A country Christmas at Barton Park

Plain, sensible Rose Parker is a self-proclaimed wallflower, but she’s always dreamed of dancing with Captain Harry St George...

Once, Harry wouldn’t even have noticed Rose. But now, after a hard war, Harry knows he’s a different man. Shy, sweet Rose intrigues him more than any gregarious young lady—but he must marry a rich bride to save his mortgaged estates...and Rose is no heiress. Now, more than ever, Harry needs the magic of a mistletoe kiss...

‘You need an heiress,’ Harry heard his brother say in his mind. An heiress would indeed be an answer for Hilltop. And he himself would admit that companionship, a partner, would be most welcome.

Harry looked down at Helen—at her brilliant smile, the flash of jewels in her hair—and for an instant felt the tug of temptation towards a life that had never been his. A life of carefree glitter.

And then, over the swirl of the dancers, he glimpsed Rose Parker, laughing with the other musicians as her slender fingers skipped lightly over the keys. And he was drawn towards her soft warmth that was like a fire on a cold day, sustaining and sweet.

But Rose deserved far more than he had to offer—a wounded soldier whose house was falling down around him. That was one thing he did know for sure

Author Note

When I was a child, my grandmother loved Christmas! I loved visiting her house at that time of year, because she had a huge tree covered with sparkling glass ornaments, dishes full of candy and a pair of beautiful antique Santa and Mrs Santa dolls, which sat high on a shelf because I was allowed to look but not to play with them. Now they belong to me I still don’t play with them, afraid she might be watching from on high! I think she inherited this love of Christmas from her own grandmother, who grew up at the end of that heyday of Christmas: the Victorian Age.

The people of the Regency era weren’t quite as elaborate in their celebration of Christmas as those of the Victorian age, but they did have a fun-filled family holiday. Even though there weren’t large evergreen trees there was greenery: holly, ivy, rosemary, and mistletoe boughs that are very useful for romance authors. On Christmas Day, there might be small gifts—books, handkerchiefs, maybe toys for the children—a walk to church and then a large, merry dinner, with roasted goose, mincemeat pies and puddings, followed by games like Bob Apple and Snapdragon. On Boxing Day the servants would be given their gifts and maybe some time off to visit their own families.

I loved getting to spend time in a Regency Christmas, and to remember some of my own childhood traditions, too! If you’d like more of a peek behind the history, please visit my website at ammandamccabe.com.

The Wallflower’s Mistletoe Wedding

Amanda McCabe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

AMANDA McCABE wrote her first romance at the age of sixteen—a vast epic, starring all her friends as the characters, written secretly during algebra class. She’s never since used algebra, but her books have been nominated for many awards, including the RITA®, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, the Booksellers’ Best, the National Readers’ Choice Award, and the Holt Medallion. She lives in Oklahoma with her husband, one dog and one cat.

Books by Amanda McCabe

Mills & Boon Historical Romance

and Mills & Boon Historical Undone! eBooks

Bancrofts of Barton Park

The Runaway Countess

Running from Scandal

Running into Temptation (Undone!)

Tudor Queens

The Winter Queen

Tarnished Rose of the Court

Linked by Character

A Notorious Woman

A Sinful Alliance

High Seas Stowaway

Shipwrecked and Seduced (Undone!)

Stand-Alone Novels

The Taming of the Rogue

Betrayed by His Kiss

The Demure Miss Manning

The Queen’s Christmas Summons

The Wallflower’s Mistletoe Wedding

More Mills & Boon Historical Undone! eBooks by Amanda McCabe

To Court, Capture and Conquer

Girl in the Beaded Mask

Unlacing the Lady in Waiting

One Wicked Christmas

An Improper Duchess

A Very Tudor Christmas

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

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To the memory of my grandmother, Roberta McCabe, who loved the magic of Christmas.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

Barton Park—summer 1820

‘Oh, Rose! Doesn’t the music just make you want to twirl and twirl and twirl?’

Rose Parker sat back on her heels and laughed as she watched her sister, Lily, spin in an exuberant circle, her new white lace and tulle skirts like a great cloud. The music from the party floated up to their chamber and it was indeed very twirly. ‘You won’t twirl for long if I don’t finish that hem. It will come unravelled and you will trip and fall flat on your face—right in front of Mr Hewlitt.’

Lily came to an abrupt stop, stumbling on her satin slippers. ‘Oh, no, Rose!’ she cried, her pretty, heart-shaped face full of stark fear. ‘I could never do such a thing. How he would despise me!’

Rose laughed again. She couldn’t help it; her sister’s adorable ways were always too funny. ‘Lily, my dearest, Mr Hewlitt would never in a thousand years despise you for anything. In fact, stumbling and falling into his arms would probably only make him worship you more as his delicate angel.’

A tiny smile broke through Lily’s pout. ‘I—well, perhaps so. He is so terribly sweet.’

‘And terribly sweet on you. Mama says he will surely ask you something very important indeed tonight,’ Rose said. She did have to tease Lily just a bit, as she always had, even when her sister was a tiny, golden-curled cherub prone to blushing and shrieking when provoked. But she was serious, too. Mr Hewlitt had been stammering his way up to just such a moment for weeks and this ball at their cousins’ home at Barton Park to celebrate midsummer seemed the perfect opportunity. It was true that he was a curate with only a middling income, yet everyone could see how good he was at his calling, so caring and energetic. Surely a bishopric waited for him one day!

And he adored Lily, as she did him. Together the two of them were as adorable as a box of new puppies.

Rose was happy for her sister, yet wistful, too. With just herself and their mother, their cottage would be much too quiet. Too lonely.

Rose sighed. She would have to procure a kitten, or mayhap a songbird. Wasn’t that what useful spinsters did? Collect pets, especially cats, and knit them little sweaters and such? It sounded rather diverting.

‘Come, dearest Lily, let me finish the hem,’ she said. ‘Or the dancing will be over before Mr Hewlitt can find you.’

Lily climbed back on to the low stool, watching in the mirror with a little frown as Rose plied her needle through the delicate beaded tulle. ‘Do you really, truly think he will propose?’

‘Of course he will.’

‘Do—do you think I should accept, then? Right away?’

Rose was surprised at her sister’s suddenly unsure, quiet tone. She glanced up to see that Lily did indeed look worried, something most uncharacteristic. She quickly thought back on Mr Hewlitt’s courtship: his visits to the cottage, his little gifts of bouquets and books of poetry, his walks with Lily, the way they stared at each other as if there was no one else around at all. Had she missed something? ‘Do you have doubts, dearest? Has he done something—ungentlemanly?’ She couldn’t quite imagine that, but then again one never really knew with men. Look how their own father had concealed his debts, his terrible gambling habits, from his wife and daughters until he died and they were cast out of their home.

Surely Mr Hewlitt would never do that. If he dared to hurt Lily in any way, Rose would murder him.

‘Oh, no, not at all! It’s just—’ Lily broke off, biting her lip. ‘Well, what will you and Mama do?’

‘Oh, Lily.’ Rose gave her the most reassuring smile she could manage. Was that not the very same question she had asked herself since Father died? ‘You must not worry about that, dearest. We will be absolutely fine. Indeed, I’m quite looking forward to making your chamber into my very own sitting room. The mind reels at the thought of so much space! I will be just like a duchess with my own suite.’

Lily laughed, as well she would. Their cottage was approximately the size of a thimble, even with Lily’s extra little chamber they had built at the back. ‘And you will visit me very often, won’t you? I won’t be far away.’

‘So often you will be heartily sick of me.’

‘Promise?’

‘Just try to keep me away.’ Rose finished the last stitch in the hem and stood up to give her sister a hug, careful not to muss her ruffles and curls. Lily smelled of violet powder and sweetness, just as she had when she was a child, and Rose had held her dimpled little hands to help her walk. She laughed to keep from crying.

‘You really should marry first, as the eldest daughter. That is the natural way,’ Lily said.

Rose laughed again. ‘Find me another Mr Hewlitt, then. Until I have just such a paragon, I would never be able to tolerate wifely duties.’

‘He is out there, Rose, I just know it! The perfect man for you.’ Lily drew back to stare most earnestly into Rose’s eyes. ‘You will find him when you least expect it, just as I did with Mr Hewlitt.’

‘I haven’t time for romance,’ Rose said, tucking away her needle and thread in her workbox. It was quite true. When their father died so suddenly and they had to leave their home for the cottage, they’d had a very small income that would keep them from starving, but there would be no carriage or smart clothes or abundance of servants. Rose herself did much of the work: sweeping, sewing, looking after the chickens, taking care of their frail mother. She didn’t mind very much; she actually quite liked the useful, busy feeling of tea to make and ironing of petticoats to finish. And her chickens were known to be the finest layers in the neighbourhood.

