A Matchmaker's Christmas Read online

  Lady Bournaud. The companion position with her had been gained through the unexpected advocacy of some ancient relative almost forgotten. And the comtesse had made life good again. Beatrice would never forget the old lady’s kindness when, at twenty-eight, beaten and cowed by life’s travails, she had arrived at Chateau Bournaud to the welcome of her new employer, a stranger to her and fearful in her gruffness, but eventually respected, and then loved.

  They had rubbed along quite well for over ten years, growing to know each other’s crotchets, understand each other’s moods. Their relationship was not seamless, but misunderstandings and quarrels were rare.

  So Beatrice would not hide away in her own room during this season, a victim of an imaginary illness. It was not only that the old woman was too shrewd to be cozened a second time, but it was time to face whatever fate had in store for her. She must trust that the regard Lady Bournaud seemed to hold her in would withstand the inevitable battering it was about to take, once the guests . . . or rather guest, had arrived.

  And so, with her determination to enjoy whatever unexpected pleasure life offered firmly cloaking her, she admitted that as winter arrived, the sharp frost had as its compensation the beauty of frost fairies on the window, their lovely arcing designs a wonder of nature. And the first drifting snowflakes needed no consolation to bear. They were lovely and fragile, and there was nothing more delightful than walking among their fluttering delicacy, watching their starry beauty melt on coat and muffler, unless it was coming back inside to a roaring fire and hot, spiced cider.

  But still . . . it was all very well to determine that she must take things as they came; in truth it would not be so simple. Beatrice paced away from her bedroom window and sat on the edge of her bed, trying to compose her thoughts, trying to quell the ever-threatening panic.

  He would be there soon. He would look upon her, disdain her at first sight, and denounce her to Lady Bournaud. She would cry; inevitably she would cry. And the comtesse, in her most gruff voice, would demand an explanation. But what could she say? Apologies were twenty years too late. Sorrow, as bitter as willow tea, was useless.

  But again, there was only so much one could control in one’s destiny. There was no changing fate. December had arrived and soon the house would be full of guests.

  A commotion outside the house! Beatrice ran to the window of her chamber and threw back the curtain. A carriage and team, with a trunk lashed to the roof! And an elegant, albeit foreshortened, view of a gentleman in greatcoat and gloves, muffler and hat.

  It could only be him. He had sent word that he would arrive the first week of December, and it was now the end of that period. He was here. He would now be stepping into the house. Now handing Tidwell his hat and cane. Soon he would look upon her with scornful eyes the color of aquamarine and demand to know why Lady Bournaud had employed such a creature. The last words he had ever spoken to her had burned into her memory, every scornful syllable, the condemnatory tone echoing even now in her head.

  Beatrice paced the floor of her chamber, waiting for the summons that was sure to come. The comtesse had made it abundantly clear that Sir David was being invited because she thought he would make Beatrice a pleasing companion. Oh, worst of appalling possibilities! She had some shadowy fear that a hideous scene would ensue.

  Then she braced herself. She would face the scene awaiting her. Pretend nothing was about to happen. Act as if he was just another visitor, another welcome stranger in the home of her employer.

  She descended the stairs. There were voices in the hall. A frosty breeze whirled around the marble floor and ascended even the curved oaken staircase. Beatrice could feel it on her feet as she turned the corner on the landing, then made her way down the rest of the steps, to hear Tidwell’s gracious voice.

  “Her ladyship is in her chamber, sir. She asked that the first of the guests to arrive be escorted up to her chamber, for she is, in her own words, sir, an old lady and must be coddled.”

  A rich, low laugh answered that statement.

  Beatrice swallowed hard, turned the corner at the bottom of the staircase, and said pleasantly, “I will take our visitor up to her ladyship, Tidwell.” She raised her gaze directly into the eyes of . . . a complete stranger, with brown eyes and a mop of dark hair that drooped over his forehead, the thick walnut-colored thatch matted down by dampness and his hat, now removed and in the butler’s hands.

  “Mark Rowland,” he said, putting out one hand.

