A Christmas Letter. Shirley Jump

was that. He should feel relieved.

      He tilted his head, trying to make it look very much as if he concurred, but he couldn’t quite get rid of the niggling worry that Faith had stumbled onto something.

      Marcus was having an in-depth discussion with Oliver, his events manager, about preparations for the Christmas Ball when Faith came skidding into the long gallery. Her face was aglow and her eyes were shining. He knew she had something to tell him about the window. Even so, he couldn’t help but smile.

      She grinned back.

      Oliver coughed. ‘About the florist, My Lord?’

      Marcus kept looking at Faith. He waved a hand in the other man’s direction. ‘I’m sure you’re more than capable of dealing with her,’ he said. He only half noticed the man’s raised eyebrows as he looked between Faith and himself.

      ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Oliver’s low voice muttered beside him, but Marcus was focused on the laughter behind Faith’s eyes.

      ‘What?’ he said, walking towards her.

      Her smile flashed wide, reminding him of how the night sky brightened after a firework exploded.

      ‘I found it!’

      For a moment his stomach dropped.

      ‘The proof I need,’ she added, her expression dimming slightly in reaction to his non-reaction.

      Proof?

      It was as if she’d heard the question that had fired off inside his head. She stepped forward, her hand held up in a calming gesture. ‘Samuel Crowbridge proof,’ she explained.

      He paused for a moment. While he was truly relieved her news had nothing to do with his grandfather’s wild goose chase, he realised he was a little disappointed, too.

      ‘How?’ he said.

      She glanced over her shoulder, looked at the door that led to the main hall—the route out of the castle and back to the studio. ‘Have you got a minute?’

      Marcus turned round to take his leave from Oliver and discovered the man had disappeared. Oh, well.

      Faith looked about her as she headed for the door. ‘It’s looking awesome in here,’ she said.

      ‘I’m glad you like it,’ he replied.

      And looking lovely it was. Christmas at Hadsborough had always been special when he was younger, but in recent years it had become a chore. Looking at it now, through Faith’s eyes, he realised she was right. There was a fourteen-foot Christmas tree in the hall. Crimson candles in all shapes and sizes were dotted around—some in wrought-iron stands, some in hurricane lamps—and greenery was everywhere: holly and ivy and fir branches, draped over mantelpieces, over the door frames, wound round the banister of the staircase and dripping from the minstrels’ gallery over the banqueting hall.

      There was a noise in the hallway and a few moments later a walking display of red flowers entered the room. Underneath the foliage was a very human pair of legs: sturdy calves finished off with even sturdier shoes. Marcus recognised those shoes. And now he caught on to what Oliver had been trying to warn him about.

      Janet Dixon. Florist and one-woman tornado.

      Her severe salt-and-pepper hairdo appeared from behind the display and she looked around the room approvingly, as if she deemed it good enough for her arrangement.

      Faith walked over and touched the papery petal of one of the fire-red poinsettia. ‘My grandmother loves these,’ she said thoughtfully.

      ‘Just right for the festive season, they are,’ Janet replied. ‘Bringing wishes for mirth and celebration.’

      Faith smiled. ‘I’ll tell Gram. She’ll like that.’

      ‘Oliver is around somewhere if you need assistance,’ Marcus said, then cupped Faith’s elbow in his hand and steered her from the room. ‘Quick!’ he whispered in her ear. ‘She does all the flowers for the castle, and she’ll tell you about every petal in great detail if you stand still long enough.’

      Faith chuckled softly and began to jog towards the exit. Marcus kept pace, grinning.

      When they reached the oval lawn in front of the castle they slowed to a walk. The day was crisp and sunny and he breathed in the country air. It smelled like December. Like Christmas. And there was the perfect amount of snow for the ball that night—enough to cover the grassy areas and make the castle look magical, but the paths were clear and the roads gritted.

      Quite suddenly he stopped and turned to Faith. ‘Come tonight,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a wonderful evening. You’ll be sorry if you miss it.’

      I’ll be sorry if you miss it.

      Her nose wrinkled and she grimaced. ‘I don’t have anything to wear.’

      He had an answer for that. One she’d supplied. ‘We relaxed the dress code for those that want to, remember? On very good advice.’

      She made a soft scoffing noise. ‘There’s relaxing and then there’s relaxing. I’m not sure you lowered it enough for jeans and a T-shirt with a few sequins, and that’s the best I can do.’

      He started walking again. ‘Well, if that’s the only problem I’m sure we can sort something out.’ There were wardrobes full of ballgowns in the castle. Surely one would fit Faith? He glanced her way. ‘That is the only problem, isn’t it?’

      Faith said nothing, just kept walking towards the studio, eyes straight ahead. She was glad Marcus couldn’t see her face, if only for a few moments. She needed time to let the emotion show, let those stupid feelings free, before clamping everything down again.

      She’d been so elated when she’d run into the castle to tell him of her discovery, but now all that was squelched beneath the slow and persistent ache in her chest. She couldn’t go to a ball. Who did she think she was? Cinderella? Real life didn’t work out that way. That was why they called them fairy stories. And she was doing her best to remember that, she really was.

      You don’t belong here, she told herself. You will never belong here. Don’t set yourself up for more pain by buying into the dream.

      She opened the studio door when she reached it and walked inside, back to her work table. Something solid here, at least. This wasn’t clinging on to fantasies and false hope. She had proof.

      She picked up the piece of glass that made up the kneeling woman’s lower leg and bare foot, walked over to the large picture window and held it up. She knew the moment Marcus joined her because the air beside her warmed up.

      Holding the fragment carefully between thumb and finger at the edges, she pointed to the edge with a finger from the other hand. ‘I found this while I was cleaning the glass—getting rid of the dirt and grime and removing the old grout.’

      Marcus leaned closer, inspecting the glass, and Faith braced her free hand on the window, hoping it would stop her quivering. So much for everything staying platonic. Somehow the look but don’t touch agreement she’d manoeuvred him into had intensified everything, done the opposite of what she’d hoped.

      ‘There’s writing,’ he said, ‘scratched into the glass.’

      She nodded. ‘It’s not unusual to find names and dates on fragments of window—little messages from the craftsmen who made or repaired it. Sometimes they are high up in cathedral windows, where nobody would ever see them, just the maker’s secret message that no one knows to look for.’

      He looked at her. ‘So you did find a message in the window?’

      ‘Yes, I did. Just not the one we were looking for.’

      We? Not we. You. It wasn’t her quest. She needed to remember that.

      She recited what she knew was engraved