Their mother, however, did mind. Mrs Felicity Parker had grown up as gentry in a fine manor house, cousin to the ancient family of the Bancrofts of Barton Park, and expected more of the same from her marriage, only to be bitterly disappointed. She talked of it to anyone who would listen. All her hopes had long been pinned on the beautiful Lily marrying well. A poor curate had never been in her plans, no matter how kind and handsome he was, no matter how much he adored Lily. And Rose saw too clearly what happened when a woman had to trust in marriage, trust in a man. She wasn’t sure she could do it.

Rose sighed. She very much feared her mother’s plans might turn to herself now and this visit to Barton Park was part of them. As much as she enjoyed seeing the old house and meeting her cousins, she couldn’t let her guard down.

‘Are you quite well, Rose?’ Lily asked, frowning in concern. ‘You look as if you have the headache.’

Rose made herself smile and fluffed up the lace trim of her sister’s sleeve. ‘Not at all. It’s just a bit stuffy in here, don’t you think? We should make our way down to the party. Mr Hewlitt will surely arrive soon.’

With a squeal of excitement, Lily dashed out of the room, her gown floating and sparkling around her like angel’s wings. Rose took a quick glance at herself in the glass before she followed, to make sure she looked presentable and tidy.

Presentable and tidy were about all she could hope for, she thought wryly. Unlike Lily, she had not inherited their mother’s blond curls and pink cheeks, her petite plumpness. Rose was taller, thin to the point of sharpness, with light brown hair that refused to hold a curl no matter how long it was subjected to the tongs, and skin that had turned ever so slightly golden while working in the garden. Her eyes were not too bad, she thought, with a small spark of hopefulness. A green-hazel that looked emerald in some lights, when she did not have to wear the horrid spectacles. Sadly, those had become more and more necessary of late, especially when sitting up sewing in the lamplight.

She smoothed the sleeves of her gown and reached for her gloves. Unlike Lily’s new dress, Rose had redone an old gown of their mother’s for herself. The olive-gold satin, plain and lustrous with only a single row of gold embroidery at the hem, suited her much better than the current style for frothy pale muslins and ruffled sleeves, and her needle had managed to take in the fuller skirts and puff out the sleeves a bit, yet she feared it would attract whispers of ‘unfashionableness’ and pity for the poor Parkers.

‘Ah, well,’ she told herself. ‘Fashion is something you could never really aspire to, Rose dear.’

She laughed, straightened the ivory comb in her upswept hair, slid her creamy Indian shawl over her shoulders and followed Lily out the door.

The party downstairs was just beginning, the first arrivals sweeping through the front doors and gathering in the marble-floored hall, leaving their wraps with the footmen, calling out merry greetings to each other.

Rose peeked over the gilded banister to the scene below. She had always loved Barton Park, the home of her mother’s distant cousins, the Bancrofts, even though they so seldom got to visit. It was a beautiful house, not too small and not too grand, built on elegant, classic lines and filled with comfortable furnishings and plenty of books and art. A true family home for many generations, soaked through with stories and emotions and hopes. It had fallen into some disrepair for a few years, but under the care of the current owners, Jane, Countess of Ramsay, and her sister, Emma, it had found new life.

The gardens beyond the tall glass windows were equally lovely, especially on such a soft, warm summer’s evening. Chinese lanterns shimmered in the trees, lighting up the pathways and the colourful tumble of the flowerbeds as carriages bounced along the gravel drive to the waiting doors.

Rose studied the crowd, a laughing, beautifully dressed throng gathered around Jane and her husband, the magnificently handsome Lord Ramsay. Jane looked as if she had belonged there at Barton Park for ever in her elegant dark blue gown, shimmering with lavender beads. She greeted each new arrival with a happy cry, sparkling with laughter before she passed them to her younger sister, Emma, a blonde angel much like Lily in her grey satin gown. Emma, too, smiled, though it was quieter, more unsure. When they were children, Emma had been quite the daredevil, but now she had returned to Barton as a young widow, trailing something of a scandal in her wake. Rose quite adored her, even as she worried for her.

The growing throng appeared a bit of a blur to Rose without her spectacles, but she glimpsed Lily near the open doors to the drawing room, where the music was drifting out above the hum of laughter. Their mother stood beside her, the plumes of her striped turban nodding merrily as she laughed and chattered, but Lily didn’t seem to be paying attention at all. She bounced on the toes of her dancing slippers, searching each face around her eagerly before falling back again.

Oh, dear, Rose thought. Mr Hewlitt had probably not made his appearance yet. She tiptoed down the stairs and slipped into the crowd, intending to make her way to Lily and their mother. She was stopped when Jane spotted her.

‘Rose, my dear, do come and meet someone!’ Jane said, grasping Rose’s hand and drawing her forward. Jane was the kindest of women, but always most assiduous in her hostess duties. She would never just let a wallflower be a wallflower.

Rose flashed a quick smile at Emma, who smiled back uncomfortably. She looked as if she wanted to run for the safety of the comfortably shabby library as much as Rose did.

But then Rose turned to face Jane’s newly arrived guests—and froze. All thoughts of fleeing, all thoughts at all, were quite gone.

A gentleman had just stepped through the front door and what a gentleman he was. He looked rather like something Rose would picture in one of the romantic French novels Lily liked to read aloud in the evenings—a man tall, dark and mysterious. His expression was quite solemn and wary as he studied the crowd, as if he was thinking of possible battle lines rather than dancing.

He certainly did have the bearing of a soldier, lean and ramrod-straight, his shoulders strong beneath the cut of his dark blue evening coat, his sun-darkened skin set off by a plain white cravat. His hair, so dark it was almost a blue-black, like a winter’s night, waved back from his forehead, and his eyes were a velvet brown. He had a strange stillness, a perfect watchfulness, almost a—a menace about him, but one that was enticing rather than frightening. He was quite unlike anyone else she had ever seen.

‘Harry, how delightful you could come tonight after all,’ Jane was saying, once Rose could tear her attention away from the man’s mesmerising handsomeness and hear the roar of the party again. ‘We did hear you were off to battle in Sicily.’

‘A soldier has to keep busy however he can.’ The man smiled as he bowed over Jane’s hand and it quite transformed him. He went from wary stillness to sunny charm in an instant, a dimple appearing in his sun-browned cheek that made Rose want to giggle like a schoolgirl. ‘But it seems they don’t need my assistance at this very moment. How could I resist the chance to see you again, Lady Ramsay? It’s been much too long since you brightened the dull London ballrooms. Hayden is a beast to keep you away.’

Jane laughed and waved her lace fan at him. ‘Silly flatterer. I know you are merely counting the seconds until you can escape to the library for a brandy with Hayden and a talk about your beastly battlefields. But it’s lovely to see you again all the same, safe and sound. And you, Charles! Where on earth have you been keeping yourself?’

Rose was able to tear her gaze from the dark, poetic brooder for a moment to see another man standing just behind him. He was also tall, also handsome, with a cheerful smile and bright golden hair, and the same brown eyes as the first man. But though he was just as good looking, he did not have the same frightening magnetism.

‘Nowhere as useful as my brother, I assure you, Lady Ramsay,’ he said with a bow. ‘But I haven’t had a proper dance in ages and, unlike Harry, I miss it more than I can say.’

‘That is one thing I can promise here. I hired the best orchestra from miles around.’ Jane drew Rose and Emma forward. ‘Emma, Rose, may I present two of our neighbours? Captain Henry St George, who was a great hero at Waterloo, and his brother, Mr Charles St George. Gentlemen, this my sister, Mrs Emma Carrington, and my cousin Miss Rose Parker.’

Charles was the first to bow to them, with grand courtly flourishes that made Rose laugh and even had Emma smiling. ‘Ladies, I fear that unlike my dashing brother I am hero of very little except the billiards room, but I do claim some proficiency at waltzing, if you will do me the honour?’

Emma did laugh—the first time Rose had heard it since the young widow had returned to Barton—but Rose could still not find a way to tear her attention completely away from Captain St George. How very intriguing he looked, with his wry flash of a smile!

‘Do you live near Barton, Miss Parker?’ he asked, his voice low and deep, almost rough. He watched her closely, as if he listened only to her in the whole room.

‘Oh,’ Rose answered, and for an instant it was as if every word she had ever known flew out of her mind. She had to laugh at herself; it was quite unlike the sensible nature she usually prided herself on. Yet she comforted herself that no lady could surely be entirely immune from such a pair of eyes when they were focused so closely on oneself.

‘Not too far,’ she said. ‘We used to visit often when we were children, my sister and I, and hunt for treasure with Jane and Emma.’

He smiled, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Treasure? That does sound intriguing.’

