A Victorian Christmas (17 page)

God had been more than her anchor through this ordeal. Her heavenly Father had been her only friend. She had relied on the comfort of silent prayer and Scripture reading as she came to realize the whole Cholmondeley family seemed destined to ignore her. The countess went about her daily activity of taking callers and sipping tea in one parlor or another. The coming wedding kept the kindly woman employed selecting flowers, menus, and garments for the trousseau. Only on rare occasion did she pause to consult the bride-to-be, who began to feel she was all but extraneous to the event. The earl paid Star no heed at all as he rode out to survey his holdings every morning and conducted business in his study in the afternoons.

Rupert treated his fiancée as some sort of curious museum piece to be ogled from a distance. The few times she attempted to speak with the man, he mumbled something unintelligible and then hurried off to hunt foxes or ride around in his carriage calling on the neighbors. Star had tried everything she could think of to make herself prettier or more interesting to him. She read her etiquette book backward and forward. But nothing she did earned her more than the slightest nod from her future husband.

Grey was worse. When meeting her along a corridor, the viscount would look into her eyes as if he wanted to say a hundred things. Then, saying nothing at all, he would stride past her into the nearest room. During meals she would catch him staring at her, and she couldn’t suppress the heat that crept into her cheeks at the memory of their kiss in Doncaster. It was a torment to be so near the man, yet never speak together or even acknowledge the other’s presence.

That very morning Grey had inadvertently walked into the parlor where she was quilting. Trying to be casual about the moment, Star pointed out to him the section of patches he had stitched while on the carriage journey from London. She had integrated his work into the pattern in such a way that only the most careful observer would note that a different hand had stitched it.

Instead of making polite observations about the quilt, Grey had clenched his jaw, muttered, “Blast,” and stalked away—as if looking at a quilt were the most frustrating experience in his life.

Star ran her hand down the expanse of patched fabric. The only two people in England who enjoyed her company and appreciated her handiwork were Betsy and Nell. The housemaids had welcomed her into their humble cottage when she ventured down to the village one afternoon. Even though they lived in a far worse condition than the cowhands on her daddy’s ranch, Star gladly would have moved in with them just to have someone to talk to.

“Miss Ellis?” Grey spoke from the doorway to the drawing room. “May we join you?”

Glancing up in surprise, Star discovered her future husband peering at her over his older brother’s shoulder. “Lord Stratton,” she said, rising. “Lord Cholmondeley, please do come in.”

Grey tugged on his brother’s jacket sleeve to drag him into the room. “I see you’ve been quilting,” he said. “Miss Ellis is stitching a quilt, Rupert.”

“Ah,” Rupert said blankly. “A quilt.”

“How is it coming along?” Grey asked.

Star slipped back onto the settee as the men settled into a pair of armchairs facing her. “I’m finished with the top,” she said. “Now I need to quilt it.”

“Then you’ll be wanting a quilting frame.”

Pleased that he remembered, Star allowed herself to look into Grey’s brilliant blue eyes. “Yes, please. I can’t manage this much fabric without a frame.”

“She needs a frame, Rupert.”

“Ah,” Rupert said. “A frame.”

Giving his brother a scowl, Grey picked up the corner of the quilt. “Can you describe this frame you require, Miss Ellis? It would be of wood, I assume. And how large?”

“Big enough to hold the quilt.” As Rupert gave a monumental yawn, she shook out the top and spread it across the floor. Gathering her skirts, she hunkered down beside her handiwork to demonstrate. “See, you take two pieces of one-by-two board the length of the quilt top, plus twelve inches. They make the front and back of the frame. Then you do the same thing for the side pieces. You clamp the four boards together, leaving a four-inch overhang at each corner. Then you put the frame over the backs of four wooden chairs, and everybody goes to quilting.”

