A Gamble on Love (21 page)

“
Yet with me, you make no effort at
all!”

“
Not so!” Thomas’s sternly disciplined
calm, which had been dissolving as slowly but surely as the burning
Yule Log, totally deserted him. “Who has brought life back to this
household?” he roared. “Renewed old traditions? Do you think I did
this for myself? Solely for Livvy and Nicholas? You are an ice
maiden, Aurelia. Frozen in time. A child who never wants her world
to change. Grow up, girl. I am a man, not a puppet. And I want a
wife, not a puling infant.”

Appalled by his loss of control, Thomas
plunged his head into his hands as his wife swept from the room,
slamming the door of her bedchamber behind her. Hell and damnation,
how could he have been such a fool?

In the few remaining days before Twelfth
Night the strained relations between the master and mistress of
Pevensey Park, never noticeably cordial, went unremarked in a
household frantically preparing for its first party in more than
five years. Only husband and wife were aware that when Thomas
Lanning entered their private sitting room at night, he no longer
found his wife bent over her desk or toasting her toes before the
fire. Lit by a single wall sconce and the embers of a dying fire,
that quiet haven, which had seemed on the verge of creating an aura
of intimacy between them, was empty and chill. A silent reminder
that the gap they were attempting to bridge was, perhaps, too wide.
An insurmountable barrier erected by centuries of tradition, and
all the more invincible for its invisibility.

Each night Thomas extinguished the candles in
the sconce, poked at the embers in the grate, then stood for a
moment, eyeing his wife’s bedchamber door. Each night, he turned
away, walking through the door to his own bedchamber, his grim face
illumined by the single candle in his hand.

~ * ~

“
That young scamp—beg pardon, Madam!”
Mrs. Marshcombe, the housekeeper, took a heaving breath that sent a
ripple through the black bombazine covering her more than ample
bosom. “Master Nicholas,” she amended, “wishes to add Snapdragon to
the games. I know ‘tis none of my business, Madam, but that boy’s
got poor Miss Aldershot wrapped round his thumb, he has. The games
they have planned!” The housekeeper threw up her hands. “Needing
something new every minute they are. And Snapdragon! ‘Tis the
devil’s own brew, miss—madam! Raisins and brandy it is, and lit all
on fire. And many a singed finger we’ll have, and belonging to
little Lord This and Lady That, I promise you. Weeping and wailing
and gnashing of teeth is what we’ll have, and all the governesses
and nursery maids down upon us and the parents soon
after—”

“
Mrs. Marshcombe!” Relia cried,
effectively stopping the spate of words and leaving her irate
housekeeper with her jaw hanging open. “Surely I recall playing
Snapdragon on many occasions in the past. Snatching the raisins
from the flaming brandy was rather . . . well, rather
exciting.”

“
And, as
I
recall,” the housekeeper responded firmly,
“year after year Master Twyford and his friends seized the raisins
while the young ladies watched, offering noisy and inelegant
encouragement to their favorites.”

It was true, of course. Relia did not bother
to repress her smile of nostalgia. For all Twyford was a spoiled
bully, there had been some good times at the Christmas holidays. “I
imagine it will be much the same this time, Mrs. Marshcombe,” she
said. “Nicholas may have his Snapdragon. The boys will be daring,
and the girls will cheer them on. Just be sure there is a footman
standing by with a bucket of water.”

“
But, Madam, they will
eat
the raisins!”

“
Have you turned Methodist, Mrs.
Marshcombe?”

“
Indeed not, Madam!” Another broad
ripple of black bombazine. “But the brandy—”

“
The brandy burns, Mrs. Marshcombe. It
is consumed by fire, not by young stomachs.”

The housekeeper sniffed. “Very well, Madam.”
After a pause long enough to express her continuing disapproval,
Mrs. Marshcombe curtsied and headed for the staircase to the
kitchens below.

Relia sighed. They had been standing in the
entry hall before the remains of the Yule Log, now reduced to no
more than three broken lengths of charcoaled wood. But the great
log had made it through the twelve days of Christmas, whether on
its own, or by whatever encouragement—or possibly
discouragement—Mills the footman had managed when no one was
looking. Her husband had a way of making events occur as he
wished—was that not why she had married him? Which was all the more
reason his harsh words had hurt so ferociously. Thomas Lanning was
a man who made things happen. If he wished to return to the rapport
she had thought was developing between them, then surely he would
have found a way to—

A scream. A shout. A drawn-out wail.

