A Christmas Cotillion Read online

  A Christmas Cotillion

  By Ellie Thomas

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2019 Ellie Thomas

  ISBN 9781646562015

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  A Christmas Cotillion

  By Ellie Thomas

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 1

  What on earth am I doing here? Jonathan Cavendish, Esquire wondered for the twentieth time that day, while he maintained a pleasant social smile for the bespectacled older gentleman talking to him.

  He knew there was no real reason why he shouldn’t be enjoying himself. He and the other guests were three days into a two-week visit to Abbeyfield House in Northamptonshire for Christmas. His hosts, the Grant family, were numerous and gregarious and as providers of hospitality, both generous and unpretentious.

  As a result, the invited company was varied and convivial. He should be relaxing and embracing the agreeably unsophisticated entertainment like his fellow guests, and on the surface, he was doing exactly that; being a good sport, joining in the seasonal fun and games, making congenial conversation with the young and not so young of the party, both male and female. All the same, some inner, deeper part of him could not or would not allow him to let down his guard and unbend.

  He’d had to be persuaded on two fronts to leave his much less welcoming home for the Christmas period. Must be something to do with being lord of the manor, he thought with a sardonic grin, as his noble domain was merely a tumbledown farmhouse surrounded by lands that had gone to seed.

  At least, that’s how it had been five years previously when he had inherited the property from an elderly uncle. Nowadays, after a great deal of hard work, the main house was restored, or at least weatherproofed, and the land was starting to break even. His man of business, or less pretentiously and more realistically, farm manager, had encouraged him to accept this invitation.

  “You haven’t had any time away in these past years, except trips to town to negotiate with the bank,” he’d said. Jonathan had guessed that his steward needed a break from him more than anything and was looking forward to a full fortnight without Jonathan driving him almost as hard as he did himself.

  “You can’t keep working all hours like this. You’ll make yourself ill,” he’d added, surprisingly firmly. It was this genuine concern for his well-being that really made Jonathan pause.

  This appeal was coupled with another persuasive force, due entirely to his cousin Freddy. Jonathan flicked a glance over the company to see that young man’s fair head bobbing about amongst the youthful dancers. Freddy had declared himself to be madly in love. This was nothing new, as the romantically-inclined young man had made similar declarations on a semi-regular basis. This time, however, he was seriously thinking of making a proposal of marriage to the object of his affections.

  So, his mother, Jonathan’s Aunt Matilda, had pleaded that Jonathan accompany Freddy to these festivities to which both Freddy and the young lady had been invited, so he could supervise the progress of this romance.

  “Not that I don’t trust Freddy’s judgement,” Aunt Matilda had said dubiously, “but it would set my mind at ease if you were there to keep an eye on him.”

  As head of the family, he would have felt grudgingly obliged to find someone suitable to chaperone his feckless but charming young cousin. But his aunt’s appeal to his better nature was very hard to resist and he was very fond of her. As a widow with numerous children, she depended on and deferred to his opinion with open gratitude.

  He was only thirty but he often felt almost twice his age, with so many people reliant on him. Perhaps this was why he could not quite let go, even in this happy, celebratory atmosphere, while making an apparently considered response to the white-haired elderly man with his long hair tied back in an old-fashioned queue.

  The chat he was idly taking a part in widened to include another gentleman and Jonathan was no longer really required. Looking about, he spotted a young lady, sitting on her own looking a little sad for she was lacking a dancing partner. As he took her arm and they joined the fray, and receiving a delighted smile, he thought of Freddy’s current inamorata, Belinda.

  Steering his animated partner through the familiar patterns of a country dance, Jonathan mused on that other young woman. During the journey together, Freddy had eulogised on her sterling qualities. An angel sent down from heaven and a flaxen Venus were some of the epithets on her loveliness. Jonathan was amused, rather than taken in by this enthusiasm, especially since he had heard enraptured utterings on a similar theme about Freddy’s previous amours.

  Nevertheless, some of this high-flown praise must have rubbed off on him, as when he met Belinda, he was rather taken aback by her appearance. She was not at all the rather showy and mildly flirtatious blonde he was half-expecting.

  She was pretty in a quiet, neat-featured way. Her hair was indeed light in colour, but tidily arranged, rather than the glowing halo Freddy had fervently described and her manner and attire were similarly modest.

  Having continued to observe her in the few days they’d been there, he was less and less certain of Freddy’s mother’s anxieties that her son’s good nature was being taken advantage of by a designing girl on a husband hunt.

