Page 13 of The Virtues of Christmas
The grooms led the team around to the carriage yard, where fresh horses would be put to. Abruptly, Henrietta was alone with a man who tempted her to second thoughts and if onlys.
If only she’d met him rather than Beltram when she’d gone in search of employment all those years ago.
If only she’d realized sooner what Beltram had been about.
If only her father had written back to her, even once.
Such thoughts went well with the bitter breeze and the bleak landscape. The falling snow created a hush to complement the white blanketing the steps, bushes, pine roping and the wreath on the inn’s door.
The baron studied that wreath as if it bore a Latin inscription. “Will you slap me if I take a small liberty, Miss Whitlow?”
Henrietta wanted to take a liberty or two with him, which came as no little surprise. “Is it a liberty when you ask permission?”
He looped her scarf about her neck and treated her to a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Excellent point. We’ll call it a gesture of thanks for making the miles pass more agreeably.”
He bent close and brushed his lips over hers. In that instant, Henrietta regretted her decision to retire from the courtesan’s profession. To earn even a semblance of acceptance from any polite quarter, she’d been prepared to give up all kisses, all affection, and certainly all pleasures of the flesh.
She’d thought the absence of masculine attention would be a relief, and she’d been wrong.
The baron tendered a kiss as respectful as it was surprising. His lips were warm, his hand cradling Henrietta’s jaw gentle. He didn’thandleher, he caressed, albeit fleetingly.
He’d be a devastatingly tender lover, and that realization was more sobering than all the arctic breezes in England.
“I’ll wish you a Happy Christmas,” Henrietta said, stepping away, “and thank you for your many kindnesses.”
The door to the inn banged open, and Lucille trudged back around the side of the building. Now—now—the chill wind penetrated Henrietta’s cloak, and a damnable urge to cry threatened. The baron made matters worse by tucking the ends of Henrietta’s scarf about her neck.
“The pleasure was mine, Miss Whitlow. If I can ever be of assistance, you need only send to me at Inglemere, and anything I can do…”
Henrietta’s heart was breaking, and over a chance encounter that ought never have happened.
“Godspeed, my lord.”
He took out his gloves and pulled them on, and the coach returned from the carriage yard, minus Henrietta’s trunks. This team was all gray, their coats already damp and curling from the falling snow.
“Begging your lordship’s pardon,” said his coachman, who’d emerged from the inn. “I don’t think the ladies will want to bide here. There’s rooms aplenty, because there’s illness in the house. Half the staff is down with influenza, and the innkeeper said the cook was among those afflicted. Shall I have the lady’s trunks loaded back onto the coach?”
“Henrietta?” Not Miss Whitlow, and his lordship’s familiarity was that of a friend.
Henrietta’s relief beggared description. “Lucille catches every illness, and as tired as she is, she’ll be afflicted by this time tomorrow if we stay here.”
“And then you might well succumb yourself. The next inn is but twelve miles distant, and surely there, you should have better luck.”
“Twelve more miles, then,” Henrietta said, smiling despite the cold, despite everything. “But no farther.”
* * *
“How many more years will we be coming here for a weekly dinner, listening to Papa’s pontifications and making our wives and children listen to them as well?” Philip Whitlow kept his voice down, because he stood on the squire’s very doorstep.
Thaddeus turned to shield the bundle in his arms from the winter breeze. “I promised Isabel that after the baby came, we’d invite Papa to our table rather than keep trooping over here every Sunday, but the child is nearly six months old, and here we are. Again.”
Thaddeus’s wife had presented him with a daughter over the summer, and Philip acknowledged a pang of envy. Dicken and Alexander were dear, and he’d gladly give his life for either boy, but Beatrice longed for a daughter.
“Papa gets worse as the holidays approach.” As the oldest sibling, Philip expected a certain diplomacy of himself, but at some point, that diplomacy had shaded closer to cowardice.
“Because Henrietta insists on visiting,” Thad replied. “She hasn’t met her namesake. I expect they’ll get on famously.”
The infant in Thad’s arms was Isabella Henrietta. Her mother called her Izzy. Her father referred to her as his little red hen, owing to her mop of ginger hair.