She paused and stared at the length of fabric. “Summers, we’d put the quilting frame on our front porch. Mama and us four girls would pull up our chairs, and we’d get to talking and laughing to beat the band. Daddy would come up onto the porch, and he’d say, ‘You gals could talk the hide off a cow.’ We’d just giggle and carry on like he wasn’t even there. And then maybe one of the neighbors would come over, and she’d pull up a chair. Sometimes we had twelve or fifteen women quilting away. You could finish a quilt as quick as greased lightning that way, and then you’d just start in on another one.”

Lost in her memories, Star gazed at the bright patches until they blurred out of focus. “Those were some good times,” she said softly.

“Rupert will see that you have a frame immediately,” Grey announced. “Won’t you, Rupert?”

“What?” his brother said, through half-lidded eyes. “Oh yes, of course.”

“Perhaps some of the house help would enjoy learning to quilt,” Grey added. “Our mother adores needlework. I’ll ask her to come and assist you.”

Star managed a smile. “I thought I could take the quilt down to the village when I’m finished with it. Betsy and Nell have it kind of tough in that smoky little cottage. Pieces of the thatch roof are falling right down onto the floor, and the wind just rips in there—”

“Colder than frog legs?”

Delight trickled down her spine. “I reckon so. Anyhow, I figured I could give them this quilt and then maybe start on another one. A family can never have too many quilts. Betsy’s got three little fillies, and one of them goes to coughing so hard she can hardly breathe. I’m afraid she has consumption.”

Grey had knelt beside her and was holding one edge of the quilt. “Have they taken the child to an apothecary?”

“Betsy’s husband was laid up with a broken leg this fall, and they barely made their rent. I’m sure they can’t afford medicine.”

Grey stroked his chin for a moment. “How soon could you finish the quilt?”

“In a day, with help. Otherwise, it’ll take a little longer.”

“Could you have it ready by the Christmas Eve party? Rather than give the quilt to Betsy, why not put it into the charity auction? I’ll see that all the money earned from your quilt goes straight to the village for medicines and blankets.”

“Would you? Oh, Grey, that would be wonderful!” She brushed back a curl that had fallen from her chignon. “Finishing this quilt ought to keep me as busy as a prairie dog after a gully washer. And I don’t mind telling you, that’s the way I like it.”

Suddenly remembering where she was, Star glanced at Rupert. The young man had drifted off to sleep in the high-backed chair, his head lolling to one side as he snored softly.
Dear God, thank
You!
she prayed in silence. In five minutes with Grey, she’d forgotten all about Rupert and her upcoming marriage. Chattering like a chipmunk, she was all aglow with plans and hopes—and then she had remembered.

“You’d better go,” she said quickly. “And take your brother with you. I won’t—”

“Star.” Grey caught her hand, drawing her back to the floor beside the quilt. “You must try to engage Rupert in conversation. Talk to him about the fox hunt or something. Let him know you as you are.”

“He doesn’t want to know me.”

“I can’t keep walking past this room and finding you alone. It’s all I can do not to take you out of this wretched place and . . . and . . .”

“I’ve prayed myself blue in the face,” she whispered. “I’ve done all I know to do to make Rupert interested in me, and he isn’t. God made this plan, and it’s going to be up to Him now to work it out. I can’t do this on my own.”

“Did He make this plan, Star?” Grey’s eyes were earnest. “How can a person know the truth?”

“Jesus Christ is the truth. If we know Him, if we follow Him, He’ll lead us on the right path.” She crumpled the fabric of her quilt. “I have to believe that! I have to keep going, walking in the direction I believe I’m supposed to take. What about you? Have you told your father about your experience at the hospital in India? Does he know you’re a new man?”

“He doesn’t know I’m a man at all. I’m nothing but a cipher to him, the heir to the earldom, and a grand disappointment.”

“But you were led back home, Grey. You have to speak to him. That’s
your
path.”

“Blast this ‘new man’ business. It’s difficult enough—”

“Nobody said it would be easy. But God is with you, Grey. He’s with me.”

“And I want
you
.”

Star felt as though a sack of oats had slammed into her chest. “You can’t.”