  “Ah, Mr. Rowland! You are the vicar, am I right?” She swallowed, calming her thudding heart and breathing a sigh of relief. Reprieve. A few luxurious hours to rest, maybe, or perhaps just minutes. Who knew?

  “That is correct. And you are . . . ?”

  “Oh, pardon me! I am Beatrice Copland, Lady Bournaud’s companion. I would be glad to escort you up to her, Reverend.”

  “Just Rowland, please. Yes, she has written of you often in her letters. I am anxious to see her; I have been remiss in my duty of late. If I had known about this quarrel . . .” He broke off and glanced at her as they made their way back to the staircase.

  “I know about it, sir. Lady Bournaud told me about her reason for inviting you.” Beatrice suppressed a sigh of exasperation. She did not like to think of this handsome, likable young man dragged up to Yorkshire at this time of year on a fool’s errand. She could not understand what had possessed her ladyship to indulge in this mad bout of matchmaking when she had never shown the slightest interest in such a pursuit before. It frankly worried her.

  “Good. I dislike concealment of any kind. I abhor slyness and artifice, in all its guises. I much prefer openness.”

  Beatrice smothered another sigh. Wasn’t this going to be an interesting season?

  • • •

  The second visitor to arrive was one not on the original list. Lady Silvia Hampton was a child, it seemed to Beatrice later that day when the young woman arrived. She was all soft curves and pale loveliness, a girl of nineteen with brown eyes like a fawn and brown hair that was soft, like a catkin.

  Beatrice, in her unofficial capacity as Lady Bournaud’s ambassadress, greeted the young woman and guided her to her room, the one next to her own. Her first impression of brainless loveliness was ameliorated by some shrewd questions on Lady Silvia’s part, and a brief conversation.

  All Beatrice knew was that the girl, the youngest daughter of the Earl of Crofton and his countess, had been sent to Yorkshire as punishment. From Lady Silvia’s own mouth came the further information that it was because of her parents’ intransigence, not her own.

  “They wanted me to marry Lord Boxton,” she said, glancing at Beatrice to see if there was recognition in the other woman’s eyes. “He is very well thought of in some society circles. But I do not like him and will not marry him.”

  Amused at the prim but firm tone, Beatrice said, “Why?”

  Her brown eyes thoughtful, Lady Silvia said, “He beats his dog.”

  Beatrice was called away at that moment, but she thought there must be more to it than that.

  In other circumstances this notion of Lady Bournaud’s, to have a houseful of guests for the Christmas season, might have been enjoyable for Beatrice, who seldom saw a new face, but there was still too much to be agitated about. She could not guarantee that she would even be able to stay for the holiday. Her employer had spoken much, over the last two months, about Sir David Chappell—his wisdom, his rectitude, his goodness—and she feared that even her years of service to the comtesse would not override the knight’s opinion of his elderly friend’s companion. She did not think she would be ejected from the household, but she could not calculate what would happen.

  It was late afternoon and the night had already enfolded the household in its wintry embrace. Beatrice whispered a prayer of thanks. One more day she was safe. He would not come now, this late in the day; darkness closed in so early in December. She directed the footman to fill the wood bucket by the grate in the crimson saloon before her l
adyship descended for her first evening with houseguests. Mr. Rowland and Lady Silvia had been offered and accepted an evening meal in their rooms, allowing them a chance to recover from the inevitable traveler’s fatigue. But they would all be gathering for an hour or two in front of the fire in Lady Bournaud’s favorite room.

  Beatrice was just arranging a dried bouquet on the glossy oak table by the crimson-draped windows when she heard the doors open behind her.

  “I am so glad you could make it all the way up here,” Lady Bournaud’s stentorian voice intoned. “It has been far too long.”

  Surprised that she was downstairs already, and without ringing for her companion’s help, Beatrice turned from her task and opened her mouth to ask her ladyship if she needed aid. And then she saw who was pushing the old woman’s Bath chair. It was him.

  It was Sir David Chappell.

  She shrank back into the shadows, but her movement drew both pairs of eyes, the elderly gray and the piercing aqua.

  “Beatrice, come out, child. Don’t hide away as if you are a mouse. Come!”

