Make Her Wish Come True Collection

Chapter Three

Noise filled the dining room as the entire family—children, the aged aunt, parents—and Gregor sat around the long mahogany table. It’d been quite a feast and the half-devoured pudding still decorated the centre, with two tall, silver candlesticks festooned with evergreens standing guard on either side. To Gregor’s surprise, the children had been included in the supper and were still seated at the far end of the table and attended by their nurse. The twins chattered together, joined by their three-year-old cousin and Miss Daisy, who didn’t look happy at being seated with them. Once in a while she would flash Gregor a bright smile which he gladly returned, more amused than annoyed by her fascination with him, though it was Miss Rutherford’s attention he longed to capture tonight.

She sat beside him, appearing as unhappy about her place at the table as Daisy. It was as if the laughing woman hurling snowballs at her sister and brother had never existed and he very much wanted her to return. Whenever he tried to draw her into conversation, she offered him little more than simple answers to his questions before turning away to speak with her brother-in-law, leaving him to the aged aunt who sat on his other side and had no end of stories to tell.

When at last the aunt fixed her attention on Laurus, and the brother-in-law turned to speak to his wife, Gregor leaned close to Miss Rutherford, catching the notes of her lily-of-the-valley perfume over the rich nutmeg spice of the pudding. He took a deep breath, allowing himself the brief indulgence of her scent before he spoke.

‘I may have to adopt him.’ He nodded to where Pygmalion sat beside his chair. ‘He won’t leave my side.’

She studied the dog. ‘Aunt Alice is very attached to her dogs, all of them. She isn’t likely to part with even this little terror. Pygmalion may make you stay here.’

‘Won’t your parents mind?’

She tossed him a sly little smile and even without the glow of sheer joy on her face, she was gorgeous. Her hair was drawn up in ringlets at the back of her head, the faint gold in the brown made darker by the red ribbon wound through her locks. She wore a dark-green velvet dress dotted with leaves embroidered in a lighter green thread which shone with the candlelight whenever she moved. ‘As long as you don’t disturb them while they’re with their plants, or trample the seedlings, you could be a herd of elephants residing in the house and they wouldn’t notice.’

He fingered the small spoon next to his plate. ‘Then I think I’ll stay.’

This struck the smile off her face and she reached for her wine glass, taking a long sip before seeming to regain her courage. ‘Won’t your mother miss you?’

‘No.’ Gregor let go of the silver before his tight grip bent it. ‘I wasn’t her favourite son, as she insists on reminding me every time she tells me it should have been me and not Stanton who died of smallpox.’

‘How can she be so cruel?’

‘She didn’t want me. She barely wanted my brother, but Stanton was her duty. I was the spare my grandfather, who controlled the money at the time, demanded. My mother is none too happy about Stanton’s death proving my grandfather right.’

‘I’m sorry she’s so severe.’ She touched his arm, the sweet care which had first drawn him to her years ago filling her round eyes. He stared at the creamy hand resting on the dark blue of his coat, the pressure of each fingertip as vivid as if she’d touched him naked. As if feeling the spark, and remembering their place among so many people, Miss Rutherford withdrew her hand and folded it with the other in her lap.

‘They were as severe as yours are amiable…’ Gregor breathed.

She settled her shoulders and glanced around the table, pursing her lips in disapproval. ‘My parents are too amiable. As you can see, they allow everyone and everything to run wild.’

‘Don’t wish for too much discipline. My father was a man of stern self-control who expected obedience from his wife and children. He demanded we always behave in ways which would instil awe, if not fear, in those around us. It’s why we didn’t get along. I didn’t hold with his notions of our importance because I knew it was a lie. My parents put on a façade of unity and strength in public. In private, they were bitter, miserable people with no love or real purpose in life except to make everyone around them wretched. We never celebrated anything like your family does, or enjoyed a house filled with such laughter. Your parents love each other and you, as do your siblings. Learn to embrace it, Miss Rutherford.’