‘Oh, it was!’ she said, absurdly pleased to have ‘intrigued’ him. She found she wanted more than anything to make him smile that smile at her again. ‘It is a wonderful old tale, about the lover of a Royalist soldier, Arabella Bancroft, hiding a royal fortune on the grounds of the estate, in the hope she and her love would one day be reunited to spend it together. Or something like that. We were quite hazy on the details when we were children.’

‘And did you ever find it?’

‘No, not even a farthing. It’s just a legend, of course, but we did have some marvellous adventures digging for it in the woods. We would climb the trees and pretend we were the Royalists defending our fortress from Cromwell, with tree trunks for cannons...’ She suddenly remembered he was a true captain, a hero of the terrible carnage at Waterloo, and felt her cheeks turn warm. ‘Not at all like real battle, of course.’

A shadow flickered over his smile and he glanced away. ‘Much more fun, though, I would wager. Real battle is all mud and noise, I fear, Miss Parker. But trees and branches as guns—just fun.’

Rose nervously twitched her skirts into place, feeling terrible at reminding him of such things when he was meant to be enjoying himself at Jane’s party. Not for the first time, she wished she had some of Lily’s gift of easy laughter and chatter. ‘I am sure it was. I’m sorry for bringing up any bad memories, Captain.’

He gave her a wry smile. ‘The memories are always there, Miss Parker, but they don’t plague me on a night like this.’ He paused to adjust a glove. ‘And did they ever find each other again?’

‘Find each other?’ she said, confused.

‘Arabella Bancroft and her Royalist.’

‘Oh. No. He never came back. I think she married someone else in the end and abandoned Barton Park.’

‘Then there is hope the treasure is still out there.’

‘I never thought of it like that,’ Rose exclaimed. ‘Perhaps it is.’

Captain St George’s brother suddenly turned towards them with a grin. ‘Harry, I have just secured Mrs Carrington’s promise for the first dance and Lady Ramsay tells me there are not yet enough couples for a proper set. You must find yourself a partner and do your bit for the party.’

‘Charlie, you know I am hopeless dancer indeed,’ the Captain protested.

‘Of course you are not!’ Charles said. ‘Do not be an old stick in the mud again. Aren’t you all about doing your duty? Well, being merry is your only duty tonight.’

Harry laughed, and turned back to Rose. ‘Well, then, Miss Parker. Would you be brave enough to take me on for the first dance? With fair warning that grace is not my strong suit.’

Rose was not at all sure that could be true. He had such a lean, coiled stillness, she imagined that in motion he would be as elegant and lethal as a jungle cat. She longed to dance with him, more than she had ever longed for anything before, but she also feared he was asking only because she was the closest lady at the moment.

Not that it mattered. When would she ever be able to dance with such a man again?

‘I—no, nor is it mine, Captain St George,’ she answered. ‘I do have a terrible tendency to trip over my own feet—my sister always hated sharing her dancing lessons with me. Perhaps we can figure it out together?’

He laughed and suddenly he looked so young, so carefree. Rose imagined perhaps he was like that all the time before he went to war and became so watchful. ‘I am quite sure we can. The first dance, then, Miss Parker.’

‘Yes, thank you, Captain,’ she answered, and suddenly felt a hand on her arm. She turned to see Lily standing beside her, her sky-blue eyes wide.

‘Oh, Rose!’ she cried. ‘He isn’t here yet! What if he changed his mind?’

Before Rose could answer, the front doors flew open again as if in a stormy gale and a most fearsome figure appeared. As wide as she was tall, with iron-grey hair high-piled in the style of pre–Revolutionary France, and swathed in lace and satin, her dried-apple face was heavily rouged. Armed as she was with a carved walking stick with the head of a snarling dragon, she seemed the combination of Empress Maria Theresa and a Viking, combined with an ancient tree spirit.

‘Aunt Sylvia,’ Jane gasped. She hurried forward to try to help her, but the old lady impatiently pushed her away. ‘How lovely to see you. We thought you could not attend tonight.’

Aunt Sylvia Pemberton. Rose stared at her in astonishment. She had thought the old lady, a sister of her own great-grandfather and Jane’s and Emma’s as well, was only some sort of legend, but now here she was before them. She lived in a vast house nearby, rich as Croesus and widowed for decades, but she never ventured beyond its gates. Even Captain St George seemed amazed by the sight, even after all he must have seen at Waterloo.

‘I should never have ventured out indeed, Jane. A most disagreeable night and my rheumatism so terrible,’ Aunt Sylvia growled. ‘But I had to see what you have done with the old house, now that all your modern folderols have finished. You’ve quite ruined it, I must say. The windows are terrible and what kind of colour is that for walls?’ She looked around, waving her stick as if the new pale blue paint was a personal affront.

‘Ah,’ she went on, ‘and here is that disgraceful Emma, I see. And who is this? The Parker chits? How pale you are, girl. And the other one—too tall. Come here where I can see you better.’

Lily did indeed look quite white under such scrutiny and she clutched at Rose’s hand. ‘Must we?’ Lily whispered.

Rose thought of the grandness of Aunt Sylvia’s mansion and the tininess of their own cottage. She sighed. ‘I think we must.’ She glanced over her shoulder, but the Captain had quite vanished into the crowd. She could only fervently hope he remembered their dance.

‘Don’t worry, Lily dearest,’ she whispered. ‘We just have to say hello and then we can slip away. I am sure Mr Hewlitt will be here at any moment.’

‘She might turn us into stone first,’ Lily whispered back with a shiver.

Their mother suddenly appeared at Lily’s other side, a smile on her face beneath the blond curls that peeked from her turban. ‘Girls, be very nice indeed. We might need her help one day soon,’ she hissed, before sailing forward to kiss Aunt Sylvia’s cheek. ‘Aunt Sylvia, how absolutely delightful to see you again after so long. You remember my dear daughters, Rose and Lily, I’m sure.’

‘Hmmph,’ Aunt Sylvia said with a thump of her stick. ‘Still yours, are they? No husbands yet? How vexing for you, Felicity. I think we have much to talk about.’

As if he had been given a stage cue, Mr Hewlitt appeared in the doorway, looking handsome, but blushing and flustered in his curate’s dark coat, his red hair rumpled. He lit up like the moon when he saw Lily, and hurried over to take her hand. ‘Miss Parker, I am so sorry I was delayed! I have been so looking forward to—’

‘And who are you, young man?’ Aunt Sylvia boomed.

Poor Mr Hewlitt looked quite terrified, but much to his credit he did not let go of Lily’s hand. Indeed, he slid in front of her, as if to protect her. ‘I am Mr Peter Hewlitt, curate of St Anne’s, madam.’

Rose took the opportunity to slip away from the little scene and made her way through the crowd into the drawing room. The Aubusson rugs that usually lay over the polished parquet floors had been rolled away to make a dance floor, surrounded by conversational groupings of brocade sofas and armchairs, half-hidden by banks of palms and fragrant white flowers. The orchestra played on their dais, a soft song as dancers found their partners and footmen passed trays of champagne and claret punch. The windows were open to let in the soft summer breeze and everything was laughter and happiness for just a moment.

Rose smoothed her skirt again, hoping against hope Captain St George would find her—and just as frightened that he would. She didn’t want to seem stammering and silly in his company, but she was sure she would. She seemed to quite forget everything else when she looked into his dark eyes.

‘Miss Parker? Time for our dance, I think?’ she heard his deep voice say behind her.

She spun around to face him and his easy smile made her feel instantly more at ease. ‘Oh—of course. Thank you, Captain.’

As Rose took Captain St George’s arm and walked with him across the crowded room, she felt something most distinctly—odd. Something she had never had an inkling of before. Parties and gowns and flirtations had never held much appeal for her, not compared to the pleasures of the piano or a good book by the fire. Parties were for her mother and sister, because watching their enjoyment made Rose happy, too. Mama and Lily had far less fun in their lives than they deserved.

Yet now, being with Captain St George, Rose found she could have fun as well. It was quite astonishing and rather delightful. They followed the lead couple into the steps of the lively dance, holding hands, their feet nearly touching as she skipped around him. They joined hands with two other couples, moving in an intricate star until they had to wait at the end of the line. It moved in a wonderful, bright blur, the greatest fun she had ever had in a dance!

‘I’m sorry I’m not much of a dancer,’ he said as he spun her around, making her laugh.

‘I think you are quite grand at it,’ she answered. ‘But then I almost always have to practise with Lily and she does have a tendency to step on my toes rather more than I would like.’

‘I’ll try not to do that, then,’ he answered, his smile widening. ‘I don’t have the chance to dance much, either.’

‘I would think not, if you are always on the march. Do you have the chance to be in society a great deal?’

