A Matchmaker's Christmas Page 14

  “I think you underestimate his attachment to you, Sir David. I am sure he will have moments of sadness among the gaiety.”

  He gave her a grateful glance. “As selfish as it sounds, I hope he does miss me at least occasionally. But what about you, Miss Copland? Have you no family to miss you?”

  “My parents are both long gone,” she said. “Lady Bournaud has been more family to me these past years than anyone.”

  “Pardon me for my impertinence,” he said. “But I wonder what you have planned for your life after Lady Bournaud’s demise?”

  She gave him a shocked look.

  “I know it sounds heartless, Miss Copland, but it is not, please believe me. I have reason—more than you—to be grateful and to love the old woman, but perhaps I have more reason to notice, not having seen her for four years, that she has declined. She is eighty. I cannot be easy about how you will go on once the St. Eustace horde has descended upon Chateau Bournaud.”

  She was warmed by his concern. “I have put by enough of my wage to live, sir,” she said, her chin going up in an unconscious display of reserve. “I will be all right. Retirement to the village will suit me.”

  He gave her a long look. “I feel you were meant for more than that. Were you never a young girl, and did you never dream of making your mark on society?”

  “When I was a young girl, sir, I thought and spake as a young girl, but when I grew up I put away girlish things, to paraphrase the Good Book.”

  In the inadequate protection of a bare-limbed tree, he stopped and turned her around, putting one gloved finger under her chin and turning her face up. “I wish you would not put away all girlish things, Miss Copland. Christmas is a time for becoming a child again. Dream, Miss Copland.” His mellow voice held a low, urgent tone. “Let yourself dream. I feel strongly that your girlish dreams were stamped out far too early and in too vicious a fashion. Let your imagination drift and ask for what you would most like in the world.”

  Beatrice closed her eyes, unable to look directly into his sky blue ones for fear he would see the guilt in her soul. How could she dream? Dreams were for those who deserved them. She was not being a martyr, nor was she bathetic, she was just honest with herself. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes again. “I have put aside dreams; they are for other people. Shall we go see the vicar, sir?” she said, turning away.

  • • •

  They were finally on their way home as the dark clouds gathered on the horizon and scudded uneasily across the sky. Chappell glanced sideways in the dusky gloom of the carriage interior at the woman next to him. How close had his earlier words come to the truth? A shudder had raced through her; he felt it under his fingers, and how her chin trembled. What had she suffered? Who had hurt her?

  Why could she not dream?

  Watching her as he had in the past weeks he had seen her kindness, the innate goodness that could not be feigned. She cared for Lady Bournaud, even when that crusty old dame was snappish, as she tended to be when in pain. And the staff turned to Beatrice with every complaint or worry, and she made all smooth. She even found time to teach Lady Silvia the finer points of housewifery.

  But what had he seen of time for herself? Even sitting quietly she was usually engaged in sewing for the household, or for Lady Bournaud. She had a thousand concerns, and was, inevitably, the last to retire at night and the first to appear in the morning. Even today, a rare day out for her, she had spent in selfless activity, joyfully fulfilling her employer’s detailed and extensive wishes.

  She was tired. He could see it in the way her eyes drifted almost closed with the rocking rhythm of the carriage, and then they snapped open, and she shook herself, as if to try to awaken. How would she react if he offered her his shoulder to lean on? He would like to do that. His body stirred at the thought of her soft curves fitted under his arm and leaning against his body.

  He smiled wryly in the dim interior. How she would draw back if she knew his thoughts that very moment! But he could not help the attraction he felt for her, the wish he had to hold her close and protect her. He felt protective of her, wishing to shelter her from life’s difficulties and the sadness that must come to her eventually when Lady Bournaud passed on. Was it just the story Lady Bournaud had told him about her difficult life? Or was it something in her?

  Her chin was lowering again as she drifted toward slumber, but with a sway of the carriage she snapped to attention and put one hand up to smooth her hair, glancing toward him self-consciously.