* * *

If only it was so easily done. All her life, she’d stood in the midst of her family’s chaos, attempting to carve from it some tranquillity, yet they kept intruding, laughing and calling her dour when she asked them to understand. They didn’t, they couldn’t and they never would. Even when it came to Lord Marbrook, they didn’t see things the way she did. Once when Lily had asked her mother why she continued to encourage Laurus’s friendship with Lord Marbrook, her mother said if he was Laurus’s friend, then he must be good and it was only Lily taking things much too seriously which left her tainted by the ball. Lily had tried to make her mother see how Lord Marbrook’s actions had influenced others against her, but it was no use. Her mother agreed he’d behaved poorly, but thought there must have been a good reason for it, though Lily could never guess what beyond Marbrook arrogance it might have been. Her mother failed, like the rest of the family, to realise the damage the viscount had done, though recognising reality was never a Rutherford strength.

She looked around the table at her sisters and their husbands. Rose’s hand rested lovingly on Edgar’s forearm as she smiled at her sons where they sat at the end of the table. James smiled back, but John was too busy stroking Toddy, the second-smallest dog and the most docile, the one he liked to carry around whenever he was here. The dog would muddy up the boy’s bed later and track in more dirt than was already soiling the carpets. Yet Lily seemed the only one to ever notice or care. Even Lord Marbrook was taken in by the charm of it, but he couldn’t see the extra work it meant for the servants or how yet another set of sheets would be stained beyond repair, money paid to replace them.

Nor could he see how far outside the circle of love and contentment she sat. While her sisters enjoyed the comforts of husbands, homes and children, she was left to grow old with nothing but her paintings. She was fast becoming a spinster aunt.

‘Miss Rutherford, our conversation in the greenhouse—I wish to discuss what happened between us at your sister’s wedding,’ Lord Marbrook cautiously began in a low voice, drawing Lily from her gloomy musing.

‘Now you’re threatening the merriment of the evening by bringing up such a distasteful subject.’ She tried to laugh, but her throat was so dry it hurt. She reached for her wine, the indignity of her current situation, the one he had no small hand in, burning like the brandy-soaked raisins in the pudding.

‘I don’t wish to upset you, but I feel I must apologise for what happened.’

Lily jerked around in her chair so fast, she thought she might split the silk seat covering. ‘Why? What can your apology achieve except an easing of your own conscience? It can’t undo the opinion your behaviour created of me, or force the gossips to take back every nasty thing they said about me.’

Her voice rose, briefly attracting Aunt Alice’s attention before Laurus drew it away.

Gregor stared at his plate and the half-eaten slice of pudding covering the fine rose pattern of the china. His jaw worked, but he said nothing and regret began to creep up Lily’s spine. He’d been humble enough to apologise and she’d thrown it back in his face, but there was truth in her accusation, one they both couldn’t ignore.

At last he let out a long breath to make the candles in front of his place dance. ‘You’re right, but I don’t know where else to start. I’ve regretted what I did from the moment my father escorted me from the ball. It was he who ordered me to cut you, who insisted I act like a Marbrook. I wanted to please him because I thought it would make a difference in how he regarded me and convince him not to send me to France. It didn’t. I should have ignored him and helped you, the way you’d helped me in the alcove.’

So Mother was right, there had been a reason beyond arrogance to explain what he’d done and it was a good one. It eased a portion of her anger, but didn’t banish it. In the end, no matter what his motives, he’d attempted to relieve his problems at her expense.

‘Lily, what is Sir Winston’s daughter’s name?’ Petunia asked from across the table, watching her with a strange little frown, as though something about Lily’s conversation with Lord Marbrook didn’t sit well with her.

‘Catherine Fordham,’ Lily replied and Petunia resumed her conversation with Rose and Mama, though not without casting more curious scrutiny in Lily’s direction.

Lily picked up her napkin and raised it to her mouth, whispering to Lord Marbrook from behind it, eager not to attract any additional attention from anyone else in the family. They weren’t known for their discretion. ‘Why apologise now when it no longer matters?’

As if sensing Petunia’s scrutiny, he turned slightly in his chair to face Lily, looking at her from beneath his brows with an intensity to make her shiver. ‘Because it does matter, I see it in your eyes when you look at me, I hear the pain in the few barbs you’ve allowed yourself, every one of which I deserve.’

‘Lord Marbrook, do you have any experience with water dogs?’ Charles asked, leaning around Lily to address him.

‘I’m afraid not,’ he politely answered, as if he and Lily were only discussing the weather and not her disgrace.

An answer received, Charles returned to his discussion with Edgar.

