Jack of Hearts (12 page)

“Then there is no need to, Sarah. I am sorry for pressuring you. After two months in London, you deserve to have the kind of holiday you want. But if you change your mind and feel lonely, I want you to promise you will have Patrick drive you over.”

“I promise.”

“All right, then. Now, which dress do you think I should pack for Christmas Day?”

* * * *

Sarah was happy to turn her attention to whether green sarcenet or gold silk was more appropriate, for she hadn’t wanted to be pressured into saying anything more about her decision. It had come to her a few nights ago that for some reason, after all these years—and even after a very enjoyable time in London—she could not bear the thought of spending another holiday as an appendage. Oh, she knew she was genuinely welcome at the Astons’ and trusted that they liked her for herself. But the thought of being neither fish nor fowl, family nor friend, was suddenly unbearable. Heriot Hall was the closest thing to a home she had, and she wanted to spend Christmas there, even if it was alone. In fact, she was beginning to realize she was more and more dreading the idea of Anne’s marriage and the subsequent move. It occurred to Sarah that she might even eventually ask Anne if she could make a permanent home here at the hall. Perhaps she could act as housekeeper, rather than look elsewhere for employment. Mrs. Pendrake was getting old and close to retirement. She would consider those decisions when she came to them; for now she would have almost three weeks free.

She was surprised at the relief she felt when she used that word. She had never felt that bound. She loved Anne, had loved her from the beginning when she came to act as her governess. But her life had been given over to Anne for many years. Once Anne had a husband, Sarah knew suddenly, but deeply, she wanted to reclaim her own life. It might be constrained by lack of money and opportunity, but at least it would be her own.

* * * *

Anne set off to the Astons’ three days before Christmas, with James, her coachman, driving. Her stated reason was that she wanted Patrick in charge while she was away, but truly she decided she did not want to be reminded of her trip to the mill. She wanted to enjoy her holiday with no thought of looms or carding machines.

Not that Patrick had said anything more to her. He had gone back to being his usual friendly self, or so it seemed on the surface. But Anne thought she could detect a reserve, a holding back, perhaps even disappointment. Well, let him stew in his disappointment, she thought as she put her head back against the velvet squabs of the carriage, after waving good-bye to Sarah and her critical groom.

Ripley was only twenty-odd miles from Wetherby, so it was a pleasant day trip broken only by a stop for lunch. They arrived just after dark, as the moon was rising, and when the carriage pulled up in front of the house, the door opened into a hall filled with warm golden light, profiling Elspeth and Val, who were waiting to greet their guest. Val’s arm was around his wife’s shoulders, and for one moment Anne felt a wave of loneliness engulf her. Then she was pulled into the warmth and light and shook herself, as though she were shaking the cold and dark away.

“You must be chilled,” said Elspeth, “And hungry. Supper is waiting.”

“I’m not that cold, but I am ravenous,” admitted Anne with a grin.

“Here, let me take your cloak, and Elspeth will show you your room. If she can find it,” Val added. “We are still trying to get used to all this space!”

“Yes, after years in army tents, I am suddenly responsible for a mansion,” laughed Elspeth. “I only know my way around a part of the house so far. Lucky for you, it included the guest bedrooms.”

Anne was shown into a charmingly decorated room, hung in blue, with a small fire blazing on the hearth.

“There is warm water on the washstand, and I can send Lucy up if you need a maid. But don’t think you need to change for supper. It is only the three of us.”

“I’ll just wash up then, Elspeth. I am too hungry to waste any time on my dress,” Anne said gratefully.

“Then we’ll see you downstairs shortly.”

Anne brushed her dress off and, tying a linen towel around her shoulders, splashed her face and hands. Even though it had been a short trip, it was good to be able to stretch—and wonderful to be visiting friends. It would have been a lonely Christmas at home. Not her first one without her father, but the first when the household would not be in mourning. She was glad to be here.

When she was shown into the dining room, she found Elspeth and Val sitting opposite each other. “Come and join us, Anne. We’ve saved the head of the table for you. Would you like some wine?”

