Christmas Forevermore, page 7
Cyril chuckled, and his voice lowered. “Now you are the one who seems certain of herself.”
This time her heart performed acrobatics at the drop in his tone. Her neck grew warm, and she knew her cheeks would turn pink if she didn’t take hold of herself. So she tipped her chin up and narrowed her eyes at him. “If you don’t want my help, Cyril, you need only say so. But we really are wasting our time, and I have been planning my hiding place for the last year too.” She tried to walk around him, but Cyril took two steps backward to stay in front of her.
“Jane, wait. I apologize for teasing.” He stepped backward again, and when his smile reappeared it was more open and honest. Even sheepish. “I don’t suppose you would offer me at least a hint of where I might hide?”
“That depends.” She kept walking, finally getting around him and forcing him to fall into step with her as she went down the corridor. “Do you want to be found early so you needn’t spend an hour kneeling in a cupboard, or do you want a chance to win?”
“An hour?” He sounded horrified by the idea. “How long does this game usually last?”
Jane opened a door to one of the large open galleries. She marched across the rug to a large potted tree next to the window. Six-year-old Winston stood with one leg thrown over the rim of the pot but was quite stuck. Jane lifted him the rest of the way into the pot. “This isn’t a very good spot,” she warned him. “Mind the roots.”
“Yes, Jane,” he whispered, then pulled a blanket usually wrapped around the trunk of the tree over himself.
Cyril looked into the pot, which was waist-high on him, and then at Jane, his eyes widening. “Are all the hiding places this ridiculous?”
Winston stuck his head out of the blanket. “Hush. You’re going to get me caught.”
“As I said, do you want to be found early, or do you mean to win?” She grinned at his horrified expression as she ran across the room to a door that opened to a servants’ staircase. Cyril followed.
“I cannot be sure which is best. I have the feeling if I’m found earlier than a boy hiding in a potted tree, I will be teased mercilessly by the entire family.” He followed her down the flight of steps and out the door into the less formal of the two dining rooms.
Jane crept quietly along the side of the table and looked under it, only to be immediately hissed at by Kitty. “This one’s taken, Jane!”
“I beg your pardon.” Jane chuckled and lowered the tablecloth. “You might consider laying across the chairs rather than on the floor. You will be less easy to spot that way.” A moment later she heard shuffling and knew the child had taken her advice.
But where was Jane to hide Cyril? He stayed close to her, his brow furrowed. “Do you even have a plan for this game?” he asked.
“Of course I do. I have the perfect place. But it’s not at all suitable for you.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to give me your place.” He followed along behind her when she went into the small ante-library, an ovular room with books from floor to ceiling and a statue of a maiden reading.
William peered around the statue at them, his eyes wide, then relaxed. “Oh, it’s only the two of you,” he hissed. “You need to hurry. Time must nearly be up.”
“This isn’t up to your usual job of hiding,” Jane whispered back. “And where is George?”
A little hand shot out from a bottom shelf, from behind the books, and waved. Jane gasped and bent down. “Did your father put you in there?” she asked.
George’s little face beamed at her. “I’m hiding behind books. No one will look here.”
“Not so long as you’re quiet,” Cyril said, bending down to look too. “How did you make this work? You must’ve pulled all the books out, put him in there, then put them back in.”
“Just so.” William hunched behind the statue again. “Off with both of you. Some of us are actually trying to win this game.”
Cyril’s mouth dropped open, and he looked ready to question his cousin further about putting his son and future earl in such an odd location. Jane smothered a giggle with one hand and snatched up Cyril’s hand in the other, dragging him along with her into the main library.
They caught the end of whispered conversations as Jane hurried them through the room, and she saw curtains move and feet draw up beneath desks. Given the way Cyril’s head turned one way and the other, she knew he’d caught the same movements. She went through the open doorway into a small sitting room.
“Here we are. This is usually one of the last rooms people check. Archie will search first where he hid last year since he thought it such a good hiding place. That was in the attic. Then I would lay wager that he will gallop through all the largest rooms, tossing aside every curtain and looking underneath every table.”
Cyril followed her deeper into the room, his fingers entwined with hers. “That sounds like something a young man his age would do. Rush through the obvious places.”
“It’s always important to consider the person seeking out those in hiding.” Jane looked up at him, and her heart stuttered when their gazes caught and held. She needed to release his hand before he realized she’d never truly needed to take it in the first place. “Archie wouldn’t give much thought to something as simple as decorative pillows and cushions.”
The man standing above her blinked, and were it not for the sunlight streaming through the window, she would have missed the slight tilt of his head. “Cushions?”
She pointed to the sofa, which she herself had filled with coordinating cushions two months prior. Everyone in the household was quite used to this particular piece of furniture and its row of tasseled pillows. Finally, she released Cyril’s hand—did she imagine that he seemed as reluctant to let go as she was?—and removed the back layer of pillows. She went to the window seat and lined them up there, then went back to the sofa.
“I’ll lie against the back and cover myself in the cushions. Archie won’t realize someone is behind them.”