  There was no denying the summons. Swallowing past a dry lump, like clay, in her throat, Beatrice moved forward, her eyes downcast. She waited in silence.

  “What is wrong with you?” Lady Bournaud’s tone was impatient and not to be ignored.

  Beatrice looked up and stepped forward. It was a physical shock to see again those eyes, those much-admired crystalline blue eyes. And her gaze raced over him, taking in the still graceful form, lithe, slim. There were lines around the firm mouth, and silver in the light brown hair, but other than that he looked much the same as he had twenty years before.

  But . . .

  Hope welled into her heart. She had expected condemnation, denouncement, the pointed finger, the tone of rigid anger. Instead there was mild interest and complete . . . oh, yes, she was not mistaken. This was an unexpected boon.

  In Sir David Chappell’s beautiful aqua eyes there was complete nonrecognition.

  Chapter Four

  Chappell sat back in the deep chair by the fire and watched the companion, Beatrice Copland, as she assiduously attended Lady Bournaud, pulling the old woman’s frothy shawl around her shoulders. There was reliance between them, he could see. Lady Bournaud trusted Beatrice Copland completely, and the younger woman held the elder in affection, not just duty.

  He was glad of that. The gruff old woman put many people off with her frosty manners and sharp wit, but for those who could see below the aloof demeanor she was a steadfast friend.

  “Stop fussing, Beatrice,” Lady Bournaud said.

  “If I do not fuss over you, then what is my raison d’être?” she replied mildly. She straightened then and began to exit.

  “Do not go. Sit with us.”

  “But you have not seen Sir David for some time,” she said, her hands clasped together and working with nervous energy, the slender fingers weaving in and out of each other.

  “I may doze off,” the comtesse said, “and then poor Davey would be left with no one to talk to.”

  “Are . . . are the others not coming down?”

  “I suppose,” the old woman said vaguely. “Sometime. Sit!”

  Chappell frowned. He hoped his old friend had not become a martinet at this age. “Please join us, Miss Copland,” he added, to soften her order. “I would enjoy the company.”

  She flushed but drew a low stool over close to her employer. His head in the shadows, he watched the younger woman’s eyes, feeling that there was something familiar about her, something he could not quite name. And yet he felt sure if he had ever met such a lovely woman he would remember her. She was very much to his taste, slim, quick, intelligent. Her voice was husky and beautifully toned. She stirred some deeply buried instinct in him, some desire to shelter and protect. And yet that was ridiculous. She was clearly not in need of protection. But she seemed like an injured fawn, ready to flee at the first wrong move.

  She was self-conscious under his observation. He could see it in her stiff movements and fidgety activity. He turned his gaze and stared into the fire, wondering if it was just his long celibacy that was making him abnormally sensitive to a lovely woman’s presence. His last lover had been his mistress, the older, well-connected, politically astute Lady Corleigh, but she had died three years before. Since then he had felt little urge to take another. Their connection had been as much a meeting of the minds as of the bodies. She had been able to aid his career, though by the time they came together, eleven years before, he had been well on his way to his present elevated stature, and that through his own hard work.

  Lady Bournaud and Beatrice were talking quietly and so he gazed at the younger woman. Still that recognition teased at his brain. “Tell me, Miss Copland,” he asked. “Have you ever resided in London?”

  “Once, a long time ago, I had a London Season.”

  “And in what year would that have been?”

  She seemed loath to answer. Lady Bournaud was watching her carefully too, the expression on the wrinkled face and in the pale eyes unreadable. Chappell waited out the silence, spending it, with pleasure, noting how the golden glow of firelight flickered and danced in the reddish highlights of the companion’s hair.

  “It was in the year ninety-six,” she said, finally, her voice low-toned.

  He had not thought her of that age. She must be forty, then, or something close. He tried to ignore the long-suppressed pain in his heart at the memory of that year. It was the year Melanie died, a terrible time, and one he would rather forget. He had spent weeks in a fog of anger and pain, recrimination, drunkenness. He let the subject lapse, not willing to canvass the remembrances of that year. It was likely that he had some dim memory of her from a ballroom or musicale, and that was why she seemed so vaguely familiar.