  “Yes, Miss Copland, I know you were almost asleep.”

  She smiled and rolled her eyes. “I am so sorry. I did not realize I was so tired.”

  He hesitated, but then said, “It is understandable that you are so sleepy; you have had a very full day. Why do you not put your head here and close your eyes?” He put his arm over the back of the seat and indicated his shoulder.

  The shock on her face was immediate, but replaced by a wide-eyed guilty expression. “I couldn’t. Th-thank you though, for the kind thought.”

  The result was that she made a concerted effort to stay awake, even lowering the window and letting cool air stream in against her face. They chatted for a while, bumping along the increasingly rough road toward Chateau Bournaud. It was late afternoon, and with the cloudiness was getting dusky very quickly. The landscape outside of the carriage was a palette of dull gold and green, taupe and rust. Beyond it all, looming like a silent giant in the distance, was Harn Moor.

  As they approached the chateau, above the noise of the wheels they both heard a thudding and craned their necks, looking out the windows. Across the dull green lawn of the house, speeding on a chestnut steed, a slight figure with flowing auburn hair bent over the horse’s neck. Behind the rider another horse followed, mounted by a heavier figure with short-cropped hair. They were heading on a direct path for the walled lane along which the carriage bumped and jolted, and Chappell said, “That is Lord Vaughan behind, but who is the front rider?”

  With a smile in her voice, Beatrice said, “I do believe that is Miss Allen on the forward mount! Yes, I can see her skirts fluttering around her legs.”

  “But . . . but she is mounted astride.”

  “She disdains sidesaddle as unnatural.”

  Both were silent for a moment, but then Chappell, uneasiness growing in his stomach, said, “I do not think our driver has seen them yet; he has not slowed the team. What, is the fellow asleep?”

  “Why does Miss Allen not turn away?” Beatrice clutched the window frame and stared with wide eyes.

  The riders were on a collision course with the carriage, though Chappell could not believe the young people would be so foolhardy as to take the stone fence in the dusky late afternoon, and with wet earth and slippery gravel their only purchase on the other side. And yet . . . yes, he thought, they are going to do it. He held his breath, certain that danger was imminent.

  At that very moment Miss Allen, standing in her stirrups, sailed over the stone fence with Vaughan close after her, clearing the fence and the lane just before the carriage horses, sensing the stable near and their long-awaited dinner, quickened their pace and trotted past the same spot. They reared, and the driver shouted at them, but they settled down almost immediately and continued without incident. Chappell heaved a sigh of relief and fell back in his seat. “Idiotic children! That could have been very bad indeed if the timing had not been just as it was.”

  Beatrice smiled and shook her head. “But it was just so, wasn’t it? Miss Allen is a bruising rider! I do not think one man in twenty, let alone one woman, could have done what she did.”

  “It was still a risk.”

  “And Lord Vaughan right behind her,” she chuckled. “He is no child, you know. He is above thirty. How well those two are matched! But what kind of vicar’s wife Miss Allen will make; that is another question entirely.”

  “Vicar’s wife. Ah, yes, Lady Bournaud’s matchmaking plans.”

  The carriage pulled up to the
front door just then, preventing further conversation. Tidwell met them at the door and told them that Lady Bournaud was eagerly awaiting their return in the crimson saloon.

  “Thank you, Tidwell,” Beatrice said, handing her spencer and hat to a maid hovering near the door. “She so seldom goes into Harnthwaite herself that she is eager for news, no doubt.”

  “Oh, no doubt,” Chappell said wryly, giving her a side glance. The day in Harnthwaite had been designed for far more than the errands commissioned.

  They joined the old lady, who was reading a book and shaking her head over something in it. She looked up as they approached, her glasses sliding down to perch on the tip of her nose. “You are back, finally.”

  Chappell strode to her and kissed her cheek, then crossed behind her to the tray of decanters. Beatrice joined her at the fire.

  “We got everything done, my lady, even down to the cord of wood and measure of rum for Old Merrick. Mr. Ford said he would take that commission on himself, as he always likes to visit the old gent and smoke a bowl of tobacco.”