He stared at her, then looked down at the sofa, then back at her again. “Would you like me to help?”
“But I have to help you.”
“But I don’t even have—”
“There is a closet to the left of the fireplace. It’s narrow, but you should fit, and if I put the fire iron against it, no one will think anyone is inside.”
The sound of small running feet from the corridor momentarily halted their conversation, and both froze, looking at the door. The feet ran past, and that sent Jane into a hurry. She went to the small closet and opened it. “Oh dear. Maybe you won’t fit.”
Cyril came up behind her, looking in over her shoulder. “The shelf gives you pause? It looks as though I can lift it up. Here, let me try.”
She stepped aside, their shoulders briefly colliding. He was right. The shelf lifted up and stood against the back of the closet, allowing him to stand upright.
“Perfect,” he said. “It’s a good thing I haven’t ever been bothered by confined spaces.”
“A happy circumstance indeed.” Jane went to close the door on him, but Cyril put his hand out to stop her. “Are you certain you don’t need my help?”
“It is sweet of you to worry, but I have actually practiced tucking myself into hiding.” She couldn’t resist bouncing up on her toes. “I am quite prepared to win the game this year.”
He chuckled. “I have no doubt of that. And leaning the fire iron against my door isn’t necessary. If we leave it open for a few more minutes, since we have time until Archie makes his way here, perhaps we could talk.”
Jane stared up at him, her heart picking up speed as his warm brown eyes gleamed from the shadows of the closet. She swallowed and nodded, then hurried to her spot. She settled at the back of the sofa and wasted no time concealing herself with the brocade and silk-tasseled pillows everyone had grown used to seeing on that couch. When satisfied that she had hidden every bit of skirt and curl of hair, she called out to Cyril. “Are you still all right in there?”
“Quite comfortable, actually. What was this closet for, I wonder?”
“There used to be a powder room on the other side of the wall, for guests to touch up their wigs before dinner.”
His deep chuckle made her shiver in her hiding place. “Wigs. I am relieved that bit of fashion has faded from favor.”
“That closet opened on both sides. I think they kept powders and brushes and such inside. Now that there’s a guest room on the other side, they walled up the other door to give the closet a back.”
“Fascinating. And you know all of this because . . . ?”
Jane smiled beneath her pillows. “Because I pester your grandmother for all sorts of explanations about this house, her family, and anything else I can think of to ask.”
“Do you know what I’ve heard said about curious minds?” he asked, sounding amused.
“I imagine it isn’t anything nice.”
He laughed, and she heard him shift against the wall. “I read it in a poem in the Imperial Magazine. Let me see if I can do it justice.” He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again his tone was softer and thoughtful.
“‘But they are curious’—Let them have their due.
‘Twee well, methinks, were men as curious too—
Then ignorance would vanish, for we find
The only learned, is the curious mind.”
“‘The only learned is the curious mind,’” she repeated to herself, closing her eyes. “I think you are attempting to flatter me, sir.”
“Not at all. I think showing curiosity about things is a mark of a person’s good character. And intelligence.”
“I thank you for the compliment, then.”
“You are most welcome.” He was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke softly into the room. “Jane? I wonder if—that is, I had a conversation with my grandfather. And he said something I wished to ask you—”
More running feet pattered in the corridor, accompanied by laughter and shouting. Cyril stopped speaking, and Jane held her breath. Though she desperately wanted to know what he had meant to ask her, there came no further opportunity. People were soon walking in and out of the rooms surrounding them. Occasionally they heard laughter or shouted protests as Archie found his family, and before long their hideouts were discovered too—Jane’s first, and she left the room before she inadvertently gave up Cyril with so much as a glance at his hiding place.
She returned to the ballroom, as all who were found must, and found a delightful spread of baked treats laid out upon a table. The people already found were enjoying a picnic of sorts, sitting on the floor of the ballroom while their grandparents told stories to entertain them.
Cyril was one of the last to return. His eyes searched the room, and when his gaze met Jane’s, she saw him grin and step toward her. But then Elizabeth called her brother’s name, and he went to her and their cousins. Elizabeth spoke eagerly, begging to know where he had hidden to last so long in the game.
When the earl gave out the prizes, Cyril—as the last one above twenty years of age to be found—received a magnifying glass. This time when he held the prize, the same one that had sent him fleeing his grandmother’s company days before, Jane watched him smile fondly at the instrument before he tucked it into his coat.
She needn’t worry over him any longer, she realized. He’d found his place in his family. Or at least was comfortable enough to no longer need her assistance. Though happy for him, she couldn’t deny a prick of disappointment in her heart.
He would grow closer to his cousins, uncles, and aunts, and spend more time with them. As he ought. And her own time with him would lessen, and then she would be only Jane to him, his grandmother’s companion and nothing more.
***
Cyril had almost asked Jane a question he wasn’t even certain he wanted her to answer. Did she spend time near him, smile at him, laugh with him, only because Lady Mardale had asked it of her? Though he imagined most men would suffer a blow to their pride if such a thing were true, for him, the hurt went deeper than that when he thought too long upon it.