Relia picked up her skirts and dashed toward
the commotion, flying past a bevy of maids poised with dust clothes
in their hands as she hurried through two great salons before
finding the source of the problem. A maid, wailing loudly, was
sitting on the carpet, her apron thrown up over her face. Beside
her two footmen scrambled about on all fours, apparently searching
for something. Suspended only a few feet off the floor was the
Venetian Murano glass chandelier, which evidently the maid had been
cleaning in preparation for this evening’s party. Even without its
candles lit, the crystals, both clear and colored, sparkled in the
sunshine from a southern wall of floor to ceiling windows.

One footman caught sight of his mistress,
poked the other. The maid peeked out from under her apron, then
renewed her wailing on a higher pitch. “What has happened?” Relia
demanded. Both footmen spoke at once, to the accompaniment of the
girl’s sobs. “Mills, you first,” she snapped.

“
I was holding the rope so’s Maggie
here could clean the crystals, ma’am. And . . . and one of them
fell,” Mills choked out. “Jemmy and me was just trying to find it,
but—”

“
Mills, Jeremiah, you will lift Maggie
up, please, and all of you step to the side. There . . . that is
better,” Relia declared, staring intently at the intricately
patterned high pile Isfahan carpet onto which the clear crystal had
disappeared as if by magic. Eyes left, eyes right. Slowly, Relia
and the two footmen circled the area, willing the crystal to catch
the light.

“
There, ma’am!” Mills called, pointing.
“You was right. Maggie was a-sitting on it.”

Dropping to her knees, Relia picked up the
two-inch crystal that had dangled from the lowest tier of the
chandelier. She held it up to the sunlight, slowly turning it
around as the three servants and those hovering in the doorways
held their breaths. “It is perfectly fine,” she declared, followed
by whooshes of relief from all sides.

“
My dear Mrs. Lanning, are you hurt?”
cried a voice from the doorway. “Allow me to help you!” Charles
Saunders rushed forward, arms outstretched. It was, Relia noted,
the first time she had ever seen the solicitor lose his
equanimity.

“
Mr. Saunders! What an unexpected
pleasure,” Relia beamed, allowing Mr. Saunders to help her to her
feet. “I am perfectly fine, I assure you. I fear you have caught us
in the midst of a small domestic crisis, which is now resolved.
Maggie, you will cease your caterwauling this instant. It was an
accident, the crystal is unbroken.” Relia handed the errant object
to Mills with the adjuration to see it reattached to the chandelier
immediately. “And now, Mr. Saunders, allow me to tell you I am
delighted you have arrived just in time for Twelfth
Night.”

“
And allow me to apologize for charging
in, as curious as everyone else, to discover what the fuss was all
about,” said Mr. Saunders, white teeth gleaming beneath his
patrician nose and clear blue eyes. “There seems to be a dash of
knight errant in every man, I confess, although I am pleased to
discover you have the situation well in hand.” He favored Relia
with the boyish smile that never failed to charm, even though she
knew quite well that it covered an intelligence and a will almost
as formidable as that of her husband.

“
And is it not just like Thomas,” Mr.
Saunders added, “not to apprize you of my coming, particularly when
I made such an effort to break away from my dear mama so I could be
here before the others arrived. And, speaking of my mama, she would
be quite horrified to have such an unexpected intrusion into a
party of hers. If I have I overset your table arrangements, I will
dine in my room.”

Relia, slightly overwhelmed by this torrent
of words, assured Mr. Saunders his arrival was a delight, not an
intrusion. “In fact,” she told him, “you will balance the table,
for Lady Gravenham has just sent a note requesting permission to
bring an unexpected guest. My cousin Twyford.”

“
Good Gad, I thought we had vanquished
him!” Mr. Saunders expostulated.

