A Christmas Bride Part 8

Never.

Eight.

Timothy's ears still rang with the greetings from his effusive Aunt Ilse. He had been squeezed in a bear hug and given an enthusiastic buss on the cheek before he managed to step aside and let Felix receive the same. No guilt pinched him that he had rushed away while Aunt Ilse was treating Melanda Hayes to an identical greeting. It had been easy to disappear when the foyer had been filled with Aunt Ilse's bags and several crates that were as big as a chair. Although he wondered what Aunt Ilse had brought from the Continent on this trip, he did not let his curiosity trick him into staying.

Hurrying down the stairs to the kitchen that opened out into the lower gardens behind the house, he began to doubt if he had heard Mrs. Scott correctly. What would Serenity be doing in the kitchen? He could not guess, for he knew so little about this pretty lady who plagued his thoughts.

Laughter and the clatter of pans and metal utensils greeted him at the wide door that led into the kitchens. This maze of rooms beneath the house had been a favorite place during his childhood, but he seldom came here now. He was not certain when his visits had dwindled or why. They simply had.

Walking into the kitchen, he pretended not to notice how the workers paused and stared when he pa.s.sed by. Had it been that long since the last time he had come down here? He nodded to them and continued through one room to another, where the aroma of mincemeat and spices reminded how few days were left before Christmas Eve and his grandfather's birthday.

And saying good-bye to Serenity.

That thought made his voice harsher than he had intended when he stopped by a table where Serenity was rolling out dough for a pie. "What are you doing in the kitchen?"

Serenity's eyes widened, and he was overpowered anew by their crystal warmth in the moment before they became icy cold. Looking back at the table, she pinched the crust of one of the pies in front of her as juice oozed out of it. "I enjoy cooking very much, it seems. Apparently I have some true talent in that direction, because your grandfather's cook, Mrs. Gray, has allowed me to work here."

"I thought you were a lady's ... a lady." He gulped so loudly that one of the kitchen maids turned to stare at him in amazement.

"What I am does not mean that I cannot have talents of various types." She pointed to the trio of pies in the middle of the table. Each was topped with crust cut to look like leaves of holly. "And it seems that I have a true gift for making pie crusts."

"A very good skill to have at this time of year."

"Yes."

When she added nothing else, Timothy hesitated. This conversation had not gotten off to a good start. He tried to recall if any of their conversations had. Clasping his hands behind him, he knew that exchanging heated words with her could lead to even more heated yearnings, the very yearnings that pleaded with him to find a way to speak with her alone again. An endless spiral of risk and need was tightening around him until he was breathless when his gaze met her silvery one.

"My Aunt Ilse has arrived," he said.

Serenity smiled. "So I have heard. Is that why you came down here?"

"No, I was looking for you before I got waylaid in the foyer by Aunt Ilse and her exuberant homecoming."

"I heard she brought a dozen dogs with her."

"Only a rumor." He laughed and leaned one hand on the table. "She has only three. They simply seem like a dozen when they are racing about the grounds. Grandfather has forbidden her to allow them in the Chinese garden, because last year they dug up all the plantings."

"I am surprised he allows her to bring them back."

He shrugged. "I think he is feeling a little guilty for arranging her marriage to that humorless German."

"Guilty? Is that something everyone in your family enjoys wallowing in?" She wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n. "You act too guilty all the time."

"That is because I feel guilty all the time." He rubbed his forehead with two fingers.

With a laugh, she took a cloth from the table and handed it to him. He regarded her with a baffled expression. Taking the cloth back, she brushed it against his forehead. "You should take care that you do not have flour on your fingers before you start painting your face with it."

"The last time I helped in this kitchen, I was young enough that Mrs. Gray made sure I did not make a mess of myself."

"My lord!" called the cook, as if he had called her name. "Did you wish to request something special for tomorrow's dinner?"

He turned to see Mrs. Gray, who was so gaunt that one would suspect that she hated food and everything to do with it. He knew better, because he had seen her eat with the enthusiasm of a field worker from a plate with enough food to daunt even a growing lad.

Smiling, he replied, "I simply am paying a call upon your domain, Mrs. Gray. It smells wonderful in here."

"You can thank Miss Adams for that." She wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n, which was stained with every color of food that would appear on the table tonight. "I hope that after you are wed, my lord, you do not feel that you need to give me my conge."

