The Winter Bride (A Chance Sisters Romance) (20 page)

She nodded. “If you please, Mrs., er, Miss McBride? I’m sorry, I don’t know how to address you.”

“It’s Miss. I never married,” the old woman said briskly. “Do you mean both boys or just Mr. Freddy?”

Damaris took a deep breath. “Freddy mainly, but I want to ask you about George, as well.”

Nanny McBride fixed her with a gimlet look. “You want to know about the accident.”

Damaris nodded.

“You ought to ask Mr. Freddy.”

“I have, but he won’t tell me.”

“So you’ve come sneaking out behind his back to ask his old nurse.”

Damaris lifted her chin at the accusation in the old woman’s voice. “Yes.”

For a moment, Damaris was sure she was going to send her from the cottage with a flea in her ear, but instead she said, “Why do you want to know about something that happened so long ago? It’s nothing to do with you, is it?” There was no warmth in her voice.

Damaris had rehearsed in her mind what she wanted to say to his nanny—she’d expected a doting, garrulous old thing, not this shrewd-eyed Scotswoman. She’d intended some platitude about getting to know her betrothed better—but the woman’s judgmental response touched a nerve, and the words burst forth. “Because it’s eating away at him. Oh, he says it doesn’t matter, and he plays the rattle to hide his hurt, and he says he doesn’t mind that his parents treat him so disrespectfully—that he deserves it because he killed his brother. But I don’t care what he did, he was a young boy at the time, and even if it was deliberate—which I will
not
believe—he needs to be forgiven. And”—her voice grew husky—“to be loved.” She bit her lip and looked away for a moment, fighting for control.

“Milk?” Nanny McBride held up a small jug. She was talking about
tea
? Damaris couldn’t believe it.

“No, thank you. Just weak and black.” The way she’d drunk tea in China.

Nanny McBride poured out the tea and handed Damaris her cup. “Why do you care about my boy?”

Damaris blinked. “Because I’m his betrothed.”

“Only in name.” She saw Damaris’s surprise. “Och, yes, he told me about your little arrangement. And I have to say, I wasn’t prepared to like you, young lady, not one little bit. Now drink your tea. You don’t let good bohea get cold.”

Damaris drank her tea.

When she’d finished, the old woman nodded toward the picture over the mantel and said, “I’ve one or two other pictures of the boys. Would you like to see them?”

“Yes, please.” She had no idea what was going on, but the tea had refreshed her and she hadn’t been thrown out of the cottage yet, so there was still a chance she could find out what had happened.

Nanny McBride produced several other small framed drawings, one of two small boys, barely out of leading strings, drawn in charcoal. “The boys,” she said with fond pride. “A gypsy in the marketplace was doing pictures for a tanner and I had him do the boys for me—and this one.” It was Freddy, barely out of babyhood, round faced and chubby but still, somehow, recognizable.

Damaris took it and found herself smiling. “He was a beautiful baby, wasn’t he?”

“That he was, young woman, that he was.” She took the baby picture back and passed Damaris the last picture.

It was a study of a young boy, unmistakably Freddy, and by the hand of the same artist who’d drawn the first sketch and painted the family portrait. In it Freddy was gazing down at something that wasn’t in the picture, concentrating with an endearingly earnest expression, chin resting on hand, his young brow furrowed.

“Chess,” Nanny McBride explained. “That artist taught the boys how to play—it kept them still, you see.”

“It’s a lovely portrait.” Pity it wasn’t in color. She handed it back and watched as Nanny McBride replaced them carefully on her dresser.

Anger swirled up in her again. “So you have four pictures of Freddy, and yet in that great house up there”—she gestured angrily—“with all its
hundreds
of paintings, there is not one—
not one!
—painting of Freddy. Their only living son!” Hot tears prickled at the back of her eyes. “Do you know they had him painted out of the family portrait?” She dashed the tears aside with an angry swipe. “How could
any
parent do such a terrible thing? Especially to a bereaved child.”

“Here you are, my dear.” Nanny McBride handed her a handkerchief. She poured another cup of tea and added some hot water from the kettle.

Damaris wiped her eyes and drank the tea, a little shocked at her own outburst. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I don’t usually do that.”

Nanny McBride smiled, her face crumpling into a hundred wrinkles. “You’ll do, lassie, you’ll do. I don’t know what foolish game you and my Freddy are playing, pretending this betrothal is all a hoax, but you’re the one for him, all right, God be praised.”

“Oh, but—”

“Whisht, enough of that now. You canna fool Nanny McBride. You love that boy of mine, and no arguing will change my mind.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken,” Damaris said. “I like Freddy, but it truly is a false betrothal. Neither of us plans to marry.”

“Pfft! I know what I know.” She fetched a tin from the sideboard. “Now, a wee slice of Dundee cake and another cup of tea will settle you down, and then I’ll tell you all about my boys.”

