The Wallflower's Mistletoe Wedding

‘Charlie, you know I am hopeless dancer indeed,’ the Captain protested.

‘Of course you are not!’ Charles said. ‘Do not be an old stick in the mud again. Aren’t you all about doing your duty? Well, being merry is your only duty tonight.’

Harry laughed, and turned back to Rose. ‘Well, then, Miss Parker. Would you be brave enough to take me on for the first dance? With fair warning that grace is not my strong suit.’

Rose was not at all sure that could be true. He had such a lean, coiled stillness, she imagined that in motion he would be as elegant and lethal as a jungle cat. She longed to dance with him, more than she had ever longed for anything before, but she also feared he was asking only because she was the closest lady at the moment.

Not that it mattered. When would she ever be able to dance with such a man again?

‘I—no, nor is it mine, Captain St George,’ she answered. ‘I do have a terrible tendency to trip over my own feet—my sister always hated sharing her dancing lessons with me. Perhaps we can figure it out together?’

He laughed and suddenly he looked so young, so carefree. Rose imagined perhaps he was like that all the time before he went to war and became so watchful. ‘I am quite sure we can. The first dance, then, Miss Parker.’

‘Yes, thank you, Captain,’ she answered, and suddenly felt a hand on her arm. She turned to see Lily standing beside her, her sky-blue eyes wide.

‘Oh, Rose!’ she cried. ‘He isn’t here yet! What if he changed his mind?’

Before Rose could answer, the front doors flew open again as if in a stormy gale and a most fearsome figure appeared. As wide as she was tall, with iron-grey hair high-piled in the style of pre–Revolutionary France, and swathed in lace and satin, her dried-apple face was heavily rouged. Armed as she was with a carved walking stick with the head of a snarling dragon, she seemed the combination of Empress Maria Theresa and a Viking, combined with an ancient tree spirit.

‘Aunt Sylvia,’ Jane gasped. She hurried forward to try to help her, but the old lady impatiently pushed her away. ‘How lovely to see you. We thought you could not attend tonight.’

Aunt Sylvia Pemberton. Rose stared at her in astonishment. She had thought the old lady, a sister of her own great-grandfather and Jane’s and Emma’s as well, was only some sort of legend, but now here she was before them. She lived in a vast house nearby, rich as Croesus and widowed for decades, but she never ventured beyond its gates. Even Captain St George seemed amazed by the sight, even after all he must have seen at Waterloo.

‘I should never have ventured out indeed, Jane. A most disagreeable night and my rheumatism so terrible,’ Aunt Sylvia growled. ‘But I had to see what you have done with the old house, now that all your modern folderols have finished. You’ve quite ruined it, I must say. The windows are terrible and what kind of colour is that for walls?’ She looked around, waving her stick as if the new pale blue paint was a personal affront.

‘Ah,’ she went on, ‘and here is that disgraceful Emma, I see. And who is this? The Parker chits? How pale you are, girl. And the other one—too tall. Come here where I can see you better.’

Lily did indeed look quite white under such scrutiny and she clutched at Rose’s hand. ‘Must we?’ Lily whispered.

Rose thought of the grandness of Aunt Sylvia’s mansion and the tininess of their own cottage. She sighed. ‘I think we must.’ She glanced over her shoulder, but the Captain had quite vanished into the crowd. She could only fervently hope he remembered their dance.

‘Don’t worry, Lily dearest,’ she whispered. ‘We just have to say hello and then we can slip away. I am sure Mr Hewlitt will be here at any moment.’

‘She might turn us into stone first,’ Lily whispered back with a shiver.

Their mother suddenly appeared at Lily’s other side, a smile on her face beneath the blond curls that peeked from her turban. ‘Girls, be very nice indeed. We might need her help one day soon,’ she hissed, before sailing forward to kiss Aunt Sylvia’s cheek. ‘Aunt Sylvia, how absolutely delightful to see you again after so long. You remember my dear daughters, Rose and Lily, I’m sure.’

‘Hmmph,’ Aunt Sylvia said with a thump of her stick. ‘Still yours, are they? No husbands yet? How vexing for you, Felicity. I think we have much to talk about.’