"Why would I ask you to leave?"

"You are getting yourself a wife whom, if she were one of the village la.s.ses, I would have asked to join my staff straightaway." Her smile broadened, stretching her thin cheeks. "Anytime you want to help as you have today, Miss Adams, you are more than welcome."

"Thank you."

Timothy chuckled when a pretty blush caressed Serenity's cheeks as he wished his fingers were. His laugh threatened to strangle him when that craving to hold her exploded inside him. While Mrs. Gray waved an admonishing finger at him and warned him that there would be no samples before the pies were served, he forced a smile. The only thing he wished to sample was Serenity's mouth.

As Mrs. Gray went to check that her cooks were preparing the food just as she wanted, he reached under his coat. Then, looking at the flour covering the table, he asked, "Are you finished, Serenity?"

"Almost. Just this one to go." She placed the pastry in the pie pan and reached for the ladle to pour into it some of the mincemeat that had been prepared, on Stir-Up Sunday at the beginning of Advent. With quick, skilled motions, she set the top crust on it and sealed the edges closed.

"Allow me," he said, as she reached for a knife. He cut the vents in the top of the crust. With a chuckle, he ran his finger along the flat of the blade and wiped off the mincemeat. He licked his finger. "My favorite part of working in the kitchen."

"Just don't let Mrs. Gray see that. She would not want anyone to get the idea that sampling is all right in her kitchen."

He set the knife on the table. "One of the rights of lord of the manor."

"And how many seigneurial rights do you claim, my lord?"

"I am afraid the right of the lord of the manor to share the bed of a bride on her wedding night has long gone out of style at Cheyney Park." Realizing that Serenity was not the only one listening to his answer, he slipped his arm around her waist and tugged her against him. "Save for his own bride."

His breath caught in his throat as her pliant b.r.e.a.s.t.s pressed against him. Her eyes grew round, then softened with a luminescence that sent that fiery craving through him again. Blast it! He was addled to hold her like this when he wanted to hold her more intimately, to taste the luscious flavor of her mouth, to watch her eyes close as she offered those lips and more to him.

Her fingers coursed across his chest as she whispered, "What is this?"

"What ...?" He shook the tendrils of longing from his head and smiled as he realized her hand was on the pocket beneath his coat. "That is what I came to show you before I took it to show to Theodora."

"To help her read?"

Again he was aware of the many ears c.o.c.ked in their direction. A man should not be speaking of a device to help a child when he held the woman he intended to marry in his arms. "Can we go where we can speak more privately?"

"Where?"

He smiled as he released her and held out his hand. "Leave that to me."

Serenity stared past the door Timothy opened at the top of the third floor. This must be Cheyney Park's nursery. Toys were scattered about the room as if a child had been playing with them only that morning. She wondered why Theodora had her rooms below, but she did not ask. The child was isolated too much already.

As she went to peek out the curved window at the moors undulating toward the horizon, she sat on the window seat. This had the same view as the seat where she had spoken with the earl two days ago. In front of the house a trio of wagons were being emptied.

"Aunt Ilse's boxes," Timothy said as he looked past her, leaning his hand on the side of the window, which, unlike the others on the lower floors, was not bedecked with greenery. "She does not believe in being without anything she might need when she comes home."

"Why does not she leave items here for her next visit?"

"You are too logical, Serenity." He laughed. "Aunt Ilse likes to make a grand and glorious entrance wherever she goes. I thought it was because she was a princess, but Grandfather tells me she has been like this since the day she was born."

"Mayhap she knew she was born to be a princess." Folding her hands on her knee, she asked, "What did you want to show me?"

She knew she had spoken unwisely when his eyes glittered like the sun on the snow below. Her fingers curled upon her knees as he reached to draw back his coat. Had he brought her up here to seduce her? She should have guessed what he wanted to "discuss" with her when he whispered softly to her that he wished for them to be alone.

"This." On her lap, he placed a twisted piece of metal with a wooden k.n.o.b on one end.

"What is it?" she asked, shaken. By her fearful antic.i.p.ation of his seduction or by her remorse that he was being a gentleman even while she had the most unladylike thoughts of him kissing her?