  In fact, the relative who was accompanying her, much as Jonathan was Freddy, seemed a great deal keener to push her young charge towards Freddy than the young lady was herself. Jonathan was starting to consider whether Belinda found Freddy’s demonstrations of affection a little overwhelming.

  She had not responded with unbridled eagerness to Freddy’s enthusiastic entrees. She smiled politely but was the same with Freddy as she was with the other young men in the party. There seemed to be no partiality towards him. Jonathan reckoned that behind that rather delicate, youthful appearance was a sensible person who knew her own mind.

  As he turned and stepped with and twirled his young dance partner, he made a mental note to find some way of getting Belinda alone to discover her real feelings, without any interruptions from her chaperone or Freddy. The dance ended with a flourish from the musicians and he bowed politely to the now happily flushed girl and gracefully handed her on to her next dance partner, glad for some res
pite.

  Chapter 2

  It was fortunate that, due to his age and single status, he didn’t belong to any specific group and therefore could be a flexible guest for his hosts. Especially since he was an extra man who had almost invited himself rather than received an official invitation and yet had been greeted with nothing but warmth.

  As this evening had shown, he was still young enough to partner a left-out young lady at dancing but also able to join a more weighty discussion with the older gentlemen, which he did now, glass of wine in hand.

  Although he was content to do his social duty, he mused that these days, he was more inclined to fall into conversation with his fellow landowners about crop rotation or field drainage than to join in with the noisy games of charades or impromptu amateur theatricals of the younger guests. When did that happen? This thought raised a rueful smile.

  However, one of the advantages of being naturally au fait with his elders meant that the youthful damsels of the party regarded him in an avuncular way. He would much prefer that than them setting their caps at him. Sweet and delightful though all of them seemed, they also behaved much like his young nieces in the schoolroom and that made him feel positively ancient.

  There was also the very carefully hidden fact that young ladies, in general, were not to his taste at all. Not that he would dream of hinting at his attraction to his own gender in present company, he thought with a wry grin. Causing an outrage and getting arrested wouldn’t help Freddy’s cause at all. But to be honest, he hadn’t felt the urge to express his desires for some years, not since…

  His mind shut down on that notion automatically, cutting off the train of thought with accustomed control. Without a pause, he added his opinion on the depth required for field-edge ditches to provide proper drainage.

  Chapter3

  After another couple of days of conviviality, Jonathan got his chance for a tête-à-tête with Belinda to discover her true opinion of his love-struck cousin. As the day was dry and bright, a walk to a local beauty spot to gather greenery to decorate the house for Christmas Eve had been suggested, for those so inclined.

  As expected, the party was divided into those who, together with the children of the house, wished to climb a nearby hill in order to tumble down it and those who merely wished to ramble in the fresh air, enjoy the vista, and gather the holly and ivy. So the company split naturally into small groups.

  Belinda’s companion, who was rather stout, elected to stay on a grassy clearing after the short walk and was joined by several others who were not keen on over-exertion, ostensibly to sort and organise the gathered greenery into piles.

  Belinda, armed with a basket and scissors, was walking slightly behind a straggle of several people, so it seemed merely courteous to catch up with her. As they talked, they turned to follow a pretty, winding path that cut them off from the others. Belinda spotted a relatively low hanging branch with berried holly and Jonathan assisted her, holding down the bough within reach for her while she snipped at it.

  In this relaxed setting, Belinda chatted naturally with him about her home life and their new acquaintances here. As he held down the tree-limbs for her and they discussed which boughs were suitable to collect, he realised that, as he had guessed, she was not socially awkward, just reserved.

  He noted that the fact they were having a practical conversation without any edge of flirtation seemed to make her much more comfortable in his company. Definitely a sensible girl, Jonathan thought as they placed the chosen seasonal branches in the basket.

  Such was the ease between them that he hesitated to bring up the subject of Freddy lest she retreat into shyness. However, his cousin’s voice, loudly hallooing as he ran down the nearby slope, intervened neatly.

  They both burst out laughing at the gleeful sound. Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Freddy is obviously being a great help with collecting the decorations,” he said.

  Belinda smiled at him without constraint. “I don’t think anyone minds. He is always so lively and brings a sense of fun to every activity.”

  “He does indeed,” agreed Jonathan, “and he has always been that way. I remember him shouting in sheer high spirits like that when he was ten years old. Nothing changes.” He smiled as he handed her the scissors.

  “That can be a good thing,” added Belinda, snipping off a branch of holly, “to have such a zest for life.

  “When it’s not incessantly exhausting, yes,” Jonathan said drily, placing the greenery in the basket for her, his remark making her laugh again.

