Christmas Betrothals. Sophia James

a quick flick of his fingers her father dismissed the servants gathered behind them. Left alone, Lillian could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, time marked by mounting seconds of silence.

      Finally her father began. ‘I am nearing fifty, Lillian, and my health is not as it once was. I need to know that you are settled before I am too much older. I need grandchildren and the chance of an heir for Fairley Manor.’

      ‘You speak as if I am over thirty, Father, and I can see little wrong with the state of your health.’ She did not care for the harshness she heard in her voice.

      ‘Then if you cannot understand the gist of my words, I worry about you even more.’

      His tone had risen, no longer the measured evenness of logic and sense, and Lillian walked across to the window to look out over Hyde Park where a few people rode their horses on the pathways. Everything was just as it should be, whereas in here….

      ‘I will give you till Christmas.’

      ‘I beg your pardon?’ She turned to face him.

      ‘I will give you until Christmas to find a man of your choice to marry, and if you have no other candidate by then you must promise me to consider Wilcox-Rice and without prejudice.’

      His face was blotched with redness, the weight he had put on since last year somehow more worrying than before. Was he ailing? He had seen the physician last week. Perhaps he had learnt something was not right?

      Regret and remorse surged simultaneously, but she did not question him. He was a man who held his secrets and seldom divulged his thoughts. Like her, she supposed, and that made her sad.

      She was cornered, by parental authority and by the part in her heart that wanted to make her ageing father happy, no matter what.

      ‘It is not so very easy to find a man who is everything that I want.’

      ‘Then find one who is enough, Lillian.’ His retort came quickly. ‘With children great happiness can follow and Wilcox-Rice is a good fellow. At least give me the benefit of the wisdom old age brings.’

      ‘Very well, then. I will promise to consider your advice.’ When she held out her hand to his, she liked the way he did not break the contact, but kept her close.

      Half an hour later she was in the morning room to one side of the town house having a cup of tea with Anne Weatherby, an old friend, and trying to feign interest in the topic of her children and family, a subject that usually took up nearly all the hours of her visit. Today, however, she had other issues to discuss.

      ‘There was a contretemps last night at Lenningtons’. Did you hear of it?’

      Lillian’s attention was immediately caught.

      ‘It seems that your cousin Daniel and a stranger from America were in a scuffle of sorts. I saw him as he walked from the salon afterwards. He barely looked English, the savage ways of the backwaters imprinted on his clothes and hands and face. So dangerous and uncivilised.’ She began to smile. ‘And yet wildly good-looking.’

      ‘I saw nothing.’

      ‘Rumour has it that you did.’

      ‘Well, perhaps I saw the very end of it all as I came from the retiring room. It was but a trifle.’ She tried to look bored with the whole subject in the hope that Anne might change the topic, but was to have no such luck.

      ‘It is said that he has a reputation in America that is hardly savoury. A Virginian, I am told, whose wife died in a way that was … suspicious at the very least.’

      ‘Suspicious?’

      ‘Alice, the Countess of Horsham, would say no more on the matter, but her tone of voice indicated that the fellow might have had a hand in her demise.’ She shook her head before continuing. ‘Although the gossip is all about town, the young girls seem much enamoured by his looks and are setting their caps at him in the hopes of even a smile. He has a dimple on his right cheek, something I always found attractive in a man.’ She placed her hands across her mouth and smiled through them. ‘Lord, but I am running on, and at thirty I should have a lot more sense than to be swayed by a handsome face.’

      Lillian poured another cup of tea for herself, while Anne had barely sipped at hers. She hoped that her friend did not see the way the liquid slopped across the side of the cup of its own accord and dribbled on to the white-lace linen cloth beneath it. How easy it was to be tipped from this place to that one. His wife. Dead!

      Her imaginings in a bed bathed in moonlight took on a less savoury feel and she pushed down disappointment.

      No man had ever swept her off her feet in all the seven years she had been out and to imagine that this one had even the propensity to do so suddenly seemed silly. Of course a man who looked like this American would not be a fit companion for her with his raw and rough manner and his dangerous eyes. The promise she had made her father less than an hour ago surfaced and she shook away the ridiculous yearnings.

      Betrothed by Christmas! Ah well, she thought as she guided the conversation to a more general one, if worst came to the worst, John Wilcox-Rice was at least biddable and she was past twenty-five.

      She met John at a party that evening in Belgrave Square and she knew that she was in trouble as soon as she saw his face. He looked excited and nervous at the same time, his smile both protective and concerned. When he took her fingers in his own she was glad for her gloves and glad too for the ornamental shrubbery placed beside the orchestra. It gave her a chance to escape the prying eyes of others while she tried to explain it all to him.

      When the cornet, violin and cello proved too much to speak over she pulled him out on to the balcony a little further away from the room, where the light was dimmer, the shadow of the shrubs throwing a kinder glow on both their faces.

      ‘You had my message from your father, then, about my interest—’ he began, but she allowed him no further discourse.

      ‘I certainly did and I thank you for the compliment, but I do not think we could possibly—’

      ‘Your father thinks differently,’ he returned, and a sneaking suspicion started to well in Lillian’s breast.

      ‘You have seen my father today?’ she began, stopping as he nodded.

      ‘Indeed I have and he was at pains to tell me you had agreed to at least consider my proposal.’

      ‘But I do not hold the sort of feelings for you that you would want, and there would be no guarantee that I ever could.’

      ‘I know.’ He took her hand again, this time peeling back the fine silk of her right glove, and pressing his lips to her wrist. Without meaning to she dragged her hand away, wiping it on the generous fabric of her skirt and thinking that this meeting place might not have been the wisest one after all.

      ‘I just want you to at least try. I want the chance to make you happy and I think that we would rub along together rather nicely.’

      ‘Well,’ she returned briskly, ‘I certainly value your friendship and I would indeed be very loath to lose it, but as for the rest….’

      He bowed before her. ‘I understand and I am ready to give you more time to ponder over it, Lillian, for as like-minded people of a similar birth I am convinced such a union would benefit us both.’

      She nodded and watched as he clicked his heels together and took his leave, a tall, thin man who was passably good looking and infinitely suitable. A husband she could indeed grow old with in a fairly satisfying relationship.

      Sighing, she made her way to the edge of the balcony, the same moon as the night before mocking her in her movements, remembering.

      ‘Stop it!’ she admonished herself out loud.

      ‘Stop what?’ Another voice answered and the American walked out from the shrubs behind her, the red tip of a cheroot the only thing standing out from the black of his silhouette.