She cut Damaris a thick slice of dark fruitcake, refreshed the tea with more boiling water, stirred the fire and began her story. “As I said, my dear, I never married, so those two boys were the closest thing I had to children of my own. I couldn’t have loved them more if they’d been my own flesh and blood. But their parents . . .” She shook her head. “You’ve heard the expression ‘an heir and a spare’?”

Damaris nodded.

“They took it literally. George was their firstborn son, and it was as if the sun shone out of him—well, and that’s as it should be. George was a fine little lad. Clever, strong, handsome, brave—you couldn’a fault him. And two years later Freddy came along. Another fine, strong, bonny boy, but it was a difficult birth, and his mother never fully accepted the child afterward.” She shook her head sadly.

“And his father?”

Nanny McBride made a rude noise. “His lordship had no interest in Master Freddy, as long as he was healthy and stayed out of the way. He was the spare—literally. Everything—all his parents’ attention—was for George.”

Damaris swallowed. “Freddy was jealous?”

Nanny McBride snorted. “Not a bit of it. Freddy adored his big brother—and George loved him too. No two brothers could be closer. Where one led, the other followed; into mischief—that was usually Freddy—and out of it. If one fell the other would pick him up. Och, they fought and wrestled and competed, as boys do, but their squabbles never lasted more than an hour or two, and they were each the other’s best friend.”

She sighed. “George was everything the son and heir of a great house should be, and George’s parents never looked past him to see that they had another son, equally worthy of their love, attention and approval.”

She fetched the baby picture back. “Freddy tried, of course—no child could have tried harder to please his parents—but they simply didna seem to notice him. And after a while he stopped trying.”

She gazed at the picture. “I used to pretend he was my own wean, my own wee boy. He was the lovingest little lad, and he’s grown up . . .” She shook her head. “I’ve seen the way he is with his parents, and I canna blame him, but it fair breaks my heart to see it. Well, it’s still there inside him, no matter what face he shows to the world.”

“I know. He’s the kindest man I’ve ever known,” Damaris said unwarily.

The old face crumpled into a smile. “Oh, my dear, see, you do love him. I’m so verra, verra glad.”

Damaris opened her mouth to deny it, and then shut it, the words unspoken. Because it was true. She loved Freddy Monkton-Coombes.

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach.”

—
JANE AUSTEN,
PERSUASION

“S
o what happened the day George died?” Damaris pushed on, not wanting to face the revelation that had just come to her with Nanny McBride’s shrewd old eyes watching her. She was uncannily perceptive.

“They were playing cricket. It was winter, and of course they had no business to be playing cricket in the snow, but they were boys, and they didn’t care about a bit of snow. They started with snowballs—tossing them and smashing them with the cricket bat, and then one of them—I can’t remember which—ran into the house and came back with a proper cricket ball, and they were off and playing, down by the lake. It was a bitter winter that year and the lake was iced over.” She fell silent, remembering.

“And then?” Damaris prompted after a minute.

“It was all over in a flash. George bowled a ball, Freddy hit it high, George ran back to catch him out, and without realizing it he went onto the ice. Next minute he’d fallen through and disappeared from sight, and by the time anyone could get to him, he was dead. His foot got tangled in the weed and trapped him under the icy water.”

For a long moment, Damaris simply stared at the old woman. Finally she said, “Do you mean that was
it
?
That
was the crime his parents punished him for? The reason he was painted out of the family portrait? For playing
cricket
?”

Nanny McBride nodded. “Aye, they blamed him for the accident. They sent him back to school the day after the funeral.”

“But what about Christmas?”

Nanny McBride shrugged. “He stayed at school. His mother said she couldn’t bear to look at him.”

“But why, when it was so obviously just an accident? A tragic one, to be sure, but nobody’s fault. And why would Freddy accept the blame?” But a moment’s reflection and she could see why—even if she didn’t agree with it. He was a young boy, just twelve years old, and he’d just lost his brother, whom he worshipped. The brother his parents doted on. She could imagine their grief would have been shocking, and if they’d never really loved their younger son . . .

Freddy had hit the ball.

Proper, loving parents would have hugged him, comforted him, reassured him that it wasn’t his fault, that it was just a terrible accident, that it was nobody’s fault.

Freddy’s parents had had him painted out of the family portrait.

And even now, sixteen years later, they treated him as an unwelcome guest in his own home.

Her hands clenched into tight angry fists. It was time this nonsense stopped. She wanted to march back up to that great, rambling house and slap some sense, some decency—some heart!—into his parents.

She couldn’t, of course. She was just a fiancée, and a false one at that.

But she could talk to Freddy.

 • • • 

S
he met him in the drive, returning from his ride. He immediately slid off his horse and walked back with her, the horse ambling along behind them.