‘Not a great deal, but for a time my regiment was posted for training near Bath, which I admit I rather enjoyed.’

‘I have never been there,’ Rose answered with a sigh. ‘And only once or twice to London. A large town must be delightful!’

‘It’s not so terrible,’ he answered, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a most enticing way as he looked at her. ‘But family parties are always the best.’

‘Yes,’ Rose answered, a bit out of breath as she looked up at him. ‘Indeed they are.’ And this one was turning out to be the best she could ever remember. ‘I do like evenings at home, though Lily says they are dull. A book and a fine fire, a song at the piano.’

‘It sounds quite perfect, Miss Parker. Exactly what I would want one day. Some music in the winter evenings, a welcoming fire after a walk in the garden...’

‘Exactly so,’ Rose said. For just an instant she had an image in her mind, a picture of herself and the Captain walking down a path arm in arm, the doors of a manor house open behind them to spill out welcoming golden light. Something like what her family had when she was a child, before her father died and they found out it was all a deception, before she realised having her own family, her own secure home, was not to be. But with this man, she could imagine it all, even if it was only for a moment.

They took their turn once more in the set and Captain St George almost lifted her from her feet as they swirled around, making her laugh again. She actually felt delicate in his strong arms, like a lady in a novel, small and dainty next to her hero. They spun, breathless, and ended in a low bow and curtsy.

But the dance ended much too soon and she had to let go of his hand. They made their way to the edge of the crowd and Rose glimpsed her mother standing near the open tall windows with Emma Carrington and Charles St George. They were laughing and Rose had to smile to see her mother’s enjoyment. It was all going rather well, better than she could have expected when they set out from their cottage that evening.

Then she saw the lady standing beside Charles St George, smiling languidly at the mirth of the others. She seemed so beautiful as to be of some other world, even in the elegance of the Barton Park drawing room. Tall and willowy, she looked as if she should be posing as Athena in a draped gown and golden helmet, serenely smiling, above it all.

In reality, she wore a fashionable gown of blush-coloured silk, her red-gold hair piled high atop her head and fastened with a bandeau of cameos. She slowly waved her painted silk fan, her gaze skimming over the party.

Next to Rose, Captain St George’s tall figure stiffened. Surprised, she glanced up at him and saw that his smile had faded. The man she had danced with, so easy and kind, had vanished. He looked darkly intent. Full of a night-like desire.

‘St George, there you are at last,’ Athena called and something inside of Rose, something soft and summer-like that had bloomed so unexpectedly, faded. She felt suddenly cold inside and she wanted to turn and run, to disappear back into the crowd. Why had she thought even for a moment she could be something besides plain, sensible Rose Parker?

Captain St George stepped away, not completely, not really, but he definitely withdrew in some ineffable way. He was not quite there any longer.

The lady glided towards them and took the Captain’s arm in her silk-gloved hand. They looked intently into each other’s eyes and her smile widened. ‘I am terribly sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘I do hope you were not too bored. I know you do hate such parties.’

‘I am not much for crowds, of course,’ he answered. ‘But Barton Park is different.’

‘So I see.’ Her gaze slid to Rose and her smile turned down at the edges. She glanced up and down Rose’s made-over gown and glanced away, obviously finding her to be of not much interest.

‘Miss Helen Layton, may I present a cousin of the Bancrofts?’ Captain St George said. ‘Miss Rose Parker. Miss Parker, this is an old friend of my family, Miss Layton.’

‘An old friend, my dear St George?’ Miss Layton said with a creamy laugh. ‘Surely more than that. We have known each other since we were veritable babies. Charles says he expects an—well, an interesting announcement at any moment.’

An interesting announcement? Surely, Rose thought, that could only mean one thing. Captain St George and Miss Layton were a couple. She felt even colder, more foolish.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Layton,’ she managed to say in a calm, steady voice.

‘I think I just met your mother, Miss Parker,’ Miss Layton said. She wafted her fan towards Rose’s mother, who was still chatting with Emma and Charles St George. ‘She says you live in a cottage nearby. How absolutely charming that sounds. Like Wordsworth, with roses round the door and sheep on the hills.’

Rose laughed, thinking of their smoking chimney and the vegetables she tried to grow in the kitchen garden mud, her chickens pecking around them. ‘Something of the sort, I suppose, Miss Layton.’

‘We must find something just the same when you get back from this silliness in Sicily,’ Miss Layton said, her fingers curling around his sleeve.

He only gave her a tight smile and Rose could feel her cheeks turning warm as she longed even more to flee the whole uncomfortable scene.

‘Rose! Rose!’ she suddenly heard Lily cry and Rose had never been so relieved to see her sister. Rose spun around, away from the sight of the handsome Captain St George and the lovely Miss Layton, away from the foolish feelings that had come over her only moments ago.

Lily was running towards her, her face shining with happiness, utterly unconcerned with the impropriety of calling out and running at a ball. Mr Hewlitt followed her, just as glowing. Together they hurried towards Rose’s mother, who was watching them avidly.

‘Mrs Parker,’ he said, trying so very hard to be solemn that it almost made Rose laugh. ‘May I have the privilege of speaking to you for a moment? I know such things are not usually done at a dance...’

‘Please, just follow me,’ Emma said. ‘You can use the library. It will surely be quiet there for a moment.’

As they hurried away, Lily held out her hand to Rose to display a small pearl ring. ‘Oh, Rose! Isn’t it the loveliest?’

Rose smiled, but she was afraid she might also start crying as well. The happiness of that moment, of her sister’s dreams coming true just as her own fledgling, girlish ideas were nipped in the bud, was almost overwhelming. But she did the only thing she knew how to do. She laughed and hugged her sister tight.

‘The loveliest, Lily. I know you will be so very happy.’

Over her sister’s shoulder as Lily hugged her back, Rose glimpsed Captain St George, withdrawing to a quiet corner with his brother and Miss Layton. He gave her a small smile and it was so sad, so full of commiseration and understanding, that Rose nearly burst into tears. How perfect that one dance had been! Rose liked her life, her independence, but just for that moment she seemed to glimpse, far in the distance, the glimmer of something—more. A real home.

Miss Layton whispered something in the Captain’s ear and the two of them turned away together, beautiful and perfect, leaving Rose in her ordinary world once more.

Oh, well, she thought, laughing at herself just a bit. Ordinary life was not so very bad after all.

‘You will be a lovely bride, Lily dearest,’ she said, squeezing her sister a little tighter before she let her go.

‘And then it will be your turn, Rose, I vow it,’ Lily said. ‘I will find you someone just as handsome and sweet as my own Hewlitt.’

Rose closed her eyes, and saw, in the darkness of her mind, far away from the colour and noise of the party, Captain St George’s all too brief smile. ‘Oh, Lily. I don’t think that would even be possible.’

* * *

The carriage was blessedly shadowed and silent as it jolted away from the lights of Barton Park and slid into the night. Harry leaned his head back against the leather cushions and closed his eyes, letting all the wondrous quiet wash over him.

Silence had become a precious commodity to him in the last few years. In Spain, and then at Waterloo, noise had been ever-present. The cacophony of military camps, drumbeats and shouted orders, and drunken laughter at night as men tried to forget their fears and loneliness around campfires. The explosion of shot and shell, the screams of people and horses as they fell, the sobbing afterward. No—quiet had no place in war.

Nor, it seemed, in a world after the war. Harry had returned to England thinking he was coming home to a world of green and rain and peace, the world he dreamed of in canvas tents at night. It had taken him years to return, but he had always been determined he would.

But it was not like that at all once he returned to London. There were parties all the time, dinners and teas and dances, with everyone clamouring for tales of the glorious heroics of war. He could hardly tell them the truth of it all, of the mud and blood and dying, so he said little at all. Charming social conversation had always been Charles’s forte, not his.

Yet his silence only seemed to make him more sought out. Made more invitations arrive at his lodgings, more ladies want to sit beside him in drawing rooms or ride in the park. ‘Like a corsair warrior in a poem,’ he had once heard a lady whisper to her friend as they watched him at a musicale.

The memory made him laugh all over again. Him—a poetic corsair. If only they knew. He was just a rough army man, riding behind the drum, ever since he was a lad with his first commission. An army man with dreams of being a country farmer one day, of sitting by his own hearth after a day of watching his fields ripen and his sheep grow fat. A house where there was quiet all the time, except perhaps for a toddler’s giggle or the sound of a lady playing at her pianoforte.

It was a dream that would have to be postponed again, at least for a time. His regiment had called on him once more, to go to sun-baked Sicily this time to put down a rebellion. There was only time for this one visit home, to his father’s house at Hilltop Grange near Barton Park.

