Christmas Rose Read online

  Madeline had stayed there, so as not to embarrass them. She had smiled at their little rendezvous and then decided that she had better speak to the cook since it wouldn’t do to have Mary Ann in the family way. She was cold, crouched there, but not as cold as she felt when she heard their conversation.

  “It be a mortal shame, what you told me, Jeffrey.”

  “Aye, well, but these things ‘appen, luv.”

  “But to pass your own child off as someone else’s ...”

  Madeline wondered whom they were talking about. She felt ridiculous on her hands and knees, but knew she would feel even more so if she got up.

  “I never told anyone, Mary Ann, so don’t you go spreading the word. Lord ‘Olford is a good master, and men understand these things better.’’

  “But you saw ‘er talking to ‘im on the step?”

  “It were snowing, like last night. I ‘ad come out front because I ‘eard a noise. And there they were, next door, with the basket between them.”

  “Do you think it were ‘is ‘ore?”

  “She were a ‘igh class one, from what I could see of ‘er cloak.”

  “And then she left, and ‘e pretended to be drunk. A banging on the door and saying as ‘e tripped over the basket.”

  “So Lady Rose’s mother were the master’s lightskirt?”

  “So I would surmise, Mary Ann,” Jeffrey said solemnly.

  “Well, what do you think of that. And ‘er ladyship not suspecting a thing. Shameful.”

  “I dunno. They been ‘appier this year than in a while, hit seems to me. So maybe it was all for the good.”

  Mary Ann gave him a quick kiss. “I ‘ear the cook calling for me. Tomorrow then?”

  “Tomorrow, luv,” Jeffrey said with a wink. “And you remember to keep your mouth shut.”

  Madeline then would have found it quite easy to have crouched there forever, turning herself into an oddly shaped hedge or piece of topiary. But she forced herself to get up and stumbled back to the house, numb with cold and with what she had overheard. She handed Miss Jones to Nancy and told her to put Rose down for her nap.

  “Won’t you be joining us for a cup of chocolate, my lady? You look so cold.”

  “No, thank you, Nancy. I think I will go up for a nap myself.”

  And so here she was, looking out at the frozen garden and the end of her marriage.

  This past year had been happier even than the first years of their marriage. They had come through the hard times, they had been tested, and their joy in one another was much deeper than it had been at nineteen and twenty-four. And Rose? She was what had brought them together. And now it seemed she would tear them apart.

  How could Jonathan have lied like that? How could he have expected her to take in his bastard? How could he have lied about their years of estrangement? Only kisses indeed! Although, thought Madeline ironically, maybe he was telling a half-truth. Maybe he had done no more than kiss his widows, because he had a whore to do the rest with.

  And Rose! Somehow it had not bothered her, who Rose’s mother was. She could make up any story she wanted: that she was a poor seamstress or a shopgirl. Or even a governess. The child of a good woman who had stumbled once. Not the child of a fallen woman, who once down, never got off her back and, moreover, one who had had Jonathan!

  What was she to do? She had been feeling unaccountably tired and ill these past few weeks. At the moment she was so utterly exhausted by her discovery that she was surprised her blood was still able to move through her body.

  She would just leave them both. Let him raise his bastard alone. Let him explain to the society why his wife suddenly left him. She would go home to her parents until she decided where to live for the rest of her miserable life.

  She pulled out a valise and threw in the first clothes that came to hand. She summoned a footman and ordered the coach readied for the trip to Somerset. He appeared surprised, but quickly straightened out his features and obeyed her bidding, wondering all the while why the mistress, who was standing there so wide-eyed and pale, was on her way to Mansfield alone.

  Madeline decided to take one last look at Rose. She made her way to the nursery, almost unwillingly, and sent Nancy off downstairs.

  There she was, their Rosie, lying peacefully, the ever-faithful Miss Jones in her arms. Miss Jones’s face had faded over the year, so she finally appeared respectable. A gentlewoman down on her luck, rather than a successful tart, Jonathan had commented a few months ago.