“An accident? Playing cricket? And for this you let your parents treat you like, like—”

“Leave it, Damaris. It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter.”

“No, it’s only for one day a year.”

“Exactly. You’ve been shut out of your home and your family and you only come home one day a year. And when you do, the way your family treats you—”

“They’re not my family,” he said gently. “They’re just my parents. I’m a grown man. I don’t need parents.”

Everyone needed a family, she thought. Even if it wasn’t the usual kind. What would she have done without her sisters and Lady Beatrice? “But you blame yourself for an accident that wasn’t your fault and that happened years ago, when you were a child.”

“I don’t. Not anymore. But they still need to blame me. It gives them comfort, a reason for George’s death, someone to blame.”

“Resentment and blame and willful blindness to the truth can never bring comfort.” She knew what she was talking about. “My father resented my mother all my life. I never found out why, and in the end, it didn’t matter. Even after she died, he clung to the resentment and transferred a lot of the blame to me. It poisoned his entire life.” And hers, until he died.

There were parallels here, she realized, even though their lives had followed very different paths. It was a discomforting thought. It was so much easier to look at someone else’s situation and see what should be done than to apply the same principles to your own problems.

Was that arrogance? Or cowardice?

“You’re making too much of it,” he said.

“No, you hide your true self, not just from your parents, but from just about everyone.”

He snorted. “Nonsense.”

“You’re a chameleon, Freddy Monkton-Coombes. To most of London society, you’re nothing but an entertaining rattle, a frivolous fellow with not a serious thought in your head.”

“I assure you, there’s always at least one thought in my head.” He waggled his brows at her in a lascivious fashion.

She ignored it. “To Max you’re a friend to rely on; to Flynn, a partner with a business brain as sharp as his own; to Nanny McBride you’re her darling boy who spoils her with little treats—long after her usefulness has passed, and very few servants in this world command that kind of loyalty; to me you’re—” She broke off, suddenly flustered by what she’d been about to say.

“Yes? What am I to you, Miss Chance?” It was his deepest rake-on-the-prowl voice.

She collected herself and replied, “To me, you’re very kind.”

“Kind?”
He sounded quite disgusted.

She smiled sweetly. “
Very
kind.”

“Pah! You make me sound like some old uncle.”

“You’d make a lovely uncle, I should think,” she said demurely.

His eyes took on that twinkle that was such an invitation to sin. “Uncle, eh? Then, come here, little girl, and give your dear old uncle Freddy a kiss.”

She laughed and stepped out of danger. “I’m wise to your tactics, Freddy Monkton-Coombes.”

“Tactics?” He slapped his palm over his heart with a wounded look.

“Yes, tactics,” she said as they reached the house. “Whenever a conversation leads into areas you find awkward or uncomfortable, you change the subject, usually by flirting shamelessly.”

“You think I was flirting shamelessly?” He was injured innocence personified. “You couldn’t be more wrong.” He slid his arm around her waist. “Let me show you what shameless flirting really is.”

“Ah, Frederick.” It was his mother, coming from the garden with a basket of greenery.

He turned, and in that instant it was as if a mask had dropped over his face. All the liveliness and warmth, all the wicked, seductive joy in him was gone, smoothed into an expression of perfect, polite indifference. Damaris ached, seeing it.

His mother wore the same look. Damaris longed to smash it.

“The vicar and his wife, the Reverend and Mrs. Tyrrell, will be joining us for dinner this evening, so please don’t be late.” Lady Breckenridge gave Damaris a cool smile. “Good afternoon, Miss Chance.” She glided off into the house, strands of ivy trailing from her basket.

“I suppose I’d better go inside,” Damaris said after a moment.

“Yes, I need to see to my horse. Shall I collect you before dinner?”

“Yes, please.” Damaris entered the house on her own, feeling deflated. It would be several hours to dinner. She should probably read a book. Or write more letters. Or play patience. All were activities she enjoyed, but today none of them appealed. She knew the reason; she wanted to expand her experience of shameless flirtation.

Which was foolish in the extreme.

When she entered her bedchamber, her gaze lit on the box of paints that Lady Breckenridge had given her and her mood lifted. Of course. Painting always soothed her.

 • • • 

D
inner was a quiet event. The vicar was a cheerful man, interested in most things, and his wife worked in deft partnership with him in keeping the conversational ball rolling—and defusing any tension.

Almost.

In his youth, the Reverend Tyrrell had made a most thorough Grand Tour and was delighted when Lord Breckenridge informed him that Damaris was half Venetian. The vicar adored Venice and asked several awkward questions, which Damaris managed to parry quite successfully by answering a question with a question wherever possible.

Luckily he was the kind of man who enjoyed describing his own impressions, and he waxed lyrical about the various sights he had seen, the people he’d met—alas, he’d never met the marchese di Chancealotto—and the grand events he’d attended.

