Page 16 of The Virtues of Christmas
Was there any change of subject less adroit than the weather? Miss Whitlow hesitated to discuss her family, though she’d numbered her lovers without a hint of a blush.
“I hired Logan when I bought Inglemere. He’s driven the route from here to London for years. We can’t be far from the next inn, and you are not to worry. Compared to the Norwegian coast in December, compared to the North Sea in a temper, this snowstorm is merely weather.”
She continued to gaze out at the snowy landscape, which had acquired the bluish tinge of approaching twilight. Michael was running out of time to plunder her possessions, though tonight, as she slept secure at the next inn, he would surely see his task completed.
“I cannot give up on my father,” she said, “because he gave up on me, and that was wrong of him. We are family. I will make one more effort to bridge our differences, and if he remains adamant, then I’ll do as you suggest and put him—and my quarrel with him—aside.”
Ten years was an infernally long time to quarrel. Mr. Whitlow was a fool to toss away a daughter with that sort of tenacity, but then, Michael was a fool too.
He’d wondered idly about how to concoct some sort of green-tea-and-scythed-grass soap to give Miss Whitlow for a Yuletide token—in a world where he wasn’t about to steal more than kisses from her—when what she wanted by Christmas morning was nothing less than a miracle of paternal forgiveness.
* * *
By the time the coach lumbered into the inn yard, Henrietta was tucked against his lordship, all but asleep, and half dreaming of a Christmas dinner with her family—all of her family—gathered around a laden table. Oddly enough, his lordship was present at the feast too.
“I have doubtless snored as loudly as Lucille,” Henrietta muttered, righting herself. Her back ached, and her feet were blocks of ice.
The baron retrieved the arm he’d tucked across her shoulders.
“I suspect somebody keeps moving the inns along this stretch of the highway so they recede as we approach. In Ireland, we’d say the fairies have been busy.”
The farther the coach traveled from London, the more a soft Irish brogue threaded into his lordship’s words. In the dark, his voice would be…
Henrietta nudged Lucille’s knee. “We’ve arrived, my dear. Time to wake up.”
Lucille scratched her nose, but otherwise didn’t budge.
“Tea, Lucille!” his lordship said. “Hot, strong, sweet, and laced with a dollop of spirits.”
Her eyes popped open. “I must have caught a few winks. If you’ll excuse me, Miss Henrietta, I’ll just be stretching my legs a wee while, and… my gracious, the daylight has all but fled.”
Someday, much sooner than Henrietta wanted to admit, Lucille would be old. The maid had a crease across her right cheek, and her cloak had been misbuttoned at the throat. She already had the dowager’s habit of falling asleep in company.
Lucille had been in service at Beltram’s, the same as Henrietta, and she’d been the first person Henrietta had hired for her own household.
His lordship climbed from the coach to hand the ladies down, and off Lucille went.
“The inn doesn’t look like it receives much custom,” Henrietta said. The entrance was lighted and the doors sported pine wreaths, but other than a tang of smoke in the air, little suggested the place was open for business.
“I’ve not had to stay here previously,” the baron said. “We’re but eight miles from Inglemere. I’ve seldom even changed teams here, though I will today.”
He was traveling on, then. Henrietta hated that notion. As the coach was led away, she wrapped her arms about his lordship’s waist.
“I’m taking a liberty with your person,” she said. “You will think badly of me, but then, everybody already does. I will miss you.”
He drew her closer, though winter clothing prevented the degree of closeness Henrietta sought. He’d been decent to her, and she’d missed decent treatment more than she’d realized.
“I’m rarely in Oxfordshire,” he said, “though I will think of you when I travel back this way.”
Henrietta knew exactly how to send a man on his way smiling. She usually dropped hints that he’d been the most exciting/passionate/affectionate/inventive lover—something credible, but not too effusive—gave him looks of fondness and regret and a parting exchange of intimacies remarkable for its dullness.
Lest he second-guess his decision to part from her.
In five cases out of six, her paramours had come wandering back around, hinting that a resumption of their arrangement would be welcome. Henrietta never obliged. Anselm had come around as well, and Henrietta had taken fierce joy in the fact that the duke had called simply as a friend, albeit one with marital troubles and a wide protective streak.
She’d not even flirted with Michael, Baron Angelford, and she would miss him.
“You’re being kind,” she said, stepping back. “Letting me know that some Yuletide chivalry on your part will not develop into anything more. I’m usually the one who must be kind. I suppose we’d best find me accommodations and see about sending word back to MacFergus regarding my whereabouts.”