  Madeline choked a sob back and truly looked at Rose. How could she leave her? She loved her, whoever’s child she was. And why should Jonathan have her? He was the true villain in all of this. Rose was her daughter, no matter who had conceived her. She scooped her up, murmuring softly to keep her sleeping for a few more minutes. At least she had a child from this marriage. Jonathan would have nothing, which was what he deserved.

  When Jonathan returned home, he immediately went up to the nursery. It was his custom to have a cup of tea with Maddy while Rose was having her own supper, and then he joined in on the prebed rituals. When he got upstairs, he was surprised to find the nursery dark and deserted. No sign of Rose, Maddy, or the nurse.

  He was puzzled, but not overly concerned. Something must have kept them later than usual. Probably Maddy had told him their plans while he was engrossed in his newspaper. He went down to the library, pulled out a book, and settled in to wait for them.

  When they had not returned over an hour later, he began to worry, and summoned the butler.

  “Stoughton, I am sure whatever her engagement, Lady Holford would not keep Rose out this late. Did she say where she was going?”

  The butler looked down at the carpet, as though trying to discover an answer to the question there. “I believe Lady Holford said she was going to Mansfield, my lord,” he finally answered.

  “Mansfield? Whatever do you mean, Stoughton? Of course she wouldn’t have gone to Mansfield. We are not leaving for the holidays for another ten days.”

  “Nevertheless, she summoned the coach, and she and Lady Rose and Nancy left three hours ago.”

  Jonathan was speechless. Why in God’s name would Madeline leave like that? And without telling him? He might have been absorbed in his newspaper this morning, but an announcement like that would have gotten his attention.

  “I see,” he finally replied, although he didn’t, not at all. “Well, then, tell Cook I will dine within the hour.”

  "Yes, my lord.”

  Belowstairs, of course, was buzzing.

  “I can’t imagine why Lady Holford would leave like that,” said the cook as she was sitting down later to eat her own meal. “Why this past year they have been happier, I wager, than ever before. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  Mary Ann could not resist the opportunity to become the center of attention. “I bet I know why she left.”

  “Oh, go on, Mary Ann. You are hardly her ladyship’s con-fee-dante,” drawled James, the first footman, in his most irritating way.

  “She left because the master fobbed ‘is bastard off on ‘er, that’s why,” she said, with a triumphant smirk.

  “Wherever did you get that idea, Mary Ann? The baby was left to them by a distant cousin.”

  “What if that’s what his lordship wanted us to think? What if ‘e and ‘is ‘ore set the ‘ole thing up?”

  “Enough of your lying gossip, girl,” said the cook, brandishing her spoon. “You’ll scrub the pots twice tonight.”

  “I ain’t lying. Jeffrey saw them. Call ‘im in and ask hif 'e didn’t.”

  “And so I will, to end this once and for all,” replied the cook. But when Jeffrey repeated his story reluctantly, it was so convincing that there was dead silence at the table.

  “You never told the mistress this, did you, Jeffrey?”

  “Go on. I never come within ten feet of ‘er. And from what I know of ‘er, I like ‘er.”

  Mary Ann piped up. “We was talking about it out in the garden t
his morning. I didn’t see nobody, but maybe somehow she ‘eard us.”

  “We certainly don’t know for sure, but I think she must have,” said Stoughton after a moment’s thought. He had been sitting quietly, hoping that Mary Ann would be discredited. Who would ever have guessed that Jeffrey had been a witness last winter? “I think I will have to tell his lordship.”

  Mary Ann blanched. “Oh, no, Mr. Stoughton. ‘E’ll turn me out, and my family needs the money I give them.’’

  “Lord Holford is not that sort, Mary Ann. Although it would be no less than you deserve, for spreading this gossip.”

  “I’ll tell ‘im, Mr. Stoughton,” said Jeffrey. “Arter all, it were me as saw ‘im.”

  “Yes, perhaps you should come upstairs with me, Jeffrey, and we’ll ask to see him. And the rest of you,” said Stoughton threateningly. “If I hear one word gets out of this house, I’ll sack you all.”

