 
A Cornish Christmas Reunion

By Laura Briggs

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2018 Laura Briggs

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A

Cornish Christmas

Reunion

by

Laura Briggs

The holiday sequel to the best-selling series A Wedding in Cornwall
Have you read the other books in the series?

Books 1-12 now available from your favorite eBook retailers!

Dear Reader,

Almost two years ago I penned the romance novella A Christmas in Cornwall. It was the second story in what turned out to be a series of 12 books about American event planner Julianne's adventures! Readers on both sides of the Pond embraced the highly fictional world of Ceffylgwyn and the Cornish seaside manor of Cliffs House where Julianne helped plan events, and cheered on her romance with the Poldark-esque gardener Matthew Rose.

This holiday reunion tale was inspired by those same readers asking for a glimpse of Julianne and Matt's life post-baby, and brings back other favorite characters for one more bow, including Julianne's former assistant Kitty and her husband Nathan, the starry-eyed housemaid Gemma, and the beloved baker Dinah, among others.

So if you've visited this fictional village before, then welcome back—you'll soon be among old friends in familiar places one more time. If you are new to Julianne's world than I hope you'll enjoy this lighthearted holiday addition to her adventures, and that you'll be inspired to check out the previous stories in the series.

And if you're a fan of all-things Cornwall, you may be interested to learn about my all-new 2019 Cornish romance series. A different picturesque village, quirky characters, and plenty of romance and adventure await readers who love fictitious Cornwall and plucky heroines... and handsome heroes, too.

Be notified when it's available by subscribing to my newsletter, right  HERE.

Cold winds touch the window glass with frosty fingers as I gaze at the world outside my cottage on a Cornish winter morning. It's not the chill of an American Christmas in the northwest from my childhood, where snow piled up in big heaps, sometimes; and it's not the damp, fog, and proper English cold of a London holiday, either. Cornwall is a world unto itself, on the doorstep of the Mediterranean, with the Channel lapping against the shores of France, and the Atlantic beyond reaching hungrily for the northern shores of Africa and Asia.

I, Julianne Rose, missed this county of ancient legends and Christmastime storms rolling in by sea, where snow is almost (but not quite) as laughable at Christmastime as it is in Florida back home. Sometimes I still make a mistake and land myself firmly in the court of expatriates (or 'incomers,' as my friend Pippa would declare dense-headed newcomers with contempt sometimes); but I call this place home with a conviction that I never had for my old life in Seattle, even.

I've been cast away twice now from these shores by circumstance: the first time, when I returned home to help my best friend through an emergency; and the second, when Matt made the loveable but too-impulsive sacrifice of returning to his former Ivy League university position in order to save our home.

For the past year, I spent multiple holidays and weekends shuttling between two sides of the ocean, hungry for more time with Matt while we were apart. The soreness of a pregnant belly and swollen ankles didn't stop me from joining Matt for a pre-semester faculty weekend, nor did the hassle of TSA security lines and the struggle to remove my kitten heels (and, eventually, flats) while balancing said unborn child — but a premature labor scare did, during Matt's second trip to America to secure his lodging for the fall semester.

As it was, Matt nearly missed the birth of our child due to a delayed flight back. He was with me during the last two hours; I, who had envisioned him stuck in the airport, then catching a plane that suffered catastrophe over the ocean, never felt more relieved than when I saw him, though he was exhausted, breathless, and running on pure adrenaline by the time he arrived.

"Just four and a half more months," I whispered. Then Matt's time at the university would be at its end and he would come home for good. Back to Rosemoor, which would legally be half ours by then, back to his native shores, his gardens, and me and our baby. But the only countdown my head wanted to focus on was the next two weeks, three days, seven hours, and twenty-seven minutes: that marked the moment Matt's plane would touch down at Heathrow Airport for the Christmas holidays.

