A Matchmaker's Christmas Read online

“Mark!” Her ladyship’s voice was sharp.

  Rowland turned from the window, certain that she had called him at least once before he heard, and perhaps more. He returned to the bedside and tried to settle back down in the chair. But all of the gentle peace of the morning was gone for him. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  Lady Bournaud examined his face, her gaze piercing. “What were you looking at just now?”

  “Just the snow.”

  “Liar.”

  He was taken aback by her abruptness but remained silent. In the past her commanding ways would have flustered him, but he had learned an inner calmness in the face of autocratic ways, and it stood him in good stead at that minute. In his years at Oxford, poor and often subjected to hazing and relentless belittling, he had come to inner peace. And, he hoped, strength. His thoughts were his own, and no man—nor woman—had the right to them.

  Lady Bournaud chuckled. “You have indeed become a man, Mark. So, what think you of the company I have gathered?”

  “It seems to be good company,” he said truthfully. Lord Vaughan was not one of her chosen guests, and so he could, in good conscience, omit him from his statement.

  “And what think you of Miss Verity Allen?”

  Mark shrugged. “A pleasant young lady.”

  “Is she not pretty?”

  “I suppose.”

  “And vivacious?”

  “Certainly that,” he said, his tone dry.

  “And she is of good family, too, but used to working around the house, according to her mother, my cousin Fanny. The girl has a good working knowledge of the kitchen, laundry, the care of infants . . .”

  Her voice droned on and Mark stood, restlessly, and paced to the window again, interjecting just the right words to show her ladyship he was still listening. Enthusiastically, he agreed to some statement of her ladyship’s, and then searched the scene below him. There they were, but there was a third person with them. Ah, yes, Miss Allen. That stood to reason. That girl was as restless as a three-year-old at a sermon.

  Lady Silvia and Lord Vaughan were talking. Lady Silvia started to drift away, but Vaughan followed her, and then pop! Vaughan’s hat was knocked off his head by a flush hit from a snowball. Rowland laughed out loud at the perfect hit from Miss Allen’s deadly aim.

  “Mark. Mark!”

  “Pardon, my lady?”

  Lady Bournaud sighed. “Go for a walk, Mark. I am going to rise now.” When he hesitated, she pointed one crooked finger to the door. “Go!”

  • • •

  Lady Silvia sighed in frustration. Lord Vaughan just would not leave her alone, but insisted on accompanying her everywhere! And even Miss Allen’s hit with a snowball had not deflected him. It should have, but he had just given her a cold look and gone back to earnestly boring his captive audience with some story of a boxing match in London.

  She had met his type many times before in the ballrooms and salons of London during her two Seasons. Though in his case there seemed to be no viciousness at the core of his personality, neither were there any interesting traits, nothing that was not self-serving, nothing noble or fine. Not like . . .

  “Fine day for a walk,” said a voice behind them.

  Silvia turned to see the object of her reflections. “Mr. Rowland! Do come and join us! Please!”

  “As long as I am not intruding?”

  His mellow, deep voice gave her a thrill of happiness, and she opened her mouth to answer, but Vaughan was already speaking.

  “Matter of fact, old man, you are come at a most inopportune time.”

  “I think,” Rowland said evenly, “that that is up to the lady to decide.”

  “You are most welcome to walk with us.” Silvia gave Lord Vaughan a vexed look, then gazed back at Mr. Rowland. With a happy thought, she blurted, “And you did promise, as you have been here before, to show me the estate sometime.”

  “I would be most delighted to be your guide.”

  Just at that moment another well-aimed snowball hit Vaughan, knocking his hat askew and filling his ear with wet snow.

  “That is it!” Vaughan growled, jamming his hat back on his head as high laughter drifted toward them over a snowy hedge. “Where is the troublesome vixen?”

  “I think she is hiding by the cedar hedge,” Lady Silvia answered. “Perhaps you should return fire?”

  “I will indeed,” Vaughan said. Without another word he raced off, bounding through the snow, scooping up a handful as he went.

