Christmas Delights (6 page)

“You would think the first task wouldn’t be so difficult,” Penelope complained.

“That’s just it,” Victoria said, thinking quickly. “As Princess Everilda held her torch high, she saw a door in the far wall of the long corridor leading between the storerooms. She’d never noticed it before.”

Lady Florence bent forward over her embroidery. “How exciting.”

“The door was locked,” Victoria continued. “Of course the princess was the castle’s chatelaine, so she went through every key in her possession until she found one that fit.”

“Was it a strange key?” Lady Florence asked.

She was surprised by the older woman’s enthusiasm. “Definitely. The metal was a kind the princess had never seen before: vaguely marbled, with a sickly green cast to it, like moldy fingernails.”

“How vile,” the countess murmured, proving she had been listening all along.

Victoria hid her smile. “She inserted the key and voilà! The door creaked open. She held her torch in front of her and tiptoed inside. The torch cast eerie shadows on the walls and the air smelled strangely clean and salty, as if the room were exposed to the sea. Eventually, she noticed slits in the walls, narrow slits like archers had used in times of war. She put her torch into an iron circle in the wall and looked around curiously.

“She saw the room held twelve statues of knights in two long rows along the center of the room, cut from the same greenish marble of which the key was made.”

“Were they wearing masks?” Penelope asked.

“No, the masks were carved out of the same marble.” Victoria smirked. “And they weren’t over the knight’s eyes either, but took the place of fig leaves.”

Lady Florence giggled naughtily. The countess frowned.

“I suppose that made it unlikely that a lady of gentle birth would try to remove them,” Lady Barbara said.

Victoria shot a glance at her friend, but Barbara’s expression was placid. “Our princess was made of sterner stuff than that. She took her torch from the wall and thrust it toward the first mask. To her surprise, the knight moved back with a clang. The mask burst into flames.

“She moved down the line of knights, thrusting her torch at each one in turn. In the end, the masks were gone, but the knights held their line. As she stood, staring at the strange figures, each one lifted his sword. She felt a moment of fear, afraid they meant to skewer her, but they touched their swords to their helmets in a salute.

“Were they naked?” Lady Florence asked.

“No, they had armor on.”

“Tragic,” Lady Barbara muttered as her mother sighed.

“Then they all turned toward the door and marched out. Victoria tried to follow, but wind rushed through the arrow slits, preventing her for a time. When she was able to get through the door, it slammed behind her. She turned around, and the stone wall held no hint of the door she had just exited through. But all of the twelve storeroom doors were open. Not only that, the damp smell was gone, as were the watermarks. And every room was bursting with food. Baskets of fresh berries, hanging herbs, barrels of root vegetables, plucked fowl, salted fish. Every foodstuff she could imagine, fresh and perfect.”

“What about mince pie?” Lady Florence asked.

“One room was stacked with them,” Victoria said. How had Florence Gill heard about the start of her story? “Of course.”

Penelope giggled.

“All this sudden largesse made the princess wonder how long her father’s castle had been cursed. They had not been prosperous in a long time and she had blamed the war. But now, she had enough food for a fine wedding feast, if only she had a bridegroom. She went up to her solarium, tucked her feet under her gown, and began to think.”

“Better she had gone to her chapel and prayed,” said the devout Lady Rowena, the youngest of the countess’s children.

“She isn’t scared enough yet,” Victoria said impishly.

“Were there any knights at the masquerade ball last night?” Penelope asked.

“No, dear,” Lady Florence said. “Armor is too cumbersome for dancing.”

“Lord Cuthbert came in armor one year,” the countess said. “The odor was unspeakable after a couple of hours.”

“I remember that,” Lady Florence said. “My, that was twenty years ago or more.”

“Everyone wore masks last night?” Penelope asked.

“Of course,” Victoria agreed, “but there were more than twelve of us.”

“What comes next?” asked the girl.