“
Twyford tends to be irrepressible,”
Relia noted wryly. “He keeps popping up, like the proverbial bad
penny. He quite delights in twitting me; he always did. Though how
he has pulled the wool over Lady Gravenham’s eyes I cannot imagine,
for she has known him since he was in short coats. Ah, Biddeford,”
Relia added as she caught sight of the butler, who had been dealing
with the hysterical maid Maggie and supervising the repair of the
chandelier, “Mr. Saunders’ room has been kept ready for him, has it
not? And please inform Mr. Lanning of his arrival.”

With a look that quite rivaled her husband’s
for bland suavity, Relia turned back to her guest. “Now tell me,
Mr. Saunders, precisely what you meant when you said you wished to
arrive before the others.”

“
I—I . . .” The London solicitor
fingered his watch fob, twisted his neck as if his cravat were
strangling him.

“
We are expecting some colleagues down
from London, are we not, Saunders?” said Thomas Lanning from the
doorway. “If I am to spend time in the country, then the City must
come to me. I did not speak of it, my dear, because they are not
expected for several days yet. Time enough to prepare after we are
done with tonight’s party. Come, Charles, into the bookroom where
we can talk without cluttering up Mrs. Lanning’s
preparations.”

As the two men escaped—there was no other
word for it—Relia watched with narrowed eyes. If the men coming
down from London were candidates for the position of steward, she
would be glad enough of it, for she was more than ready to turn
over that particular burden. But somehow she suspected this was not
the case. She sensed a mystery, a subtle undercurrent that prickled
the air around her. If she were speaking to her husband in anything
other than necessary monosyllables, she might have pursued the
matter, but their current relations were strained, to say the
least.

And tonight was the party. Yes, devil fly
away with the man! Tonight they were entertaining everyone who was
anyone in a goodly portion of Kent. For it seemed those without
children must also be included lest they consider themselves
excluded from the Pevensey Park visiting list. Therefore, Mrs.
Thomas Lanning now found herself entertaining in a manner far
beyond anything she had envisioned when she had made her rash offer
of a Twelfth Night party for the children.

Papa, forgive me. I’ve tried
so hard, but I’ve made a rare mull of it
.

The look on Thomas Lanning’s face when he
gazed down the length of the dining table that evening and saw Mr.
Twyford Trevor happily conversing with Miss Olivia Lanning, while
sneaking glances down her thankfully modest décolletage, Relia
considered well worth the annoyance of enduring her cousin’s
presence. She supposed that placing the two together was unworthy
of the gracious hostess she hoped to be, but the temptation for
revenge had been too great. Relia looked up to find her husband’s
lethal gaze fixed on her. With a gracious smile, seemingly
perfectly oblivious to the lightning bolts cast in her direction,
she turned her attention to Baron Trent on her left.

Later
, said her
husband’s steely eyes.
Just wait ‘til
later!

When Relia gave the signal for the ladies to
leave the gentlemen to their port, Olivia and Chloe Stanton
hastened off to join Miss Aldershot and the younger Twelfth Night
celebrants, both girls having been easily convinced that their help
with the children would be much appreciated. Truth to tell, they
were not beyond the enjoyment of games, and airy promises from both
Harry Stanton and Twyford Trevor to look in on the children’s
festivities gave added incentive to their excitement. The girls’
departure, alas, left Relia to entertain a bevy of older ladies,
with the Trent’s widowed daughter, Jane Edmundson, the only person
close to her own age. And Mrs. Edmundson, Relia thought, would be
of little use, for she seemed a quiet slip of a girl who wouldn’t
say boo to a goose. And help was surely needed when, after forty
minutes of music dutifully performed by Mrs. Lanning and several of
the guests, Lady Gravenham turned to her hostess and declared,
“Well, girl, what made you do it? Come, come, I am certain we all
wish to know.”

“
My lady?” Relia lifted her head high
and stared with limpid eyes at Captain Alan Fortescue’s
mother.

Lady Gravenham, a handsome woman just
barely on the shady side of fifty, looked down her considerable
length of nose and sniffed her disdain. “Do not dissemble with me,
child. You could have had your pick of the
ton
, including your cousin or even the squire’s
eldest, yet you chose a Cit. Tell us without roundaboutation, I
pray you, what made you do such a daft thing. Your poor parents
would never have countenanced such a maladroit misalliance.” All
around the drawing room heads were nodding.