  At that moment a young man entered the room and advanced to the fire. “Ah, this is where the party is gathered,” he said cheerily. He bent over and kissed Lady Bournaud’s withered cheek and pulled a chair over to sit near her. He held her hand in his own.

  She squeezed the hand and said, “Davey . . . Lord, I keep forgetting not to address you thusly,” she said to Chappell. “Mark Rowland, this is Sir David Chappell.”

  Chappell leaned over and clasped the younger man’s hand, as Lady Bournaud explained the connection between them all.

  “What her ladyship has not said,” Chappell explained, as she finished, “is that I have her to thank directly for the honor of my knighthood. It was she who was my first and most important benefactor.” He bit back a smile at the flush that raised in her pale, soft cheeks. She was never very good at being thanked, but he had never found a way to repay her yet, and likely never would. And so she would accept the full measure of his gratitude. He caught the gleam in Miss Copland’s eyes and his attention was riveted by her once more.

  She turned her face away.

  “Miss Copland,” he said quietly. “Miss Copland,” he repeated when she did not respond.

  She swiped at her eyes and then turned her gaze his way.

  “Do we know each other?”

  She hesitated, but then shook her head. “No, Sir David. I can honestly say that we do not know each other at all.”

  • • •

  “Pardon me,” Lady Silvia Hampton said to a maid burdened with a tray full of freshly polished silver. “I seem to have lost my way. I am looking for the crimson saloon and was told it was in this direction.”

  The maid dropped an awkward curtsey, almost tipping her tray. “’Tis this way, milady, down this corridor, an’ turn right, an’ then—”

  Lady Silvia shook her head. “I shall never remember that. I am dreadful at directions,” she said. Just then the butler, Tidwell, and two footmen, heavily laden with trays bearing delicious-smelling pastries, came into the hall. “Ah, these gentlemen will help me I am sure. I have confidence that they are headed for the crimson saloon. Thank you,” she said to the maid. “I shall follow them.”

  She caught up wi
th them, her slippers making no noise on the gleaming wood floor, made the requisite turn, and said chattily, “Mr. Tidwell, I have never been to Yorkshire, and I am looking forward to Christmas here. It is quite like a foreign country to me.” She gazed up at the portly butler and noted his startled gaze at being directly addressed. Why was it always so? Butlers and footmen and maids were simply humans too, were they not? Why was one supposed to ignore them? It made not a jot of sense to her, and she had thought long and hard on the subject.

  Just then one of the footmen pushed open a door and stood back to allow her to advance before them.

  “Why, thank you . . . what is your name?”

  “Charles, milady.”

  “Charles. What a nice name.” She entered the saloon, but paused and studied the tableau as the butler and footmen carried their trays to a table by the window. Her father had told her tales of Lady Bournaud, what a frosty old woman she was, and how ill-tempered. That was the white-haired woman in the Bath chair, she supposed. Silvia had questioned the maid who had brought her up her dinner as to the other guests, not all of whom had arrived so far. Sir David Chappell; yes, that must be the older gentleman with the streaks of silver in his hair. She had seen him once at a London gathering and had been impressed by his demeanor.

  And she had already met the woman at Lady Bournaud’s knee, her companion, Miss Copland. She had been very kind and comfortable. Perhaps she would be a new friend.

  But who was the good-looking gentleman with the thick brown hair? She approached the group and stood, waiting to be noticed. The first to look up was the youngest gentleman, and she felt a shock of recognition when she looked into his dark brown eyes. There was something there, some . . . oh, why could she not put a name to it?

  She curtseyed.

  “Ah, there is the child,” Lady Bournaud said. “This is Lady Silvia Hampton,” she said, her voice raised. “She is the daughter of friends of my late husband’s, Lord and Lady Crofton. My dear, Miss Copland you have already met,” the old lady said, indicating the woman at her knee. The companion nodded. “And that is Sir David Chappell, and that young gentleman is Mr. Mark Rowland. Come here. Come in front of me and let me look at you.”