A Countess by Christmas (14 page)

It would be Boxing Day at the earliest before she could leave. And she would probably have to ask Cadwallader to arrange everything without speaking to Lord Bridgemere himself.

But she rather thought that seeing their new governess draw up outside their house in a coach with a crest on the door might compensate the Harcourts for her not arriving sooner.

Two more days. That was all she had left.

And then the rest of her life to recover from the impact the handsome, self-contained Earl had had upon her heart.

It was a relief to return to the noisy chaos of the schoolroom. Since the children’s costumes had all been agreed upon, and suitable materials found, her task that afternoon was to make them up. Lord Bridgemere, she discovered when she went to sit at the large table by the window, had also hired a couple of girls from the village to help out with the sewing.

They were inclined to be on their best behaviour, until Helen explained, ‘I have only come here as companion to my aunt. She is the one who really has the right to be here. Once Christmas is over I will be going off to work as a governess.’

After that they began to chat more freely with her as they sat tacking together swathes of velvet, calico and silk for angels, shepherds and kings.

From them, she learned that all the villagers were really looking forward to the ball Lord Bridgemere always arranged for them on Boxing Day.

‘Puts on a right good do,’ said the plumper of the two, whose name was Maisie. ‘And not just for the gentry staying at the house. But for all of us ordinary folk, too.’

‘Speak of the devil,’ said her thinner companion, jabbing her in the side with her elbow.

Helen looked up to see that the door to the attic room was open and Lord Bridgemere was leaning against the frame, his arms folded, watching over the activity with what looked to her like satisfaction.

Reverend Mullen suddenly noticed him, too. He clapped his hands and said, ‘Children, children! Make your bows to His Lordship, who has most generously
spared us a few minutes out of his busy day to come and visit us!’

Was it her imagination, or did some of Lord Bridgemere’s satisfaction dim?

If it did, it was only for a second, because as the children all stopped what they were doing and turned towards him he produced a smile and said, ‘Well, I happen to know that Cook is sending up a tray of her ginger snaps, so how could I stay away?’

At that very moment two maids came into the room, bearing trays of drinks and biscuits which they carried to a table at one end of the room. The children, to Helen’s amusement, promptly forgot their company manners to swarm round the refreshments table.

Far from looking offended, Lord Bridgemere was smiling again.

His smile dimmed as he turned towards the table where Helen was working. By the time he reached them his face showed no emotion whatsoever.

‘I did not intend the refreshments for the children alone,’ he said. ‘I do hope you ladies will take a break from your work to sample some of Cook’s baking.’

‘Why thank you, Your Lordship,’ said Maisie, getting up and dropping a clumsy curtsey, her face pink with pleasure. Her friend, too, looked similarly flustered at having Lord Bridgemere address them directly.

It seemed Helen was not the only female upon whom he had such a disturbing effect. Her heart sank as she saw that he had been as impervious to her blushes and sighs as he was to those of these village girls. In his mind he probably consigned her along with them as foolish females who were well beneath his notice! Head
lowered, she followed her two companions to the refreshments table.

‘Did you enjoy the ice this morning, children?’ he asked, when they were all seated with their beakers of milk.

There was a rousing chorus of yeses and thank-yous through milk-moustached smiles.

‘Do not forget,’ he said solemnly, ‘that tomorrow, Christmas Eve, I am relying on you to gather enough greenery to decorate the Great Hall. I need holly and ivy, and mistletoe if you can find it. I think there may be one or two boughs in the apple orchard…’

He frowned, as though uncertain, when Helen was sure he knew exactly where it was to be found. He was deliberately turning the ritual of bringing greenery in for Christmas Eve into a kind of treasure hunt for the children.

The boy who was playing the part of Gabriel, the younger Swaledale, was wriggling where he sat. ‘We’ll find some for you, sir!’ he said earnestly.

‘Why, thank you, Charles,’ Lord Bridgemere replied, bringing a flush of pleasure to the lad’s thin cheeks.