Matt home again, arms around me before the fire in our tiny hearth, watching the lights twinkle on our Christmas tree. Already, I had unpacked the boxes of ornaments from our respective lives and our shared years in Cornwall, too. Boxes of memories, really, from the faded velvet reindeer ornament of Matt's childhood to the tiny clipper ship I had bought as a souvenir the first time Matt returned to teaching.

"We'll save a box for him to help decorate," I said, keeping one box of memories tucked untouched underneath our small tree. "He won't be left out of the fun that way." My listener, who was both serious and smiling at this moment, had inherited Matt's particular talent for this, as well as his dark eyes and long fingers destined for playing in the dirt with plants.

Sylvia Willow Rose was now nearly five months old, and already seemed wise for a tiny human being in a one-piece playsuit and jumper, in my opinion — evidence that she had inherited Matt's genius ... or my stubbornness, whichever was stronger. Maybe I'm simply prejudiced in her favor, but watching her struggle to teach herself to sit up completely on her own, and gaze with fascination for hours at the little cloth picture books with letters and shapes seemed like proof positive to a new mother like me. Given the fact that I was alone with her so much, without Matt's opinion to balance my own, might also be part of it; but I would never admit to him that it was hard, sometimes, with the two of us here in Cornwall and a gap where he belonged in our daily lives.

"Do you miss Boston?" I asked Sylvia, as I hung a tiny ornament featuring a frozen ice rink of mirrored glass and snowy glitter, and little skating figures in plastic. "Did I tell you about the time that me and your daddy skated together in Boston? And mommy nearly fell down and broke her shin bone," I added. Sylvia clapped her hands and made a noise that sounded like approval.

"Thanks," I said, wryly. Sylvia giggled.

"I miss Boston. Not living there, but being there. You know what I mean." My voice became softer, less baby talk-ish, because I talked to Sylvia a lot as if she were already grown-up, my only listener and confident at Rosemoor in the mornings and in the late afternoon and evenings. "It's quiet here with just the two of us, sometimes. And it's not the same, having you tucked in next to me on stormy nights," I added, giving those serious dark eyes the same teasing look I gave to her father's grown-up ones in playful or silly exchanges.

We had spent part of the autumn together in Boston — Lord William and Lady Amanda had been more than generous in giving me holiday time this past year, using the excuse that events for me to plan at Cliffs House were too few at the end of September, and that it would be a good chance for the painters to redo my office and the hallway outside of it. We spent two weeks in Matt's campus lodgings, a duplex with one bedroom, and a cradle for Sylvia in the living room. Two weeks of positive bliss for me, since Matt was fully in the rhythm of teaching by now and not worrying about last-minute changes to his syllabus, nor worrying about final papers or advising students on class projects, and had plenty of time to spend with us. He had made plans for special outings to parks and bought groceries for us to cook dinner and laze about his temporary home, which was the best part of all. He had done his best to tidy away all papers, textbooks, and move molecular slides out of the reach of curious baby fingers to make it feel more homelike.

There were even toys tucked in Sylvia's temporary cradle: a stuffed tiger and a woolly bear, tucked by a big-patch nursery rhyme quilt. That gesture on his part had all but made me cry.

I added a paper star to the tree, then closed the empty ornament box and put it aside. "Time to go, baby," I informed Sylvia, as I seized my coat and oversized shoulder bag — like Lady Amanda before me, I was now condemned to carry a flower-printed tote bag filled with every mommy possession from spare diapers and duckies to billfold and house keys.

Sylvia made chortling noises, already bouncing up and down slightly with anticipation — she loved being carried, and already associated the word 'go' with some kind of adventure, even if it was just a trip to the garden outside our door. I wrapped her in a thick wool shawl and stepped outside the cottage's front door into the cool winter day outside.

The breeze stirred an ornament on the Christmas tree, among the colored twinkle lights — 'Baby's First Christmas' printed on a tiny wooden stocking with a teddy bear shape peeking from its top, a recent gift that Matt had sent. I pulled the door closed behind us.