“Tigers,” Victoria said as the door opened and her father came in, trailed by a collection of Dickondells. She balled up her knitting and dropped it into her basket, giving up the pretense. Her belly tightened as she looked Ernest over, trying to decide if she dared to approach him. Would Lewis relent if she gave him time?

“Why don’t you join me for a game of chess, Victoria?” her father said, interrupting her perusal of Ernest.

“Penelope is learning,” she told him, hoping he would take the hint and entertain his niece.

Instead, he crooked his elbow and pointed it in her direction. With as much grace as she could muster, she stood and took his arm. When they moved past the Dickondells, she made sure to let the satin ruffle at the base of her gown trail over Ernest’s shoes, but she didn’t dare look back to see if he noticed or reacted.

Penelope trotted in their wake without being invited to join them, standing to the side as they seated themselves in heavy dark chairs around a small table inlaid with black and white squares. A carved chess set of blocky figures was already in place.

“Back to your sewing, please, miss,” Victoria’s father said.

“I want to watch.” The whine was back in the girl’s voice

“Never disobey your elders. You need discipline, girl. Please ask the countess to ring for the nursemaid so that you may be returned to the nursery.”

“Father, she’s sharing my room,” Victoria said.

He lifted his head, his gaze piercing hers. “Remedy that at once. You will not have time to play mother to the child for the rest of the gathering.”

Penelope stomped her foot. “She’s not my mother!”

“I wasn’t playing mother. There simply aren’t any other children around.” Victoria spoke quietly, hoping to avoid a scene.

“I’m sure the countess can bring in some tenant children or the like. Now run along, Penelope.”

Victoria saw the bright sheen of tears in her cousin’s eyes as she turned away, and the drag of her steps. “You have been indulgent to her before now, Father. What is wrong?”

“She needs discipline.” He pointed his index finger at the table. “Now, play. Show me that intellect you frequently claim to have.”

Victoria shot her father a murderous glare but held her tongue. The temper he unleashed so famously at his factories was never in true evidence at home, and that was for the best. “Never poke a sleeping bear” was a phrase she’d read in a dime novel once, and it applied to her relations with her father. She watched as the countess gestured to a hovering maid to escort Penelope from the room. Once the girl was gone, she considered her options.

Since she had white, she moved a pawn forward in a classic Queen’s Gambit. “I find it hard to believe you really want to test my chess ability.”

“On the contrary, daughter. I find chess is an excellent measure of a man.”

“I’m a woman.”

“Exactly,” he said absently, moving his pawn in the Queen’s Gambit Accepted response.

“Then what is your point? Surely you aren’t going to consider allowing me to learn your business.”

“You aren’t educated for that. What is your next move?”

She ignored his dismissive comment for the sake of peace. After all, she’d had nothing to do but educate herself for the past eighteen months. They continued their game, moving knights into play. Victoria recalled her fairy tale, and the naughty knights with masks covering their privates. She held back a smile.

Her father caught her expression with a frown. “You are not going to win.”

She shook her head slightly. “I am sorry, I was thinking of something else.”

Her father’s chin lifted and she thought he would reprimand her, but then his head swiveled toward the door. She kept her expression impassive as she realized she’d been outmaneuvered by her father yet again. He’d brought her here to the chess table to make sure she was in a pretty pose, suitably demure, so that he could display her.

To Edmund Parker-Bale and Percy Dandy-Willow, no less, who had just come through the parlor doors, accompanied by the butler. She hadn’t realized the pair ever left Liverpool. Distant cousins, they were both descended from an earl whose direct male line had ended fifty years before. Mr. Parker-Bale’s distinguishing characteristics were a receding, mouse-brown hairline, a twiglike body, and piercing blue eyes. Mr. Dandy-Willow looked like he belonged on a long-ago battlefield. Though he had a somewhat protruding belly, his arms were thick, which made his tailoring suspect. His hair was bushy black with eyebrows to match, and Victoria suspected he had to shave at least twice a day. At times, he sported a luxuriant mustache, but it was gone for now.