  Lady Silvia turned and gazed up at Mr. Rowland. Her heart raced. But contrary to her hopes, the young vicar did not take her arm, nor even move closer to her.

  “I truly hope I was not interrupting anything just now,” Rowland said.

  “Not at all. Lord Vaughan was just telling me about some . . . oh, I don’t remember. I think it was a boxing match or some such nonsense.” She couldn’t seem to think, couldn’t concentrate.

  They turned as of one mind and walked. The day was brilliant but icy, the wind causing cheeks to pink and toes to curl up in boots. From somewhere they heard Verity Allen’s high, giddy laughter float on the breeze. There was a scream, and then more laughter.

  “I think Lord Vaughan found his target,” Lady Silvia said.

  Rowland grinned suddenly.

  “What are you smiling about, sir?” she asked.

  His smile became guilty. “I was up speaking to Lady Bournaud and I was looking out her window down here. I happened to see Miss Allen’s first hit, that one that knocked Vaughan’s hat off.” He laughed, throwing his head back in a rare carefree gesture.

  Silvia caught her breath and stopped, turning to face her companion. “You were looking down here?”

  “Yes.”

  She couldn’t ask. It was not ladylike. But oh, how she wanted to know if it was the knowledge that she was out there, walking with Lord Vaughan, that had encouraged him to come looking for them. This was such new ground for her. She was well-versed in the gentle art of discouraging unwanted attentions. But how did one encourage a gentleman one liked, especially when he was reticent, as Mr. Rowland seemed to be?

  “And you decided to come out for a walk?”

  “Yes. I felt a sudden urge for activity.”

  It was enough, for the moment. They walked on for a while, and fell into an easy conversation of his expectations and hopes. Silvia listened to his enthusiasm for his new parish, Loughton. It was large, he said, and had its share of wealthy parishioners, but there were so many more people he hoped to be able to help, so many who needed the support of the parish just to exist.

  And not just those of the Church of England, he said. His head down, staring at his boots, he told her about his hopes of bringing together Methodists and even Catholics. He was hoping, during his stay in Yorkshire, to ask Sir David’s opinion about Catholic emancipation. He did not think that there could be any healing in England until that was a reality.

  “Lord!” he exclaimed, finally. His expression was chagrined and he kicked at a snowdrift. “Here I have been boring you to tears, no doubt. The tale of the boxing match shall seem high conversational art to you by now. Shall I find Lord Vaughan and Miss Allen? Would you be better entertained?”

  “No!” Lady Silvia’s eyes widened. “Pardon me,” she said breathlessly. “Mr. Rowland, if I have been silent for this half hour, it is because . . .” She twisted her hands together. How could she say what she wanted? Why was a young lady not free to say the things in her heart? And yet she couldn’t. She couldn’t say, I have been silent because I have never heard a man say such fine things. I have been silent because love is a quiet thing, not noisy or pretentious, but soft-spoken and low-toned. It whispers, the better to be heard. She wanted to say it, felt it deeply, but he was looking at her with those fine dark eyes, and it muddled her thinking. She could get lost in those eyes, in the amber fire that blazed deep within.

  “What is it, Lady Silvia?”

  He had reached out to her and put his glov
ed hands on her shoulders, holding her as if he would draw her close to his heart. She longed to move into his embrace and lay her cheek against the dark wool of his coat. She wanted to feel his arms around her for the first time, and know that the thudding of his heart was for her and her alone. She could almost feel the warmth of his breath, chasing away the frosty air as he laid a gentle kiss on her upturned face, then on her lips.

  But there were no words for that kind of need, no ladylike way to show him her earnest desire. “I think you will make a fine vicar, Mr. Rowland,” was what she finally said, and bitter was her self-condemnation when she saw the amber flames die within his eyes, replaced by cool obsidian flecks.

  He dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Thank you, my lady. It is the passion of my life to find in service to others a meaning to life.”

  They walked on, each lost in doubt and anxiety, both sure the object of their budding affection would never understand the secrets of their heart.