A cold mist was settling on us, a light drizzle from the overcast sky above. My sensible shoes (to my chagrin, designer high heels were not compatible with motherhood on the go) navigated the wet pavement and cobblestone of Ceffylgwyn's sleepy lanes, decorated already for the coming holidays with cheery greenery and bright red berries.

I drew the shawl over Sylvia's head to block the wind. I could see the first wisps of dark hair peeking out from under her knitted winter hat. I had yet to figure out if they were the color of mine or Matthew's.

The hedges looked frosty in this weather, the crisp evergreen walls of the Cliffs House gardens that Matt himself had once trimmed. Now Pollock the gardener kept them impeccable, much the same way that Michael the chef ruled over the orderly manor kitchen. In the distance, a path led to a gorgeous view of the cliffs, one that I loved with all my heart (next to Matt and Sylvia, in fact), and the reason for the manor's house's name.

Cliffs House: the local manor of stately beauty where I am employed as an event planner for the current owners, helping put together everything from wedding ceremonies and receptions for commoners and celebrities alike, to arranging concerts, wine tastings, and charity teas. It's still one of my favorite places in all of Cornwall, though I have visited houses even statelier and even more legendary in the company of Matt, whose love for gardens in every corner of Cornwall has led me through part of its history.

I smelled fresh-baked gingerbread as I stepped through the kitchen's entrance today. Michael was sliding cookies onto a cooling rack. He gave me a curt nod of greeting that in no way conveyed the unfriendliness people imagined from him, but quite the opposite, actually.

"Morning, Michael." I slipped off my coat and scarf. "Any chance those biscuits are free for the taking?" To me, he might say 'no,' but not to Sylvia. Michael was a bit of a softie when it came to babies, another surprising facet of his character.

"One apiece," he answered, as he slid the pan onto a pile by the sink. But he took one of the already-cool ones and gave it to Sylvia, who accepted it solemnly.

"It's a bit gloomy outside," said Gemma, who had been gazing through the kitchen's high windows, standing on her toes for a better view of the outside world. "Looks a proper storm might come."

"I hope so," said Pippa, who was stringing popcorn for a Christmas tree in the kitchen, one decorated with copper novelty biscuit cutters. "I want a proper Cornish Christmas. It's been awful in Hampshire, all clear weather and frightful cold. It's a wonder that little Ross hasn't caught cold."

Good-natured Gavin had lost the battle to name his son after himself, having to settle for middle name only, while the little tyke he and Pippa were raising sported a moniker that could only come from one source — Pippa's girlhood obsession with Poldark.

Once upon a time it was her and Gemma's nickname for Matt, because of the strong resemblance his looks bore to those of the 2000s television version of the character — tall with a thick mane of dark hair, well-sculpted features, and dark eyes that could render any woman speechless in mere seconds. Ross Poldark's new namesake, however, at a chubby and energetic two years of age and counting, bore no resemblance whatsoever to the iconic character, from his light-shaded hair to his faint freckles.

At the moment, he was howling because Pippa had stopped him from upsetting her bowl of popcorn yet again, trying to pry the fluffy kernels from his hand. "I said that's enough," she told him, exasperated. "You'll spoil your lunch if you keep eating it, and your dad will be proper upset when he learns of it."

I put Sylvia in a corner playpen, and Ross was immediately distracted by the sight of her brightly-colored plastic keys and Peter Rabbit jack-in-the-box. I gave him some plastic blocks from Sylvia's bag, and he plopped down happily to build a tower for himself, tears already forgotten. Sylvia watched with wide-eyed fascination — her towers were clumsy two-block ones built by baby hands that always tumbled them down immediately by accident.

"You're a life preserver," said Pippa, blowing her overgrown black bangs away from her pixie-like face.

"Nothing fascinates a kid more than another kid's toys," I answered. "I speak from experience." Although I took care to put my bag well out of reach, in case Ross had ideas about searching for others on his own. "Next thing he'll be playing drums with Michael's pots and pans."