What on earth were they doing at the Fort? She could see the light firing in Lady Rowena and Lady Barbara’s twin hazel gazes as they saw the two young men. Though not in their first youth, they were a couple of years north of Lady Barbara’s twenty-five years.

Her father stood to shake their hands and draw them into the room. Victoria sat at the chess table as he introduced the men to the countess. She could tell the countess was not surprised by their arrival. Had it been planned all along, or had her father finagled the invitations for the rest of the Twelve Days? And how would she be able to be naughty with men around who could carry tales back to Liverpool? Assuming she decided to approach Ernest, she would have to be very discreet. The thought gave her a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. A novice at the game of love needed fewer roadblocks.

She remembered the sight of Lewis in his naval finery at the masquerade ball. Something about that white-blond mop of tightly controlled curls made her want to tug his head against hers. Ernest and the two latest arrivals were dark. Perhaps she did not find dark men attractive. Sir Humphrey had been ash blond. She clasped her hands in her lap and sighed. If the two new arrivals were kept busy by the daughters of the house, perhaps she could stroll to the stables and see what Lewis and the earl were doing. Her father might protest, but she could claim she’d set her cap for the earl. He might want her to find another husband to run the factories for him, but if he thought she could land an earl, she couldn’t imagine he would protest. Even he didn’t associate with noblemen of that caliber very often.

She stood, thinking to sidle out of the room while the men were occupied, but Mr. Parker-Bale saw her. He went on point like a hunting dog, his nostrils flaring. Cornered by those piercing eyes, she didn’t move as he stalked her, and, upon reaching her side of the room, bowed deeply.

She had almost forgotten his flair for the Continental; he took her hand in his cold, greasy paw and bent over it, then kissed the backs of her fingers. At least she was spared his cousin’s perpetual stubble marring her skin with hot pinprinks.

“Many felicitations of the season, Lady Allen-Hill,” he exclaimed. “
Joyeux Noël
.”

Oh, yes. The French. “
Merci
,” she said, mocking him, though he didn’t realize it.

He released her hand as a meaty paw descended on his shoulder. Mr. Dandy-Willow bowed, then laughed heartily.

“I hope you had a most happy Christmas, Lady Allen-Hill,” he boomed.

“It could have been,” Victoria muttered, thinking of her aborted tryst. “What brings you gentlemen to Sussex?”

“Change of scenery. Too much snow up north.”

“We had snow here, too,” she said sweetly.

“There isn’t any on the ground
à cette heure
, madam,” Mr. Parker-Bale demurred.

“I haven’t looked outside all day,” Victoria told them. “In fact, I was just thinking of taking a walk.”

“You mustn’t, you might take a chill,” protested Mr. Dandy-Willow.

“You must allow
moi
to accompany you,” said Mr. Parker-Bale.

“I saw you met Lady Barbara and Lady Rowena,” she said. “A charming pair, yes? Lady Barbara is a particular friend of mine.”

“Neither of them holds a candle to
vous
,” said Mr. Parker-Bale.

“I was not fishing for compliments, sir, merely stating what I consider a fact.”

“We could all five of us stroll,” Mr. Dandy-Hill said, a bit too loudly. “Parker-Bale and I could do with a walk after so much time on the train.”

She could do with some fresh, even accompanied, air. Both ladies were peering in their direction and she mimed wrapping her neck in a scarf and putting on a hat. They both nodded happily.

“You are in luck, gentlemen. I leave it to the two of you to figure out how to entertain three ladies.”

Both men laughed heartily.

“Always ready to rise to the occasion, my lady,” Mr. Dandy-Hill boomed.

With her current bent toward amorous congress, Victoria could not help but lift a brow at the man’s phrasing. A large man in frame, she wondered what else might be large. Alas, she could not assuage her sexual curiosity with a man from Liverpool. She’d just wind up married to him, even if she decided he would never do.