He hadn’t wanted to go to the party at Barton. Yet more noise, more clamour, more stares. But Jane and Emma Bancroft were old neighbours, kind people, and he let Charles persuade him to attend. Now he was rather glad he had.

He closed his eyes and there he saw something most unexpected—the face of Miss Rose Parker. She had the sweetest smile he could remember ever seeing and even dancing, which he normally loathed, was a pleasure when he talked to her. She seemed almost like no lady, no person, he had ever met before. So calm, so serene—she made the very air seem to sigh with relief around her.

After so long in the rough world of war, he had almost given up ever glimpsing pure sweetness in anything again. Yet there it was, in Rose Parker’s smile.

Until Helen appeared. Helen—one of his oldest friends, the daughter of his late mother’s best friend, a lady of such beauty she was called in London The Incomparable. The lady everyone had always expected he would marry.

‘How changeable you are tonight, Harry,’ Charles said. ‘Laughing, then scowling—one hardly knows what to expect next.’

Harry opened his eyes to study his brother, who lolled on the opposite seat. His golden hair gleamed in the moonlight from the open window, the perfect aquiline features that had always made him their late mother’s copy, her darling, were outlined like a classical cameo. Charles was the perfect Apollo wherever he went to Harry’s Hephaestus, always laughing and easy-tempered, making everyone around him feel easy as well. But now that the party was behind him, even Charles looked almost—sad, as he had rather often since Harry returned to England. Harry couldn’t help but wonder what was plaguing his brother.

Perhaps it was because Charles had been left all those years to deal with Hilltop and their father while Harry was at war. And their father was not a kind man at the best of times. The house that had been their mother’s pride, the glowing name she had loved, had been tarnished by him.

‘I laugh because the party went better than I could have expected,’ he said.

‘Ha!’ Charles answered. ‘So you see I was right to make you attend. The Bancroft girls are always kindness itself.’

‘They are hardly girls now, are they? Jane a countess, Emma a widow.’

‘Poor Emma. Remember when Mother made us go to the children’s tea parties at Barton and we all ended up climbing trees instead?’ Charles said with a laugh. ‘Father was never happy at all when we came home with our best new coats torn and muddy. He said Mother was raising monkeys.’

‘And the switches would come out.’ The switches so often came out with their father, especially after their mother died. ‘But it was always worth it to visit Barton Park.’

‘Wasn’t it, though? Like a different world.’

Harry nodded. A different world. He thought of Miss Parker’s tales of searching for lost Royalist treasures there at Barton and wondered why they had never crossed paths as children. What would it have been like if they had?

‘La belle Helen was in fine looks tonight,’ Charles said. ‘If only we had a thousand ships that needed to be launched...’

Harry frowned at the reminder of Helen and her elegant face flashed in his mind, erasing Miss Parker’s gentle smile. The weight of expectation, the weight of what had been and what was expected in the future, fell once again. ‘Helen has always been lovely.’

‘Did Miss Lily Parker’s sweet little engagement not inspire you, Harry? No ring for Helen’s pretty finger yet?’

Harry wasn’t sure he liked something in Charles’s tone, something dark and hard beneath his smile. ‘Helen knows this is no time for an engagement. I am to re-join my regiment soon and I would not tie her down to someone like myself.’

‘You may think that, but does she? The betting books in the London clubs were full of speculation about when she would snap you into the parson’s mousetrap. Everyone’s expected it since we were children.’

Harry frowned as he stared out the window, at the summer moon shining on the silent hedgerows. ‘You have picked up some ridiculous slang in those clubs of yours, Charlie.’

‘Well, a man has to find distractions, you know. Hilltop Grange is not exactly a haven of merriment. And everyone says you and Helen were made for each other. Any man would give his right arm to be in your position.’

Something in his brother’s voice caught Harry’s strict attention, something sharp and jagged that was quite unlike Charles. He swung around to face him, but Charles’s face was hidden in the shadows.

‘Made for each other?’ Harry said. Perhaps it was so—they had been friends for so long, bound by the long ties of their families, by their mothers’ wishes. He had thought of her when he was gone, dreamed of her, carried her miniature with him to inspire him. She was like a dream, just as all that green English quiet had been a reason to come home.

And by Jove but she was beautiful. The most beautiful lady in London, just as all those silly, betting-book dandies declared. For some reason, though, she seemed to prefer Harry to all those other men, at least for now.

But would Helen ever like that farm life he so envisioned? The quiet evenings, the small community? He was not at all sure. Perhaps that was what really held him back now.

Again he saw Miss Parker’s sweet smile, felt her gentle touch on his hand, but he pushed such thoughts away.

‘She agrees we should wait until I can resign my commission and we can see what happens next,’ he said.

Charles shook his head, frowning. ‘You should be careful, then, Harry. While you are gone on your adventures, someone else could easily pluck up such a prize. They do say that the Duke of Hamley, now that his time of mourning is at an end, seeks a new duchess.’

Harry laughed. Duchess—now there was a role that would suit Helen well. ‘No one would make a better duchess than Helen.’

Charles was silent for a long, tense moment. ‘I would never have taken you for a fool, Harry.’

Before Harry could answer, their carriage turned through the gates of Hilltop Grange and jolted up the winding old drive, past the overgrown forest that had once been a manicured garden under the careful eye of their mother.

Now, Hilltop looked nothing like the golden welcome of Barton Park, which had seemed to float above the night like a cloud of light. Hilltop had no light at all, save the glow of one lamp in the window of the library. Harry knew that once daylight came, the overgrown ivy on the grey stone walls, the crumbling chimneys, the covered windows, would all be too apparent. He felt again that deep pang of sadness, of guilt for following a different duty.

But that one light meant their father was still awake, or more likely fallen asleep next to his empty brandy bottle. He seldom left the library now.

‘Our great inheritance,’ Charles said, his tone quiet and bitter.

Harry gave a grim nod. ‘I am sorry, Charles. I should have been here all along.’

Charles glanced at him, his expression startled. ‘Oh, no, Harry, never. You are doing what you have to—your duty to King and Country as you are called to do. No one has been more dutiful than you, ever since we were children.’

He thought again of what their home had once been, what it was now. ‘I don’t know about that.’

‘Well, I do. Whatever I face here with Father is as nothing compared to whatever you have faced all these years. Besides, I’m seldom here at Hilltop at all these days.’ He grinned and that strange, solemn, thoughtful Charles vanished. The rakish, fun-loving young man everyone knew was back. ‘London is much more diverting. Why would a man ever live anywhere else?’

‘Diverting—and expensive,’ Harry muttered, but he couldn’t help laughing at Charles’s devil-may-care smile. It was always thus with his younger brother, their mother’s golden boy. While Charles was the fun one, Harry had indeed always been the responsible one. The quiet one.

Charles shrugged. ‘What else can one do? I would be wretched in the army, worse than useless. The church would never have me.’

‘What of your painting?’ he asked, remembering the rare talent Charles once possessed with a brush, the way he could capture the mood of a landscape in a few deft strokes of paint.

Charles laughed. ‘A boy’s diversion. Not fit for a grown man, y’know.’

‘According to who? Our father?’ Harry asked quietly.

Rather than answer, Charles pushed open the carriage door as soon as they came to a full halt and jumped down. Harry followed him up the shallow stone steps into the echoing hall of Hilltop Grange. In the shadows, the portraits of their ancestors, including their golden-haired mother, watched them in silence. In the rooms beyond, the furniture was shrouded in canvas covers, like ghosts. Their mother’s cherished pianoforte was silent.

For just an instant, Harry had such a different vision of the house, light gleaming on polished wood. The warmth of the fire, the scent of flowers from the gardens, the rush of small feet down the stairs, music. But the lady who turned from the keyboard to welcome him with a smile—her eyes were the sweet, soft hazel of Rose Parker.

‘Father, wake up!’ Charles shouted, banging on the library door with his fist. The dream was shattered, like the dust of Hilltop itself.

Chapter One

Winter, three years later

‘Jouissons dans nos asiles, jouissons de biens tranquilles! Ah, peut-on être heureux, quand on forme d’autres vouex?’

‘That’s quite enough!’ Aunt Sylvia shouted from her armchair near the fire, where she was swathed in shawls and a fur blanket. Her three lapdogs shifted and barked. ‘What a wretched song by that horrid Rameau. Why would you play such a thing?’

Rose sighed and rested her wrists on the edge of the keyboard as the last notes died away in the overheated drawing room of Aunt Sylvia’s vast house. She would have laughed if she wasn’t quite so tired. She removed her spectacles and rubbed at her eyes. In her years of working as Aunt Sylvia’s companion, she had come to learn no moment was predictable. A favourite food one day, which had to be ordered from London and fetched from the village shop, a two-mile walk, by Rose every day, would not be wanted once it arrived. An expensive pelisse would be dismissed as too itchy, then needed again. The wheeled Bath chair would have to be fetched for a walk in the garden, only to be greeted with shouts of ‘What do you think I am, an old invalid? I shall walk! Give me your arm immediately, Rose. You cannot be rid of me so easily, you know, you silly girl.’