"He won't," growled the chef. There were limits to Michael's soft spot for children, it seemed.

"He's being awful away from home this time. Growing pains — Gavin says I spoil him too much at home with sweeties and the like, but he's never like this." This protest was uttered with a teeny bit of pleading under the surface of Pippa's voice, hoping for us to believe it was true.

"It's Dinah spoiling him, if anyone does," said Gemma. "All those jars of applesauce and marmalade, and all the biscuits. You'll have a rotten time of it when she arrives. Probably she'll have a basket of goodies to hand him straightaway."

Dinah, the former domestic ruler in Cliffs House's kitchen, had promised to spend the holidays here so Michael could have time off at Christmas. As much as I adored the gruff but gentle former restaurant chef from Nice, I still missed the first cook to reign in this spot when I came into its employment. Firm, sharp-tongued but wise, Dinah had crafted sweets and savories that both melted on the tongue and filled the stomach with contentment. Now a bakery owner in her own right, she still popped 'round occasionally to spend time with us and bequeath a few jars of her famous marmalade on grateful souls.

"Maybe she'll stuff Ross so full of biscuits he'll be sick of sugar by the time he goes home. He'll pass on Christmas pudding and go to bed at a decent hour on Christmas Eve," I suggested, giving Pip a hopeful smile.

"Not him," she answered, with a sigh. "He can eat like a work horse." She gazed dolefully at her son as he toppled his block tower, eight blocks high. Sylvia looked in awe of his talent.

"When Kitty comes, she'll help you handle the problem," I said. "She has a knack with children — they seem to listen to her without any need for baby speak." My former assistant and long-ago village troublemaker Kitty had once charmed Lady A's son Edwin into complete submission just by the mere twitch of her eyebrow.

There was a noticeable cooling in the attitudes of both Gemma and Pippa for this remark. "She's coming here, is she?" said Gemma, who sounded as if I had announced there were mice in the pantry.

"Why can't she spend Christmas in France?" muttered Pip, making a sour face.

Neither of them liked Kitty, and it hadn't changed one bit since their school days. News that she was coming back to her home village for Christmas was received much as I expected. Frankly, I had been surprised by Kitty's news myself — holiday dinners with her family were usually one big argument, I had come to understand. She and Nathan had avoided them in the past by spending Christmas in Paris, or visiting his family across the pond.

I laid a small communication radio on the counter, beside Michael's recipe in progress. "Call me when she needs something," I said to him, as I placed two bottles of milk and a tiny jar of mashed carrots and peas in the fridge. "I'll be downstairs in time for her lunch, but she may need a diaper change from me before then."

"Usually she sleeps," he said. "But I'll call you if she cries and it's serious." He cracked an egg in his mixing bowl.

"Tell Lady Amanda I'll be there dreckly," said Gemma, who was stealing one of Michael's biscuits now. He made as if to slap her hand away, but I saw them exchanging secretive smiles. Mutual attraction and months of dating had thus far proven Gemma and Michael's feelings for each other were slow-burning and complex.

I went upstairs to the main hall, where I found the new housekeeper Mrs. Norbit stationed at the foot of the stairs like a sentry guarding against invasion. I still wasn't quite adjusted to the Mrs. Danvers-like figure she posed, though I suspected more than once that she had a softer side — sometimes I still jumped if she spoke, as if a statue had come to life.

"Mind the pine needles," she said to me. Much as if warning me away from a dangerous drop along the cliff's edge, with the sharpness of her tone.

"What?" I said. Then I noticed the trail of debris beating a path across the hall floor, which explained the pinched expression on her face.

The cause of this mess was evident, as Geoff was wrestling a fir into submission before the main windows, under the supervision of the lady of the house. "I think it's crooked," announced Lady Amanda, studying its position with a frown. "Or are the windows a bit so? Geoff, what do you think?"