Lord Marbrook leaned closer to Lily, his voice heavy like distant thunder. ‘I’d intended to visit your home the day after the ball and apologise, but I couldn’t. The next morning my father packed me off to France. With little more than an hour’s warning, he sent me away to a hell I wasn’t prepared for. Now it’s over and I wish to make right the wrongs my family has done to its tenants, to other families and you.’

Lily took another sip of wine, struggling through the confusion of her feelings to think and breathe. She didn’t doubt his sincerity, or his need for absolution, yet she withheld it like Pygmalion had gripped her paintbrush, unable to let go of the pain and embarrassment she’d endured in exchange for something as wispy as words. It was wrong and she knew it, but she couldn’t help herself. ‘What do you possibly hope such a belated apology can achieve?’

He was about to answer when Daisy called out from across the table in a voice loud enough to silence all but Aunt Alice, ‘Lord Marbrook, what are you and Lily discussing in such a serious manner?’

‘Daisy, mind your manners and stop making a fool of yourself,’ Lily responded, the interruption disturbing her as much as Lord Marbrook’s sincere revelations. Never before had she wanted her family to leave her alone as much as she did at this moment and all of them seemed intent on intruding, as usual.

Silence swept up one side of the table and down the other. Even the boys paused in eating their pudding to stare at her with big eyes.

‘Lily, apologise to your sister at once,’ her father demanded. ‘The remark was uncalled for.’

‘It wasn’t.’ Lily kept her back straight despite the scrutiny being given to her. ‘Can’t you see how she’s behaving?’

He levelled a forkful of pudding at her. ‘That’s for me and your mother to worry about, not you.’

‘You should worry about it. It might be fine here with the family, but what if she does it somewhere else, in front of someone who might mind.’ She looked pointedly at Lord Marbrook. ‘She’ll embarrass herself and all of us.’

‘You’re the only one embarrassing yourself tonight,’ her father snorted and stuffed the pudding in his mouth.

She looked down at her hands in her lap and the orange paint still staining the corner of one thumbnail. She scratched at it but it wouldn’t budge, the skin around it turning red with her effort. She’d wanted so much to appear confident in front of Lord Marbrook. Instead, she’d once again been made to look ridiculous, this time by the people who were supposed to love her the most. A loneliness she hadn’t experienced since she’d sat on the ballroom floor while the other young ladies had laughed at her filled her again.

‘Enough scolding for one night.’ Lily’s mother rose from the table, bringing the men to their feet. ‘It’s Christmas Eve and we must enjoy ourselves. If the men don’t mind forgoing their port, we’ll play charades, then Aunt Alice will play the pianoforte so we may all sing carols.’

‘I think we can sacrifice our port for tonight of all nights,’ Sir Timothy offered, his usual joviality returning as he held out his arm to his wife. ‘Come along, everyone.’

The adults filed out of the room, ushering the children along in front of them. The young ones resumed their lively banter, all except Daisy, who stomped away on Rose’s arm complaining bitterly about Lily.

Lily didn’t rise, but stared at the uneaten pudding in the silver dish in the centre of the table until only she and Lord Marbrook remained.

‘You should go with the others, or you’ll miss charades.’ She wished he’d leave, she very much wanted to be alone, but he didn’t.

‘I’m sorry about what happened, I didn’t mean to cause you distress.’

‘This time it’s not your fault, it’s mine, always mine.’ She snatched the napkin off her lap and tossed it on the table. ‘My family can act as ridiculous as they please, but if I dare point it out, or suggest they show some restraint so they don’t become laughing stocks, I’m the wicked one, not my sisters, my brother or even my nephews. Only me.’

He laid his hands on the back of the chair beside hers, his fingers long and graceful beneath the crisp white of his shirt cuff. ‘I know what it’s like to sit outside the circle of your family and feel they don’t understand you and how lonely it can make you, even in the midst of so many. Unlike my family, yours is happy and they love you. It’s something to cherish far more than the opinions of others.’

He was right and she didn’t want him to be right, she didn’t want anything except to be alone with her paints and the patience of the canvas. Instead she was here, being reminded again of her awkwardness and loneliness. If only someone would cherish her. Rose and Petunia had Charles and Edgar, but there was no one to stand beside her and support her when people scolded her for trying to be sensible and there likely never would be.