  Chapter Eight

  “So, you see my fellow has taken no lasting harm from the soaking we both got.” Lord Vaughan, teased and pestered into visiting the stables with Miss Allen, held the bridle of his steed, William Wallace.

  Verity sighed and patted the chestnut stallion’s smooth coat. “He is a handsome boy,” she said. “What a bully name, too! I have a brother William, only this fellow is certainly more handsome than my brother. Shorter nose.”

  Vaughan laughed out loud, the sound echoing in the warm, humid, horsy depths of the elegantly appointed stable. “He is named after the legendary hero of Scotland. I got him from my Scottish friend, who is not very diplomatic about his politics,” he said, returning his attention to the girl beside him. Young woman, really, for he judged her to be in her twenties, pretty much past the marriageable age, thank God. “I call him Bolt, most often, though. He is very fast.”

  “Well, I think he is a beauty.” The horse tossed its head, and Verity kissed its nose.

  Vaughan gazed at her quizzically. “What an odd girl you are! Do you always kiss horses?”

  “More than gentlemen!” Verity retorted.

  Clenching his jaw, Vaughan restrained a very real, very strange urge to kiss her and show her why men were preferable to horses. In the warmth of the stable the snow that coated her was melting and she was soaked, her hair lank and undone from its inelegant bun and her woolen coat dark with water. For all that, there was a natural attraction about her odd blue-green eyes and sharply pointed chin. Kissable wench, he thought randomly. He was about to move toward her to put the thought into action, when she suddenly moved away and started walking around the large, dim stable.

  Arms flung wide, she said, “What a magnificent stable!” She touched the polished wood supports and ran her hands over brass fittings. “I have never seen one like it. At home we have a barn constructed of logs . . . a dank, dark place. And cold! Wind rips right through the chinks between the logs. It serves as our byre and stable and chicken coop.”

  “Primitive country,” Vaughan said moodily, watching her whirl around as if she were an opera dancer. Earlier, when he caught up with her, he had pinned her down and rubbed snow in her face for having the temerity to hit him with a succession of snowballs. It was then that he felt the first stirrings of attraction, the first physical warning that the lithe female body trapped under his, struggling and squirming though it was, was very womanly and desirable. That was exactly the meaning behind his words to Sir David about male freedom within wedlock. How glad he was that marriage did not prevent a man from sampling other feminine charms, because, though he still intended to woo the delectable and sweet-faced Lady Silvia—she was ideal marriage material, a prize his father would approve—Miss Verity Allen was a seducible bundle if ever he saw one. It would be a delight to tame the spitfire and feel her squirming with passion, and not to get away.

  The thoughts struck him as peculiar even as he watched her do an oddly graceful dance about the straw-covered floor, to the delight of a stable boy who was dozing in the corner. She was nothing like anyone he had ever met before, and nothing he would normally think he could be attracted to, but there it was. He wanted to tumble her and thought it was possible, given her passionate nature and chaperone-less existence. He had, after all, three weeks in which to accomplish it, and he had in the past performed seductions in much less time. A momentary qualm struck him, concerning the agreement between himself and Lady Bournaud. But they hadn’t said a word about Miss Allen, and what the old besom didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.

  “And what else can you tell me about your primitive country?” He stalked toward her, arresting her in mid-movement and turning with her into a dark enclosure.

  She gazed up at him in the dim light of the stall into which they had twirled. He pinned her against the wall of the stall with his weight and she frowned, her elegantly arched brows furrowed, then with one quick movement she was out and under his arm and striding across the stable floor into the brilliant December sunshine. With a muffled curse Vaughan followed her into the sunlight. The icy coating over the snow heaps banked up around the walls glittered like diamonds against white tulle. Miss Allen, in her ugly brown coat, stood out against the pristine landscape like a dark blotch.