He emerged from the tree's other side. "I think visitors to the manor will never notice," he answered. "But I may be wrong on that count. What do you think?" he said, addressing me now. The estate manager was always happy to help, but never liked his opinion to be the last word in matters of aesthetics.

"I think it'll look gorgeous once its covered in lights and garlands," I answered, hands on my hips as I studied the impressive, towering pine. "Isn't this one bigger than last year's?"

"It needs to be," answered Lord William, who was brushing needles off his coat sleeves after having helped bring in the tree. "A Christmas open house isn't an occasion to treat lightly."

"It's the first in nearly — fifteen years?" said Lady Amanda. "Twenty? How long has it been since your father hosted them?"

"Almost that long," said William. "Though it was really my grandfather's tradition, whenever he was at home for Christmas."

"Villagers still remember his Christmas Eves," said Geoff. "I hear tell in the pub of fiddlers with drams, Figgy Duff, and something called a 'whiskey pudding,' if I'm not mistaken." He brushed needles off the knees of his trousers. "The last part was particularly popular with Old Ned when he was telling me the story."

"I remember it well. Awful, it was." William shuddered, and made a face. "Some traditions we won't be reviving, but having the party again seems rather nice."

"I think a figgy pudding would be fitting," said Lady Amanda. "Let's be very 'Old English Christmas' for the occasion. Dinah can no doubt whip up a very proper treacle or plum one as well. We'll sing carols, play games — the children will love it. Of course, we've already arranged much of the food, but the desserts are hers to decide. I think I'll put myself in charge of entertainment, as a proper hostess should."

"No Christmas games with too much running involved," cautioned William. "Edwin smacked into the wall at full speed yesterday. Running with his eyes closed for utterly no good reason, as he informed me when I asked. Something he and his schoolmates have dared each other to do, apparently." He shook his head and sighed, as if worried about the common sense of future generations, then opened the door again, letting in a cold breeze with his departure.

"The needles, Ma'am," said Mrs. Norbit, in the voice of one possessed of great but weary patience.

"Hmm? Oh, quite," said Lady Amanda. "Do fetch a broom and we'll sweep them up," she said. The housekeeper glided away instantly. "I know it's a great trial for her, the general messiness that the outdoors poses to a country manor," said Lady Amanda afterwards.

She tucked a poinsettia among the tree's branches. "What do you think?" she asked. "If this is a proper old-fashioned Christmas, however, we would probably think about something a bit more traditional in ornaments."

"Less like a department store showcase?" I contributed. Usually the manor's foyer tree was grand and elegant, decorated with white poinsettias and garlands, for example, or in impressive red and gold matching ornaments, like the one for the Japanese charity's ball we hosted my first Christmas here.

"I wonder what would suit." She pinched her lower lip inwards. "In ye olden days, it would have been garlands and greenery, without much thought of a tree, of course ... and I rather think of lights with reflectors and silver tinsel when I picture a Christmas tree from my grandmother's day. This will require a bit of creativity on our part, Julianne." She stuck the poinsettia back in its vase.

The manor's grand main hall was decked to the nines already, with big red poinsettias in baskets and cut flower bouquets, with paper whites forced into bloom, and red-striped and streaked amaryllis on the table by the stair. A big wreath of red Christmas globes and miniature silver ones hung above the hall table where the visitor's book usually sat, and a garland of the same, dotted with fresh sprigs of silvery mistletoe and spicy-scented eucalyptus from the local nursery's hot house, decorated the stair's rail and prevented Edmund from sliding down it in his usual fashion. It looked grand, but I wondered if Lady A had something entirely different in mind — say, simpler garlands and a tree festooned with handmade ornaments?

"Matthew will be here for the party, won't he?" Lady Amanda's latest remark snapped me back to attention.

