One Snowy Regency Christmas: A Regency Christmas Carol / Snowbound with the Notorious Rake. Christine Merrill
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of others as the source of your success?’ she said, amazed at how far removed he was from the people around him.
‘So it has been. But enough of me and my business. Tell me what your response to my offer is likely to be.’
‘It would be most improper for a single lady to accept an invitation from a gentleman if there is no understanding between them,’ she said, wondering what he could be thinking to ask her in this way.
‘Of course.’ He pounded his fist against his leg once, in irritation. Then he gathered himself a little straighter. ‘Please accept my apologies. It was forward of me. I will extend a formal invitation, in writing, for your whole family to join in whatever activities take place. There will be nothing to upset your father, I assure you. There will be dinners, dancing, games. I expect that it will be a very jolly time. If your parents do not wish to come, you must come alone—in the company of Miss Anne Clairemont and her family.’ He gave her a firm look. ‘There will be no trouble on that front. The doors of my house are open to you.’
There was a faint emphasis on the word ‘my’ to remind her that things had changed. She wondered if he would put the situation to the Clairemonts in the same blunt tone. It almost made her pity them.
But, no matter what he did, it would not be as it had once been. The merriment would not touch the community that it bordered. ‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘It hardly seems appropriate to celebrate when so many people are unhappy.’ They had reached the gate of the cottage again, and she looked longingly in the direction of her home.
‘How very pious of you.’ He had noticed their destination as well, and tapped to signal the driver. ‘It is a lovely day. Let us make another pass of the high street, shall we?’
‘Do you mean to hold me prisoner in this carriage until I agree to your scheme?’
He held his hands up in a symbolic gesture of release. ‘The thought had occurred to me. But I will let you go home to consider this and see if you do not think it a temporary respite from our troubles. Either way, the mill will open in January. Change is coming and there will be no avoiding it. Once it is open, and at least some of the locals are employed in it, we will find them less likely to raise a hand against me. Until then we must find together a way to stall your father from upsetting my plans—or I will take steps that are pleasant to neither of us.’
The carriage drew smoothly to a stop, and when the door opened he went before her, offering his hand to help her to the ground. Then he signalled for a footman to carry her basket to the house and returned to his seat, closing the shiny black door behind him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN she was through the door of the cottage she saw her father waiting in the front room, arms folded across his chest. Today she did not fear him so much as dread the weight of his displeasure.
‘Well?’ There was so much disappointment in the one word that Barbara glanced behind her, out of the open door and down the road, thinking that the burden of carrying the weight of her loaded basket could not possibly have equalled this.
She turned back, squared her shoulders and explained. ‘Mr Stratford offered me a ride from the shops because the weather was changing.’ She gave a little shake of her cloak to show the patter of icy drops that had hit her in the short walk from the carriage to the house. ‘He was quite insistent. It seemed that I was likely to create more of a scene by refusing than accepting. So I relented.’
‘There was time enough for someone to come from the village and inform me of the fact and be gone again,’ her father said suspiciously. ‘One would think that a man on foot could not best a team of horses in traversing the distance.’
She cleared her throat. ‘Mr Stratford was deep in conversation with me as we neared the house. To continue it, he turned the carriage and we travelled once more around the village.’
‘Thus it became a social drive.’ Her father shook his head. ‘That is a demonstration of the perfidy of the man. It is much like the mill—offered as an olive branch to the people of this community, only so he can snatch it away as they draw near. He took you, just as he took their jobs, and he dangles you like a bauble, just out of reach, and plays with you at his leisure.’
‘Hardly, Father. We talked for but a few moments. The carriage remained on the high street and I sat in the window of it. I am sure that many in the community could see me and know that nothing untoward was happening.’
The argument seemed to have no effect on him, for he went on with increasing anger. ‘The man is the very devil, Barb. I swear. The devil. He is here to ruin the village and all the people in it with his new ideas and his cheap goods. Nothing can come of cheapening the quality of the work, I am sure. It is the veritable road to hell.’
‘And nothing to do with the matter at hand,’ her mother added firmly from behind him. She looked past him at her daughter. ‘You say that you were seen the whole time? The carriage took no side trips, nor left the sight of the high street?’
‘Not at all, Mama.’
‘You could not have waited until the rain had passed? Or hurried home before it?’
‘I did not want to spare the penny for the boy if I did not have to. The basket was heavy. And Mr Stratford would not take no for an answer.’
Her mother nodded. ‘The offer of transport was fortuitous, even if there was an ulterior motive. What did you speak of?’
‘His business.’ And Mary, of course. They had spoken of her. But it was hardly worth mentioning.
‘Then it had nothing to do with you?’
‘Just as I suspected. It was an effort to turn you against me, and the village against us. The man is the devil,’ her father insisted.
‘Enough!’ her mother snapped, ignoring her husband again and turning back to Barbara. ‘We must deal with the more important matter first. And that should be the honour of our only child, which has not been harmed in the least by the trip, whether it was social or practical.’
‘He invited us to the manor for Christmas,’ Barbara added. ‘He suggested that there might be gentlemen there, and dancing.’ She tried to sound matter-of-fact about it, as though it did not matter one way or the other. She did not particularly wish to meet gentlemen. There was one in particular that she might like to know better, but her father was probably right to call him a persuasive devil who was best avoided.
Still, it had been a long time since she’d danced—with or without demons. Would it really do any harm?
‘Dancing at the manor? Of course you should go, then.’ Her father’s sudden change caught them unawares, as it often did. Though he had been angry only a few moments before, now he was smiling at her. ‘You have not been since last Christmas, and you always enjoy it so. Visiting Anne and Mary will do you a world of good.’
She shot a worried glance over his shoulder to her mother, and then said, ‘Father, Mary is dead. The Clairemonts no longer live at the manor. There has not been a Christmas celebration there in six years.’
‘I know that,’ he said quickly, embarrassed at his lapse. ‘I only meant that you would be better off dancing at the manor than driving on the high street with Lucifer in a silk waistcoat.’ He darkened again, as suddenly as he had brightened. ‘A silk waistcoat made by hands that slaved for pennies so that he might ride high and mighty like a prince.’ His eyes lit at the sound of his own words. ‘I must write this down. It will be the basis of my next speech.’
‘You do that, Father.’ Barbara hurried to the little desk in the corner, setting out paper, uncapping the ink and trimming the nib of the pen. Then she pulled out his chair and took time to settle him there. It seemed to give him comfort, for he sat down and began writing industriously, staring out of the window before him into the sleet-streaked sky as though the next words were written on it and he could pluck them from the air.
‘Come