  Jonathan was surprised by Stoughton’s knock, but let him into the library, followed by one of the stable lads.

  “Good evening, my lord,” said the butler.

  “Good evening, Stoughton. And, Jeffrey, isn’t it? Is there something wrong with one of the horses?”

  “Jeffrey has something to tell you that we think will cast some light on Lady Holford’s precipitous departure,” said Stoughton at his most formal.

  “Yes?” asked Jonathan, unable to think of anything a stable lad would know.

  “Er, yes, sir, I mean, yes, my lord. You see, I were talking to Mary Ann this morning.”

  “Mary Ann?”

  “The scullery maid, my lord. We are a bit sweet on one another,” admitted Jeffrey, blushing to the roots of his hair. “And I were telling ‘er . . . this is ‘ard, my lord. It isn’t that I don’t respect you, and I ‘ave never, never told anyone else, but I wanted to impress ‘er, you know.”

  “Yes, Jeffrey, get on with it,” said Stoughton impatiently.

  “I told Mary Ann I ‘ad seen you and your . . . er . . . lady friend the night Lady Rose arrived. You were a’ talking on the steps next door, the basket between you. So I told Mary Ann I thought Lady Rose was your . . . yours. And your lady friend’s,” he added almost inaudibly.

  “But whatever does your mistaken gossip have to do with Lady Holford’s departure?” asked Jonathan. “And you are mistaken, Jeffrey.”

  “We think, my lord,” said Stoughton, “although we are not sure, that Lady Holford might have overheard their conversation. She was in the garden this morning, that we do know.”

  “Oh my God.” It hit Jonathan full force. Maddy had left him, and nothing else would have made her leave. She must have overheard the wretched stable lad’s gossip.

  “Stoughton, get Jeffrey out of here before I do something I will regret later, like sacking him.” Or killing him, thought Jonathan, as the two left.

  What had Maddy thought? That he had asked her to raise his whore’s child? That he had lied to her about those painful years of abstinence? What else could she think? She might have asked me, he thought. She might have trusted me. He was both distraught for her and furious at the same time.

  Well, it was an accurate account, he thought bitterly. Jeffrey was not lying, only misinterpreting. There I was, talking to that woman, and Rose lying between us. What else was he to think? And I suppose I am lucky that he seems to be loyal enough not to have spread it all over town. Maddy would not have as quickly believed town gossip, Jonathan knew, but a conversation overheard by accident would hold weight.

  He would leave early in the morning and let Stoughton close the house behind him. He would get there and tell Maddy the truth, and all would be well between them again, he was sure. She would be a little upset when she heard he had practiced a small deception. But surely it was not such a bad thing, to have wanted her to want Rose?

  * * *

  The two women had spent a miserable night in an inn. Maddy was unable to sleep at all and Rose was restless and irritable, having sensed her mother’s distress. They arrived at Maddy’s parents’ past midday and were greeted warmly, but with surprise.

  ‘‘Please don’t ask me yet why we are here, Mother,” Maddy begged. “Let me get Rose down for a nap, and I will join you for tea and tell you everything.”

  But Maddy never came down, and when her mother went up to look for her, she found her daughter curled up next to Rose. “Looking like two children, with that silly Miss Jones between them,” she told her husband. “And I know she had been crying.”

  Lady Mansfield went back up an hour later and sat quietly, waiting for her daughter to awaken.

  “Mother. . . ?” asked Maddy, surprised when she was awakened by her mother’s presence in the dark room. “What time is it?”

  “Time to get up, Maddy and tell me why you are here,” answered Lady Mansfield quietly.

  Maddy pulled herself up, careful not to disturb Rose, and straightened her dress. She found she could not look at her mother and tell her story, so she gazed at the floor as she told her of Jonathan’s deception.

  Lady Mansfield listened carefully. “And when you spoke to Jonathan, what was his explanation?”

  “I didn’t wait to speak to him. Why would I need to? This wasn’t ton gossip, Mother. Those two did not know I was there, and what reason would a stable lad have to lie?”

