It was a very strange Christmas morning at Hollydell Manor. One man was a prisoner in the root cellar, jailed alongside the perfectly innocent potatoes and onions. Another rose early to carry a message to a posting inn, a message addressed to someone named Chattan, a message that couldn’t wait until after Christmas.
Caroline and Estelle woke together in Caroline’s bed, with Mittens stretched across both of them, luxuriating in the heat of two bodies. (Estelle had been adamant that Caroline could not be left alone.)
“Happy Christmas,” Estelle said, sitting up. “I think.”
“We’ll make it a happy Christmas, and after all, what’s left to make us unhappy?” Caroline replied, moving the protesting feline to the foot of the bed.
Estelle said she wanted to write a letter to her mother before breakfast, and that the best light would be in the east parlor. She dressed and went down, bringing paper and pen with her.
Caroline got up as well, still feeling as if she were in a bit of a dream. She put on a soft ivory day dress over her shift, and tied a green ribbon at the high waist. She then walked softly down the stairs. At the threshold of the east parlor, she halted, hearing two voices within.
“Miss Estelle,” Timothy Stockan was saying, “I’ve no right to presume, but I have to tell you that I am most profoundly affected by your charm and your beauty.”
“Please don’t flatter me, sir,” Estelle said, sounding flustered.
“But I want to flatter you. I assure you, you are most enchanting, all the more because your charm is not common.”
“Sir, you must stop. This talk is far too familiar. If anyone overheard it, they would think you were courting me.”
“That is exactly what I wish to do, Miss Estelle.”
“I would like that…but you ought not to! In truth, I have nothing except my name.”
“Does that bother you, that I should bring the bulk of our income?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Miss Estelle, I have an income of several thousand dollars a year. I don’t know quite how much that would be in pounds, but I assure you it would be sufficient to keep a wife and children in comfort. I’m due to inherit my father’s farm as well, which is a thousand acres.”
Caroline’s eyebrows shot up as she heard this from her hidden spot. Evidently, Estelle was equally stunned, since she did not respond.
“Yes,” he said. “I chose not to air it about, but the fact is that I am quite well off. And I do not care a pin that a wife should bring a dowry, so long as she brings her whole heart to me, for that is far more valuable, and much more rare. Please, Miss Estelle. Say you will marry me.”
“And…you will take me to America?” she asked.
“I dearly hope so. There’s little point in finding the perfect wife and then leaving her behind. I’m not rushing back though. I still have a lot to learn while I’m here. That should give us plenty of time to make arrangements.”
The next few sounds suggested that the matter was being settled to the satisfaction of both parties.
Caroline tactfully moved to the breakfast room. Her parents were already there, along with Snowdon.
“Come in, Caro,” her father said. “We were just speaking of Foster’s activities. Hard to believe that our friend and neighbor was driven to such terrible deeds. But money—or the lack of it—sometimes works on people’s brains in dark ways.”
Caroline shook her head. “I never would have thought he could be so changed from the boy I once knew. I wish—”
But before she could voice any wish, Timothy and Estelle entered the room, beaming and bright. They shared the news that they intended to marry at some time in the next year, before leaving for America.
“Excellent news!” Caroline said, not mentioning that she already knew. She was overjoyed that Timothy wanted to marry Estelle. It meant she’d be well cared for no matter what.
Full of this good news, they ate a hearty breakfast in the brilliant sunlight streaming through the windows. Nearly every servant found a reason to come in and speak to Caroline that morning, most of them leaving humble gifts in their wake: an embroidered handkerchief from Maggie, a set of buttons carved from bone by the footmen, a green glass bottle of dandelion wine from Cook. Caroline was practically in tears at the end of it. She had always loved her home, but she hadn’t quite realized how much her home loved her back.
Then Timothy asked Estelle if she would like to take a short walk around the gardens, and she accepted the offer as if he’d handed her summer in a jar.
After they left, Snowdon said, “There is one more thing.” He walked over to the table and picked out a box gaily wrapped in blue-and-white-striped fabric. He offered it to Mr Garland. “Not exactly a gift, sir, since it’s yours already.”
Mr Garland opened the box and pulled out…his lab notes.
“Wait, what?” Caroline asked. “Foster stole those.”
“He stole the notes he was meant to steal,” Snowdon explained. “When I first got here, your father handed me the real notes to keep safe.”
“Which you did to perfection, my good man. You hid the real notes in a present!” Mr Garland beamed at him.
“The best way to hide something is among other things just like it. I suspected my room would be searched, and it was. But no one would think to open all the gifts meant for exchanging later. They were out in the open, obvious, and ordinary.”
“Brilliant,” said Caroline. “I wonder who taught you to think like that.”
Snowdon gave her a glance. “Maybe someday you can meet them.”
“Ahem,” Mr Garland said quickly. “I really ought to go to my lab. Just to check on things.”
“And I must have a word with the housekeeper,” Mrs Garland added.