‘I know that some of your older brothers and sisters may stir themselves, and there will be a few servants free, but without your help…’ He shook his head in mock solemnity.

‘We’ll do it!’ several of them shouted.

Helen couldn’t help smiling. It would be servants and perhaps some of the ladies who fashioned the gathered greenery into garlands and wreaths. But after the way he had just spoken the children would feel a real sense of achievement. When Christmas morning came, and
they saw the house festooned with the greenery they had helped gather, they would really feel a part of the Christmas celebrations.

No wonder those who had visited before had such fond memories of Christmas at Alvanley Hall.

‘Thank you,’ he said solemnly. Then, ‘Now, make sure you wear suitable clothing. Holly is very prickly. I do not want anyone to forget their gloves. Reverend Mullen, could you perhaps find a few spare pairs of gloves, in case anyone forgets to bring their own?’

Helen could have kissed him. None of the children would want to be left out of the adventure from lack of proper clothing. Yet a few of them, as she had discovered during that morning’s outing, simply did not have any. Peter, the little boy who was to play the part of Joseph, for instance, had come back from the skating party with the joints of his fingers horribly distended by angry looking chilblains. If she was being charitable, she would hazard a guess that his parents, Lord and Lady Norton, had so many worries of their own that outfitting their only son for winter had slipped their minds. Except that every time she saw Lady Norton she acted as though she had not a care in the world. It was her husband who went about looking burdened with woes.

She shook her head, her lips pursed. Peter’s mother, she feared, did not care about her son, and even if his father did he was such a bellicose kind of man that in all likelihood nobody would dare approach him and remind him of any oversight he might have committed.

Still, once his son left Alvanley Hall Helen had no doubt that he would have been discreetly supplied with enough warm clothes to see him through the rest of the
winter. She was convinced that nobody would demand any child return their ‘borrowed’ gloves.

Lord Bridgemere had such a tactful way of providing for those in need without making them feel like paupers.

She sighed.

It was at that moment, while she was sighing adoringly at his back, that he turned round abruptly and looked straight at her.

Her cheeks flamed guiltily. She swiftly lowered her head and stared fixedly into her half-empty beaker, but she was all too aware of him stalking towards her.

Oh, heavens. After all the lectures she had already given herself about the inappropriate nature of the way she looked at him, he had caught her doing it again!

‘Miss Forrest? May I have a private word with you?’

He motioned with his arm to indicate his wish that they step outside.

Her heart sank. She could feel another stinging rebuke coming her way. Yet she placed her beaker on the tray and followed Lord Bridgemere across the room to the doorway. He held the door open as she passed him, then stepped out into the passage, leaving it open behind them. Nobody would be able to hear what they were saying, but since they were in full view of Reverend Mullen, the children, their nurses and various household staff, there would be no possibility of anyone accusing either of them of the least hint of impropriety.

‘I spoke with your aunt this morning,’ he began, surprising her into raising her head and looking at him
properly for the first time since he had caught her making sheep’s eyes at him.

He did not look annoyed. More…troubled.

‘Her case was far more desperate than I had been led to believe.’ He frowned. ‘She ought to have written to me straight away,’ he said, running the flat of one hand over the crown of his head.

‘Oh. Well, perhaps… Only we did not know where you might be found…’

‘Nonsense!’ He turned and paced away from her, and then back, as though he was seriously agitated. ‘A letter addressed to me and sent here would have made its way to me easily enough. I always keep my steward apprised of my movements in case he needs to contact me urgently.’

He was pacing back and forth now, a frown pleating his brow.

‘He always forwards any mail. It is unthinkable that she has lost her home because she left approaching me this late. Had she applied to me at once I might have been able to do something to prevent her losing her independence. That she thought me so lacking in proper feeling that she regarded me as a last resort…’

Helen laid a hand upon his sleeve as he passed, arresting his movement. ‘Please, do not upset yourself. It is not your fault that she resisted applying for charity.’

