'Twas the Night After Christmas (21 page)

“Of course, my dear. It’s going to be a long day, so he definitely needs fortification.” She took his other hand as they started
for the breakfast room. “But are you sure you understood Pierce correctly? He doesn’t mind about Jasper?”

This morning, Camilla had given her ladyship a highly edited version of the previous night’s events, leaving out all the parts about Pierce’s jealousy of Mr. Fowler and . . . other things.

“His lordship agreed to take us to town for the fair,” Camilla said. “I’d say that’s a strong indication that he doesn’t mind.”

And that still surprised her. Pierce had been so good, so kind to her son. Given his look of shock and betrayal when Jasper first appeared in the drawing room, Pierce’s behavior was nothing short of astonishing. How she wished she’d confided in him sooner. But then, until last night she hadn’t realized that he cared for her even a little. Or that she would have learned to care for him, too. That she might consider doing something as reckless as going to his bed.

A blush heated her cheeks. For pity’s sake, Jasper had nearly found them together! That would have been horrible.

At least the near miss had brought her to her senses. Or as much of her senses as weren’t still aching for him. He made her blood sing, and that had never happened to her before. The part of her that yearned for more in her life was desperate for the next time they could be alone together.

I want to see you come. I want to see you break apart in my hands, right here in this drawing room. And then I want to take you upstairs to my bed and have my wicked way with you.

She shivered every time she thought of it. Every time she thought of
him.
How he’d touched her. How he’d stoked a fire that Kenneth had never even acknowledged was there.

But she couldn’t take a lover, not with Jasper to think about. What if she found herself pregnant again? It didn’t bear thinking on.

They entered the breakfast room to find Pierce standing by the sideboard. As he turned to smile at her, her heart gave a ridiculous leap. He’d never joined them for breakfast before—he’d either had a tray brought to his room or waited to eat until he’d gone over to the manor house to handle estate business. Was this all for her and Jasper’s benefit?

If so, it made her absurdly happy, especially when he trailed his admiring gaze down her lavender-blue morning dress. She was so glad she’d taken extra care with her appearance this morning, even adding a few sprigs of holly to her hair.

And he looked rather fine himself, in a morning suit of bottle-green cashmere with a striped waistcoat and Hessian boots polished to a high sheen. She hoped the snow had melted enough so he wouldn’t ruin them, for they looked costly.

The moment Jasper spotted the earl, he let out a cry of surprise and went running up to the man as if they were grand friends. “Good morning, sir!”

Pierce ruffled Jasper’s hair. “Good morning, lad. You’re looking very well.”

“Mama said I had to wear my new clothes.” He pouted as he scratched one leg. “They itch.”

Camilla sighed. Jasper had only just gotten too old for skirts, and he wasn’t fond of being buttoned up tight.

“I wore a skeleton suit, too, when I was your age,” Pierce said confidentially. “You’ll get used to it. And only big boys wear
breeches, so when they see you in your new clothes in town, they’ll be impressed by how old you are.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Jasper glanced at Pierce’s Hessians. “They’d really be impressed if I wore boots like you, sir. And I’d be ever so much
taller.
”

“You would indeed,” Pierce said with a chuckle. “Although you’d be even taller if I did this.” And without warning he hoisted Jasper up onto his shoulders.

Jasper squealed with delight as he grabbed the earl’s head. “Look, Mama, at how tall I am!”

“Yes, very tall indeed,” Camilla managed through the lump in her throat as Pierce marched about the room with him. Pierce looked as carefree as she’d ever seen him, his eyes twinkling and his face wreathed in smiles as he hefted Jasper off his shoulders and into a chair at the table.

“Oh, Lord,” Camilla murmured to her ladyship. “I believe we’ve opened a Pandora’s box by introducing them to each other.”

“I don’t know,” Lady Devonmont said softly. “Pierce hasn’t looked this happy since he was a boy. Perhaps it will be good for him.”

Perhaps so, but it could be very difficult for Jasper. Pierce might not even stay at the dower house beyond today. And if Jasper grew attached to him—

“You do have a winter coat, don’t you?” Pierce bent to ask Jasper.

“Oh, yes, my lord,” Jasper said as a footman placed a full plate of food in front of him. “Her ladyship bought it for me. It has fur on the inside and everything.”

“That sounds warm enough,” Pierce said, slanting an enigmatic glance at his mother. “I hope she bought a hat and gloves for you, too.”