Caroline’s parents could never be accused of not understanding the needs of others.
When they were alone, Snowdon said, “In fact, I do have a present for you.”
He retrieved another item from the table, and she pulled off the white cloth to reveal a wooden box with a brass lock. Carved into the top of the dense mahogany were the initials NGS.
“The box is actually mine,” he said. “I always bring it along when I might have important papers to keep safe from prying eyes. But now you can use it to keep your rubies in. They ought be kept safe.”
“And the initials?”
“They stand for Nicholas George Snowdon. That’s my name. No lord—that was a bit of armor to help prevent anyone from being too quick to challenge me. I’m just plain Mr Snowdon.”
“But your name really is Snowdon! How funny. I never really thought you were a snowman come to life,” she added.
“I may have played into that accidentally,” he said. “I got the idea for my appearance from overhearing you and Miss Clement as you built the snowman in the woods earlier that day. I’d arrived well in advance so I could scout out the area and learn what I could of the property and the surrounding land, just in case I would need the information later on. As, indeed, proved to be the case.”
“So when you heard me list all the qualities for an ideal suitor…”
“I did my best to appear to be exactly that. I thought it would be the best way to distract everyone else from my real reason for being at Hollydell. No one questions it when a gentleman seems eager to court a young lady.”
“Seems,” she echoed. Was that all it was? All the conversations as they walked through the snow? The stolen kisses, and the way his smile made her heart pound? Was that all part of his pretense? “So your attentions toward me were only an excuse.”
“It started that way,” he admitted, his eyes the soft blue of a winter morning. “I never intended to hurt you. And I knew that I would only be here a short time. It seemed quite harmless…except that I quickly realized that when I was pretending to court you, I wasn’t pretending at all. I found myself looking for every excuse to see you again, to talk to you again. To make you smile…you have the most enchanting smile,” he added.
She was finding it difficult to breathe.
He went on, “I’d also like to point out that by your own rules, you are free to marry now, since it won’t mean you have to deny your friend’s position as companion to you.”
“Well, that’s not the only reason I haven’t wanted to marry,” she protested. “I’ve never found a suitor who I felt really wanted me.”
“You have now,” Snowdon said, his expression making her heart race. “Caroline, it might be too early to say that I love you, but I know that I do love you. I don’t need more time. But I am very willing to wait until you decide you love me. I think that would be the best reason to ask you to marry me…and not a moment earlier.”
“I might not need that long to know, my lord,” she whispered, overthrown. “Oh, no, I’m still calling you that!”
He laughed softly, tilting his head back against the wall. “Nicholas. My family calls me Nick.”
“Nick,” she said softly. “I must tell you that after considering all the requirements I have set for my ideal man…you fulfill every one. I wonder if I could persuade you to continue to court me for a little while, even without the added incentive of saving the realm from enemy spies.”
“I will be at your doorstep every day.”
“Hmm. I think I shall have to test that. You probably have a lot of secret missions that will keep you from visiting me regularly, and then you’ll meet a ravishing foreign agent or get kidnapped or have to go into hiding as a traveling player. Or whatever it is you do for your secret organization.”
“All of those sound less appealing than taking a walk through the woods with you. In fact, would you like to build a snowman?”
“In a moment, Mr Snowdon—”
“Nick.”
“Nick. There is one more thing I must say.”
“What is that?”
She glanced up. “Once again, we are standing under a bunch of mistletoe.”
He followed her gaze. “Ah. Then we’ve no choice but to follow tradition. I’d hate to anger the spirits by ignoring such a sacred ritual.”
The kiss they shared quickly became many kisses, and absolutely no one could accuse them of ignoring the mistletoe.
Being otherwise occupied, neither noticed a door close softly.
* * * *
“Yes, ma’am,” the maid Maggie whispered to Aunt Juniper, who was sitting in the next room. Mittens was on her lap, looking highly pleased with himself. “They’re kissing, just as you hoped.” She poured out some port into a tiny crystal glass and placed it on the table next to Juniper.
“Excellent,” the old lady said, her face wrinkling into a smile. “Mittens, we’ve managed the thing after all.”
The cat meowed in evident agreement.
“The good news is that no one has to go out and gather more of that stuff from the woods,” Aunt Juniper went on. “I dare say you and the other servants are sick of hanging it everywhere every day.”
“We shall be glad when it’s the New Year,” Maggie allowed. At Juniper’s nod, she poured a small glass for herself—an acknowledgment that today was a holiday, with the usual rules put aside.
“Well, it was worth it,” Juniper went on. “If I hadn’t taken a hand, who knows what would have happened? Probably nothing. Young people today don’t have any sense. They’ll look back and think it a Christmas miracle. But it was really me. And you, with the mistletoe.”
“Yes, ma’am. Happy Christmas, ma’am.”
“Happy Christmas to you, Maggie.”
The two of them raised their glasses of ruby-red port to each other, and drank to a job well done.
The End