Did Lady Emmeline dream of love in her too deep, too long sleep? Would the dream of love bring Lady Emmeline back if she knew it waited for her in the waking world?

Also, there was John, who was lonely in his nice new house and who couldn’t make a decent cup of tea to save his life. John, who still thought about Bernie the way he used to when he was courting her, the way he was supposed to stop thinking about her when she married Matthias. John needed a new lady to think about.

Lady Emmeline was very beautiful, that was the gossip. Rich too, even though John might not care about that.

Very slowly, Simon turned and headed for the grand stair in the front hall.

No one paid him any mind, except for the absent-minded greetings. No one noticed him at all as he wandered slowly into the guest wing, and on down the hallway.

He saw Miss Grey walk out of the sickroom and on down the hall. She left the door slightly ajar, so Simon peeked into the sitting room.

A man—that would be Lord Bester—and a very old lady—that would be the Dowager Baroness—were snoozing in the two chairs by the fire.

Slowly and silently, Simon passed them by.

The bedchamber gave Simon a little pause. Even at his age he knew that a gentleman never entered a lady’s bedchamber.

Children did, however. They entered their mothers’ and aunts’ chambers, didn’t they? Wasn’t Lady Emmeline family? That’s what Bernie had said.

Deciding that facts and tradition lined up in his favor, Simon pushed open the bedchamber door and entered.

There was another lady, not as old as the first one—so that would be Mrs. Grey—but not Lady Grey? Simon feared he would never sort out the peerage. Matthias said he would need to someday. But St. Peter, it was boring!

The lady was snoozing in the chair by the bedside.

Old people snoozed a great deal, didn’t they?

In the bed was the famous beauty Lady Emmeline. Simon stopped his slow approach. She didn’t look asleep. She looked a little bit dead. That would ruin everything! And also be very, very sad. Yes. Very sad.

Then Simon spotted a slight rise and fall of her coverlet-covered chest and he felt better at once.

Moving to the bedside opposite Mrs. Grey’s chair, he bent to the pale beauty’s ear and began to whisper.

 

 

“SIMON! WHAT ARE you doing here?”

Simon turned to blink innocently at his sister even as he closed Lady Emmeline’s door. Bernie blocked his escape in the hallway and gazed at him with narrowed eyes and fists planted on her hips. Uh-oh.

“I wanted to meet Lord Bester. He’s a real baron!” He shrugged. “But they’re all asleep. I left.”

All true, actually. It was a fine thing to tell the truth and still get away with something. Then he remembered that Bernie was the one who’d taught him how to do that. He eyed his sister warily, but she was too distracted to mind his wording carefully. She blew out a breath that carried a stray lock of hair away from her brow. For a moment, she was the old Bernie, overworked but all his very own.

“Well, you shall have to wait until Lord Bester wants to meet you. We don’t introduce ourselves to people of rank. Someone else must do it for us.”

Simon shook his head. He was never going to grasp the rules!

“Go on now. I’ve too much to—”

Simon interrupted her before she could dash away again. “John Barton is really sad, Bernie.”

That caught her up, as he known it would. An expression of guilt flashed over her features. Bernie felt bad for what happened with John, even though she had done nothing wrong.

“Did—did he say something to you?”

“I had tea at the vicarage. You should see it. It’s really coming along!” Another dig, for the vicarage had been meant for Bernie, but Simon was fighting for Christmas, for heaven’s sake! “And he’s all alone.”

Bernie drew one shoulder back, fidgeting, too uncomfortable to be still. “Simon, you know I—”

“Don’t you think with all the ladies here now—don’t you think John might like one of them?”

Bernie went very still. Simon knew she was thinking hard. Then she reached out, ruffled his hair, and took off running down the hall toward the main house. Her path intersected with that of Miss Higgins, who carried fresh linens for the bedchambers.

“Higgins, where is his lordship?”

“In his study, my lady.”

Dash it, Bernie could still really run, couldn’t she?