"He will," I said. "He's catching the last flight available the day before Christmas Eve." It would and should be sooner, his arrival, but he had agreed to help three students who had struggled with their final papers make up the grade with a last-minute assigned project. It was his way of being kind, and I knew those students were probably incredibly grateful ... but I was incredibly jealous that they were getting to steal the first few days of Matt's academic vacation.

"Good," said Lady Amanda. "It really will be a proper Christmas celebration, I think, and I would hate for him to miss the occasion."

I smiled. "I would, too."

Like everyone else, Amanda knew the reasons why Matt had agreed to go back to the university, after his new career as a landscape architect had begun so promisingly with the restoration of the 'lost garden' in Littleton. Like all our friends, she knew how deeply I missed him, too — and how much effort it took to hold together our life here, rather than let Matt think his sacrifice was costing me anything in the bargain. After all, I wasn't the one working long hours overseas, lonely and separated from the people closest to me by a whole ocean. I was watching Sylvia grow and learn her first tentative baby skills; Matt had only pictures and videos, and a handful of short holidays in which his arms held the tiny little being the two of us had created.

We worked on some tentative ideas for finishing the manor's decor, both in the foyer and the drawing room, which was where Lady A envisioned the proper 'old fashioned Christmas' really taking hold. I made some notes to research the history of the English Christmas, to scour the manor's storage rooms for forgotten decorations from yesteryear, and to find some simple but elegant ornaments to dress up the window tree that would welcome guests as they entered the manor.

Time escaped me, and by the time I returned to the kitchen it was well past Sylvia's usual feeding hour. I hurried downstairs expecting to hear baby whimpers or howls, only to find that Sylvia had other things to occupy her time. She was balanced on Michael's hip as he added butter to a whirring mixer's bowl, one arm jiggling her slightly whenever she made an inquisitive noise regarding his activities. Her fingers played with the buttons on his chef's smock, which I suspected had been tested as substitute pacifiers a time or two in the bargain.

Strangely enough, Michael didn't look as if he minded, even though Gemma was present and only occupied at the moment with cleaning up the mess Ross had made with the popcorn earlier.

"You should have called me when she woke up," I said, though I had paused to watch this moment longer than I really should, given the inconvenience it posed to Michael himself. "It's not your responsibility to entertain her while I'm working."

"I didn't mind," he said, nonchalantly. "She's no trouble." A fact I very much doubted, though Sylvia appeared to be on her best behavior at the moment.

"I have to say, you look good wearing a baby, Michael." I couldn't resist a teasing smile with this remark. I could see the chef's cheeks blush fire red at this, and Gemma's did the same.

Sylvia made a cooing noise. In response, Michael lifted the chef's cap from his short, bristly hair and set it over Sylvia's dark head for a moment. His usually-reserved smile morphed into one of amusement, followed by a laugh, for the look of surprise on her face as her small fingers reached clumsily for its brim. Unable to resist, I snapped a photo of it, and sent it to Matt. Doesn't she look adorable? Michael has Kitty's gift with kids, wouldn't you agree? I messaged him.

Strange as it is to say, I felt an ache in my heart that he was missing this moment, although he wouldn't have been here even if he was in Cornwall. It was for all the other moments he missed that really belonged to him, those evenings and mornings in our home, the lazy autumn days that Sylvia would have spent in his company in the gardens. It would be four months and counting before Matthew was back where he truly belonged.

****

"I'm only here for two weeks and not a day more, since I'm off to my cousin's before the new year," said Dinah, as she unpacked three shiny sponge molds and a Danish dough hook. "But there's plenty of time for baking, so make your requests early, before the party's turn. Lady Amanda wants three puddings and who knows how many biscuits for the affair."

She had hugged us all, then enlisted us to help unpack the boxes from the boot of her car — which included, nestled around her suitcase, three boxes of delicious homemade marmalade and preserves.

"Did you ever come to parties here at Christmas?" asked Gemma, as she helped search for one of Ross's missing boots.

Dinah stared at her. "How old do you think I am, pray tell?" she asked, in a tone somewhere between outrage and incredulity.