T
hough it was Boxing Day and the servants should have had the day to relax, the countess had persuaded her staff to take their half day in the morning and spend their afternoon preparing a feast and their evening serving it to the house party guests and a number of other visitors. She had confided to Victoria at tea that she’d done this for years and could count on a selection of interesting people at the party because she would be the only person in the area having one. Victoria, however, would not mar Boxing Day for her servants if she had her own home. She’d even kept her maid in Liverpool because the girl was recovering from measles, effectively giving her a two-week holiday.

This left Victoria with the haphazard assistance of Lady Florence’s rather decrepit maid and her cousin Penelope as she struggled into her dinner dress, constructed mainly of black velvet with white cashmere accents. While the dress was appropriate for half-mourning, it exposed far too much skin to the castle drafts.

“I shall need a heavy shawl,” she told Penelope as the exhausted maid pinned holly to either side of her head.

One of Victoria’s black silk gowns had torn at the hem in London just before she’d arrived. She had the gown with her and had decided to give it to the maid in thanks at the end of her stay. The woman could do it over to suit herself, or sell it for quite a bit of money. Mourning clothes were of necessity a popular item in secondhand stalls.

“The holly looks well wi’ your hair, my lady,” the maid said.

“Thank you.” Victoria would rather it have been mistletoe, though such things often attracted the wrong man’s lips.

Lewis had barely noticed her when she’d visited the stables with her two suitors. In fact, she’d wondered if he deliberately hid away. The earl had shaken hands with the two men and welcomed them, but it was obvious they, and their assistants, were completely focused on their submarine project. The earl had said something about “trials” coming soon.

Victoria had looked at the long, iron cylinder with its mushroom-style windowed front and thought of something far different from marine exploration. At least the men weren’t building the aquatic vessel to fire torpedoes, which is what most governments wanted them for. At one time, she recalled, the Fenians had been working on them to harass the British Navy. The Irish rebels had been of special concern in Liverpool ever since they had tried to blow up Town Hall earlier in the decade.

She had brought up the subject on the way back to the Fort and her suitors had been kept busy arguing the merits of the Irish question until teatime. After congratulating herself on a successful diversion, she had enjoyed some time with Lady Barbara, dissecting the merits of the Dickondell brothers. Her friend preferred Samuel for personality but thought Clement the best-looking.

“Here is your shawl,” Penelope said, fingering the creamy white wool.

“Don’t look so downcast. At least there will be other children at the nursery dinner tonight.”

“Babies,” Penelope said with a frown.

“Some of them are old enough to talk. They will be fun to play with,” Victoria assured her. “They will idolize you. Also, your dress is very pretty.”

The girl’s costume was black velvet with a green collar and trim. “Mummy made it for me.” Her lower lip trembled.

Victoria needed to get to the bottom of the situation with her aunt and uncle. Penelope missed her mother, so there was no lack of affection there. Why had they been separated? She glanced at herself in the mirror, knowing it was a problem for another day. Holding out her arms until Penelope came to her, she folded the girl into a hug, then offered her a dab of rose-scented Creed eau de cologne on each wrist as a special treat.

A knock came at the door and the maid, sweaty and with her cap askew, opened it. When Rupert Courtnay was revealed, the maid bobbed a swift curtsy and disappeared, no doubt to visit yet another guest who was in need of her services.

“Another night, another party,” her father said, rubbing his hands together. “Who is on the guest list this time?”

“Many of the same faces as the masquerade ball two nights ago,” Victoria said. “But Lady Barbara said Lord and Lady Judah Shield are coming down from London. Their new heir is staying at the nursery at Hatbrook Farm, though.”

“Member of my club,” Courtnay said. “I always like the soldiers. Practical lot.”

“Yes, sir,” Victoria agreed. “Lady Barbara also said the Baron of Alix has recovered from the chest cold that has left him out of the festivities until now, so we shall finally meet him.”

“A Scotsman.” Her father nodded thoughtfully and rubbed his chin. “What about all those Redcakes? Coming along with Hatbrook and his lot?”

“Mr. Noble is staying here for the duration,” Victoria said. “As there are no other eligible gentlemen in that family, the subject of the Redcakes did not come up.”