“No, thank you. I might just fall asleep on you if I did.”

“I hope supper does not seem too light,” Elspeth apologized. “It is only a clear soup and then roast chicken and vegetable. Even that seems a lot to me after army fare. But it is nothing compared to those dinners we have been consuming in London.”

Anne laughed. “Yes, and I must have put on five pounds my first week there. I am happier with plain fare myself.”

“We will have to lay out a better table for my father and Jack, of course,” Val reminded his wife.

“Jack?” asked Anne, trying to remember if some cousin or other had been mentioned as a guest.

Elspeth gave her husband an exasperated look. “Jack Belden. Lord Aldborough. His parents are away, and we extended him a last-minute invitation. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Of course not,” Anne replied evenly. What could she say? The Astons certainly had the right to invite any guests they chose, and Aldborough was a friend of Val’s, as she was a friend of Elspeth’s. It shouldn’t feel like a conspiracy…but it did. For a moment she felt very disappointed. Then she rallied. Tha will not let tha Christmas be spoiled by that man, Anne Heriot, she told herself firmly.

“When do they arrive?” she asked brightly.

“My father will be here tomorrow, and we expect Jack by Christmas Eve.”

“I am sorry Sarah did not come,” added Elspeth. “She would have evened out our numbers. Charles very much enjoyed her company in London. Was she feeling ill?”

“No, but London tired her out,” Anne replied. “I made her promise to have Sergeant Gillen drive her over if she felt lonely.”

“Well, she would have plenty of time to rest here, for we are planning a very quiet Christmas,” Elspeth told her friend apologetically. “We are not well acquainted with our neighbors yet, although, we have received a few invitations for the holidays. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Not at all. This is only the second Christmas I have spent without my father, and I am happy just to be with good friends.”

* * * *

As Anne got ready for bed, however, she hoped they would attend some local parties, for a quiet holiday with Val and Elspeth was one thing, but an intimate Christmas with Jack Belden was quite another.

“You are sure you don’t want to use the chaise, my lord? The wind is blowing from the northeast, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we had snow by Christmas.”

“I’m sure,” Jack told his groom. “I am quite used to long, cold rides, you know.”

“Then I’ll have Sancho ready for you early tomorrow morning.”

“Thank you, John.”

“But why you want to ride in this weather is beyond me,” muttered his groom as Jack left the stables. “You’d think three years in Portugal and Spain would have been enough for you!”

* * * *

Jack could have given him a reason or two, had he asked. First, it would be much cheaper. Taking the chaise would mean changing teams and patronizing larger inns, those that could handle the carriage trade. Riding meant he could stop at the smaller taverns.

God, it was depressing to be constantly worried about funds. He hadn’t needed much money in the army. And he hadn’t spent any of his pay, except to treat Sanchez and his men to wine every now and then. It seemed that all he’d thought about, worried about, since he’d returned to England was money, or rather the lack of it.

And coming here to Aldborough, he’d had to face his uncle’s wife and her hesitant, apologetic questions about the two girls, who would be coming home from school for the holidays but didn’t know if they would be returning?

Thank God, his aunt and cousins were going to her family in Surrey. And thank God for Val’s invitation, or he might have been tempted to run off and reenlist, the title be damned. The thought of sitting here for two weeks, worrying about the three women who depended upon him and his marriage for their future… He had to move, he had to ride; he had to do something or he’d fall into a black hole of despair again.

* * * *

Jack was up early the next morning, feeling more like himself than he had in a long time.

“It’s good to be on the road again, eh, Sancho,” he’d said as his gelding gave a happy shake of his head and almost danced down the drive. “We may not be after the Frogs, but we do have an important mission to convince one reluctant Yorkshire lass that marriage to yours truly would be far preferable than to any of her other suitors. Surely winning Miss Anne Heriot can’t be any more difficult than defeating Boney!”