Lord Breckenridge, getting bored with the travelogue, cut across a reminiscence of a masquerade ball, saying, “D’you know, Vicar, that Miss Chance used to breed experimental Chinese swimming pigs.”

It brought the conversation to a sudden stop. Everybody looked at Damaris with varying degrees of astonishment.

“Good God, why?” Freddy asked.

“Stupid boy,” said his father. “Answer’s plain as the nose on your face.” Everybody looked at Lord Breckenridge, who rolled his eyes at their inability to see the obvious. “Can’t have valuable livestock drowning in those dratted canals!”

“Ahh, I see. Most interesting.” The vicar nodded wisely. “And, Miss Chance, in what way were these pigs experimental? The swimming, one assumes, but if you brought them from China, perhaps they had other, more exotic qualities.” He smiled at her with interest and waited for her response.

Damaris had no idea what to say. She’d never said anything to Lord Breckenridge about swimming pigs—he’d been the one who’d raised it, and she’d said no. But it would be rude to point that out now, with everybody waiting. Could pigs swim? She didn’t see why not. Most animals could.

A large warm hand closed over hers, making her jump. “Oh, pigs.” Freddy sighed dramatically. “I’m bored with pigs, Chinese experimental swimming ones or otherwise.”

His father snorted. “You would be. No vision, that’s your problem.”

“Can we not talk of something more of interest to the ladies?” Freddy smiled at the vicar’s wife and squeezed Damaris’s hand. “I’ll be taking Miss Chance to Venice on our honeymoon. She can show me all the sights then.” He gave Damaris a soulful look. “And if you want to show me your flying pigs then—”

“Swimming pigs!” his father corrected him. “Experimental Chinese swimming pigs.”

“—then I’ll try to be interested. Tell me, do they tow boats?”

Damaris managed to keep a straight face. “No.”

“Sing?”

She gave him a quelling look. “No.”

“Count?” he asked irrepressibly. “I once heard tell of a learned pig that could count. I don’t think it was Chinese, though. Clever people, the Chinese. I imagine their pigs might be, too.”

“No,” she said firmly. “Nothing like that. And I thought we’d agreed pigs were not a good subject for the dinner table.”

“Unless they’re roasted,” he said. “Or hams.”

Luckily for Damaris’s composure the vicar’s wife then asked a series of questions about the wedding plans, which Lady Breckenridge seized on, and since no arrangements had yet been made, Damaris was happy to discuss possibilities for her imaginary wedding.

It was better than imaginary pigs.

 • • • 

T
hat night, Damaris lay wakeful and restless long after she’d blown out her bedside candle. The fire, stoked against the long, cold night, glowed dully through the cast-iron grille. She stared at it, willing herself to sleep.

Mrs. Tyrrell and Lady Breckenridge had thrown themselves into the discussion of her wedding. Which church? The village church—the family chapel was too small—or some big London one? St. George’s, Hanover Square—it was the only possibility, declared Lady Breckenridge. All the
ton
would be invited. It would be the wedding of the season.

The dress? Mrs. Tyrrell liked the fashion of white for a bride. No, declared Lady Breckenridge, white would make her look sallow. She would take Damaris to her own modiste. She knew exactly what Damaris should wear.

Her certainty that she knew best got Damaris’s back up—white did
not
make her look sallow!—and even though the wedding was pure fantasy and the arrangements wholly theoretical, Damaris found herself having to insist that her sister Daisy would make her dress, as she would make the dresses of her attendants—Abby, Jane and Daisy herself.

Homemade dresses?
Lady Breckenridge was appalled.

Mrs. Tyrrell thought it charmingly sentimental and congratulated Lord and Lady Breckenridge on acquiring a frugal daughter-in-law. Damaris could see they were not at all thrilled by the prospect.

She immediately told them she would knit stockings for them all. Freddy had choked when she’d announced that one. She told him kindly that once they were married she would knit all his stockings. From the very scratchiest wool, she added in an undertone when he had laughed out loud.

But though she’d tried to make fun of the whole idea of the wedding, though she reminded herself over and over that she never wanted to marry, that it was a sure road to misery for someone like her, right now, with the wind whistling in the eaves outside, and the fire glowing, the prospect of a solitary life in a sweet little cottage no longer seemed the happy solution she’d once thought it.

Nonsense, she told herself. It would be peaceful, which was more than most people had. Happy? She would just have to make it so. One made one’s own happiness—she’d known that all her life. So why would that change, simply because she was living in England now?

But she kept reliving that moment at dinner when Freddy had placed his hand over hers and spoken of taking her to Venice on their honeymoon. The longing for that to be true had swamped her at the time, shocking her with its intensity. Now, as she pressed her hot cheek against the cool linen cover of the pillow, she tried not to dream of how that might be.

She and Freddy in Venice, floating romantically along in a gondola . . .