Rose did not want to be rid of Aunt Sylvia. She paid a wage that kept Rose’s mother in her cottage, now that Lily and Mr Hewlitt had two children to take care of in their small vicarage and Mama’s small income seemed even smaller than ever. Her mother deserved to stay in her own home and Rose had to work to make it so. But Rose did wish Aunt Sylvia would make up her mind for once.

‘I thought you always enjoyed the old French songs, Aunt,’ she said. ‘Because they reminded you of your time at Versailles.’

In her youth, Aunt Sylvia had once waited upon Queen Marie Antoinette, before she married the wealthy Mr Pemberton and returned to England. She spoke of it all the time and definitely never let anyone forget it, with her grey hair piled high and panniers strangely paired with newer, higher waists and puffed sleeves.

‘Why would I want to hear songs that remind me of such a terrible loss?’ Aunt Sylvia said, thumping her walking stick on the floor. One of the dogs barked. ‘You young people, you know nothing of such things. Nothing of how fortunate you all are.’

Rose suddenly remembered Captain St George and their dance at the midsummer party so long ago, the haunted look in his dark eyes as he mentioned battle and seemed to remember Waterloo. She had thought of him too often in the years since, especially in the long, quiet nights as she lay awake waiting for Aunt Sylvia to call her. Had he married the beautiful Miss Layton, had he come back from battle and found peace at last? She couldn’t help but hope so.

She glanced out the window, out the slim rectangle of thick glass revealed between the heavy brocade curtains Aunt Sylvia kept closed all the time. It had started snowing, a light, lacy, delicate pattern of white against the night sky. It reminded her that it was nearly December, nearly the Christmas season, and she wondered what her mother, what Lily and her little family, were doing now.

Lily and her babies were surely decorating their small sitting room with greenery, baking plum cakes to carry to Mr Hewlitt’s parishioners. Perhaps her mother was embroidering new little gowns to wrap up for her grandchildren’s gifts.

She felt the familiar pang of sadness of missing them and she had to remind herself why she had to work in the first place.

‘Perhaps I could play you a Christmas carol or two, Aunt Sylvia?’ she said. ‘It is nearly that season.’

‘Christmas!’ Aunt Sylvia cried. ‘Don’t even talk to me about the wretched thing. Play some Mozart. You know how I always like that.’

Except for when she called Mozart an overrated performing monkey of a boy. Rose smothered a laugh, and launched into the ‘Allegro’ from Marriage of Figaro. Just as she always could, she soon lost herself in the music, and the harsh world of Aunt Sylvia’s house, her loneliness for her family, vanished. She floated in her own realm, above everything else.

One day, she thought with a happy smile, perhaps she would have her own home with her own pianoforte. Could play whatever she chose, while her family listened...

The piece ended and Rose felt as if she was pushed out of that magical, floating world into the stuffy drawing room. Suddenly all she could hear were the snores of her aunt, mixed with the softer snuffles of the dogs and the crackle of the flames as a log collapsed into ashes in the grate. She remembered how her childhood home had once collapsed, how such things were always dreams.

She peeked over her shoulder to find Aunt Sylvia had indeed fallen asleep, her head lolling back on her cushioned chair. Hardly daring to breathe, for fear she would awaken everyone and prolong the evening, Rose carefully lowered the lid of the pianoforte over the keys and slid off the stool. She cautiously tiptoed over to make sure Aunt Sylvia’s shawls were still warmly tucked around her, and then crept out of the drawing room. She found Miss Powell, her aunt’s long-suffering maid, waiting outside.

Rose gave her a nod, which Miss Powell tersely returned, and at last Rose could make her way up the stairs to her own chamber. It was not a large room at all, barely big enough for a narrow bed, a washstand and her trunk, and it looked down on the frost-covered kitchen gardens, but it was at least her own. In the cottage at home, she had shared with Lily until they could build on an extra room and her sister’s feet at night were always freezing.

And then she missed her sister and mother all over again.

‘Don’t be such a goose,’ she told herself sternly. Surely it was only the Christmas season making her feel so melancholy now, so homesick. She had too much to do to worry about Mama and Lily now. Aunt Sylvia would want her up early as usual, writing letters and walking the dogs.

As she dug around in her clothes trunk for her night chemise, hoping her sheets wouldn’t be too chilled by the time she crawled between them, there was a knock at the door. Surprised anyone would be about at that hour—Aunt Sylvia dined early and only Miss Powell stayed up to help her retire—she hurried to answer it.

One of the young housemaids stood there, yawning into her apron. ‘Beg your pardon, miss, but these came for you by the afternoon post, but I forgot to give them to you. We do get that busy with the tea things...’

Rose shuddered to remember the row with Aunt Sylvia and the undercooked almond cakes that afternoon. ‘That is quite all right, thank you.’ She took the letters eagerly as the maid hurried away.

One from Lily, she saw, recognising her sister’s hurried scrawl. And one with a grander seal, pressed into fashionable green wax. Barton Park, the return address read.

A letter from Barton! Rose felt the warm touch of excitement, and not a little tinge of curiosity. She hadn’t heard from Barton Park in quite some time. She knew Jane had been busy with having little heirs to the earldom, and Emma had recently married David Marton, one of their neighbours.

Rose quickly changed into her nightdress, carefully laying aside her sensible grey-silk gown, and climbed into bed to read the precious missives. She opened the one from Barton first. It was written in elegant dark green ink on thick, creamy stationery.

My dear Miss Parker—or may I call you Cousin Rose?

I am so sorry we have not met since Cousin Lily’s wedding. We do miss your family so much and speak often of how your letters make us laugh. Your tales of being with Aunt Sylvia—dear lady, but, well, she is Aunt Sylvia after all—are better than a comic novel and cheer us to no end. You are a brave lady indeed.

We also speak often of that lovely midsummer ball when Lily and her vicar became engaged. It seems so very long since Barton has enjoyed such an evening.

Hayden has duties in the House of Lords which often take him to London, and as you know we now have four dear children—William, Eleanor, Emma and baby Edward.

Emma and David are also expecting a happy occasion soon and Emma still has her little bookshop in the village. She does insist on scrambling up and down the library ladders, frightening her husband no end, but she declares she has never felt better in her life!

I do envy her. My own times bring nothing but sleepiness. I often nod off by the fire quite like Aunt Sylvia!

Rose smiled at the image of Jane, nodding off by the fire as her children dashed about. She pushed away the hint of envy such an image gave her and continued reading.

In short, dear Cousin Rose, I have a great favour to ask. Emma and I have decided to revive our old Barton parties, this time for the Christmas holidays. It has indeed been a long time since we had such festivities here and the children would so enjoy it.

Their governess, though, wishes to return to her family for a few weeks and I am quite overwhelmed. If Aunt Sylvia could spare you, and if you think you could bear us and our noise, would a position here suit you for a time?

I remember how you loved music and my own little Eleanor shows great talent at the pianoforte and harp already. Aunt Sylvia is, of course, invited as well, if she can ever leave her own hearth. Fingers crossed that she is quite comfortable in situ, though!

I do hope so, dear Rose, as we would dearly love to see you again and have your assistance with our little monsters. If you like us, perhaps a longer stay here at Barton might be possible?

With much hope,

Your cousin, Jane Ramsay

Rose lowered the letter with a thoughtful frown. She well remembered when they discovered the disaster of her late father’s debts, the wreck of her mother’s annuity and the near loss of their cottage. Jane had been all that was kind at the time, offering assistance of every sort from financial gifts to a new home at Barton. Yet Rose and her mother had been so loathe to take charity, even from family. The position with Aunt Sylvia was just that—a position, with wages for tasks and long hours. Not perfect, not merry or fun, but it got them by and let her mother stay in her home.

She wondered if Jane’s offer now was also charity, carefully disguised as a temporary governess–music teacher position, but she found she didn’t quite care. She closed her eyes and remembered Barton Park, how pretty it was, how welcoming, how full of fun. She remembered her dance there with Captain St George, the bright, hopeful way he had made her feel. Maybe she would find a spark of that again, there at Barton at Christmas?

She tucked the letter under her pillow, along with Lily’s to save for a morning treat, and blew out her candle. She closed her eyes again and hoped to dream of music and mistletoe and dances with handsome partners...

* * *

‘Jane, surely it is nearly midnight. Put that away and come to bed,’ Hayden Fitzwalter, Earl of Ramsay, said, patting at the feather pillows next to him on their large, luxurious feather mattress.