  “Ah, yes, Ford is a good man. None of those absurd affectations of gentility some of the new shopkeepers have assumed, just good, honest north country ways.” Lady Bournaud put out one knobby hand and touched her cheek. “You look tired, Beatrice. Too much for you?”

  “I am not getting any younger, my lady.”

  “Pish-tush. We have had this conversation before. When I was your age I was striding the moor early every morning with that lad in my wake.” She pointed at Chappell, who was pulling a chair closer to the ladies.

  “That she was,” he added, his light eyes sparkling. “Comte Bournaud was the one who liked to lay abed late, if I remember right.”

  “Very true. François would still be abed when I came home, and I would crawl back in with him.” A smile of reminiscence quirked the old lady’s lips.

  Beatrice felt her cheeks burn but pretended to busy herself with the tea tray.

  “You are shocking Miss Copland, you old reprobate,” Chappell said.

  “Good, Davey. I am happy to still be capable of shocking folks occasionally.”

  “You will never imagine the sight that greeted us as we came up the lane,” Beatrice said, sternly ignoring her employer’s teasing tone. “Miss Allen was riding the mare, Bellanoche, as we came home. She took the stone fence along the lane without so much as a hesitation, and who was behind her, matching her folly for folly, but Lord Vaughan!”

  Lady Bournaud shrugged. “So he treats her like a friend, a boon companion. Doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “I think they are well matched in other ways, too,” Beatrice said.

  “I am aware of your matchmaking efforts, my lady,” Chappell said, sipping his port and leaning back in his deep chair.

  “Are you? How odd. I have admitted no matchmaking.”

  “Do not try to cozen me, you old fraud. I have rousted wilier opponents than you and cornered them.”

  She chuckled and shook her head. “I have done what I can, but now it is up to the young people.”

  “Only the young people?” Chappell asked, giving her a significant look.

  A broad smile wreathed her wrinkled face. “Young, old, what do I care?”

  Chappell dropped a slow wink, and she broke into open laughter, the sound like a rusty gate.

  “But now you are going to let nature take its course, are you not, my lady?”

  The comtesse gazed steadily into her protégé’s eyes. “I think I have done all that is humanly possible, Davey. The rest is up to the gentlemen in question.”

  “And the ladies,” Chappell added, and his gaze settled on Beatrice.

  She would not let tears come to her eyes, Beatrice scolded herself. If only they would let her alone and stop taunting her with what could never be! Not that either of them knew what they were doing to her. Standing abruptly, she said, “I will see how dinner is progressing.”

  • • •

  Dinner was a bright and noisy affair, with Lady Bournaud as full of noise and chatter as the rest of them. Mrs. Stoure, a genteel but poverty-stricken relation of Squire Fellows, was visiting for the evening, and later, in the red saloon, she played at cribbage with Lady Bournaud while the young people played a noisy game of Pope Joan, much teasing going on when one got “matrimony” and another “intrigue.”

  Then their card game broke up in a general agreement that a word game was preferable. Beatrice watched and worried. Mr. Rowland’s dark eyes rarely left Lady Silvia and it was clear to everyone—or should have been—that he was head over ears in love with her. And yet every chance he got he deferred to Vaughan, even giving him the seat next to his favorite, who looked near tears at the slight. Vaughan, oblivious to the undercurrent of emotion running between the reverend and Lady Silvia, monopolized her, engaging her in a conversation about mutual acquaintances, of which they had many, it seemed.

  Verity, looking miserable and jealous, drifted behind the grouping, restlessly knocking over knickknacks and moving things around until Rowland irritably told her to sit in one place. They bickered like brother and sister for a few moments, and then Verity sat down in a chair and began kicking at a stool. She was dressed in an ugly confection of mint green and puce, unbecomingly cut and too short for her elegant height, and her hair was carelessly dressed.

  Beatrice, watching in dismay, did not hear Chappell approach until he was directly behind her, where she stood by the tea table.

