Candlelit Christmas Kisses: Captain Moorcroft's Christmas Bride / Governess Under the Mistletoe

Selina felt herself dismissed. He had treated her politely, but she knew that he considered her to be just one step above a paid housekeeper—perhaps equal to a poor relation he had given a temporary home.

Fighting her chagrin, and a stupid feeling of disappointment that he had not immediately remembered her as the girl he had kissed on that magical summer evening, she left him to brood alone in the library or whatever he chose to do. She had warned her sisters they were to stay away from his wing of the house, and she must do the same—unless requested to present herself, as she had been today.

She was so stupid to care! It had been but a fleeting moment—something she ought to have forgotten long ago, as he clearly had. They had both learned to feel pain and to live with the loss of loved ones, but he had moved on with his life while she … No, she was not that foolish girl. She was Miss Searles, and if requested to walk in moonlit gardens with an officer she did not know, she would have more sense than to agree.

At least she’d been saved the embarrassment of his thinking she was presuming on their encounter that night. He’d had her story from Mr Breck and been generous enough to allow her to stay—and that was the end of it.

She must concentrate on making this a better Christmas for her sisters than the previous one, when they’d been grieving for their father and their mama had been lying prone on her bed.

This year they would have goose with all the trimmings, presents and greenery throughout their part of the house. Since the great hall was in Lord Moorcroft’s wing, they would not be able to bring in the Yule log, but she would make their wing as festive as she could.

What Lord Moorcroft chose to do was entirely his affair. Cook would provide sufficient food for all of them—he could join in or brood alone with his kind but terribly scarred friend …

CHAPTER FOUR

‘I THINK he looks like a pirate,’ Millie said, though since she’d never seen one, other than in drawings in her book of tales of the sea, she could hardly be called an expert. ‘He is very bold and handsome—and his eyes laugh at one.’

‘And where did you see Mr Norton?’ Amy challenged as she looked up from her embroidery the morning after the earl’s arrival. ‘I hope you didn’t go marching into the earl’s wing?’

‘Selina said I might continue to use the library, but I was to leave if the earl asked me to. I knocked at the door and Mr Norton was there. He invited me in and he was nice.’

‘Yes, he is nice,’ Amy agreed. ‘I think he must have been as handsome as the earl before he was so horribly wounded.’

‘I like him as he is now,’ Millie avowed. ‘He told me he intends to catalogue the library and set it to rights. I asked if I could help, because I know where a lot of the books are, and he said if I was very careful and used gloves to handle the older, more valuable books, I could. He made me promise not to take a book away without noting it in his ledger, and I promised.’

‘It sounds as if he likes you, Millie. If you’d been four years older, he might have married you. You could have lived here as his wife then.’

‘He has an estate of his own in Devon. When the earl marries, he will go home and marry himself.’

‘How do you know that?’ Amy gasped.

‘Because I heard them talking last night.’

‘What do you mean?’ Amy stared at her. ‘You didn’t go into their wing—Oh, Millie. Selina warned you not to. The earl might have been so angry.’

‘Well, I left something in the minstrels’ gallery. I had to fetch it or—or they might have thought it belonged to them, and it doesn’t.’

‘Millie …’ Amy looked at her in sudden suspicion. ‘What have you done? If you’ve stolen something of the earl’s, you must give it back at once and apologise.’

‘I haven’t stolen anything … not from the earl.’ Millie glanced guiltily over her shoulder. ‘Please do not tell Selina, but I brought the Book of Hours with me in my trunk. I know she said I shouldn’t, but Papa gave it to me—truly he did, Amy. I’m not lying.’

‘I know he told you you could have it,’ Amy said. ‘But in truth he had no right, Millie. Selina is correct when she says it belongs to the estate. If Cousin Joshua discovers it is missing, he will come here and ask Selina where it went. He is within his rights to demand that you return it. It is medieval and so precious, my love.’

‘It would be precious to me if it wasn’t worth any money,’ Millie said, but hung her head. ‘I know I shouldn’t have done it, Amy—but I did, and there’s nothing we can do now, is there?’

‘We shall have to see what happens,’ Amy said. ‘Hush, now, Selina is coming. I think she has been going over the accounts with the earl.’

‘I do hope she isn’t upset. She looked as if she might cry when she came back from seeing him last night.’

‘Well, here you are,’ Selina said as she entered the parlour. ‘I was thinking we might take a walk to the village this afternoon. I wanted to call on the vicar and ask if he and his wife would like to dine with us tomorrow. I am planning a party the week after next, and he will know who we should ask to our first dinner.’