Jane laughed, but she didn’t look up from the pile of papers on her writing desk. She knew if she saw her gorgeous husband, his dark hair tousled, half-naked in their lovely warm bed, she would never finish her work at all. Even after years of marriage, those gorgeous blue eyes of his were too tempting indeed.

‘I only have a few more invitations to write and they must go out with the morning post,’ she said, her pen scratching over her creamy paper. ‘We are going to have the grandest Christmas house party Barton Park has ever seen! We will have carols and wassail, and sleigh rides...’

Hayden laughed. ‘Sleigh rides? What if there is no snow, my love?’

‘Then we shall make some. It’s the first Christmas we’ve all been together at Barton in ages.’ They spent most of their time now in London, or at Hayden’s earldom seat. But Barton, where her own parents had once been so happy and raised Emma and herself in a golden childhood, was always home. ‘When Emma and I were children, our parents made the holidays so magical. Such games and music, and wonderful sweets on the tables. Green wreaths and dancing. I want it to be just like that now for the children.’

‘And so it shall be, if you will it so. Everything you create in our lives is magic, my love.’

She looked over at him and smiled. ‘Our lives are magical—now. If I can help someone else find the same thing...’

‘Ah, I see.’ His tone was full of smug satisfaction and he crossed his arms behind his head as he laid back on the pillows. ‘Trying a bit of matchmaking, are you? Who do you and Emma have in mind now?’

Jane pursed her lips. ‘No one at all, of course. If people just happen to meet at our party and just happen to like each other—well, how can that be a bad thing? Magical things do happen at Christmas.’

‘So they do. Who are you inviting, then?’

Jane glanced over her list and named a few of their London friends she thought might enjoy Barton. Her old family house was small compared to Hayden’s grand seat and there was not space for very many. There was definitely no space for Hayden’s old rakish friends, from the dark days before they mended their marriage and started their family.

‘Also, Mr and Mrs Hewlitt, though I’m not sure he can be spared from his clerical duties for the holiday,’ she said.

‘That is too bad. I remember when they became betrothed at Barton.’

‘I know, wasn’t it terribly sweet?’ Jane said. ‘I also asked her sister, Miss Rose Parker. I’m sure you remember her, too.’

‘Of course. A most sensible and cheerful lady. Her performance of Beethoven at the pianoforte was impressive.’

‘I hope she is still sensible and cheerful. She has been working as companion to Sylvia Pemberton.’

‘Oh, that poor girl!’ Hayden exclaimed. ‘Will the kraken release its captive to come to Barton?’

‘I am afraid I performed a bit of a subterfuge, since I know how proud Rose is and how their family has been brought so low of late. I told her we would need a governess for the children while Miss Essex is gone for the holidays and that Eleanor shows a proficiency for music, which she does.’

‘Jane! You’ve just moved her from working for one monster to four.’

Jane laughed. ‘Hayden! They are very well-behaved children, everyone says so.’

‘Well behaved in public, maybe,’ Hayden muttered, but Jane could hear the affectionate pride in his voice.

‘The nursemaids will all still be here. I did have to lure Rose here somehow, or she wouldn’t leave Aunt Sylvia and would have a miserable Christmas.’ And there would be no chances for her to meet eligible young men if she didn’t come to the party.

‘Quite right. Who else have you invited, then?’

Jane hesitated as she looked down at the last invitation on her desk. ‘The St George brothers, at Hilltop.’

‘Is that quite wise? Harry has not been home long, and he has not received any visitors yet. He might not be quite—recovered.’

‘When Dr Heath called last week, he told me he found Captain St George’s health to be much improved last time he was at Hilltop, though not entirely as he once was, of course. A Christmas party might be just the chance to cheer him up! After all he has been through—being wounded and losing Miss Layton...’

‘You mean Lady Fallon?’ Hayden said quietly.

‘The Dowager Lady Fallon now, not that it matters,’ Jane answered. That sudden marriage, after Captain St George left for Sicily, had surprised everyone. But if Jane had learned one thing in life, it was that everyone had secrets they hid deep down inside. Everyone deserved a second chance. ‘If the Captain does not yet feel like a party, he can always refuse. But I am inviting him, as well as his brother, Charles, who I hear is back from the Continent now.’ And Charles had always been such fun; maybe Rose Parker could use a bit of that fun in her life.

‘You must do what you think best, my love. Yet now it really is time to come to bed. It grows much too late.’

‘And much too cold, with you so far over there,’ she said with a laugh, thinking how lucky they were indeed to have had their own second chance. Their life together.

She sealed up the last invitation, the one bound for Hilltop Grange, and snuffed out the candles before she hurried into the warm haven of her husband’s loving arms.

Chapter Two

‘Aye, ’tis a pity. Hilltop Grange was once so grand. Now look at it. Falling to bits.’

‘Some who has it all haven’t the sense to appreciate it. Fritter it all away. Shameful.’

‘Oh, you two,’ the barmaid tsked to the two old men as she plopped fresh pints down on their sticky, scarred table. ‘Always grumbling ’bout something and not doing a thing about it. Now that the Captain is back...’

‘Will he be any better than that brother of his? Or the father?’ one old man muttered. ‘Been gone for years, ain’t he?’

‘He has to care, doesn’t he? Hilltop is his estate now,’ the barmaid said as she turned away, wiping her hands on her apron. The two old men returned to the weather, to the threat of snow in the air.

None of them seemed to notice Harry sitting quietly in the darkest corner of the pub, the new owner of Hilltop Grange, nursing his ale and pondering what he had to do next.

He took a long drink from his tankard, but even that did not warm him. A few snowflakes drifted past the grimy windows, landing lightly on the cobbled streets of the village outside. A few people hurried past, stepping out of the greenery-bedecked shops, their arms laden with Christmas packages, laughing together in holiday cheer, brushing the snow off their cloaks and hats.

It wasn’t the grey winter sky that made him feel so cold, or the joy in the coming holiday that he saw in others but barely remembered ever having himself. It was a numbness at his very core that had probably always been there, ever since Waterloo, when he realised the true ugliness of life.

No, he thought in sudden, startled remembrance. It hadn’t always been thus. For one moment, long ago, it had lifted, like a tiny spark of sun through those clouds. When he held a hazel-eyed girl in his arms for a dance, and she laughed with him, those eyes shining with her enjoyment of the music and of all the life around them. He knew just for a small instant, with her, the sweetness he was really fighting for.

Miss Rose Parker. That was her name. And she’d looked like a rose, too, with the faint pink in her pale cheeks. Surely she was Mrs Rose Some-Other-Surname now, with a baby in her arms. Whoever he was—well, he was a lucky bloke indeed. Harry just hoped he appreciated what he had.

He touched the black patch over his lost eye, feeling the roughness of the skin around it, the scar that curved its way almost to his jaw. What would Rose Parker think if she saw him now? Would her smiles turn to startled fear, to quickly averted glances just like everyone else? Just like it had with Helen?

Harry gave a humourless little laugh. No, not Helen. She’d left long before the wounds; she’d left when someone with more to offer, with a title even, came around. Not that Harry could blame her, not a bit. Being a soldier’s wife would never have suited Helen, no matter how much she once protested otherwise, how much their families wished otherwise. And now with Hilltop in the state it was...

Harry finished his tankard and pushed back his chair. Speaking of Hilltop, he knew he should be getting back there. He had lingered in the village too long after his visit to the lawyer Mr Wall. Hilltop would never have its roof and windows fixed by sitting around in taverns. The problem was—he wasn’t sure yet how to fix it all. He knew the army, that was all. Now he had to learn how to be a landlord to a crumbled estate.

The barmaid appeared at his side. She looked at him with a twinge of pity in her eyes, but she didn’t turn away.

‘Another pint, then, Captain?’ she said. ‘Or maybe some wine? We just got some bottles, special for the season.’

He gave her a smile. ‘Not today, Nell, but next time. And it’s just Mr now, not Captain.’

He left the tavern, striding past the grumbling old men without a word and out into the world. For an instant, his eye was dazzled by the bright grey glare of the light after the dim tavern. He pulled the brim of his hat lower and raised the collar of his greatcoat against the cold breeze. He was still trying to become accustomed to the way having sight in only one eye distorted the horizon.

The village was not a large one, but it was very busy at that time of day, as shoppers finished their last-minute errands before hurrying home to their warm fires. He knew every shop from when he was a child—the butcher, where Christmas geese and hams now waited in his window, the dressmaker, where his mother had had so many gowns sewn up, the confectioner, from whom he and Charles used to steal lemon drops.