Swallowing hard against the pain in her chest, she rose and at last faced Lord Marbrook. The tender sympathy in his eyes tore into her as much as her father’s rebuke. She didn’t want Lord Marbrook’s sympathy, or to appear so pathetic in front of him.

‘If you’ll excuse me, I don’t want to miss charades.’

She fled the room, afraid if she stayed he would see her tears.

It was some time before Gregor slipped into the sitting room to join the Rutherfords in their game of charades. Laurus stood in front of the fireplace, entertaining everyone with what could only be described as a feeble attempt to depict an elephant. It amused the children who sat in a half circle on the carpet in front of him guessing all manner of large animals and roaring with laughter. Gregor allowed himself a small smile at the sight. He’d never sat at his parents’ feet to watch some relative make a spectacle of themselves. He’d never sat on the sitting room carpet in his entire life, even the carpet on the nursery floor had been for walking on, never sitting, or playing or, heaven forbid, laughing.

Miss Rutherford sat in the back of the room near the French doors, the glow of excitement surrounding the others failing to reach her. The moonlight from outside spilled over her sadly rounded shoulders while the fire from the Yule log warmed her high cheeks and flickered in her eyes, though the light wasn’t enough to reignite the sparkle which had filled them this afternoon.

Pygmalion trotted away from Gregor to join Miss Rutherford, rising up on his back feet and placing his front paws on her knees. She frowned at the small dog and raised her hand. Gregor thought she meant to shoo him away. Instead, she drew the dog up into her lap, clutching her to him and stroking his fur as though he were her last friend in the world. The sight of it tore at Gregor and he moved around the back of the room, behind the family, to join her.

‘I think the rumours of the beast’s ferociousness are unfounded,’ Gregor offered as he settled himself in the lyre-backed chair beside hers.

‘I’m stunned.’ She shook her head at the animal. ‘He’s never sat with me before.’

‘Perhaps he recognises someone in need of a friend.’

Her hand paused between the dog’s ears before she resumed her steady scratching, making the dog’s eyes narrow with delight. If it could sigh, Gregor felt sure it would. Miss Rutherford did, a small one which whispered across Gregor’s hand where it rested on his thigh, making him want to slide his arm around her and draw her head down on to his shoulder, the same way her eldest sister now sat with her husband.

Damned fool, his father would have said if he’d seen such a display, always disapproving of the regard Gregor had shown to others, but he wasn’t here to stand over him with censure at best and indifference at worst.

‘You asked me in the dining room what I hoped to achieve with my apology,’ Gregor hazarded, determined to finish what he’d come here to do. ‘I’d very much like to be your friend and for you to be mine.’

Lily stroked the dog, staring straight ahead as her brother finished his turn and relinquished the floor to Lord Winford. ‘Why?’

Gregor took a deep breath, then began in a voice just above a whisper. ‘Many times in France I thought of you and the way you’d sat beside me in the alcove listening to my complaints. We were strangers and yet you treated me with the tenderness of an old friend. It would have been nice while I was in France to have received letters from you and known there was someone, besides Laurus, who cared if I came home safe.’

Lily drew the dog a little closer to her chest. ‘Surely your parents cared, even a little.’

‘They didn’t. I wasn’t my brother, only an unwanted disappointment best got out of the way.’ He rubbed his thumb in a circle over the scar on his thigh hidden by his breeches. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Rutherford, to burden you with such things. I know it isn’t proper, but for some reason I feel you more than anyone else will understand.’

She shifted in the chair, holding tight to the dog as she moved, and he thought she might rise and flee from him as she’d done in the dining room, but she didn’t.

‘I do understand and please call me Lily. Only not in front of the others. If they heard us on such intimate terms, there’d be no end to the teasing.’ The smile she blessed him with dipped all the way down to his toes, bringing one of equal joy to his lips.

‘I’ll call you Lily in private, and you’ll call me Gregor. Will that suit?’

‘Yes, very well.’

They sat together watching Lord Winford take his turn at charades, listening as the children and adults called out animals only for Lord Winford to shake his head in reply.

‘He’s a goose,’ Lily said, but only loud enough for Gregor to hear.

‘You think so? I thought he might be a carriage.’