‘A dinner party?’ Millie said. ‘It’s my birthday that week. Is it for my birthday, Selina? If so, I should like to invite Mr Norton.’

‘I expect we shall invite both the earl and Mr Norton. Lord Moorcroft intends to bring a chef from London in time for Christmas, and he is bringing down one of the large oak trestle tables from the attics. I think he will use the great hall as a dining parlour when he entertains, and his smaller parlour when he and Mr Norton wish to dine alone.’

‘Why can they not take all their meals with us?’ Millie asked. ‘I like Mr Norton and—and the earl doesn’t seem too bad if you ignore his scowls. He doesn’t always know he is scowling, you know. Mr Norton says his bark is worse than his bite.’

‘Millie!’ Selina shook her head but smiled at her sister. ‘You shouldn’t say such things, even if Mr Norton does. He has the privilege of friendship. I have offered the earl the service of Cook, should he wish to accept, but he says it is to be a temporary arrangement. However, since there is only one kitchen, the arrival of a London chef may cause some friction.’

‘I thought he meant to stay only a short time,’ Amy said with a frown. ‘That his intention was to bring an architect from London, make plans to pull the house down and have drawings made for a new one.’

‘I have not been informed of any changes in the earl’s plans,’ Selina said. ‘He did compliment me on how pleasant his wing is since I had the furniture rearranged, and he sent his regards to you, Amy. He thanks you for the flowers but says he will not trouble you in future.’

‘Oh …’ Amy sighed with disappointment. ‘I enjoyed doing them, but if he does not wish for flowers … I have plenty to do here.’

‘Exactly.’ Selina’s eyes glittered with pride. ‘The west wing is the earl’s home and this is ours. As long as we remember that, there will be no conflict of interest.’

‘Mr Norton says I can help him in the library, but I am to go away if the earl wants to work there,’ Millie said. ‘I wish he was the earl. We could all be together then, like a family.’

‘Just remember you are a guest in the earl’s house, Millie. We may think of entertaining a few friends at Christmas, but then we shall have to start packing our things ready to move again.’

‘Do we really have to?’ Millie made a face. ‘I should like to stay here for ever and ever.’

‘Well, you can’t,’ Amy told her. ‘I hate the idea of this house being pulled down, but we can’t stop it.’ She stood up. ‘I’ve decided I’m going to draw the outside of the house from various angles. I want a memory I can keep. And if you behave, I shall colour one for your birthday, Millie.’

‘Will you draw the minstrels’ gallery and the priest holes for me?’

‘I should have to do them from memory.’

‘Mr Norton would let you draw them if you asked.’

‘Yes, he might—but he would have to ask the earl for his permission,’ Selina said. ‘I think there can be no objection to your drawing the house, Amy. Even if the earl does not appreciate it, he might like to have one of your drawings to remind him of what it looked like one day.’

‘I think I shall make a start now—before nuncheon,’ Amy said. ‘Will the gentlemen be joining us in the breakfast parlour?’

‘I think the earl has asked to be served in his own parlour or the library. He has tea tables, which will do for such a meal, but no dining table—except the huge one that almost fills one end of the great hall.’

‘How silly of him to bother with all that when he could dine with us,’ Amy said. ‘Please excuse me, Selina. I must fetch my painting things.’

‘And I must …’ Selina looked about herself and felt suddenly at a loss. She had hardly had a moment to spare since they’d arrived, but the house was now in good order, and the earl had lifted the burden of the estate from her shoulders. ‘I think I shall do some embroidery until nuncheon. This afternoon I shall walk to the vicarage.’

Amy departed in search of her sketching things. Millie followed her, saying she had mislaid a book she wanted, and Selina was left to amuse herself. She picked up a piece of embroidery, put it down again, and wandered over to the window. It was too nice a day to stay indoors, and she was restless now that so much of her work had been taken over by the earl.

Her interview with the earl had gone well enough. He’d seemed impressed with her accounting and had agreed that his uncle had been systematically cheated by his agent, and perhaps by other servants who had since left his employ.

‘There is little I can do now,’ he’d said with a rueful look. ‘But I shall send a new lease to the tenant who has not paid his rent for some years, together with a bill for money owed. If he has receipts from my uncle’s agents, he must present them. I shall then have proof of theft and can prosecute.’

‘I agree you should pursue this matter,’ Selina had replied. ‘It was wicked of them to do such a thing—and unfair to the tenant if he believed he was paying rent to the earl.’