‘I cannot help blaming myself, though,’ he said irritably. ‘I have gained something of a reputation over the past few years for being unapproachable. Particularly to my own family. I have sent several of them away with a flea in their ear when I thought they were trying to sponge off me. More than once. But you must believe
me, Miss Forrest,’ he said earnestly, laying his hand over her own, ‘I would never permit anyone for whom I am responsible to suffer unnecessary hardship. Not real hardship.’

‘I know that.’ She turned her hand over and squeezed his, reassuringly. ‘I know.’

She was not sure why he was so determined to convince her that he was not an ogre. When, from what he had just told her, he appeared to have deliberately fostered that image. But it made her feel so happy to think he did not want
her
to think badly of him that she smiled.

‘And I want to thank you for the very tactful way you handled the situation. My aunt has been so proud of maintaining her independence from her brothers that the act of asking you for aid now might well have broken her. But she is easy in her mind now, for the first time in months. Because of you.’

‘Rubbish!’ He stepped back smartly, releasing her hand as though it had stung him. ‘I only did what any decent man would do.’

Helen let her own hand fall to her side, humiliatingly aware that she had overstepped the bounds of propriety with him yet again.

‘Oh, no,’ she insisted, with a shake of her head. ‘Some men would have casually crushed her with their condescension. You listened to her. Really listened to what she needed and made it available.’

But he did not look any less troubled.

‘It occurred to me, as your aunt was telling me about her plight, that when she lost her fortune you lost your inheritance too. That is why you told me you are now
penniless, even though everyone else believes you are an heiress.’

‘Well, yes,’ she admitted hesitantly. ‘Though I do not see that it is any concern of yours.’

‘Do you not? Do you not think any man would be concerned to see a young woman, brought up in affluence, suddenly obliged to go out to work for a living?’

It warmed her heart to see him so concerned on her behalf. Though there was nothing he could do for her—not really.

‘Miss Forrest,’ he said, ‘you have no family to speak of. Nobody to whom you can apply for aid. Would it make a difference to your future plans if I were to make it known that I am willing to provide you with a dowry?’

‘Wh…what?’ Helen could not believe her ears.

‘You ought to marry,’ he said. ‘I know you say you do not want to, but I cannot believe you are completely sincere. It is the main ambition of all my female relatives. And of all the ladies of my acquaintance you are the one I could actually see making some man a comfortable sort of wife. You are unselfish. You unfailingly put the welfare of others before your own.’

She went up to bed early with her aunt, missing out on the entertainments the other ladies enjoyed. He had found her sitting, uncomplaining, mending her meagre supply of clothes whilst her aunt was playing cards with another of the matrons. And as for the effect she was having on the children! He had seen little Junia blossom under her kind ministrations, and even the younger Swaledale boy casting off his habitually sulky attitude.

‘I have never seen a woman bear misfortune with such fortitude,’ he continued. ‘You do not pout, or whine that life is unfair. You just take it all on the chin, with that rueful little smile of yours.’

He reached out with one forefinger, running it over her chin, before abruptly snatching it back and saying gruffly, ‘You deserve to find happiness. Not to be shut away in some schoolroom for the rest of your life.’

He blinked then, as though he could not believe what he had just done.

And, as for Helen, she could not believe what he had just
said
! He admired her so much that he would insult her by offering her money so that she could go out and marry someone else! She could feel her heart pounding hard in her chest. He thought she would make
some man a comfortable sort of wife
, did he? She clenched her fists.

‘How can you still keep on trying to ram your charity down my throat when I have made it quite plain I shall never accept anything from you? Besides, a dowry is the very last thing I need! I shall
never
marry,’ she said furiously, as much to herself as to him.

She had learned a lot about herself during the days she had been at Alvanley Hall, and honesty compelled her to admit that the only reason she had never thought much about marriage was because she had never met a man like Lord Bridgemere before! No other man had ever had a strong enough pull to tempt her to break faith with Aunt Bella, who was so very opposed to the institution.