By the end of the first day on the road, the temperature had dropped, and Jack was very happy to see the light of a small tavern winking out at him. He settled Sancho himself and then happily joined the other customers around the taproom fire. He was wearing an old military cape that he’d wrapped around him many a cold night in Spain, so the men around the fire saw only a returned soldier. It was wonderful to let the title slip from his shoulders. In fact, it was so good not to be Lord Aldborough that Jack drank a little more hot punch than he had planned to and woke late, with the kind of head one gets after drinking cheap liquor. It took several cups of strong coffee before he was ready to leave.

By now, the wind was blowing directly into his face and his pace was slower. He wrapped his long wool muffler around his face, but by late afternoon the bones in his forehead were aching from the cold, and his hands, despite sheepskin gloves, were stiff.

It took much longer to get to the next town where he had planned to lodge, and by the time he arrived he was frozen through, thoroughly miserable and thoroughly happy. He had been right not to take the chaise. This was exactly what he needed—to push himself, to keep moving despite cold or discomfort until he got to that place where one existed only in the present moment, in the next breath, the next gust of wind, the cramping of the fingers, the air so cold that the nostrils stuck together with each breath. All else was forgotten in the need to go on.

And then, of course, when one stopped and found shelter and warmth and light, there was such a sensation of calm, of floating in the moment rather than struggling through the moment. Every bit of consciousness became focused on the now, and all else fell away.

The way to climb out of that black hole, thought Jack, as he fell asleep on his lumpy bed, is to keep moving, to distract from the mind’s discomfort by providing the body with some.

It was snowing when he started out the next morning, large crystal flakes that fell softly and silently at first, glittering like diamonds in the early-morning sun. But by noon the wind was up, the sun was completely gone, and the flakes had shrunk to stinging pellets. Sancho’s head was down as he picked his way carefully over the road that soon became a narrow path over a corner of the moor.

They were very close to Ripley, but these last few miles would be the most difficult, Jack realized, as the sky grew darker and the snow was driven into their faces. He finally dismounted so he could lead Sancho and feel for the path himself. Thank God he was one of those men who had something like an inner compass, a sense of direction that rarely failed him, or he would have been worried.

He was worried a little later when he realized that a “moment’s rest” had turned into a quarter hour of dozing against Sancho’s shoulder. It would be ironic to have survived years of winter in the Pyrenees only to sleep himself to death in West Riding! He clapped his hands together and stamped his feet and, pulling at Sancho, forced them both into a quicker pace.

“We should be very close,” he told the gelding half an hour later. His face was so stiff he could hardly talk. But for the next fifteen minutes he began to doubt himself. And curse himself. “You’re a bloody fool, Jack Belden.
Soy loco, verdad
, Sancho?”

And then in the whirling whiteness, he saw a light and then another. At first he wondered if he was imagining things, but then a recognizable shape formed.

“Gracias a Dios,” he whispered fervently. “Somos aqui!”

He went right up to the front door and began pounding.

* * * *

“Who on earth could that be in this weather?” Elspeth exclaimed. She and Val and Charles were in the drawing room, waiting for Anne to come down before they went in for supper.

“If I were a betting man, I’d say Jack. But even he couldn’t be so mad as to set out in this.”

“We were expecting him today,” Elspeth told Charles. “But we assumed he would be a day or two behind schedule because of the weather. No carriage could have made it through the snow.”

The door sounded again. “I am too curious to wait, Val,” said Elspeth, so they all trooped out into the hall.

The door opened on an apparition in blue and white.

“Are you going to keep me standing out here in the cold, then, Val, because I’m a few hours late?” Jack could feel the joy bubbling up from deep inside. He was here! He was alive!

“My God, you are a madman!” exclaimed Val, “How ever did your carriage get through?”

“I didn’t drive. I rode, and I need to take care of Sancho before I do anything else.”

“Summers, get Bob out here immediately to take care of Lord Aldborough’s horse.”

Jack protested, but Val just grabbed his friend and pulled him in. “Get in here, Jack. You must be near frozen.”

“I am frozen,” laughed Jack. “I’ll have to thaw off here in the hall, or I’ll ruin the furniture,” he added as he stamped his feet. “I apologize, Elspeth, but they are blocks of ice.”