“No, I can’t.” He gritted his teeth. “I’ve lived the old way, and I’ve lived the new. It was easy to choose myself over everything else. Easy to toss away my money, easy to drink until my head spun, easy to gad about the globe without a care. Easy and empty. Fruitless. Hopeless.”

“And the new way?” she asked, laying her hand over his.

“Difficult. But I won’t go back.”

Star swallowed hard. “No.”

“Then why are you in my life?” He cupped his hands around her face. “Why are you beautiful and good and amusing and perfect?”

“Please don’t say those things,” she said, fighting against the tide of emotion that flooded through her. “I don’t know why we met. I can’t see the pattern. Can’t understand this quilt. Can’t . . . can’t . . .”

“Don’t cry.”

“No,” she mumbled. “No.”

“Rupert!” He swung around and gave his dozing brother a swift kick in the shin. “Wake up, you cabbage head.”

“Oof!” Rupert grabbed his leg. “I say, Strat, what was that for?”

“Miss Ellis would enjoy a walk through the hedge maze. Are you going to sleep all afternoon, or will you take your fiancée for a stroll?”

Rupert ran his fingers through his tousled hair. “But it’s snowing.”

“Go on, Rupe.” Grey all but hauled his brother out of the chair. “Show Miss Ellis that a snowstorm won’t stop an Englishman.”

Giving Rupert a final shove in Star’s direction, the viscount hastily exited the drawing room. She gathered up her quilt and pushed it into her bag as Rupert massaged his shin.

“It’s snowing,” he repeated. “Rather a bad time for a walk, don’t you think, Miss Ellis?”

Star rose and looked at the man who was to be her husband. “You could tell me about foxhunting.”

“Mm. Yes, well, all right.” He limped across the room to the long French doors that led out toward the evergreen hedge maze. “Fox hunt. Good sport, actually. One gathers one’s dogs and mounts one’s horse. A group of hunters, rather. Then with a good bit of galloping about, one hunts down a fox.”

“I see.” She joined him at the window. The hedge maze spread out beyond the drawing room at the back of the huge manor house in an intriguing pattern of twists and turns. “So two or three of you fellows hunt down as many foxes as you can to keep them from bothering the livestock? We do that with coyotes, when they get troublesome. I’ll tell you what, I’ve ridden some trails that would make a mountain goat nervous. How many foxes do you reckon you’ve brought down in a day?”

He looked down his nose at her. “The fox hunt is a sport.”

“Oh.”

“If you’ll excuse me, Miss Ellis, I should like to speak to my valet about some warm water for my injured leg.” He gave her a smile and a slight bow. “Perhaps we shall be able to walk the maze another time.”

“Perhaps,” she said, watching him go.

The quilting frame magically appeared in the drawing room later that evening. As she set to work, Star tried to believe Rupert had sent it, but she knew he’d been napping as she explained the specifics of the construction. For the next three days she saw nothing of either man except at evening meals. Grey was careful never to meet her eyes.

Two days before her engagement was announced, Rupert invited the Misses Smythe to Brackenhurst Manor to help prepare the charades for the Christmas party. Both evenings, as was their custom, the Cholmondeley family gathered in one of the drawing rooms after dinner to play the pianoforte, engage in card battles, or read aloud. Star found it a chore to watch her fiancé chattering away with the two attractive young women, while she was left unattended at the other end of the room.

“Won’t you sing with me tonight, Miss Ellis?” the countess asked as the group retired to the firelit chamber on the night before Christmas Eve. “I heard you singing while working at your quilt, and you’ve such a lovely voice.”

Star slipped her arm through that of the elderly woman. She had liked the earl’s wife from the start, and she’d enjoyed her company the few times they’d chatted. She prayed that the countess would become, in time, a soul mate. “I’d love to sing with you, my lady. Thank you very much for asking.”

“Do you play the pianoforte, Miss Ellis? I should like to hear you.”

Star blanched at the thought of her own awkward piano banging. She could pound out “She’ll be Comin’ ’round the Mountain” or “Oh, Susannah” as well as the next gal, but she didn’t think her talents would go over too well at Brackenhurst Manor.