"I don't know?" said Gemma, meekly, cowed by it.

"I've lived in this part of the world for fewer than twenty years," said Dinah. "You have a better chance of remembering the parties than I would."

"Me mum remembers a bit," said Pippa. "She's heard tell that it would be a bit wild by midnight — all the music and dancing and all that whiskey pudding."

"Whiskey pudding?" repeated Dinah. "I've never heard of it."

"It's not a proper pudding. She said 'tis something his old lordship made himself. Home brew and some stout sort of ... fermented together, until a bit solid, only he added a bit of stuff to it to sweeten it. Smell of it could remove hair from a horse's hide, and it took a stomach of steel to carry it off, she says."

"Well, we won't be serving it this time," said Dinah. "It sounds the sort of thing old fisherman dare each other to try and old fish wives moan to each other about when it's brought out to serve." She unpacked several bags of dried fruit, placing them in her corner of 'special ingredients.' "Julianne, hand me the sack on the table, please," she said, as I obliged.

From it, she took two large spice biscuits — big enough to require a saucer apiece. "There a fair piece to tea, I believe, so these won't be spoiling appetites," she said, handing one to Ross, who had already toddled from his fort beneath the kitchen table at the site of treats. "One and only one to a patron."

"Give it!" he declared.

"Ross!" said Pippa. "I've taught you manners, haven't I?" I could see the despair in her eyes as Ross took a big, eager bite out of Dinah's biscuit.

"He's hungry enough. Mercy, he hasn't grown a bit since that photo you sent in late October, has he?" said Dinah. "You do feed him his vegetables, I trust?" she said to Pippa. "I hope my sweeties aren't all he consumes."

"I feed him proper meals," Pippa retorted. "'Tis your fault he eats as much sugar as he does. I won't even let him have boiled sweets anymore, he's so wild after a few spoonfuls of your strawberry jam."

Dinah looked taken aback by this. "I'll send some of my carrot spread next time," she said "Less sugar and a bit more healthful. We don't want the lad's bones growing soft."

She broke the second biscuit in half, and, when I nodded, held it out to Sylvia in her playpen. "Here you are, love," she said, as my daughter's small hand claimed the gift. "My, but she looks a fair bit like your Matthew," said Dinah. "I could see it straightaway. But I do believe she has the same shade of lighter-colored hair coming through the dark, as her mother has." She scrutinized Sylvia's baby locks, the monkey winter cap lost somewhere among the playpen's toys.

"When will he come home?" Dinah asked. "Let's see — he began teaching the term in August?"

"The second week of May," I said. "As soon as his class receives their final marks." Three calendars in the cottage were marked with the date of Matt's probable flight home, with what seemed an interminable, lonely sea of white squares between now and then. "But he'll be home for Christmas."

"Good. If I see him, I brought some of the pear compote he likes so well — three jars of preserves," said Dinah, brushing the biscuit crumbs from her hands. "For you, I brought something new, a lime marmalade I've been toying with," she said. "There's a secret ingredient to give it a bit of sweetness and spice. Tell me if you like it when you have a taste."

"Didn't you bring us anything?" said Gemma, with dismay.

"Daft child. Of course I did. Mind your manners and wait your turn." Dinah reached into one of the boxes on the counter and withdrew more jars besides the aforementioned ones. "For you, I brought my gooseberry preserves, because I know your mother uses it for her Christmas tart," she said, handing Gemma two jars. "And for you," she said to Pippa, "I have two jars of raspberry jam. Though I should have brought you instead the stewed peas I preserved, apparently."

"These are for me, not for Ross," said Pippa, claiming them instantly before they could be withdrawn. "Gavin hasn't any taste for sweet stuff, so Ross has it from me. Bit of a family weakness — me mum's the same way, crazy about anything with sugar. So we can't help it." Dinah merely sighed and shook her head.

