“Open, good neighbors. Give us succor.” Barnett shot Spencer a merry look. “We must enter into the spirit of the thing.”
Spencer heard the bolts rattling, and then the door opened a sliver. “Who is there?” a creaky, elderly man’s voice intoned.
“Admit us, good sir.” Barnett held the sack aloft. “We bear gifts.”
The door opened wider to show a wizened, bent man wrapped in what looked like a long shawl. Spencer sensed several people hovering behind him.
“Then come in, come in. Out of the cold.” The man added something in the Scots language Spencer didn’t understand and swung the door open.
Barnett started forward, then stopped himself. “No, indeed. You must lead, Spence. A tall, dark-haired man brings the best luck.”
He stepped out of the way and more or less shoved Spencer toward the door. Spencer removed his hat and stepped deferentially into the foyer.
Warmth surrounded him, and light. In the silence, he heard a sharp intake of breath.
Beyond the old Scotsman in his plaid shawl, in the doorway to a room beyond, stood a young woman. She was rather tall, but curved, not willowy. Her hair was so dark it was almost black, her eyes, in contrast, a startling blue, like lapis lazuli. They matched the eyes of the old man, but Spencer could no longer see him.
The vision of beauty, in a silk and net gown of shimmering silver, regarded him in alarm but also in wonder.
“Well met, all ’round,” Barnett was saying. “Spence, let me introduce you to Lord and Lady Merrickson—the house you are standing in is theirs. Mr. MacDonald, Lady Merrickson’s father, and of course, this angel of perfection is Lady Jane Randolph, Lord Merrickson’s only daughter and the correspondent that keeps me at ease during the chaos of army life. Lady Jane, may I present Captain Spencer Ingram, the dearest friend a chap could imagine. He saved my life once, you know.”
Lady Jane came forward, gliding like a ghost on the wind. Spencer took her hand. Her eyes never left his as he bowed to her, and her lips remained parted with her initial gasp.
Spencer looked at her, and was lost.
CHAPTER 2
Captain Ingram fixed Jane with eyes as gray as winter and as cool, and she couldn’t catch her breath. A spark lay deep within those eyes, gleaming like a sunbeam on a flow of ice.
He was not a cold man, though, she knew at once. He was containing his warmth, his animation, being polite. Of course he was—he’d been dragged here by John, likely expecting an ordinary English family at Christmas, only to be thrust into the midst of eccentric Randolphs and MacDonalds.
Jane forced her limbs into a curtsey. “Good evening, Captain Ingram,” she said woodenly.
Captain Ingram jerked his gaze to her hand, which he still held, Jane’s fingers swallowed by his large gloved ones. Ingram abruptly released her, a bit rudely, she thought, but Jane was too agitated to be annoyed.
“Greet him properly, Jane,” Grandfather said. He pushed his way forward, leaning on his stout ash stick, and gave Captain Ingram a nod. “You know how.”
Jane swallowed, her jaw tight, and repeated the words Grandfather had taught her years ago. “Welcome, First-Footer. Please partake of our hospitality.”
Why was she so unnerved? Grandfather couldn’t possibly have predicted that John would step back and let his friend enter the house first, in spite of their conversation earlier today. Grandfather didn’t truly have second sight—he only pretended.
Captain Ingram’s presence meant nothing, absolutely nothing. After the war, John would propose to Jane, as expected, and life would carry on.
Then why had her heart leapt when she’d beheld Captain Ingram’s tall form, why had a sense of gladness and even relief flowed over her? For one instant, she’d believed Grandfather’s prediction, and she’d been … happy?
A mad streak ran in Jane’s mother’s family—or so people said. It was why Grandfather MacDonald spouted the odd things he did, why her mother, a genteel but poor Scotswoman, had been able to ensnare the wealthy Earl of Merrickson, a sought-after bachelor in his younger days. Jane’s mother had enchanted him, people said, with her dark hair and intense blue eyes of the inhabitants of the Western Isles. So far, her daughter and son had not yet exhibited the madness of the MacDonald side of the family, thankfully.
Only because Jane, for her part, had learned to hide it, she realized. Given the chance, she’d happily race through the heather in a plaid or dance around a bonfire like the ones the villagers had built tonight. And feel strange glee at the thought she might not marry John after all.
John, oblivious to all tension, hefted a cloth sack. “I’ve brought the things you told me to, Mr. MacDonald.”
“Excellent,” Grandfather said. “Jane, take the bag and lay out the treasures in the dining room.”
Jane’s cousins surged to her. They were the carefree Randolph boys, from her father’s side of the family. The three lads, ranging from sixteen to twenty-two, fancied themselves men about town and Corinthians, well pleased that Jane’s brother, who was spending New Year’s with his wife’s family, stood between themselves and the responsibility of the earldom. In truth, they were harmless, though mischievous.
“Come, come, come, Cousin Jane,” the youngest, Thomas, sang as they led the way to the dining room.
Jane took the bag from John, trying to pay no attention to Captain Ingram, who had not stepped away from her. “How are you, John? How very astonishing to see you.”
John winked at her. He had blue eyes and light blond hair, the very picture of an English gentleman. “Amazing to me when we got leave, wasn’t it, Spence? Thought I’d surprise you, Janie. Worked, didn’t it? You look pole-axed.”
Jane clutched the bag to her chest, finding it difficult to form words. “I beg your pardon. I am shocked, is all. Did not expect you.”
John sent Captain Ingram a grin. “I beg your pardon, she says, all prim and proper. She didn’t used to be so. You ought to have seen her running bare-legged through the meadows, screaming like a savage with me, her brother, and her cousins.”
Jane went hot. “When I was seven.”
“And eight, and nine, and ten … until you were seventeen, I imagine. How old are you now, Janie? I’ve forgotten.”
“Twenty,” Jane said with dignity.
“Mind your tongue, Barnett,” Captain Ingram broke in with a scowl. “Lady Jane might forgive your ill-mannered question, as our journey was long and arduous, but I would not blame her if she did not. Allow me to carry that for you, my lady.”
He reached for the bag, which Jane relinquished, it being rather heavy, and strode with it into the dining room where the rest of the family had streamed.
“He’s gallant that way,” John said without rancor. “I knew you’d approve of him. You’ve grown very pretty, Jane.”
“Thank you,” Jane said, awkward. “You’ve grown very frank.”
“That’s the army for you. You enter a stiff and callow youth and emerge a hot-blooded and crude man. I crave pardon for my jokes. Have I upset you?”
“No, indeed,” she said quickly.
In truth, Jane wasn’t certain. John was changed—he had been, as he said, stiff and overly polite when he’d come out of university and taken a commission in the army. This grinning buffoon was more like the boy she’d known in her youth.