  “So, what do you think is going on here?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Beatrice admitted, trying desperately to still the thumping of her heart and clamoring of her senses from the knight’s closeness. “I know that Mr. Rowland is attracted to Lady Silvia, and if I am not mistaken, Miss Allen is in the depths of infatuation with Lord Vaughan.”

  “In other words, all of Lady Bournaud’s careful work is falling in disarray.”

  “Mhmm,” Beatrice murmured. “But why Lord Vaughan is making such a dead set for Lady Silvia I do not understand. He seems to me to be the sort of young man who would not be interested in settling on a wife, and Lady Silvia is clearly not flirt material. And she has shown no interest in him at all!” In fact, Lady Silvia was eyeing the doorway, looking for an avenue of escape from the baron’s interminable stories, it seemed.

  “I can solve some of the mystery, I think,” Chappell said. He took Beatrice’s elbow and guided her to a chair in an alcove where there was a comfortable grouping. He crossed the room and came back with a glass of sherry for her and brandy for himself. “Now, do you wish me to gossip a little?”

  Beatrice concealed a smile as best she could. Sir David had leaned forward and said “gossip” in just that one voice reserved for confidences of that nature. Against the backdrop of Lady Bournaud’s triumphant neighing over a point won in cribbage, she said, “I would dearly love to hear your gossip, Sir David.”

  “Just . . .” He stopped, gazed at her earnestly, and said, “Just David, Miss Copland. I feel I know you so well, I would deem it a privilege if you would call me by my given name.”

  She shook her head before he was even finished. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t call him David, as Melanie had. She looked away, concealing the tears that started in her eyes. She heard him sigh.

  “All right, Miss Copland, I will not overstep the boundaries of our friendship. But one day, I think, you will tell me what I have done that you are so reserved toward me.”

  She couldn’t look at him.

  “The very first night Vaughan arrived here,” Chappell said, leaving behind the sensitive subject, “he told me that he ‘must’ marry. His father is putting some pressure on him to settle down with a wife and start having a family. The alternative is that he go over to Canada and manage the family interests there.”

  “Oh,” Beatrice said, risking a glance at Sir David. He was sitting back in the deep chair, sipping his brandy, and she felt some of the tension drain from her. “I suppose that explains his interest in Lady
Silvia.” She frowned and watched the young couples near the fire. Lady Silvia had tried to maneuver Mr. Rowland into the chair closest to her as there was some general displacement as the gentlemen helped the ladies to a plate of sweets, but Rowland deferred once again to the baron.

  “But why does Mr. Rowland, who is clearly so in love with the little lady, give way for Vaughan?” Chappell frowned and shook his head. “I can only guess, having spent some time talking to Mr. Rowland, that he knows how impossible is his preference for Lady Silvia, and is trying, honorably, to help his competitor for her hand, knowing the baron stands a much better chance. And Vaughan is not a bad fellow, just . . . energetic.”

  “But if Vaughan would only open his eyes, he would see that Miss Allen is infinitely better suited to him!” Beatrice gnawed her lip, frustrated for the young people. “They have so much in common.”

  “Is not the old saw that opposites attract?”

  “Not true, I do not think. There must be some foundation, something in common, and Lady Silvia appears to abhor everything about Lord Vaughan.”

  “Why do some ladies take against a man who seems to have nothing against him?”

  Beatrice glanced over at Chappell and found his gaze was on her. She could not trust her voice to answer. She turned her gaze back to the grouping of young people. “Even if Rowland knows he can never marry Lady Silvia, he cannot make the girl prefer Vaughan when she so clearly does not.”

  Rowland stood beside the fire, the glow of the flickering flames dancing across his brooding, handsome face. At that moment Lady Silvia stood, in an unpardonably rude display that was completely against her character, and joined Mr. Rowland at the fire. The reverend’s face lit with a yearning so powerful it was painful to Beatrice. His hand went up, as if he would stroke the earnest young face turned up to his, but then it fell back to his side and clenched.