  Having finished that particular tree, they went on to the next, which was liberally festooned with ivy. They discussed which tendrils would be suitably decorative before starting to gather it.

  As Jonathan eased a large frond of ivy away from the tree and Belinda wielded the scissors, the conversation continued. “I do enjoy being around Mr. Frederick,” she said simply. “His ideas and enthusiasm are infectious and keep us all entertained.”

  Keeping a firm hold on his end of the branch, Jonathan added something non-committal, waiting for the ‘but’ he could hear in her voice.

  Belinda hesitated, evidently trying to frame her thoughts. “However,” she said, “His passions can be quite short-lived and a little volatile. Perhaps he has always been changeable?”

  At that point, the swathe of ivy came free from the tree which gave Jonathan a moment to think about how best to answer the definite question conveyed by her tone.

  “Well, yes,” Jonathan said neutrally, “he does tend to run from one thing to another. But he is still very young and I’m sure with age and experience he will calm down.”

  “But will he settle in his affections?” Belinda asked, the greenery gathering momentarily forgotten, looking at him directly, her large grey eyes troubled.

  “That is the crux of the matter, and in truth, my dear lady, only time will tell,” Jonathan said honestly, admiring her clear-sightedness.

  She turned to the tree again and snipped a stray tendril of ivy, placing a trailing stem in the basket. “It is very pleasant to be the object of such admiration,” she said, equally frankly, “even if there were similar addresses to Venetia Makepeace a few months ago and Amanda Hill before her. Not that I doubt Mr. Frederick’s sincerity. At the present time, that is,” she said uncertainly.

  “Freddy has always been an affectionate soul,” Jonathan agreed blandly, picking up the basket as they inspected the next bush for any berried holly.

  Belinda smiled, a little abstractedly. “As you say, he is young and enjoying being in wider society and so, such light flirtations are harmless. But he has said to my cousin Jane that he wishes to ask my father for my hand.”

  “And you are unsure of him?” Jonathan asked.

  Belinda hesitated again. “To have a fervent beau is most flattering, even if you suspect the admiration is quite fleeting. It gives one confidence in society,” she said with a ghost of a smile. “But to have a husband whose affections might disappear shortly after the wedding, or even be transferred to other ladies, well, that is quite a different matter and less tolerable.”

  Jonathan lifted the now heavy container in one hand and offered her his other arm. “As you say, my dear,” he said. “Freddy’s enthusiasms can wax and wane, but on this occasion,” he said, smiling warmly at her, “I think his regard for you shows that he is capable of very good taste.” She looked up at him with slight surprise, blushed a little and, taking his arm, they started to walk back along the path together.

  “You know your own mind, which is the most important thing in such a momentous decision. You are wise to wait and see if Freddy’s affirmations stay steady before allowing him to address your father.”

  Belinda gave a little sigh of relief and lightly squeezed his arm.

  “It’s not that I don’t like Freddy,” she added quickly. “As I said, I do enjoy his liveliness greatly, but I think at bottom, we are quite different sorts of people. I prefer a quiet, calm kind of life and I think, in
time, he would find that rather dull.”

  “My dear girl, boring is the last word I would choose to describe you,” Jonathan said lightly and candidly. “Opposites can attract and complement each other, after all.” His memories caused a twist of his heart, not betrayed by his even tone.

  “But we will wait and see,” he continued, “With all the prospective parties and more local young people joining us over Christmas, if Freddy has his head turned by a new arrival, then we will know we were right not to let this go further. If he stays true to you, then you have your answer.”

  They took the curve of the path that led towards the clearing where the greenery was being sorted by a busy throng.

  “Thank you,” Belinda said gratefully. “I feel most reassured by your words. Cousin Jane has been urging me to encourage Freddy and get an engagement settled as soon as possible, but I could not be easy in my mind about such haste.”

  As they drew closer to the main group, Jonathan added, “I think you have been most discerning, and your behaviour has done you great credit.” They smiled at each other in perfect understanding and Jonathan patted her arm before he set down the fully-laden basket to be picked over by the busy sorters.

  Chapter 4

  Jonathan did not expect to enjoy the decorating of the reception rooms. The younger members of the Grant family and their youthful guests were the chief instigators of this task, with slightly older, able-bodied guests, like himself, roped in for extra assistance.

  He would not have been so churlish as to refuse to help but expected to go along with it for appearances’ sake and the minimum required time. To his surprise, he got caught up in the sheer merriment of it all, joining in animated discussions about which branches should go where for best effect, and the strategic placements of mistletoe.

  It was typical of the Grants to allow their family and younger guests free rein to embellish the entire ground floor of their home and profess themselves delighted with the results.