Лорен Уиллиг - The Temptation of the Night Jasmine

She had been nine, a silent child in a silent house, still in mourning for her mother, watching helplessly as her father lay dying in state in the great ducal bedchamber, a wax figure on a field of crimson and gold. Terrified of the sharp-tongued grandmother who had snatched her up like the witch out of one of the tales her mother used to tell her, shivering with loneliness in the great marble halls of Girdings, Charlotte had been numb with grief and confusion.

And then Cousin Robert had appeared.

He had must have been fifteen, but to Charlotte, he had seemed impossibly grown-up, as tall and golden as the illustration of Sir Gawain in her favorite storybook. She had shrunk shyly out of the way (she had got used to staying out of the way by then, after nine months at Girdings), a book clasped in front of her like a shield, but her big, handsome cousin had hunkered down on one knee and said, in just that way, “Hello, Cousin Charlotte. You are Cousin Charlotte, aren’t you?” and Charlotte had lost her nine-year-old heart.

He didn’t look the same. He was still considerably taller than she was — that much hadn’t changed — but his face was thinner, and there were lines in it that hadn’t been there before. The healthy, red-cheeked English complexion she remembered had been burnt brown by harsher suns than theirs. That same sun had bleached his dark blond hair, which had once been nearly the same shade as hers, with streaks of pale gilt.

But when he smiled, he was unmistakably the same man. The very stone of Girdings seemed to glow with it.

“Yes,” Charlotte said as a dizzy smile spread itself across her face. “This is my cousin.”

“I wish my cousins greeted me like that,” groused the dark-haired man, his eyes still on Penelope, who didn’t pay him any notice at all.

“Happy Christmas, Cousin Charlotte,” her cousin said, her hand still held lightly in his. It felt quite comfortable there. Giving her hand a brief squeeze, he relinquished it. Charlotte could feel the ghost of the pressure straight through her glove.

“But — ” Charlotte shook her head to clear it. “Not that I’m not very happy to see you, but aren’t you meant to be in India?”

“I was in India,” said her cousin blandly. “I came back.”

“One does,” put in his friend, with such a droll expression that Charlotte would have smiled back had all her attention not been fixed so entirely on her cousin, who was leaning towards her with one elbow propped against a booted knee.

“I take it you didn’t get my letter.”

“Letter? No, we received no letter.” As witty repartee went, that wasn’t much better, but at least it was a full sentence.

The duke exchanged an amused look with his friend. “I have no doubt it will arrive eight months from now, having traveled on a very slow boat by way of Jamaica, Greenland, and the Outer Hebrides.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been to the Outer Hebrides,” drawled Penelope.

“No, just India,” said the newly returned duke, as though it were the merest jaunt.

India! The very name thrilled Charlotte straight down to her boot laces. She imagined elephants draped in crimson and gold, bearing dusky princes with rubies the size of pigeons’ eggs in their turbans. A thousand questions clamored for the asking. Was it all as exotic as it seemed? Had he ridden an elephant? Did the men there really keep multiple wives? Why had he come back? And why couldn’t he have come back on a day when she wasn’t wearing an ancient cloak with her nose dripping from the cold?

It wasn’t that Charlotte hadn’t known he would come back someday. He was the Duke of Dovedale. He had estates and tenants and all sorts of responsibilities that were supposed to be his, even if her grandmother had blithely appropriated them all years ago, as though the existence of a legitimate claimant were nothing more than a troublesome technicality. It was just that in Charlotte’s daydreams, his return had usually occurred at the height of summer, in a choice corner of the gardens. She was also usually a foot taller and stunningly beautiful, too, neither of which seemed to have occurred in the past ten minutes.

Charlotte looked hopelessly at the barren stretch of ground, the empty stairs, the thick smoke from the torchères that smudged seamlessly into the early December dusk. This was no fit welcome for anyone, much less for the return of the duke after a decade abroad. There should have been fanfare and trumpets, servants in livery, and Grandmama there to greet him with her own peculiar brand of regal condescension. There was something shameful about so shabby a welcome.

“Had we known you were coming, we would have made proper provision to welcome you home.”

Her cousin’s eyes flickered upwards, over the vast and imposing façade of Girdings. “Lined the servants up and all that?”

“Something like that,” Charlotte acknowledged, feeling very small on the broad stairs with the vast stone bulk of the house towering behind her. “Grandmama does like the grand feudal gesture.”

“I think I prefer this,” said Robert, in a way that made the sentiment into a nice little compliment to her. “I can do without the banners and trumpets.”

“Although a blazing fire would be nice,” added his friend plaintively, rubbing his gloved hands together. “A flagon of ale, a few plump — ”

“Tommy.”

“ — pheasants,” finished Tommy, with a wounded expression. “We’ve been traveling since dawn,” he added for the ladies’ benefit.

“And by dawn, he means noon,” corrected Robert. “Cousin Charlotte, may I present my comrade in arms and thorn in my flesh, First Lieutenant Thomas Fluellen, late of His Majesty’s Seventy-fourth Foot.”

Lieutenant Fluellen bowed with a fluid grace spoiled only slightly by the broad grin he gave her in rising. “Many thanks for your kind hospitality, Lady Charlotte.”

“It’s really Cousin Robert’s house, so it’s he you have to thank.”

“I’d rather thank you,” said Lieutenant Fluellen winningly, but his eyes snuck past her to Penelope as he said it.

“Behave yourself, Tommy. It’s been a very long time since he’s been in the company of gentlewomen,” Robert explained in an aside to Charlotte.

“I would never have guessed,” said Charlotte staunchly. “I think he’s doing quite well.”

She was rewarded with a beaming smile. “My five sisters will be more than delighted to hear that. They all took it in turn to beat some manners into me.”

“And all the sense out,” finished Robert, banging his hands against his upper arms to warm them. His breath left a fine mist in the air.

“Won’t you come inside?” said Charlotte belatedly, gesturing towards the doors. The doors obligingly swung open, spilling out light and warmth. The servants at Girdings were impeccably trained. Charlotte looked guiltily from Lieutenant Fluellen’s red nose to her cousin’s faintly blue lips. “I don’t know about the ale, but there’s plenty of hot, spiced wine to be had, and a very warm fire besides.”

No one needed to be asked twice. The gentlemen trooped gratefully into the entrance hall, where a fire crackled in one of the two great hearths. The other lay empty, waiting for the Yule log, which would be ceremonially dragged in later that evening. The Dowager Duchess kept to the old traditions at Girdings. The holly, the ivy, and the Yule log were always brought in on Christmas Eve and not a moment sooner.

Robert looked ruefully at the red ribbons Charlotte had tied around the carved balusters on the stairs. “We hadn’t meant to intrude on Christmas Eve.”

“Can you really intrude on your own house?” asked Charlotte.

“Is it?” Robert said. His eyes roamed along the high ceiling with its panorama of inquisitive gods and goddesses, leaning out of Olympus to rest their elbows on the gilded frame. His gaze made the circuit of the hall, passing over the vibrant murals depicting the noble lineage of the House of Dovedale, from the mythical Sir Guillaume de Lansdowne receiving his spurs from William the Conqueror on the field of Hastings, past Charlotte’s favorite hero of Agincourt, all the way up to the first Duke of Dovedale himself, boosting a rakish-looking Charles II into an oak tree near Worcester as perplexed Parliamentarian troops peered about nearby. “I keep forgetting.”