Annoyed that he might think she and Jasper had been taking advantage of his mother, Camilla stepped in. “Her ladyship has been very kind, but I supplied those items myself. I do look after my son.”

“Of course,” Pierce said.

“Good morning, everyone,” said a deep voice from the doorway.

Camilla’s stomach clenched. What was Mr. Fowler doing here?

“Ah, Fowler, there you are!” Pierce said, keeping one hand on Jasper’s shoulder. Jasper’s eyes widened in alarm, but before he could say a word, Pierce added, “Let me introduce you to my young friend, Jasper Stuart. Master Jasper, this is Mr. Fowler, my estate manager.”

As Jasper mumbled a greeting, with his small brow creased in a frown, Camilla watched Fowler. Oddly, he betrayed no surprise. “Good morning, Master Jasper. His lordship was telling me all about you earlier.”

Pierce had risen that early? Heavens.

“It seems I’ve been remiss in welcoming you to Montcliff,” the man went on, his cool, remote tone belying his genial words. Camilla tensed. No doubt Pierce had lectured him about his stringent rules. She had better tread carefully.

“Of course,” Mr. Fowler continued, “if I’d known of your presence here, I wouldn’t have been so remiss.” But it wasn’t
Camilla he glanced darkly at. It was her ladyship. “Apparently, I wasn’t to be trusted with such a valuable secret.”

Lady Devonmont flushed. “I’ve learned through the years to be careful whom I trust with valuable secrets, sir. So has Camilla. And you mustn’t blame her. It was my idea to bring the boy here and my idea to keep him to ourselves.”

Anger flared briefly in Mr. Fowler’s features before he masked it. “I don’t blame Mrs. Stuart.” He tore his gaze from the countess. “I don’t blame anyone. I was merely making an observation.”

Into the heightened tension came Jasper’s small voice. “We’re going to the fair today, Mr. Fowler. Are you going, too?”

Mr. Fowler drew himself up with a sort of stiff pride. “I wouldn’t wish to intrude.”

“Nonsense,” her ladyship said, her color deepening. “It’s no intrusion. We’d be quite pleased if you would join us. Wouldn’t we, Camilla?”

“Of course. Do come with us, sir.”

He tipped his head at Camilla, carefully avoiding her ladyship’s gaze. “Very well. Given such a cordial invitation, I can hardly refuse.”

Camilla sighed as Pierce invited the man to fill a plate at the sideboard. Mr. Fowler was clearly wounded by the lack of trust she and her ladyship had placed in him. But given his firm stance on children, he could hardly be surprised.

It
was
surprising, however, that her ladyship had invited him to join them. Camilla lowered her voice to murmur, “Mr. Fowler took that very well.”

The countess gazed at the man’s broad back. “He’ll take it even better once he gets to know the boy.”

“That depends entirely on how well Jasper behaves, I fear,” Camilla said. “Look at him—he’s about to burst out of his chair from excitement.”

“If Mr. Fowler gives you any grief about Jasper, you let me know,” her ladyship said with a sniff. “I may not be mistress of this estate, but I can still set a man straight if I’m pressed to it.”

Camilla watched as the countess headed over to coddle Jasper, which as usual had him beaming with pleasure. More and more, the woman presented a conundrum. Clearly she had
not
stood up to her husband on behalf of her own son. Was that why she was so protective of Jasper?

Watching her with the boy must pain Pierce. Though if it did, he gave no evidence of it as they ate a quick breakfast and headed out the front door to find both her ladyship’s barouche box and a massive coach-and-four awaiting them.

“Would you like to ride with me?” Pierce asked Jasper.

“Can Mama come, too? And Maisie? And her ladyship?”

Pierce looked amused. “Do the three of them go everywhere with you?”

“Well . . . ” Jasper thought a moment. “Mostly. When I don’t have to stay with Maisie on account of nobody wanting me seen by—” He shot Mr. Fowler a furtive glance, then added in a whisper, “By You Know Who.”

Fortunately, Mr. Fowler was engrossed in helping the countess determine which items were to be loaded onto the top of the coach-and-four.

“You needn’t worry about that anymore,” Pierce said in a confidential voice. “You can be seen by anyone you please. And if we can fit everyone inside the coach, they’re welcome to ride with us.”