All the doors were wreathed in greenery now, all the window displays decked in bows. The Christmas atmosphere of his home village was so very familiar, but so very alien at the same time. A dream world.

Harry turned towards the livery stable where he had left his horse. On the corner, an old man was selling bouquets of mistletoe and holly tied with red ribbon, and Harry impulsively bought one. He wasn’t sure what he would do with it, but for a moment the red brightened his thoughts.

He passed by the bookshop that had once been owned by old Mr Lorne, but which he had heard now belonged to Emma Bancroft, or Lady Marton as she had become. He paused to examine the display in her bow window, the leather-bound volumes with their gilded lettering gleaming, the boxes of fine stationery. He remembered his mother going there every month for her new stock of novels from London.

The shop door swung open with a jangle of bells, and Emma Marton hurried out, nearly bumping into him. The young girl behind her, who must be her stepdaughter, the young Beatrice Marton, caught her as she stumbled and laughed. Emma looked as if she had not aged at all while he’d been gone, her blond curls still as sunny, her smile still dimpled. Like the village, she seemed to have stayed still while he felt centuries older.

But not everything had stayed the same. Under the folds of her green-velvet cloak, he could see the small bump of a child, one of the growing brood of Bancroft Park.

He remembered how once Barton had seemed as crumbling and lonely as Hilltop, and the Bancroft sisters had raised it back life. It gave him a spark of hope now to think of it.

‘Oh, Harry!’ Emma cried, her gaze flickering over his scarred face and then quickly away. ‘How perfectly wonderful to see you home. We all so feared for your health when—well, when we heard what happened and...well—’ Her words broke off and she blushed under the brim of her feathered bonnet.

He smiled down at her. ‘I left one or two bits behind on the battlefield, but am now in good health, thank you, Emma. As I see are you. You are quite blooming.’

She laughed, turning even pinker. ‘Oh, yes! In a few months, Bea here will be a sister again. You do remember Miss Beatrice Marton, my stepdaughter?’

The girl dropped a shy little curtsy as Harry bowed. She was a pretty thing, with dark hair smooth under her hood and sweet eyes; one day she would surely break hearts. ‘Of course. How do you do, Miss Marton?’

‘I am quite well, thank you, Captain St George.’

‘I couldn’t do without Bea’s help at home and here at the shop,’ Emma said proudly, taking Beatrice’s hand. ‘Especially now that Christmas is so near. I do hope we will see you at Barton.’

‘I’m afraid there is still much to do at Hilltop,’ he answered. Christmas was for family and good cheer, not for staring at wounded soldiers. He did not want to be the ghost at the feast.

‘Oh, but you must,’ Beatrice said warmly. ‘There can surely be nothing merrier than the holiday Aunt Jane has planned. Games and sleigh rides and plum pudding...’

‘Oh, Bea, I’m sure Captain St George knows how he wants to spend his holiday,’ Emma said, squeezing her stepdaughter’s hand. ‘But do know you are always most welcome at our homes, Harry, any time at all.’

‘Thank you, Emma. That does mean much to me.’ He impulsively handed her the bouquet of greenery he had bought. ‘Happy Christmas.’

He turned and walked away, but when he glanced back Emma was watching him with a thoughtful frown. She quickly smiled and waved the bouquet, the red ribbon a banner of brightness against the grey day.

* * *

Unlike the village, Hilltop did not bustle with holiday preparations and cheer. The windows were blank in the gathering twilight as Harry rode up the overgrown lane; no smoke curled from the crumbling chimneys. There were, however, a few more fallen roof slates on the portico and in the tangled flowerbeds.

As Harry swung down from the saddle, he studied the house and for just an instant he remembered what it had been like in his mother’s day, with the flowers blooming and bright against the pale grey walls, curtains elegant in every window. He could imagine a lady like Rose Parker in such a house, but not this one.

Then he blinked and the fantasy of a smiling lady welcoming him home was replaced with reality once more.

He left his horse with the young stable lad, one of the few servants left at Hilltop along with their ancient butler Jenkins, and hurried up the front steps into the darkening house. The doors to the drawing room and music room were firmly shut, the few pieces of furniture in the hall shrouded in dust cloths. Yet it was not quite as silent as he expected. The door to the library was half-open, and a bar of amber-gold spilled out. He heard the clink of heavy crystal, as if a decanter had just been plonked down on a table.

Curious, and not a little irritated that someone would break into his solitude uninvited, Harry tossed his hat and gloves on to the nearest canvas-covered table and strode towards the library.

The room was just as he had left it, half-empty and dusty, most of the books sold or packed away, but his brother, Charles, sat behind their father’s desk. His dark gold hair was over-long and mussed, his buff travel coat dusty and a half-empty brandy bottle sat before him.

He looked up and Harry saw that his blue eyes were rimmed with red. He remembered the last time he’d seen Charles, when his brother was leaving for the Continent. To paint, he said, but more likely to get away from their father. ‘My brother! The returning hero,’ Charles called, raising his almost empty glass. ‘Let me pour you a drink. You probably need it after meeting with old Mr Wall. That’s where Jenkins said you were, anyway.’

Harry sat down across from him, stretching his long legs before him. He had learned long ago not to wonder about Charles’s comings and goings. ‘I’ve just come from the tavern and it looks as if you’ve already started the celebrating.’

Charles examined his glass. ‘So I have. ’Tis the merry season, after all.’

‘So everyone keeps telling me. Where have you been lately, Charlie?’

‘Oh, here and there. Italy mostly. Then some German spa towns. Until I heard you were home.’

‘Not doing your art, then?’ Harry asked. Charles had always been a masterful artist, one who could be a professional in Harry’s uneducated opinion, though their father had scoffed at it all.

Charles frowned. ‘No, not really. Too busy with other matters.’

Harry nodded, but he said nothing. He didn’t really want to know what those ‘other matters’ were.

Charles poured them each another measure. ‘What did Wall say?’

Harry took a deep drink of the brandy. It was the last of their father’s stock and not bad at all as it burned down his throat. ‘About what you would expect he would say. Mother’s money was spent long ago and there are debts on the estate.’

Charles sighed. ‘I think there is only one solution, then, my dear brother.’

Harry laughed. ‘Sell Hilltop and go back in the army? They don’t want a one-eyed captain. Maybe you could get a job in the City?’

Charles shuddered. ‘Lud, no. How appalling. I could never have a job, and I certainly don’t want my brother nearly killed again.’

‘I’m glad you care.’ Harry thought of how it was when they were children, running together through the fields, jumping into the pond. And how far apart they were now.

‘’Course I do. You’re the only brother I have. And I don’t think we can sell Hilltop.’

‘Indeed not. Even if it weren’t entailed in the St George family, no one would want it.’

‘Exactly. Ghastly old pile.’

‘Then what is your solution?’

‘Very simple. You must marry an heiress,’ Charles said.

Harry laughed even harder. ‘You always did have a fine way with a joke, Charlie.’

Charles scowled. ‘I am absolutely serious. A lady, one with style and a fine dowry, would fix things in a trice.’

Harry shook his head. Even before he was wounded, his wooing skills had not been the greatest. To think of trying to win a fair, rich lady now—he laughed again. ‘Who would you suggest, then? Has a blind heiress come on to the market, perhaps? One who could tolerate a scarred old soldier?’

‘You’ve always been far more handsome than you would admit, Harry. And now you’re a wounded warrior. Ladies love that.’ Charles paused to stare down into his glass. ‘Helen Layton is recently widowed, you know. They say her husband left her well set-up indeed.’

Harry’s smile faded and he swallowed the last of his drink. ‘You know that was over long ago. I think you are the one who will have to find an heiress, Charlie. You always enjoyed society much more than me, anyway. You could take up painting again. Or you could go back to the Continent to look among the spas and casinos.’

‘I doubt we would have to go so far. This came while you were out.’ Charles slapped a letter down on the desk.

Harry gave it a suspicious glance. ‘What is it? Another dunning letter?’

‘Of course not. It’s an invitation to a Christmas house party at Barton Park. Jane says there will be several ladies there, old friends and new.’

‘Ah,’ Harry muttered, pushing aside his glass. Games and sleigh rides and plum pudding. ‘So that’s what she meant.’

‘She?’

‘I saw Emma Marton in the village, she said something about Barton for the holiday. Thought it might be a good distraction.’ And it might, he thought through the slight haze of the brandy as he studied the crumbling plaster of the ceiling. Anything would be better than looking at this room any longer.

‘Well, I suppose somehow, some way, we have to try and save Hilltop,’ Charles said. ‘I know I’ve always been a useless wastrel, but...’

‘No,’ Harry said decisively. ‘I am the eldest and this is indeed our family’s home. We do have to save it and everyone who depends on it along with it. I will find a way.’ No matter what.

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