As if he had been given a stage cue, Mr Hewlitt appeared in the doorway, looking handsome, but blushing and flustered in his curate’s dark coat, his red hair rumpled. He lit up like the moon when he saw Lily, and hurried over to take her hand. ‘Miss Parker, I am so sorry I was delayed! I have been so looking forward to—’

‘And who are you, young man?’ Aunt Sylvia boomed.

Poor Mr Hewlitt looked quite terrified, but much to his credit he did not let go of Lily’s hand. Indeed, he slid in front of her, as if to protect her. ‘I am Mr Peter Hewlitt, curate of St Anne’s, madam.’

Rose took the opportunity to slip away from the little scene and made her way through the crowd into the drawing room. The Aubusson rugs that usually lay over the polished parquet floors had been rolled away to make a dance floor, surrounded by conversational groupings of brocade sofas and armchairs, half-hidden by banks of palms and fragrant white flowers. The orchestra played on their dais, a soft song as dancers found their partners and footmen passed trays of champagne and claret punch. The windows were open to let in the soft summer breeze and everything was laughter and happiness for just a moment.

Rose smoothed her skirt again, hoping against hope Captain St George would find her—and just as frightened that he would. She didn’t want to seem stammering and silly in his company, but she was sure she would. She seemed to quite forget everything else when she looked into his dark eyes.

‘Miss Parker? Time for our dance, I think?’ she heard his deep voice say behind her.

She spun around to face him and his easy smile made her feel instantly more at ease. ‘Oh—of course. Thank you, Captain.’

As Rose took Captain St George’s arm and walked with him across the crowded room, she felt something most distinctly—odd. Something she had never had an inkling of before. Parties and gowns and flirtations had never held much appeal for her, not compared to the pleasures of the piano or a good book by the fire. Parties were for her mother and sister, because watching their enjoyment made Rose happy, too. Mama and Lily had far less fun in their lives than they deserved.

Yet now, being with Captain St George, Rose found she could have fun as well. It was quite astonishing and rather delightful. They followed the lead couple into the steps of the lively dance, holding hands, their feet nearly touching as she skipped around him. They joined hands with two other couples, moving in an intricate star until they had to wait at the end of the line. It moved in a wonderful, bright blur, the greatest fun she had ever had in a dance!

‘I’m sorry I’m not much of a dancer,’ he said as he spun her around, making her laugh.

‘I think you are quite grand at it,’ she answered. ‘But then I almost always have to practise with Lily and she does have a tendency to step on my toes rather more than I would like.’

‘I’ll try not to do that, then,’ he answered, his smile widening. ‘I don’t have the chance to dance much, either.’

‘I would think not, if you are always on the march. Do you have the chance to be in society a great deal?’

‘Not a great deal, but for a time my regiment was posted for training near Bath, which I admit I rather enjoyed.’

‘I have never been there,’ Rose answered with a sigh. ‘And only once or twice to London. A large town must be delightful!’

‘It’s not so terrible,’ he answered, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a most enticing way as he looked at her. ‘But family parties are always the best.’

‘Yes,’ Rose answered, a bit out of breath as she looked up at him. ‘Indeed they are.’ And this one was turning out to be the best she could ever remember. ‘I do like evenings at home, though Lily says they are dull. A book and a fine fire, a song at the piano.’

‘It sounds quite perfect, Miss Parker. Exactly what I would want one day. Some music in the winter evenings, a welcoming fire after a walk in the garden...’

‘Exactly so,’ Rose said. For just an instant she had an image in her mind, a picture of herself and the Captain walking down a path arm in arm, the doors of a manor house open behind them to spill out welcoming golden light. Something like what her family had when she was a child, before her father died and they found out it was all a deception, before she realised having her own family, her own secure home, was not to be. But with this man, she could imagine it all, even if it was only for a moment.

They took their turn once more in the set and Captain St George almost lifted her from her feet as they swirled around, making her laugh again. She actually felt delicate in his strong arms, like a lady in a novel, small and dainty next to her hero. They spun, breathless, and ended in a low bow and curtsy.

But the dance ended much too soon and she had to let go of his hand. They made their way to the edge of the crowd and Rose glimpsed her mother standing near the open tall windows with Emma Carrington and Charles St George. They were laughing and Rose had to smile to see her mother’s enjoyment. It was all going rather well, better than she could have expected when they set out from their cottage that evening.