 

 

HOME ALONE, AS usual. John stared unseeing at his cold teapot and the plate of crumbs at Simon’s place. He had a fine, finished house and no one with whom to share it. Why should he expect anything to have changed?

Well, you saved a lady from falling to her death on the frozen river. Then you were blamed for the accident. You were able to spend time with Bernie. Then you watched her go all gooey over bloody Matthias. You actually felt a moment of attraction for another woman. Miss Grey’s snapping eyes came alive in his memory.

I have had a day.

In the silence, John could hear his mule braying resentfully from the stable. He needed a proper horse.

You need a proper wife. Someone with whom to drink tea and talk about the needs of the village. Someone to remind him to buy a proper horse.

John tried to think honestly of the ladies of his acquaintance. There was Miss Catherine Oglesby, the comely sister of John’s best mate in seminary school.

But hadn’t Oglesby said in his last letter that Catherine had wed a solicitor and moved to London?

There was Miss Verity Watson, the daughter of the Archdeacon of Cambridge. Then again, John didn’t much wish to live in the shadow of the politically calculating archdeacon.

Courting. How was a man supposed to court anyone when he had a village and all of the outlying farms and mines to serve? Matters were quiet now, but come spring he would be so busy wedding and christening his flock that he wouldn’t have a moment to leave the village until after the Harvest Festival in October.

He feared he had missed his moment for courtship. All his friends and classmates had gone about it in their early twenties. John had waited for Bernie. He’d felt so above all their whingeing about this lass or that one. He’d made his choice and he’d banked everything on Miss Bernadette Goodrich.

And lost the pot to Matthias.

Knock-knock.

 

 

IT WAS MATTHIAS at the door, of all bloody people!

I shall not…

“I’ve come to invite you to join the—well, party hardly seems the correct word, considering—”

John stared at Matthias. Then a harsh bark of laughter broke from his throat. “Bernie made you come all by your lordly self, did she?” His head swam. He felt drunk on wrath. The simmering resentment of the past year reached some kind of boiling point. John snarled, “Go away.”

He abruptly shoved hard at Matthias, and then again, wanting him out of his house, out of his door. Matthias didn’t even stagger, as immovable as stone.

As undeniable as lost dreams.

Matthias was always going to be in the way, wasn’t he?

Bernie will never love me.

John gasped and backed away from Matthias, shaking his head, trying to reject the single, simple thing he’d managed never to entirely admit to himself.

There had been a lovely young girl, with wise eyes and a warrior’s heart, who had so astounded him years ago. Yet suddenly John wasn’t even sure if the Bernie he’d loved in his mind all those years wasn’t a fantasy Bernie, a creation of his careful, planning nature and his loneliness.

The real Bernie—Lady Bernadette!—would never love him, not even if Matthias fell off his beautiful horse tomorrow and left grieving Lady Bernadette all alone.

And it hurt, damn it. The slashing of that strand of his entangled heart bloody well burned.

Matthias—blast him!— seemed to know precisely what was happening. His usually somber demeanor slipped a bit. Pained understanding and sympathy leaked out from the man’s jagged edges. The sight jerked John from his spiral of fury and regret.

Oh.

Matthias had needed to do the same thing, hadn’t he? He’d had to figure out how to let go, how to reach forward and step out of the bitter past.

“Well hell.” John rubbed his face with both hands.

“Bloody hell,” agreed Matthias solemnly.

John took a deep breath and let it out, releasing a decade of hopes and dreams and loss. “It had to be you, I suppose?”

Matthias shrugged, a movement that abruptly reminded John of Simon.

Then John looked Lord Matthias of Havensbeck Manor in the eye and saw only a good man, a man who had made his friend Miss Bernadette Goodrich very happy.

John took a breath, and then another.

“Yes, I’ll come to Havensbeck.”

 

 

THEY DIDN’T SPEAK on the way but the silence was not uncomfortable. John and Matthias approached Havensbeck at a walk, an extreme courtesy by his lordship, whose fine gelding could run rings around John’s stocky mule and cart.

