Miss Lottie's Christmas Protector

He frowned and pushed dark hair back from his face. His hands were as beautiful as the rest of him. He wore a solid ring of gold on the fourth finger of his right hand with an engraving of sorts etched into it.

‘I had a letter from your brother two months ago. Silas sounded hale and hearty.’

‘Only two months?’ The relief of his words made her feel faint all over again. ‘Then he is not dead. Millie could no longer feel his presence in the world, you see, and as a twin that was a decided worry and even Mama, who is normally so very sensible, had begun to have a haunted look in her eyes and…’ She stopped, taking in breath. ‘I cannot believe it. You are sure it was only two months ago?’

‘I am.’

‘Then why would he have not written to us to let us know where he was, how he was? He must have known our fears?’

‘He sounded busy. He sounded as if he was in the process of finalising a business scheme in Baltimore that he was sure was going to make him a fortune.’

Could it possibly be this easy? Suddenly all Lottie wanted to do was to be the bearer of such good news and send a message promptly to Mama and Millie. They would be as thrilled as she had been and as puzzled probably, too, but Silas’s whole disappearance began to make a certain sense. He’d always struggled with commitment and tying himself down. She imagined him in some far-flung uncivilised colony of the Americas, a long way from anywhere that dealt with post or a port by which mail might have been conveyed.

‘Are you well, Miss Fairclough?’ His words registered amid all her rushing conjectures and she turned back to him.

‘I am indeed, Mr King. Better, in fact, than I have been for a very long while even with the affliction of this cough that has become worse so very quickly. My brother’s disappearance has been weighing on me as if it were a large stone tied on my back, you see, and it’s like that old adage, I expect—the one that says “Worry often gives a small thing a great shadow”.’

This time he laughed out loud and a number of people turned to look at them.

‘I have never heard that before. Where is it from?’

‘It is an ancient Swedish proverb, I think. My Nanny Beth used it.’

‘She is still alive? God, I remember her.’

‘No. She died six years ago. On earth one day and in heaven the next. Silas said it was such a fitting death for one who in life had never wanted a fuss.’

Again he laughed and the darkness in his eyes lifted. That was what was different, Lottie thought, his eyes. Last time she had seen them they had been full only of lightness.

A woman she recognised as Jasper King’s sister was then suddenly at his side and looking at her quizzically.

‘Do I know you? Your face is familiar.’

Lottie held out a hand. ‘I am from the Fairclough Foundation in Howick Place and I knew your brother briefly, once.’

‘Very briefly,’ Jasper added, ‘but our reacquaintance has been most enlightening.’

He did not sound as though he quite believed this and Lottie turned to his sister, trying to cover the awkwardness. Another woman had also joined their small group, a beautiful blonde woman with cornflower-blue eyes and a sweet smile. She looked at Jasper as if she wanted to eat him up and, sensing she was now a little in the way, Lottie smiled.

‘Well, if you will excuse me I shall go and find a drink. I have a cough.’

‘Yes, we all heard.’ The other woman’s words were not kind. ‘I very much hope that you do not spread it around just before Christmas.’

‘And I hold the very same hope.’

Without looking back at the others Lottie threaded her way through the room, making for the door. The news of her brother did not allow even the rudeness of the beautiful woman to penetrate her euphoria and all she wanted to do was to make for home and send word to Mama and Millie about this wonderful new discovery of Silas’s wellbeing.

Alive. Well. Prospering even. Their trials and tribulations would soon be at an end and Amelia would not have to marry the curate after all.

Collecting her hat and heavy cloak, she fastened both upon her person and tilted her head against the growing wind outside. At least it had stopped snowing and a return journey always seemed much quicker.

Digging her hands into her pocket, she felt the long letter that she had written. She had not thought to give it to Jasper King, but at least such an omission gave Amelia the chance to meet him properly at some point and who knew what might come from that.

A cloud made the day darken and she bit at her bottom lip. Amelia was far more beautiful than she was and after this meeting all Jasper King must have comprehended about her was oddness. He was probably laughing with his sister and the beauty right at this moment as he retold the story to the others of her gauche outbursts and of her peculiar manner.

Not her finest hour, Lottie thought with a sadness, and wished with every piece of her heart that she could have started this afternoon all over again.

She was nowhere in the room. She had gone. After looking round the front parlour and failing to find her, Jasper strode to the entrance where an elderly servant was waiting to dispense coats and hats.

‘Did Miss Fairclough leave?’

‘The young lady with the curls?’ The man waited as Jasper nodded. ‘She did indeed, sir, a good ten minutes ago now. But it seems to me that she hailed no carriage, setting out to walk instead.’ His eyes strayed to the window. ‘In this weather the young lady’s journey will be a cold one.’

Anger tightened his chest. Miss Charlotte Fairclough would walk all the way from here to Howick Place on one edge of the Irish Rookery in this weather? It was a decent distance and the journey would take her through many of the less salubrious parts of the city. Asking for his coat and hat, he put them on and walked outside, gesturing to the driver of his waiting carriage. The icy crunch of freezing snow beneath his boots worried him.

Five minutes later he found her walking down St Anne’s Street. She was coughing again, he could see that by the way she was hunched in with her body shaking. Did the younger Fairclough have no sense whatsoever? Leaning out of the window, he instructed his man to pull in just ahead of her, glad to see that she came to a standstill when he got out and was waiting patiently as he approached her.

‘Do you wish to be struck down with pneumonia, Miss Fairclough?’ He looked pointedly up at the sky. The snow had turned into sleeted rain now, driving in from the north with force.

Her head shook, the curls dripping like sodden rat tails where they fell beneath the hat she now wore.

‘I d-do n-not.’

She was shaking so hard she could barely get her words out, and the fury that he had felt when first seeing her trudging homewards doubled.

‘Get into my carriage. I shall take you home.’

She did as he ordered, sitting down primly and folding her cloak tighter in around her, though as he followed her in his damn leg gave way and he almost toppled into her lap, saving himself from doing so at the very last moment.

The talkative Miss Fairclough seemed to have disappeared altogether. This version was a far quieter one, watching him with those whisky eyes of hers in a careful and cautious manner.

‘The forecast is for heavier snow and the temperatures are plummeting. I doubt your brother would be pleased to see you traipsing in this part of London town alone and in such weather.’

The mention of Silas brought her glance to his. ‘You are right, Mr King. It was foolish.’

‘Surely someone should have accompanied you today. A maid? Your mother?’

‘My mother, Lilian, is in the country at a Christmas party of Lady Alexandra Malverly’s and my sister has journeyed with her.’

‘But you were not invited?’

The same slight blush he had noticed when talking with her before resurfaced.

‘I was sick.’

‘Which is even more of a reason to be warm indoors.’

The heat in the conveyance seemed to have aggravated her illness and he waited again for a moment until she stopped coughing, her hands winding into the material of her skirt and bunching it into tight folds. She looked like a small wet angel blown in by the winter chills, her hair all loose and her cheeks weather reddened. As he took in the curves of her body beneath the folds of her cloak, he glanced away. His right leg ached and his meeting with Susan Seymour sat firmly in his mind.