Then she saw the lady standing beside Charles St George, smiling languidly at the mirth of the others. She seemed so beautiful as to be of some other world, even in the elegance of the Barton Park drawing room. Tall and willowy, she looked as if she should be posing as Athena in a draped gown and golden helmet, serenely smiling, above it all.

In reality, she wore a fashionable gown of blush-coloured silk, her red-gold hair piled high atop her head and fastened with a bandeau of cameos. She slowly waved her painted silk fan, her gaze skimming over the party.

Next to Rose, Captain St George’s tall figure stiffened. Surprised, she glanced up at him and saw that his smile had faded. The man she had danced with, so easy and kind, had vanished. He looked darkly intent. Full of a night-like desire.

‘St George, there you are at last,’ Athena called and something inside of Rose, something soft and summer-like that had bloomed so unexpectedly, faded. She felt suddenly cold inside and she wanted to turn and run, to disappear back into the crowd. Why had she thought even for a moment she could be something besides plain, sensible Rose Parker?

Captain St George stepped away, not completely, not really, but he definitely withdrew in some ineffable way. He was not quite there any longer.

The lady glided towards them and took the Captain’s arm in her silk-gloved hand. They looked intently into each other’s eyes and her smile widened. ‘I am terribly sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘I do hope you were not too bored. I know you do hate such parties.’

‘I am not much for crowds, of course,’ he answered. ‘But Barton Park is different.’

‘So I see.’ Her gaze slid to Rose and her smile turned down at the edges. She glanced up and down Rose’s made-over gown and glanced away, obviously finding her to be of not much interest.

‘Miss Helen Layton, may I present a cousin of the Bancrofts?’ Captain St George said. ‘Miss Rose Parker. Miss Parker, this is an old friend of my family, Miss Layton.’

‘An old friend, my dear St George?’ Miss Layton said with a creamy laugh. ‘Surely more than that. We have known each other since we were veritable babies. Charles says he expects an—well, an interesting announcement at any moment.’

An interesting announcement? Surely, Rose thought, that could only mean one thing. Captain St George and Miss Layton were a couple. She felt even colder, more foolish.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Layton,’ she managed to say in a calm, steady voice.

‘I think I just met your mother, Miss Parker,’ Miss Layton said. She wafted her fan towards Rose’s mother, who was still chatting with Emma and Charles St George. ‘She says you live in a cottage nearby. How absolutely charming that sounds. Like Wordsworth, with roses round the door and sheep on the hills.’

Rose laughed, thinking of their smoking chimney and the vegetables she tried to grow in the kitchen garden mud, her chickens pecking around them. ‘Something of the sort, I suppose, Miss Layton.’

‘We must find something just the same when you get back from this silliness in Sicily,’ Miss Layton said, her fingers curling around his sleeve.

He only gave her a tight smile and Rose could feel her cheeks turning warm as she longed even more to flee the whole uncomfortable scene.

‘Rose! Rose!’ she suddenly heard Lily cry and Rose had never been so relieved to see her sister. Rose spun around, away from the sight of the handsome Captain St George and the lovely Miss Layton, away from the foolish feelings that had come over her only moments ago.

Lily was running towards her, her face shining with happiness, utterly unconcerned with the impropriety of calling out and running at a ball. Mr Hewlitt followed her, just as glowing. Together they hurried towards Rose’s mother, who was watching them avidly.

‘Mrs Parker,’ he said, trying so very hard to be solemn that it almost made Rose laugh. ‘May I have the privilege of speaking to you for a moment? I know such things are not usually done at a dance...’

‘Please, just follow me,’ Emma said. ‘You can use the library. It will surely be quiet there for a moment.’

As they hurried away, Lily held out her hand to Rose to display a small pearl ring. ‘Oh, Rose! Isn’t it the loveliest?’

Rose smiled, but she was afraid she might also start crying as well. The happiness of that moment, of her sister’s dreams coming true just as her own fledgling, girlish ideas were nipped in the bud, was almost overwhelming. But she did the only thing she knew how to do. She laughed and hugged her sister tight.

‘The loveliest, Lily. I know you will be so very happy.’