“Still, rather likely we’ll see them,” her father said with a thoughtful look.

Victoria stood and took Penelope’s hand. “Run along to the nursery, darling.”

Penelope’s expression was mulish until she caught sight of her uncle’s stern expression. “Yes, Victoria.”

They followed her out of the room. Victoria wondered if her cousin would fall asleep up there before the long dinner was over. Might she have a room to herself that night? As far as she knew, her father hadn’t given any orders about the girl.

“We are early,” Victoria realized as they reached the main staircase. “Why don’t we go into the picture gallery for a few minutes? I believe they have a Rubens
Venus
, as well as a number of paintings done in his workshop.”

“I don’t wish to look at paintings of chubby nudes with my daughter,” her father said in a dry tone as she led him through the door into the long gallery.

“Would you rather visit the mirrored gallery? I understand they have quite a fine one, a small version of the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles re-created by a countess who fled the Revolution and married an Earl of Bullen.”

“No, this will be fine.”

The space had been improved with gas lighting, but it was not bright enough to do the paintings justice. The moon was a mere sliver in the sky seen through a trio of small windows set into the wall and didn’t lend any brilliance to the room.

“We need a lamp,” Victoria muttered.

“Come back tomorrow,” her father advised.

Instead, she sat down on a bench in front of what she dimly thought was a Cromwell-era family portrait. She patted the bench next to her.

Her father sighed audibly and seated himself. “What is it, Victoria? Are you planning to berate me for inviting Dandy-Willow and Parker-Bale? Because I will not apologize.”

“You want either of them managing your business interests?” Victoria asked.

Her father ran his tongue over his upper lip. “I can train anyone with a good brain. They are both well-educated.”

“Nincompoops,” Victoria said.

“Give them a chance. I’ll take a look at this Scotsman.”

She nearly blurted out Lewis’s name, but there was no point. Her father knew him already. “Very well. I shall do as you ask.”

“Anything else, my dear?”

She couldn’t stop herself. “Find out if Lewis Noble would relocate from Battersea. He has just the kind of scientific mind you could use at your factories.”

“I will investigate. Anything else?”

“Yes, Father.” She drew herself up. “Tell me what is going on with Penelope.”

“She’s visiting you for the holidays. Her father didn’t want to leave her home with the staff when she had a perfectly nice party and cousin to come to.”

“Why isn’t she with her parents? She is an only child. Surely they want to see her.”

Her father pulled his watch from his pocket and glanced at it. “We do not want to be late, my dear.”

“Why won’t you answer a simple question? You do realize having her underfoot disrupts your desire for me to husband hunt.”

“On the contrary, it makes you seem more feminine,” her father said. “It softens you.”

“You think I appear hard?” The thought was beyond comprehension.

“I think you appear disinterested, and it won’t do. You need to remarry. I won’t have you wasting your best years. I expect to see you wed next year.”

She wasn’t disinterested in men, just marriage. “Or what, Father?”

“Or what indeed,” he rejoined. “You shall be very bored, living all year around in Liverpool with nothing to entertain you. I don’t need you to manage my household and I won’t have you near the factories. So unless you plan to engage in voluminous good works, you’re going to have nothing to do but pay calls and embroider.”

She swore under her breath, not caring that her father could hear. It was his fault for saying such things in her earshot all these years.

“You weren’t married long enough to have earned your freedom, Victoria. And you were robbed of children by the situation. Let’s remedy that in 1890, shall we?” He patted her knee and stood, then walked out without looking back.

He wanted grandchildren
. This torturing of her could have no more reason than that. But all she wanted was a little adventure before settling back into Liverpool. Really, the only thing being married would get her was a household to manage on her own. Other than that, it would be calls, good works, and embroidery regardless.

“Blast it,” she said aloud. In the end, she probably would want children, if only to distract herself. But 1890 was only a few days away.