‘No, Charles does some kind of fowl every year. Once it was a duck, another time a swan. He’s quite taken with fowling.’

At last Lady Winford guessed her husband’s character and he sat down, relinquishing the floor to Sir Timothy, who squatted down, then rose, throwing out his limbs in a display Gregor could only imagine was meant to imitate a flower blooming.

While the family called out guesses, Gregor leaned in close to Lily, noting the slight separation between her full breasts above the fitted bodice of her gown. He swallowed hard, very much wanting to press his lips against the soft skin and revel in the heat of her. His body began to stiffen at the thought, but he forced it back, determined to behave like a gentleman.

‘What did Laurus mean earlier when he said you’d painted the entire family?’ he asked, his breath disturbing the small curl at the nape of her long neck.

Lily turned to face him, so close to him he could see the single small freckle just beneath her right eye. He expected her to lean away, but she remained near him, her voice sliding like satin across his cheek. ‘The portraits in the entrance hall are mine. I did them.’

An unmistakable pride filled her voice.

‘Will you show them to me?’

She looked back and forth between him and her family, the small curl dangling near her ear brushing her cheek as she moved. ‘Now?’

‘Unless you wish to be chosen as the next person to do a charade, then yes.’

She grimaced at the thought. ‘Then we’d better hurry before someone guesses Father is a rose.’

She set the dog on the floor. It didn’t bark, but trotted behind them as they slipped out of the room and down the hallway. Candles twinkled in their holders, catching the red of the berries pressed among the shiny holly leaves decorating each table and painting. Down the opposite hall, in the far wing of the house, the high strings of a fiddle drifted in like snow through the open ballroom door. The music was joined by the laughter of the maids and footmen and the sounds of their shoes banging over the wooden boards in time to the lively song as they enjoyed the servants’ Christmas Eve celebration.

The candles glittered as much in the entrance hall as they did in the hallway, but without the heat and fire of the Yule log, the air took on something of the crispness of the cold night outside.

‘I painted these.’ She waved her hand at the numerous portraits of her family lining the walls and following the rise of the stairs. On either side of the door hung the ones she’d done of her parents. They looked back into their house and up at the line of children arranged on the wall above the stairs, each with hair the same shade of brown as their mother’s. ‘I’m to do little Adelaide’s soon, and John and James once they learn to sit still.’

‘Then they may be adults by the time you manage it,’ he observed, making her eyes dance with delight.

‘And perhaps not even then for I don’t think they’ll ever settle down.’

‘I’d like to sit for you while I’m here, if you don’t mind.’

The suggestion seemed to catch her off guard and she chewed the bottom of one full lip before an impish smile to mimic the ones her nephews often wore split the tender bud. ‘If you’d like, though I’d have thought you’d been painted enough today.’

She was teasing him and he wanted more of it. His father would never have allowed such humour at his expense, but Gregor wasn’t his father, or his brother, and he never would be.

‘I assume Pygmalion shares your talent for oils?’ He pointed to the slashes of paint on the wall at the bottom of the stairs, the faint stain of blue and yellow sitting just beneath the bright red.

Instead of the frustration she’d exhibited with her family at dinner, she rolled her eyes with some humour at the marks. ‘That brush wasn’t the first one the little beast has snatched from me. He’s quite well behaved now, but usually he’s stealing all manner of things. If the holly and mistletoe weren’t so high, he’d have them, too.’

She pointed to the sprig of mistletoe with one last berry clinging to the leaves hanging from the brass chandelier. Only then did either of them realise they were standing beneath it, in the centre of the stone circle inlaid in the floor. Lily slowly lowered her hand, as aware as Gregor of what their present position implied. He studied her face, noting the eager nervousness in her eyes, as if, like him, she wanted a kiss, but feared it at the same time.

Gregor remained where he stood, allowing the tinkling of ‘Here We Come A-Wassailing’ on the pianoforte and the voices of the family singing the carol at one end of the hall and the servants’ laughter at the other to cover the stretching silence between them. He could drop a quick peck on her cheek, pluck the last berry from the hapless branch and they could smile and laugh and return to the sitting room, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t manage something so innocent because he wanted to enjoy the feathery caress of her fingers against his neck while he took her in his arms, pressed her body to his and felt her breasts flatten against his chest as he tasted her full lips. He’d asked for her friendship and she’d granted it, but in this moment, he wanted a great deal more.

