Margaret McPhee - A Magical Regency Christmas - Christmas Cinderella / Finding Forever at Christmas / The Captain's Christmas Angel

* * *

To her surprise, Polly found that she settled quite easily into the rhythm of her new life over the next week and a half. The children arrived on time each morning and even those villagers who viewed reading and writing with suspicion made her welcome. Hardly a day went by when some small offering did not appear either with one of her pupils, or a father dropping by with something larger, such as the flitch of bacon delivered by Mr Appleby. ‘Give a bit of flavour to a soup,’ he said, hanging it from a beam.

Other parents called, or spoke to her cheerfully in the street. Pippa Alderley visited after school halfway through the second week and brought several books to lend to her.

‘Alex has some you’d like,’ she said cheerfully, smiling over the rim of her mug. ‘He brought some lovely sets of engravings back from abroad. Scenes of Venice and Rome.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘He went to Pompeii, too, but he won’t show me those.’ She sipped her tea and sighed. ‘Dominic refused to take me there when we went to the Continent after we married. He said they wouldn’t let me see the ruins anyway. Most unfair, I call it.’

Polly stared, trying to imagine Alex visiting the scandalous ruins of Pompeii. She couldn’t quite manage it, so turned her attention back to her guest. Pippa seemed quite unbothered by the less-than-grand surroundings of the schoolhouse. She had spotted the tea caddy the moment Polly lifted it down.

‘Did Alex make that?’

Polly flushed. ‘Yes.’

Pippa said no more on the subject, but an odd smile had played about her mouth as Polly made the tea.

* * *

When she rose to go, Pippa said, ‘You’ll come for dinner one day, won’t you? Alex comes quite often. He can bring you along. He’s rather busy just now, but perhaps once Christmas is over?’

Polly flushed. ‘If you think he won’t mind...’

Pippa looked amused. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think he’d mind at all.’

Polly wasn’t sure it was a good idea. Alex Martindale called daily, ostensibly to check on the children’s progress, and she looked forward to those visits far, far too much. It would be far too easy to let herself dream, believe that those visits and the caddy meant something more than a good man’s kindness.

* * *

Alex strode back into Alderford late that afternoon, his gun over his shoulder and Bonny at his heels. The sun had set, but scarlet and gold still blazed in the west. He’d made a couple of nearby visits on foot and walked back over Dominic’s land.

‘Afternoon, Rector.’ Jim Benson touched his cap and looked admiringly at the brace of woodcock that dangled from Alex’s hand. ‘Those his lordship’s?’

Alex smiled. ‘They were.’

Jim grinned. ‘Ah, well. Not like he’ll miss them.’ He nodded at Bonny. ‘Shaping well, is she?’

‘Yes,’ said Alex, looking down at his dog. ‘Very steady. Good nose and a lovely soft mouth.’ Which had fortunately now stopped chewing the rugs.

Jim nodded. ‘Aye. Looks like she’s earning her way.’ He touched his cap again. ‘I’ll be off to my supper. Reckon them birds will go right tasty in Miss Polly’s pot!’ And with a sly grin, he was off.

Alex stared after him in disbelief. How the deuce had the fellow known the birds were for Polly—Miss Woodrowe? Of course, he’d already given a bird to old Jem Tanner. And yesterday he’d given a brace of rabbits to the Jenkins family... Everyone knew he often gave game to his parishioners, but perhaps he ought not to be calling on Polly quite so often. Not daily, anyway. She was managing perfectly well for herself, after all. Now that he was assured of that, perhaps he could call once, or maybe twice, a week? Just to discuss the children’s progress with her.

Pondering this, trying to convince himself that it was a good idea, he approached the cottage, automatically going around to the back door to save Polly having to come all the way to the front door through the schoolroom...

‘Out! Out, you brute!’

Something exploded in a white-hot rush in Alex’s brain. He had no idea how he reached the door, but he flung it open to find Polly, broom in hand, poking under a cupboard.

A rat of monumental proportions broke from cover and hurtled across the room, Polly charging after it, brandishing the broom. Bonny let out a startled bark as the terrified rodent shot between her paws and vanished in the darkness.

‘You let it escape!’ panted Polly, clearly furious.

Alex’s heart steadied. ‘Did you want it for a pet?’ he asked, bemused. A rat. God! He’d thought—his stomach churned.

‘Of course not!’ she snapped. ‘I was going to hit it again. Try to kill the wretched thing, so it doesn’t come back! It was up there eating my bacon.’ And she gestured to a large flitch hanging from a beam.

‘You knocked it off?’ Somehow it didn’t surprise him. According to Greek myth Hippolyta had been a warrior queen, after all.

‘Well, of course I did! That’s my bacon!’ Her eyes were slitted with indignation and her cheeks pink. ‘Come in and sit down.’ Several curls had escaped her loose braid, coiling wildly around her face. They looked abandoned, and—he swallowed—voluptuous, as if they’d curl around a man’s fingers in welcome...

Trying to ignore this unprecedented leap of imagination, along with the unclerical leap of his blood, Alex walked in and sat down at the table, placing the woodcock on it. ‘Conventional wisdom,’ he said, disciplining himself to rational thought that didn’t involve half-naked Amazonian warrior maidens, ‘dictates that a young lady confronted with any rat, let alone one that size, is supposed to shriek and faint dead away.’

Polly snorted as she closed the door. ‘And let the brute nibble his way through my bacon? I don’t think so!’

He grinned. He simply couldn’t help it. And her eyes answered, brimming with laughter. His heart hitched, his breath jerked in, her name on his lips.

Polly.

Time slowed, stilled, and he rose and took a slow step towards her, quite why he wasn’t sure.

Her breath jerked in. ‘I’m not a young lady anyway.’

He stopped dead, the spell shattered. ‘The dev—the deuce you aren’t! What put that maggot into your head?’

‘It’s not a maggot,’ she told him. ‘It’s the truth. I work for my living, ergo I am no longer a lady.’

Several responses, none of them utterable by a man of the cloth, let alone before a lady, occurred to him. He bit them all back and said, ‘I work for my living. Does that mean I’m not a gentleman in your eyes?’

She frowned and he was conscious of a sudden desire to smooth the tiny frown lines away, banish them utterly. ‘That’s different,’ she said slowly. ‘The rules are not quite the same for gentlemen, are they?’

No. They weren’t. Nor were they always fair, or even sensible. ‘You’re still a lady,’ he said stubbornly. ‘Has someone treated you as though you weren’t?’ Because if they had—his fists clenched in a very unclerical and unchristian fashion. When he’d heard her cry out—his heart had nearly stopped, and he’d been prepared to tear anyone frightening her limb from limb. ‘You’re still a lady,’ he repeated. ‘No matter what your relatives may think.’

She leaned the broom back beside the cupboard. ‘Maybe. It doesn’t really matter. The children did well today.’

He listened as she outlined their progress, forced his brain to concentrate hard enough to make a few suggestions. And wondered if her hair was really as wildly alive as it looked, her lips as soft...

At last he rose to leave, no longer sure he could resist the temptation of finding out. ‘I should go. You aren’t worried about the rat coming back?’