  “Still, there may be some other reason Jonathan was talking with the woman.”

  “What other reason than that they were conspiring to have their . . . child introduced into the household?”

  “It does look that way, Maddy,” her mother said and continued thoughtfully, “But what difference, in the long run, would it make? We all assumed Rose’s mother was no better than she should be, and we all love her, knowing that.”

  “Mother,” said Madeline, lifting her eyes to her mother’s face, “you do not know what it is like to be a childless woman. To have tried, month after month, year after year. It has been hell, and it contaminated our marriage. But at least, all that time, in some way Jonathan and I were suffering together. Neither of us could produce a child, or so I thought,’’ she concluded bitterly. “But now, to think that he succeeded, that he was able to have one with another woman and then fob her off on me ... I can never forgive him.”

  “And Rose?”

  Madeline looked down at her sleeping daughter and said quietly and vehemently, “She is my daughter, no matter that he is the biological parent. I tried, but I could not leave her behind.”

  Her mother rose and extended her hand. “Come, let us go down and talk with your father. You know that Jonathan is sure to come after you?”

  “Let him,” said Maddy, her voice so cold that a shiver went through Lady Mansfield.

  By the time Jonathan arrived the next day, the baron and Lady Mansfield had decided that they would not involve themselves in the quarrel beyond giving Maddy and Rose refuge. Lady Mansfield was inclined to sympathize with her daughter, and Lord Mansfield with Jonathan, but both decided not to discuss it further between themselves. They concentrated their attentions on Rose, who toddled about, delighted to be with her grandparents, and delighting them with the range of her vocabulary.

  Maddy went for a long walk in the afternoon and had just taken off her cloak when Jonathan rode up the drive. She looked beautiful, her cheeks flushed with exercise and cold, and as Jonathan shrugged out of his greatcoat, he had a hard time holding on to his anger at her willingness to believe what she had heard and to run off without even giving him a chance to explain.

  Madeline sent the footman off immediately to order some tea for herself and Lord Holford, but as soon as he left, Jonathan looked at her and said, “No tea, Maddy. No polite rituals until we have spoken. Is Rose here with you?”

  “Of course. Where else would she be?”

  “I don’t know. You left me no word at all, so I have been worried.”

  “Worried that I would abandon your bastard the same way her real mother was supposed to have done?” Maddy’s eyes were blazing
with anger.

  “Madeline,” Jonathan said, controlling his voice with great difficulty, “we are not going to talk about this in the hall. Come into the library, please.”

  Madeline turned on her heel and having walked down the hall, flung open the door to the library. Jonathan followed and closed it gently after them.

  The room was chilly, for it was in the east wing of the house and had had no sun since morning. There was a fire in the grate, but it was almost out, so Jonathan calmed himself by adding a few logs and stirring it up before he turned to face his wife.

  “I know why you left, Maddy,” he said quietly. “But you at least owe me the chance to explain.”

  “How do you know?” she asked, tight-lipped. Now that she was facing him the only way she could keep herself from weeping was to hold on to her anger.

  “Evidently, Mary Ann, the scullery maid, offered her explanation of your departure in front of Stoughton. He got the whole story out of her. Were you in the garden?”

  “Yes. I was looking for Miss Jones, and I overheard them.”

  “And believed a stable lad without question, without even asking for my side of the story?”

  “What reason would he have to make it up? Had he come to me directly, I might have thought about blackmail. But he has kept your secret for a year, so he is clearly loyal and only trotted it out to impress his ‘lady.’ He saw you with her, Rose’s mother and your . . . whore.”

  “Yes, he did see me with Rose’s mother,” Jonathan said quietly.

  “There, you don’t even bother to deny it!” Maddy sank down on the sofa. A wave of exhaustion passed over her, and she suddenly felt quite sick. She had believed the stable lad, but somehow had been hoping that Jonathan would deny everything.

  “There is nothing to deny, Maddy. I came home late that night, and just as I was almost at our door, I saw a woman leave a basket on the steps next door.”

  “But the Barrands were out of town.”