Realistically, a Scottish baron would not be a suitable son-in-law for an English manufacturer, as he presumably had lands in the north, but to her, anyone would be better than the Liverpool suitors. And Lewis Noble . . . she had not gotten anywhere with him, not even as a successful partner in trysting. Those Dickondells were a problem, but she wasn’t prepared to avoid their company for fear of proposals quite yet. One of them might possibly become her lover. However, she was probably safe from an offer of marriage there, exactly as she wanted to be.

She stood and searched for the Rubens, finally finding a
Venus
in the center of the far wall, opposite the fireplace. Caught by the image’s flowing hair, she realized the goddess had the same hair color and curls as Lewis Noble. Compared to the other men here, he was a god, though a much more physically spare one than this fleshy and bejeweled creature made from imagination and oil. Even Venus would probably want to toy with Lewis Noble.

One more chance: that was all she would permit herself. One more chance to see if she could make her way past Lewis’s resolve. Then she would find an alternative.

The countess had seen fit to seat her unmarried guests by alternating the sexes. Her Boxing Day feast must be a matchmaking party. Victoria found herself between Mr. Dandy-Willow and Mr. Parker-Bale, not the men she would have chosen. Lady Barbara was on Mr. Parker-Bale’s other side, her other dining partner the senior Dickondell son. Lady Rowena had Dickondell’s left, demonstrating the countess’s interest in the young man for one of her daughters. Seventeen-year-old Adela Dickondell had the earl as her first dining partner, and Lewis was far down the opposite end of the table, dining with Lady Florence and Maud Wilson. The countess must be trying to distract Clement away from Maud. She could hardly see Lewis over a clove-studded orange topiary.

As a plate of raw oysters on crushed ice was placed in front of her, Victoria felt her left foot nudged and—for lack of a better word—tickled by, presumably, Mr. Parker-Bale. She kept her expression neutral as she slurped her first briny oyster. Her lack of notice emboldened the man, whose shoe dipped under her skirts and began to travel up her calf. He had never been so bold back home, but she didn’t want him as a lover.

She bent forward slightly, trying to catch Lady Barbara’s eye in the hopes that she would distract the man. But her friend was deep in a conversation about cocker spaniels with Clement.

Mr. Parker-Bale’s questing foot reached her knee. She jerked away. Her right elbow moved, cashmere landing in one of Mr. Dandy-Willow’s oysters.

“I say,” he said.

She whipped her head toward him, gasping a horrified apology.

“Lady Allen-Hill, if you wanted to converse with me, all you had to do was ask,” Mr. Dandy-Willow said, his eyes dancing merrily under those absurdly bushy brows.

“Perhaps you are quite a nice man,” she said aloud without meaning to.

A grin appeared and widened. Oh, dear; she had encouraged the man. If only he didn’t have quite so much hair. She imagined birthing a baby that looked more like a bear cub than a human.

On her other side, Mr. Parker-Bale’s foot had returned to its original position under the table. She glanced around, hoping her disturbance had been unnoticed, but found her father’s gaze on her. He had Lady Florence on one side and Rose Redcake on the other. Rose gave her a little smile and turned back to Victoria’s father. Victoria wondered how Rose had managed yet another invitation to dinner, given that she could distract the available men from the Gill daughters.

Thankfully, a footman removed her oysters and placed a clear soup before her.

She had learned to fill up on soup so that she was not too hungry when later, more voluptuous courses came along. Applauding herself when she was able to keep herself to one small bite of fried fish in a rich white sauce during the next course, she initially did not think anything of a sturdy foot nudging her own on the right. Instead, she tucked one slipper over the other and continued eating.

Next came potatoes, sweetbreads, vegetables, and, finally, one of the main courses, a stuffed game hen. She took one bite of the well-seasoned meat and closed her eyes.
Heavenly
. As she chewed her second bite, though, she found the tip of that interloping shoe on her ankle. She had no way to move unless she tilted her entire body toward Mr. Parker-Bale. Unfortunately, she had to speak to the man unless she wanted to visibly snub him, so she did just that, pasting a smile on her face as she slid as far to the left on her chair as she could.