In the end, the servants were put into the barouche, leaving the six of them to be crammed inside the coach.

As they set off, with Camilla, Maisie, and her ladyship on one side and the two gentlemen and Jasper on the other, Pierce turned to Mr. Fowler. “Are there usually many people at this fair?”

“I don’t know,” the estate manager answered. “I’ve never been.”

They both looked at her ladyship. “There’s generally a few hundred at least,” she said.

“The Christmas one is the most popular,” Maisie put in, then reddened as she realized she shouldn’t speak among such lofty personages.

Pierce smiled encouragingly at her. “Is it because of the horses? As I recall from my childhood, a great deal of horse selling went on during this particular fair.”

Feeling Lady Devonmont stiffen beside her, Camilla shot her a quick glance but could tell nothing from the woman’s smooth expression.

“Oh, yes, my lord, they still sell a great many horses,” Maisie said. “And cattle and cheese, too.”

“And reindeer?” Jasper asked hopefully.

“Reindeer?” Pierce echoed in obvious bewilderment.

“It’s in the poem, you know,” Jasper said, “the one about St. Nicholas.”

Pierce glanced at Camilla. “Is this the famous poem that has enraptured the females of Stocking Pelham?”

Camilla smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid so. He’s quite taken with it.”

“I know it by heart,” Jasper said. “I can say it if you like.”

“Oh, by all means, let us hear the blasted thing,” Mr. Fowler mumbled.

Taking him at his word, Jasper cheerily began to recite it, and Camilla didn’t have the heart to stop him. Besides, she was having fun watching Mr. Fowler look so stoic about the matter.

When Jasper got to the part about the “eight tiny reindeer,” Pierce interrupted. “I’m afraid I can’t show you any of those, lad, but we can have a look at some regular deer, if you want.”

Jasper’s eyes went wide. “I guess they don’t
have
to have reins on them.”

Camilla stifled a laugh. Until now, she hadn’t realized what Jasper thought reindeer were.

Pierce said very soberly, “Well, they only need reins when they’re pulling a sleigh, but in this case, the deer are just lying about and eating. Would you like to see them?”

“Oh, yes, sir, very much!”

“I don’t know if we have time,” Camilla put in.

“It will only take a few minutes. It’s not much out of our way.” Pierce looked at his mother for the first time since they’d entered the coach. “If that’s all right with you.”

“It’s fine. Tell the servants to go on to Stocking Pelham, and they can start helping set up the booth without me. Other ladies will be there, after all.”

Pierce opened the panel at the front and called up some orders to the coachman, then settled back into his seat.

“I assume you’re talking about the deer in the park?” Camilla asked, wondering how he could produce wild deer for Jasper’s benefit, especially in a two-hundred-and-fifty-acre park.

“Actually,” Mr. Fowler said, “his lordship keeps some for winter.”

Lady Devonmont said, “What do you mean, ‘keeps some’ ”

“I got the idea from the Earl of Clarendon,” Pierce explained. “He weeds out those deer among the herd that would never make it through the winter on their own. Then he pens them, coddles them, and fattens them up, so that by spring, his estate has venison without having to slaughter the strong breeders of his herd.”

“Thanks to his lordship,” Mr. Fowler put in, “we’ve been doing it for the past two years and we find that the herd has swelled admirably. It only takes a bit of feed and the gamekeeper’s occasional attention to take care of the ones we pen. We sometimes have so much venison, we have to sell the meat.”

“And there they are now,” Pierce said as he hauled Jasper onto his lap so he could see out the window better. “Look, lad—all the deer you could want.”

“Ohhhh, look at them!” Jasper exclaimed. “They’re bigger than I thought they would be. I’ll bet they could pull a
big
sleigh!”

They really were healthy-looking. Camilla shoved her spectacles up as she gazed out the window. She’d never been on this part of the estate, since she rarely left the dower house and couldn’t ride. So she hadn’t before seen the large pen, with a lean-to at one end to help protect the animals from the weather,
hay strewn across the ground, and troughs that must contain feed.

Pierce’s industrious use of the estate’s resources astounded her. She would never have thought him that sort of owner—willing to try improvements, interested in new ideas. She would have thought him the sort to leave everything to his estate manager.

“Perhaps later, on our way home,” Pierce said, “we’ll stop and you can look at them up close.”

“Oh, that would be
grand
!” Jasper said, his eyes huge as he watched out the window.