"Something that I hope will help Theodora read her books." He knelt beside her. "Hold out your hand. It is larger than hers, but I made this somewhat adjustable, because I did not want to get her hopes up needlessly." He smiled up at her. "Or yours before I had some idea it might work."

He latched the metal to her hand with short pieces of leather. The metal device was about as long as her forearm. Standing, he went to a shelf and took down a book. He opened it and set it on her lap. When the book started to close, she put out her hand to hold it in place.

"All right," he said, an intense expression on his face. "Try it. You cannot use your other hand."

"How?"

He reached over and guided her arm so that her elbow still held one side of the book open while the wooden k.n.o.b reached under the next page. "Now draw it back."

She tried, but the page continued to slip off. Even twisting her arm at a nearly impossible angle did not help. "Mayhap, with some practice, Theodora can manage it."

"If you cannot, she will not be able to either." He tilted her arm so he could examine the page-turner. "What it needs is something to grip the pages, almost like another hand."

"Or fingers."

"Exactly." Standing, he took the book and set it back on the shelf.

She ran her finger along the metal shaft. "But I think you have the right idea. With a few changes, this will be wonderful. You are quite clever, Timothy."

"If I were truly clever, I would have figured out a way to make it work the first time." He chuckled as she struggled with the straps. "And I would have made it easier to take off and put on. Let me help." He undid the leather straps. "That is part of my next challenge. I need to figure out a way that she can take it off and put it on without a.s.sistance, but I am going to focus on helping her turn the pages first. I can worry about the other things later."

"She is going to be so excited when you make it work."

"If I do."

"When. Look how close it comes to working now."

"Close," he said with a sigh, "is not good enough."

"But it was only your first try."

He held up both hands, his fingers spread wide. "That is actually my tenth try. It seems I finally got the metal part of it right. Now for the gripping part."

"She will be so thankful when you have this all set that it will not matter how many tries it took."

"She has you to thank, Serenity. If you had not chided me, I would not have guessed that Theodora was not perfectly happy in her room."

Serenity took the page-turner and examined the polished wooden k.n.o.b. "She may be, but that is because she does not know any better."

"I would ask you if you always try to save the world, but I know that is something you cannot answer."

"Mayhap I just have picked up that habit since I woke after the accident."

His brows rose. "You certainly saved me from ruining Grandfather's celebration."

Serenity put the piece of metal on the window seat beside her. Speaking of the lies that she had helped make partly true unsettled her more with each pa.s.sing day. Her hopes that her memories would come back to her as quickly as the pain vanished had been for naught. Every day there were tantalizing flashes of things she could not quite recall, but nothing came clear.

Not looking at Timothy, she asked, "Was this your room when you were a child?"

"Yes, before I grew old enough to get rooms on the lower floor. Felix was here often, but when he was not, this was my private lair high up near the attics."

"You did not need to worry about suffering from ennui here. There are so many wonderful toys."

He wagged his finger at her as Mrs. Gray had at him. "I know what you are thinking. You are wondering why some of these toys are not downstairs with Theodora."

"Exactly."

"Theodora's mother, my cousin Christina, forbade it. She was worried that-"

"It seems to me that if she was so worried about her child that she has consigned her to sit so she will not hurt herself, she would not leave Theodora here while she winters in Italy and would not come to see her daughter only occasionally."

He sighed. "Don't judge Christina that hard. I own that she is not the best of mothers. Partly it has been because she could not forgive herself for not giving birth to a perfect child. Partly it has been because her husband could not forgive her for that either. And lastly, it is partly because she is more interested in her Italian paramour than anything or anyone else."

"And he does not know about Christina's child."

"Now you understand."

Serenity shook her head. "I don't understand an iota of it. Theodora is an intelligent child." She touched the metal device again. "While you have been putting this together for the past two days, I have been giving Theodora a look-in each afternoon. She has a wit that makes me laugh, and she has a hunger to see more of the world than what she can through that one window."

"Christina has forbidden-"

"That is absurd! How can she be making such commands when she is not here to see what her child needs? If I spoke with your grandfather, he might listen."

"Don't be so certain of that."

"I shall not be." She smiled. "That is why I shall have all my arguments ready for him to listen to."

He laughed and shook his head. "I see you are going to continue to keep things from becoming serene around here."

"You are the one who gave me that name, not me."