He took a hesitant step forwards and she didn’t move, looking up at him with anticipation. She wouldn’t flee if he dared to claim her lips, nor would she push him away or chastise him. It was as frightening a prospect as it was exhilarating and her silent entreaties drew him closer. He raised his hand to her face, his fingers so close to her skin he could feel the heat of it. The embroidered leaves on her dress shimmered as she took in one deep breath after another, waiting, as eager as him to steal the last berry off the mischievous plant.

Gregor leaned closer, his lips aching to know hers, all desire to be a gentleman forgotten. He’d won her forgiveness and friendship, now he wanted her heart.

‘There you both are. I wondered where you’d gone to.’ Laurus’s voice cut through the moment, dampening the waver of the candles across her face and making them jump apart.

With some frustration Gregor glanced to the plant, the lone berry mocking him as much as Laurus’s knowing look as he hustled into the entrance hall.

Gregor exchanged a worried glance with Lily, wondering if she blamed him for this near compromise of her in front of her family. He’d made such small gains with her, he hated to think his weakness might lose them. Whatever irritation she experienced, it didn’t reveal itself in her eyes, which crinkled at the corners with the same frustration at the interruption Gregor felt as he flexed his cold fingers behind his back.

Lily watched her brother’s approach, not sure what to expect. She’d nearly kissed Gregor and in front of Laurus no less, but instead of wanting to creep away in shame she was mad at her brother for interrupting them. Thankfully it was Laurus who’d stumbled on them and not someone else. He was far more discreet than either Rose or Daisy, but even he wasn’t above commenting on such a discovery. Standing beneath the mistletoe, St Nicholas himself might forgive her for extending a viscount a kiss. However, for all her desire to claim the near indiscretion was simply a result of the season, she knew it was something more and the idea was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.

‘Come on, we must prepare.’ Laurus grabbed Lily by the hand and linked his arm with Gregor’s to lead them down the opposite hall towards the ballroom.

‘Prepare for what?’ Lily demanded, her slippers rustling over the stone as she worked to keep pace with the men.

‘The arrival of the Lord of Misrule. We must be ready to appear before the carols end.’

‘You need us to help you get dressed?’ Lily asked as Laurus stopped outside a door set in the panelling of the hallway walls.

‘I’m not going to be him this year, Gregor is. And you’re to be his Queen of Folly.’

Oh dear. ‘But you love being Lord of Misrule, why won’t you do it again?’

‘Because the twins are expecting it and I want to surprise them. No one will suspect Lord Marbrook, especially if you’re with him. Everyone knows you don’t like him.’

Lily’s cheeks burned as she glanced back and forth between her brother and Lord Marbrook who seemed to be taking his friend’s ribbing in his stride. ‘That’s not true. How can you say such a thing?’

‘I’m glad to discover I’ve been mistaken in my assumptions.’ He pulled open the door, revealing the large cupboard behind it. It’d been a priest hole in the days of King Henry, but was presently used to store linens, candlesticks and other odds and ends. ‘Now inside, both of you, and get changed before Aunt Alice reaches the end of her repertoire.’

He hustled Lily and Gregor inside where the clothes he’d pulled out for the masque were strewn over the old trunk where they were usually stored. A single candle burned in a brass holder on one of the shelves, its dancing shadow casting a strange eeriness over the room already believed to be haunted by the children and a few of the older servants.

‘As soon as you’re ready, we’ll go back. I can’t wait to see John’s and James’s faces when they realise it isn’t me who’s the Lord of Misrule this year.’ Laurus closed the door on them, leaving them alone.

‘I suppose we’d better prepare,’ Gregor suggested, picking up a velvet doublet in a shade of red to make a cardinal jealous.

‘Yes. Aunt Alice only knows about five of the old carols and I believe she’s already through two of them.’

Lily picked up a robin-egg-blue damask gown with a wide neckline and full hips, both cut more in the style of Old Queen Anne than the current Queen Charlotte. She wrinkled her nose at the mustiness of it as she slipped it over her head, catching the wide sides before it fell past her shoulders to puddle on the floor. Whatever great-grandmother had worn this had been much wider than Lily, who’d have to find a way to make do for there were no other dresses in the trunk.