A Magical Regency Christmas: Christmas Cinderella / Finding Forever at Christmas / The Captain's Christmas Angel

* * *

‘Miss Woodrowe to see you, Rector.’

Alex looked up from the letter he was writing to the bishop, outlining his plans for the school and his intention to employ a curate. ‘Miss Woodrowe?’ For a moment he was puzzled. Then it came to him. Miss Hippolyta Woodrowe, of course. Niece to Sir Nathan Eliot, that was it. The wealthy Miss Woodrowe. Heiress to a mill-owner. Quite possibly the fortune had been exaggerated, but she had visited often with her widowed mother, a welcome and fêted guest, even as a child and young girl.

‘Show her in, Mrs Judd.’ He put his pen back in its holder and rose as Mrs Judd stood back to admit his visitor. He frowned. Perhaps it was the light. The day was gloomy and he’d only lit the lamp on his desk, but he could not reconcile his memory of the lively, well-dressed Miss Woodrowe, who had always had a shy smile for him, with this unsmiling young woman in the drab cloak with its mud-spattered hem. Perhaps he was remembering the wrong girl?

‘Miss Woodrowe—do come in. Mrs Judd, tea if you please.’

Miss Woodrowe came forwards and put back the hood of her cloak. Something inside him stilled. Hair the colour of fine sherry, confined severely at her nape, and those eyes, the exact colour of her hair, fringed with dark lashes...this was indeed the girl he remembered. He’d always been fascinated by the matching colour of hair and eyes. But, heavens! She’d been a child when last he’d seen her.

‘Good day, Mr Martindale. I hope I’m not disturbing you?’

Girls grew up. He knew that. But—

‘No, no. Not...not at all.’ What the deuce did one do with a young lady when she called on one alone? ‘Er, won’t you come nearer to the fire?’

‘Thank you.’

He hurried ahead of her and pushed the chair closer to the hearth. It clattered against the fender and he suppressed a curse at his clumsiness. ‘You are visiting the Eliots?’ he said, and she nodded. ‘When did you arrive?’ He brought another chair to the fire.

‘A week ago.’

That chair clattered on the fender, too. ‘A week?’ Before he could think the better of it, he asked, ‘Why did you not come with your cousins to Alderley the other day for the christening?’

Her chin lifted a little. ‘I was not invited, sir.’ She began to undo her cloak strings.

‘Nonsense.’ He waved her explanation away. ‘Had Lord and Lady Alderley known of your visit, of course you would have been invited. You were friendly enough with Pippa as children. Here—let me take that.’ He reached out and lifted the heavy, damp cloak from her slender shoulders. A faint soft fragrance drifted about her and his senses leapt. He’d forgotten, if he’d ever realised, that she was so pretty. Of course she’d been little more than a child the last time he’d seen her...and now she most definitely wasn’t. She was taller, for one thing. Not much, she still only reached his shoulder, but she was definitely taller. Taller, and—his hands clenched to fists on the cloak. Now that her cloak was off, he could see that she’d changed in other ways. She’d...his mind lurched...filled out. Slightly stunned at the direction his thoughts were taking, he hung the cloak on a hook by the fire, fumbling so that he nearly dropped it. Good God! What was the matter with him? Firmly, he banished thoughts that edged towards unruly and turned back to her.

‘Will you tell me what I may do for you, Miss Woodrowe?’ There. That was better. He sounded more himself. Rational and logical.

She had not sat down, but faced him with her chin up and those tawny eyes full of something he could not quite name.

‘I wish you to employ me, Mr Martindale.’

He gulped. He’d been living alone for a while and had a slight tendency to talk to himself, but he didn’t really think his mind that badly affected. Or his hearing. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Woodrowe?’