  Impossible wench, Vaughan thought, and strode after her. If that was how she treated him then he would be damned if he would give her the honor of rejecting him again. His desire for her would be easily stifled, for he had never been a slave to his bodily needs. He was gratified to see that she was headed for the reverend and Lady Silvia, who strolled a pathway on the terrace. His time would be better spent on wooing the perfectly pleasing little lady rather than trying to seduce the unwilling colonial wench.

  “Ah, there you two are,” he called out. He strode toward them and took Lady Silvia’s other arm, leaving Miss Allen to walk alone along the long path up toward the house.

  • • •

  “Trouble among the youngsters?” Sir David said, coming up behind Beatrice.

  Beatrice started, but then smiled over her shoulder. “I don’t know. I hope not.”

  They stood at the window in the library, a mellow room of oak and brass and muted colors of tobacco and old gold. The carpet was Turkish, plush and thick with an intricate Oriental design of some complexity woven in deep greens and blood red. Bookshelves lined two of the stone walls of the ancient house, which were thick, giving each window a deep ledge. Sir David hitched up his trouser leg and sat on the ledge of one, gazing up at Beatrice, who stared out the window at the snowy scene that included the four young people.

  “And yet I could not help but notice that you looked troubled just now,” he commented, watching her eyes as he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. He had observed his old friend’s companion often, while she was aware and also when she was unaware of his scrutiny. He had come to the conclusion that it was he who made her uncomfortable, though he was at a loss to explain that phenomenon.

  She shrugged, hugging herself, her arms wrapped around her slim waist, her fingers pleating the navy merino of her gown. “Lady Bournaud has a plan in mind, but I am only too aware of what happens when mere humans interfere in the workings of fate. Or providence, or destiny . . . whatever one should call it.”

  The knight indicated with a movement of his silvered head the couples outside as they meandered down a pathway. “You are worried about them, and Lady Bournaud’s pairings?”

  “Mmm, yes. I am, actually.”

  “Why do you care?”

  She gave him a sharp look and he was pierced by the intelligence of those eyes. She was nettled by his casual, unfeeling remark.

  “I care because their whole lives are ahead of them. One misstep now and their lives could be ruined!”

  Ah, now he was getting somewhere. “Is that what happened to you?”

  Her eyes widened and glistened in the sunlight that slanted into the room. She shook her head, her lips moving but no words coming out. He put out one hand to touch h
er arm, alarmed at what his impertinent remark had done to her composure, but she moved back, stumbling on the thick carpet. She turned, then, and fled without a word.

  He was left alone, gazing with unseeing eyes at the foursome in the snow outside.

  • • •

  Beatrice called herself a coward as she bustled up to Lady Bournaud’s sitting room on the sunny south side of the house. She thought herself cool and collected, but it seemed that she was a bundle of nerves every time Sir David entered the room or spoke to her. Why could he not just leave? Then she castigated herself for her unkind thoughts. His visit was giving her employer so much joy, and she would not begrudge the old lady her happiness, not even at the cost of her own peace of mind. She should be grateful. He had not, after all, recognized her, not even when they were in constant close quarters, and she must be appreciative of that.

  She stopped by Lady Bournaud’s door, unwilling to go in to her employer when her cheeks were still flaming and her heart still pounding. The worst part was that she could find nothing in him to condemn. He was even more handsome than when she had known him twenty years before. And in that time he had added a gentleness to his charisma, a quiet inner strength that she found immensely appealing. Then she had found him attractive, now she found him intolerably enticing. His voice, his presence, everything about him.

  If only he had become in some way or another coarse or vulgar, but instead he had grown in grace and dignity. And he had unerringly put his finger on the calamity of her existence, that one Season that if she could, she would take back in every sense but one; she would still know him, if she was given that opportunity.

  She paced the hallway. Nellie tiptoed by, carrying a stack of linens to the guests’ rooms, but Beatrice merely gave her an abstracted smile. She rubbed her hands together. The hallway was drafty and cold with the sharp drop in temperature outside. Finally, she had calmed enough and quietly entered Lady Bournaud’s sitting room, the adjoining chamber to her bedchamber and where she spent the afternoon most winter days.