“The drawing room?” Thomas echoed, perplexed. “What the devil was it doing there?”
Mercy gave a thin-lipped smile, speaking tightly through the clench of her teeth. “I was, of course, attempting to mend it. I must have found myself distracted and forgotten about it.”
“Mend it?” Thomas asked. “What was wrong with it, then?”
“I, ah—well—”
“There did seem to be a button or two missing,” the dowager baroness supplied.
“Yes!” Mercy slapped her hand upon the breakfast table in abject relief. “The buttons. Naturally, the buttons.”
And Charity snorted. Just once, softly above the rim of her tea cup, but it was enough to earn her a glare from her sister, a glance of utter confusion from Thomas, and rank suspicion from most of the other occupants of the breakfast table.
The dowager baroness’ gaze flitted between them; he and Charity. She had retired last evening well before he had at last arrived, and thus their first meeting had been at the breakfast table this morning. Now, it seemed, it had occurred to her at last that no reason had been given for his sudden appearance. And perhaps that Charity, who had—as Mercy had claimed—been moping inconsolably for the last day was no longer quite so glum as she had been.
“Oh,” she said, and a flush of color washed into her cheeks. “Oh.”
“What?” From across the table, Juliet—Thomas’ younger sister, a lovely girl of perhaps twenty years—popped her head up. “Mama, what is it?”
“Never you mind, my dear,” the dowager baroness said firmly. In an attempt to turn the conversation, she directed her gaze to Anthony and asked, perhaps too brightly, “And will you be spending Christmas with us, Your Grace?”
“I—well, I hadn’t considered it,” he said. “I really ought to spend it at home. With my family.”
Beneath the table, Anthony heard a softthump, and Mercy jerked in her chair. She darted a look at Charity, who Anthony surmised had kicked her beneath the table. “Oh, well, then you must invite them down to stay,” Mercy said. “There is nothing quite like Christmas in the countryside. And we have got the room. I’m certain we could accommodate them.”
“It wouldn’t be proper,” Anthony said, with a resigned sigh. “We are still in mourning.”
“Then certainly you must invite them,” the dowager baroness said. “The lovely thing about the countryside is that there is no one about to cast judgment. And I think—when one’s grief is at its worst, that is when it is most important to find whatever joy one may.” She reached for the teapot to pour herself a fresh cup. “There is a kind of performance,” she said, “in the rituals of mourning society expects us to observe. But grief is such a personal thing, and it has no schedule. It takes a different form for everyone.It cannot be measured in shades of black, or in time spent in seclusion. Nor does it stop existing when we are allowed at last to put off our mourning attire.”
No, he supposed it didn’t. And the girls were still so young—hardly old enough to understand what death meant. But they understood the pall that had enshrouded their home, the bleakness that had settled over their lives. Only half a year had yet elapsed. When they were out of mourning in truth, would they even recall what happiness was meant to be? Or would the grief they had been expected to clothe themselves in continue to dominate their young minds?
“I have never believed,” the dowager baroness continued, “that we do half as much honor to lost loved ones in the public spectacle of grief than we do instead in a life well-lived.”
And Anthony—Anthony found that he wanted to believe that as well. What would Freddie have said at the thought of his daughters spending their Christmas in such miserable circumstances? In a quiet house devoid of laughter, robbed even of the festive trappings of the season? Garbed in black, going without so much as a few carols or a tree to trim? What would William have thought of his beloved wife spending her Christmas holed up in her room, alone? What would Father have thought of Mother spending such a dreary holiday season in London, still so deep in mourning?
They’d have thought it a damned pity. A shame; a tragedy to see the family swathed in funeral black, as if all the life had gone out of it along with them. They would have wanted the girls to have a proper Christmas. To have a proper family. To honor them with joy, not to climb into the grave alongside them.
“We have got a lovely hill just in the back of the house,” Thomas said. “Perfect for sledding.”
Well, that clinched it. “I’ll invite them,” he said. “I can’t promise they’ll accept.” There was the possibility they would think it improper—or at the least, ill-advised. “But I will invite them.”
All he could do was to send his carriage back to London with a note, and hope they chose to climb into it.
∞∞∞
It had begun to snow by early afternoon, the weather ceding from the general gloom of early winter to the beginnings of a proper blanket of white. And it was unexpectedly lovely, Charity thought, to be spending time with family. With Anthony. And there would be more of it still. There were nearly three weeks left until Christmas, and perhaps they would have a few days after it before they would have to return to London once more. Where the realities of life would once more set in.
But until then, she would enjoy it, this time of perfect peace.
From her position in a chair by the drawing room window, she watched the snow come down in beautiful little flakes. Sipped her cocoa. Wondered when it might be appropriate to rouse Anthony from his doze upon the sofa—where he lay snoring softly, no doubt still recovering from the strain of the day before—to sneak off for a bit while Mercy and Thomas were engaged in putting little Flora down for a nap.
In the distance, through the falling snow that blurred the horizon, Charity watched a carriage make a turn off of the main road onto the drive leading up to the house. It couldn’t be Anthony’s family. He had sent off his carriage to make the return trip to London only an hour or so before, after a long labor over a note that would properly convey his wishes to them.
Another visitor? Poor Mercy would soon be overrun with them at this rate. The carriage proceeded up the drive, coming to a stop just outside. At last the driver, swathed in a huge brown greatcoat, jumped down to open the carriage door, and—
“Mr. Fortescue?” Charity’s brows drew together in confusion, and she rubbed at the thin film of condensation that coated the inside of the window, just in the event that it had blurred her view enough for her eyes to betray her. But it hadn’t, and they hadn’t. “Whatever is he doing here?” And what could have brought him down from London?
Anthony dozed on, none the wiser.