She blushed. ‘I need a job. And I understand you are starting a school here in the village, so—’

‘Miss Woodrowe,’ he broke in, ‘is this some sort of silly joke?’ He didn’t bother to disguise the annoyance that clipped his voice. ‘A wager with your cousins, perhaps?’ It was precisely the sort of idiotish prank Miss Susan Eliot would think famous. ‘You are—’ He stopped short of voicing precisely what he was thinking: she was an heiress. And logically an heiress could not possibly need a job.

The blush deepened. ‘I’m not joking,’ she said quietly.

Something about her voice warned him. And he looked at her properly, looked beyond the bright tawny eyes with their fringe of dark lashes, beyond the disturbing changes in her, and saw her gown.

Alex was no connoisseur of fashion, but even he knew an old, unfashionable, cheap gown when he saw one. And that look in her eyes, as if she were braced against something—as if she faced a firing squad—ripped at him.

‘Sit down, Miss Woodrowe,’ he said. Even if she didn’t need to sit, he did.

Those bright eyes narrowed slightly and her mouth, soft pink, tightened. He cursed himself mentally. What was wrong with him that he could not even couch an invitation politely? Nevertheless, she sat. He sat down facing her.

‘Miss Woodrowe...’ he began. And stopped. Dash it! This was impossible! How did you ask a young lady what had happened to her fortune?

She saved him the trouble.

‘Mr Bascombe, the son of my father’s oldest friend, got into debt gambling and used my fortune to try to repair his losses.’ She said this flatly, as though it had lost the power to upset her. ‘He lost everything. His own money as well as mine. Then he took what everyone considered the honourable way out.’

Alex’s jaw tensed. To his mind there was nothing honourable about committing suicide to avoid the consequences of your selfishness. ‘When was this?’ he asked quietly.

‘More than two years ago.’

That explained why he hadn’t heard. A little over two years ago he’d taken a sabbatical and gone to the Continent for a few months. It also explained the shabby gown and cloak, but— ‘And you only came to your uncle’s home two weeks ago?’

Her face froze. ‘I took a position as a governess.’

Pride. He could understand that, but nevertheless... ‘Do you not think it might have been better to come to your uncle immediately?’ he asked gently. ‘Is he your guardian now?’

Her face blanked. ‘I’m one and twenty, sir.’

Of age now, but she had gone out into the world alone at nineteen? His jaw clenched. ‘And do you not think it better to remain in his care anyway?’ The idea of her fending for herself as a governess! What on earth was Sir Nathan thinking to be permitting it?

‘No.’

He cleared his throat, hoping he wasn’t going to sound stuffy. ‘Miss Woodrowe, even if I thought it proper to remove you from the protection of your relatives, it would not answer.’

‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘I have had experience teaching—two boys as well as a girl—and it was not for incompetence that I was dismissed—’ She broke off, biting her lip.

‘I need a schoolmaster,’ he said, tactfully ignoring her slip. ‘Not a schoolmistress.’ What on earth had she been dismissed for?

She scowled. ‘Why? I can teach reading, writing, arithmetic as well as any man would. And I can teach the girls sewing and other household skills, such as brewing simples, that would help fit them for service, and—’

‘You can’t live here!’ he said.

‘Here?’

‘In the rectory,’ he said. ‘The schoolmaster is to lodge here.’

‘But the cottage you are going to use has two rooms,’ she said. ‘I assumed that—’

‘No. He will live here,’ said Alex firmly. What use was a curate stuck away in the schoolhouse? And why make the poor fellow hire someone to cook and clean for him when the rectory was full of unused bedchambers and an unused chess set?

Miss Woodrowe’s brow knotted. ‘But, sir, will you not consider—?’

He cleared his throat. ‘Miss Woodrowe, the schoolmaster is also to be my curate, you see.’

‘Oh. I see.’ All the bright determination ebbed and her eyes fell. ‘I...I did not realise that.’

Her hands twisted in her lap and his own clenched to fists at what he had seen in her face. She had, he realised, wanted the position. Desperately. Shaken, he said, ‘My dear, surely you don’t really need such a position? You have a family to care for you, and—’