At least the mule didn’t embarrass John by balking. Clearly the animal was eager to reenter the world of heated stalls and steamy oat mash which he so clearly felt he deserved.

Jasper, two gangly young footmen and young master Simon ran out into the snow to greet them several yards from the house.

“The lady! The lady—!” Jasper gasped.

“She’s awake!” Simon crowed. “Christmas is back on again!”

 

 

NORAH SAT AS close to Emmeline as she could, what with the room full of people. It didn’t matter that she was disregarded. Nothing mattered but that Emmeline was all right!

“I have quite the headache, but only that. I really do feel all right.” Pale and a little shaky, yet Emmeline was sitting up and smiling.

Miss Higgins, bless her, had no issue commanding Lord Bester to “stop your booming at her, my lord, or I’ll have Jasper’s lads lock you in your room for the rest of the evening.”

Uncle Bester had turned furiously to the lady of the manor lurking in the doorway—for there was no more room in the sickroom!—but when he was met with only bland disregard, he had finally subsided.

Then Miss Higgins, having had the entire story from her brother, spoke quite authoritatively about the accident.

When the proud lady’s maid credited her brother for keeping the careening carriage on the bridge, Norah nodded in full agreement.

When Miss Higgins made much of Norah’s part in heroically hanging on to the falling Emmeline, Norah only looked away, waving off the admiration. She felt ill at the memory of her own panic and terror, of the grim moment when she realized she was not strong enough to save Emmeline.

Don’t let go!

However, when Miss Higgins began to laud the heroism and selflessness of Haven’s very own Valiant Vicar, Norah wanted to roll her eyes and leave the room.

Except that every single heroic act Miss Higgins recounted was absolutely and entirely accurate. From this distance it was truly an impressive tale. Mama and Great-Aunt Blythe were practically swooning and even Uncle Bester looked uncharacteristically impressed. Why, the shrewd old fellow was actually misty-eyed at such manly deeds of derring-do.

Norah looked at Emmeline just in time to watch a pale and frightened girl turn into romantically-awed pudding at the tale of her own rescue.

Oh dear. Wait until Emmeline actually saw the man.

Norah tried to intervene in Miss Higgins’s account and found herself most assuredly hushed, even by the lady in the doorway. She sat back in her chair in the corner, disgruntled and alarmed for her impressionable cousin.

Yet even Norah had to admit that beneath her panic and worry for Emmeline, something feminine and ageless had taken note of Mr. Barton’s thrilling act of heroism. The look on his handsome face, which she had only glimpsed as he ran out onto the ice, had been such an expression of forceful determination. Norah had seen not a thought of fear or even self-preservation in his eyes.

Then John Barton was there, slipping past Lady Bernadette in the doorway and bringing the scent of snow and pine into the room.

Norah felt something catch in her throat at the site of the real Vicar John Barton.

She had only seen him in his rough work clothing. He’d been handsome enough, certainly very manly, but now?

Now he was so clearly the man that everyone in Haven thought him to be. He had a smooth authority, a presence that combined with his handsome face and his kind, warm pewter gaze to make even snobbish Uncle Bester step back in deference.

Oh. I see him now.

A path cleared before the vicar, an open route that led directly to Emmeline, sitting up in the bed in a pool of light from the candles.

Norah was crowded back by her uncommonly deferential relations until she had to stand on tiptoe to gaze over Mama’s head.

Emmeline, who looked especially vulnerable and angelic without her usual elegant finish and with her cloud of dark waving hair falling loosely over her enveloping shawl, gazed back at strong, fearless, handsome Mr. Barton as if she’d never before seen a real man.

Considering the feckless, dandified lot that constantly flocked to wealthy, beautiful Emmeline’s side, perhaps she had not.

Mama turned to whisper to Great-Aunt Blythe excitedly. She never noticed that she stepped on Norah’s toe.