Over her sister’s shoulder as Lily hugged her back, Rose glimpsed Captain St George, withdrawing to a quiet corner with his brother and Miss Layton. He gave her a small smile and it was so sad, so full of commiseration and understanding, that Rose nearly burst into tears. How perfect that one dance had been! Rose liked her life, her independence, but just for that moment she seemed to glimpse, far in the distance, the glimmer of something—more. A real home.

Miss Layton whispered something in the Captain’s ear and the two of them turned away together, beautiful and perfect, leaving Rose in her ordinary world once more.

Oh, well, she thought, laughing at herself just a bit. Ordinary life was not so very bad after all.

‘You will be a lovely bride, Lily dearest,’ she said, squeezing her sister a little tighter before she let her go.

‘And then it will be your turn, Rose, I vow it,’ Lily said. ‘I will find you someone just as handsome and sweet as my own Hewlitt.’

Rose closed her eyes, and saw, in the darkness of her mind, far away from the colour and noise of the party, Captain St George’s all too brief smile. ‘Oh, Lily. I don’t think that would even be possible.’

* * *

The carriage was blessedly shadowed and silent as it jolted away from the lights of Barton Park and slid into the night. Harry leaned his head back against the leather cushions and closed his eyes, letting all the wondrous quiet wash over him.

Silence had become a precious commodity to him in the last few years. In Spain, and then at Waterloo, noise had been ever-present. The cacophony of military camps, drumbeats and shouted orders, and drunken laughter at night as men tried to forget their fears and loneliness around campfires. The explosion of shot and shell, the screams of people and horses as they fell, the sobbing afterward. No—quiet had no place in war.

Nor, it seemed, in a world after the war. Harry had returned to England thinking he was coming home to a world of green and rain and peace, the world he dreamed of in canvas tents at night. It had taken him years to return, but he had always been determined he would.

But it was not like that at all once he returned to London. There were parties all the time, dinners and teas and dances, with everyone clamouring for tales of the glorious heroics of war. He could hardly tell them the truth of it all, of the mud and blood and dying, so he said little at all. Charming social conversation had always been Charles’s forte, not his.

Yet his silence only seemed to make him more sought out. Made more invitations arrive at his lodgings, more ladies want to sit beside him in drawing rooms or ride in the park. ‘Like a corsair warrior in a poem,’ he had once heard a lady whisper to her friend as they watched him at a musicale.

The memory made him laugh all over again. Him—a poetic corsair. If only they knew. He was just a rough army man, riding behind the drum, ever since he was a lad with his first commission. An army man with dreams of being a country farmer one day, of sitting by his own hearth after a day of watching his fields ripen and his sheep grow fat. A house where there was quiet all the time, except perhaps for a toddler’s giggle or the sound of a lady playing at her pianoforte.

It was a dream that would have to be postponed again, at least for a time. His regiment had called on him once more, to go to sun-baked Sicily this time to put down a rebellion. There was only time for this one visit home, to his father’s house at Hilltop Grange near Barton Park.

He hadn’t wanted to go to the party at Barton. Yet more noise, more clamour, more stares. But Jane and Emma Bancroft were old neighbours, kind people, and he let Charles persuade him to attend. Now he was rather glad he had.

He closed his eyes and there he saw something most unexpected—the face of Miss Rose Parker. She had the sweetest smile he could remember ever seeing and even dancing, which he normally loathed, was a pleasure when he talked to her. She seemed almost like no lady, no person, he had ever met before. So calm, so serene—she made the very air seem to sigh with relief around her.

After so long in the rough world of war, he had almost given up ever glimpsing pure sweetness in anything again. Yet there it was, in Rose Parker’s smile.

Until Helen appeared. Helen—one of his oldest friends, the daughter of his late mother’s best friend, a lady of such beauty she was called in London The Incomparable. The lady everyone had always expected he would marry.

‘How changeable you are tonight, Harry,’ Charles said. ‘Laughing, then scowling—one hardly knows what to expect next.’

Harry opened his eyes to study his brother, who lolled on the opposite seat. His golden hair gleamed in the moonlight from the open window, the perfect aquiline features that had always made him their late mother’s copy, her darling, were outlined like a classical cameo. Charles was the perfect Apollo wherever he went to Harry’s Hephaestus, always laughing and easy-tempered, making everyone around him feel easy as well. But now that the party was behind him, even Charles looked almost—sad, as he had rather often since Harry returned to England. Harry couldn’t help but wonder what was plaguing his brother.