He had known her for only a few days, yet he already felt closer to Jane than he did most of his cousins. He’d kept them at a distance by necessity. He hadn’t grown up as they had, the privileged sons, daughters, and grandchildren of the Earl of Mardale. And while his opinions of them had shifted away from his stepfather’s prejudices, he couldn’t help but wonder whether he would ever find a place to fit within his large, noisy, loving family.
Elizabeth had practically abandoned him after the snowball fight. He’d seen her only at meals, and their female cousins always surrounded her, which was precisely what he’d wanted. She needed them to help her have a successful social Season in London.
The rest of Christmas Eve continued the same way it had started, with more games than he could count, though most were played after dinner, when the children were sent to the nursery and the adults had gathered around the hearth in the largest of his grandmother’s sitting rooms. They called that room the King’s Room because of the large portrait hanging above the fireplace, which featured William of Orange.
The hour grew late, and Cyril drifted between the dark window and the chair where Jane sat near his grandmother. Slowly he came nearer to where she was, drawn by the friendship he’d felt spring up so easily between them.
And yet his grandfather’s words stood like a wall between them.
Did it matter that Jane had sought only to fulfill the countess’s wishes in her every encounter with him? What would it mean if it were true?
He sighed and made his way instead to an empty chair on the opposite side of the room. The adults played a rhyming game, in which each person had to speak in rhyme to answer a question asked of them, then ask another question in turn.
William had answered his rhyme, and he asked one to their cousin Archie. “How do you like the snow this year?”
“More than I like the spring, I fear.” Archie grinned smugly and turned to Elizabeth. “Cousin Elizabeth, how does Christmas in England compare to that on the island?”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened momentarily. “I’d much rather spend the holiday here, on dry land.” Her answer was met with approving applause. Elizabeth blushed and tucked her hands together tightly, a nervous gesture that made Cyril chuckle. They were both still finding their place, it seemed. His sister’s eyes found his. “Brother, do you think all the greenery looks nice?”
“I’d far rather have halls warm and green than full of ice.”
His grandfather chuckled around the stem of his pipe. “Capital, lad. Capital.”
Cyril thanked his sister for the easy rhyme with a quick wink. Then he found Jane watching him, the corners of her mouth tilted softly upward. Did he imagine the way her eyes softened when their gaze met?
“Jane Allen,” he said, preparing her to match his question with her rhyming answer. “Does your family miss spending this holiday in your company?”
The room went still, all murmuring conversation and teasing stopped, and only the crackle of the fire built up in the hearth made a sound. Worst of all, Jane’s smile faltered.
She cleared her throat, though, and a larger, artificial smile appeared on her lovely face. “Perhaps I’ll one day tell you of them, in summary.” She turned away, looking to the countess. “My lady, would you like a turn in this game?”
“Absolutely, my dear, if you’d fetch me more of the same.” The countess cleverly held out her empty teacup, making the rhyme apply as both a directive and part of the game. And Jane took it, eagerness for escape evident in her quickness. The countess’s rhyme broke the tension Cyril’s question had caused, and he wanted to sink into his chair or disappear entirely into the floor. Somehow, he’d offended the whole room with his question.
Archie leaned over and whispered, “You didn’t mean any harm, cousin. We know that.”
Yet he’d obviously done a harm, from how stiffly Jane walked to the tea things to make another cup for his grandmother.
This always happened to Cyril in social situations. He inevitably found a way to offend someone or say the wrong thing or otherwise make a moment awkward. He left his chair, circled the group of people all talking and playing at the ridiculous game, and went to where Jane stirred a spoon of honey into his grandmother’s lavender tea.
“Jane,” he whispered, and she jerked her head up to look at him. Her eyes appeared somewhat clouded, but she blinked and they were luminous once more.
“Cyril.” Her lips curled up softly. “Do you know, I cannot think of anything else that rhymes with company? That was a difficult word. I’m not entirely certain it was fair either.”
He shook his head, not caring about that part of the game. “I said something that distressed you. I am terribly sorry for that.”
“Oh.” She tapped the excess tea from the spoon and laid it aside. “I am perfectly well. Please, don’t worry about me.” She turned away to return to her place beside his grandmother.
Cyril brushed her arm with his fingertips, halting her. “Will you speak with me for a moment by the window? Please?” When she offered a nod as an answer, he stepped away. He walked as casually as possible to the same window where she had found him practically hiding behind the curtain.
He waited. As he waited, he rehearsed what he had asked and the room’s reaction. He’d asked about her family. Something he ought to have discussed with her before that moment, given the many opportunities they’d had for conversation. Somehow, she had evaded more than vague references to her past. And he’d let her.
When Jane joined him, staring out into the night, she leaned forward to look down at the squares of light upon the snow, light from the house’s windows. “Last year, it didn’t snow until Christmas Eve. We are lucky to have enjoyed the pretty picture it makes to have the countryside covered in white.”