Perhaps it was because Charles had been left all those years to deal with Hilltop and their father while Harry was at war. And their father was not a kind man at the best of times. The house that had been their mother’s pride, the glowing name she had loved, had been tarnished by him.

‘I laugh because the party went better than I could have expected,’ he said.

‘Ha!’ Charles answered. ‘So you see I was right to make you attend. The Bancroft girls are always kindness itself.’

‘They are hardly girls now, are they? Jane a countess, Emma a widow.’

‘Poor Emma. Remember when Mother made us go to the children’s tea parties at Barton and we all ended up climbing trees instead?’ Charles said with a laugh. ‘Father was never happy at all when we came home with our best new coats torn and muddy. He said Mother was raising monkeys.’

‘And the switches would come out.’ The switches so often came out with their father, especially after their mother died. ‘But it was always worth it to visit Barton Park.’

‘Wasn’t it, though? Like a different world.’

Harry nodded. A different world. He thought of Miss Parker’s tales of searching for lost Royalist treasures there at Barton and wondered why they had never crossed paths as children. What would it have been like if they had?

‘La belle Helen was in fine looks tonight,’ Charles said. ‘If only we had a thousand ships that needed to be launched...’

Harry frowned at the reminder of Helen and her elegant face flashed in his mind, erasing Miss Parker’s gentle smile. The weight of expectation, the weight of what had been and what was expected in the future, fell once again. ‘Helen has always been lovely.’

‘Did Miss Lily Parker’s sweet little engagement not inspire you, Harry? No ring for Helen’s pretty finger yet?’

Harry wasn’t sure he liked something in Charles’s tone, something dark and hard beneath his smile. ‘Helen knows this is no time for an engagement. I am to re-join my regiment soon and I would not tie her down to someone like myself.’

‘You may think that, but does she? The betting books in the London clubs were full of speculation about when she would snap you into the parson’s mousetrap. Everyone’s expected it since we were children.’

Harry frowned as he stared out the window, at the summer moon shining on the silent hedgerows. ‘You have picked up some ridiculous slang in those clubs of yours, Charlie.’

‘Well, a man has to find distractions, you know. Hilltop Grange is not exactly a haven of merriment. And everyone says you and Helen were made for each other. Any man would give his right arm to be in your position.’

Something in his brother’s voice caught Harry’s strict attention, something sharp and jagged that was quite unlike Charles. He swung around to face him, but Charles’s face was hidden in the shadows.

‘Made for each other?’ Harry said. Perhaps it was so—they had been friends for so long, bound by the long ties of their families, by their mothers’ wishes. He had thought of her when he was gone, dreamed of her, carried her miniature with him to inspire him. She was like a dream, just as all that green English quiet had been a reason to come home.

And by Jove but she was beautiful. The most beautiful lady in London, just as all those silly, betting-book dandies declared. For some reason, though, she seemed to prefer Harry to all those other men, at least for now.

But would Helen ever like that farm life he so envisioned? The quiet evenings, the small community? He was not at all sure. Perhaps that was what really held him back now.

Again he saw Miss Parker’s sweet smile, felt her gentle touch on his hand, but he pushed such thoughts away.

‘She agrees we should wait until I can resign my commission and we can see what happens next,’ he said.

Charles shook his head, frowning. ‘You should be careful, then, Harry. While you are gone on your adventures, someone else could easily pluck up such a prize. They do say that the Duke of Hamley, now that his time of mourning is at an end, seeks a new duchess.’

Harry laughed. Duchess—now there was a role that would suit Helen well. ‘No one would make a better duchess than Helen.’

Charles was silent for a long, tense moment. ‘I would never have taken you for a fool, Harry.’

Before Harry could answer, their carriage turned through the gates of Hilltop Grange and jolted up the winding old drive, past the overgrown forest that had once been a manicured garden under the careful eye of their mother.

Now, Hilltop looked nothing like the golden welcome of Barton Park, which had seemed to float above the night like a cloud of light. Hilltop had no light at all, save the glow of one lamp in the window of the library. Harry knew that once daylight came, the overgrown ivy on the grey stone walls, the crumbling chimneys, the covered windows, would all be too apparent. He felt again that deep pang of sadness, of guilt for following a different duty.