"And for Michael," she continued, reaching into the box to remove two jars of bright red preserves. "Some of my cherry jam. A bit on the sour side this time, but he'll think of ways to use it."

"I always do." Michael was tying an apron over his chef's smock, in preparation for doing something very messy involving tonight's roast. "I used the last of your lemon curd an age ago."

"This will give you a new challenge, then," said Dinah, who opened a cookbook and perched her eyeglasses on the bridge of her nose. "Now, I think a batch of my saffron biscuits is in order, before we settle into party plans." She began sifting flour into a mixing bowl. "When do you leave for your holiday?" she asked Michael.

"The day before Christmas Eve. I'll fly from London." Michael crushed sage leaves, and my nose detected an aroma from much-loved stuffings and an herbal quinoa recipe that Matt used to make. There I was, thinking of him at every turn.

"And what are you doing for the holidays?" Dinah glanced over her shoulder at Gemma, sharply. The maid blushed for this question, which implied the tie between her and Michael without words. Did they have any words to describe it, I wondered? Or were they like Matt and me in the beginning, who were undefined except for separate feelings of love and deep attraction?

There I go again. Matt, you're constantly in my head. I can't wait any longer for you to come back.

The sound of someone clearing their throat rumbled in the room like a train departing its station. "Your luggage, madam." Mrs. Norbit had glided among us, silently, from the kitchen stair. Ross immediately hid in his under-the-table fort again. "It cannot remain in the main hall."

"Take it upstairs, then," said Dinah. There was no love lost between her and the new Cliffs House housekeeper on the occasions they'd met in the past. "Or let it lie until someone can carry it. Michael's a strapping young fellow more than qualified for the occasion when he's finished with his chores." The chef offered her the merest glance and smile in the midst of the operation of slathering the roast in some kind of herbal brine or marinade.

The patience of Mrs. Norbit was carved from stone, but the human eye could detect the ire deep in her gaze for the mere idea of leaving someone's suitcase by the stairs for more than two ticks of the clock. "But the main hall is not —"

"Pish posh," said Dinah. "It's not inconveniencing anyone in the slightest. It's Christmas — one needn't tidy the place every moment of the holiday." As she spoke, she reached into the box of preserves again and pulled out another jar, placing it in Mrs. Norbit's hand — after a battle to bring one palm-up to receive it, that is.

"Happy Christmas," she said to the housekeeper. Mrs. Norbit looked down at the jar in her hand, tied with a gingham ribbon.

"What is this?" Her voice betrayed no emotion ... though, I thought from experience, she was slightly surprised by the gesture.

"Cranberry orange compote," said Dinah. "Strong flavored and takes a bit of adjustment. You'll love it." She opened a canister of sugar and began pouring her ingredients anew.

Dinah was represented on my home Christmas tree by a miniature yellow electric mixer with a cheery floral bowl under its beaters. A tiny battery made it whir and spin, much to Sylvia's delight.

"That's how she made that yummy biscuit," I said to Sylvia, balancing her on my hip as I hung more decorations on our tree. The next ornament lifted itself from the box under my gentle tug, emerging from beneath a piece of tissue paper.

"This one is for mommy's friend Aimee, who saw you once and said you were beautiful. Not that she'd say anything else," I admitted.

The ornament was a miniature lighthouse painted with stripes, its beacon yellow glass. Aimee's favorite romance book by Rowena St. James, the tale of a lonely lighthouse keeper and a beachcombing artist. I wondered if Aimee was still thinking about the modern-day version of a British lighthouse keeper whom she met in Newquay. Did she and Ewan write? Email? Call each other now and then? She was so secretive about their connection that I never had answers to these questions, only coy evasions.

"Mommy's friend likes keeping secrets," I said. "And to think I told her about your daddy right away after meeting him. Well ... a few weeks after, anyway." I hung the lighthouse where it would catch the light, and remind me not only of my friend's tale but the writer behind the original romance, whom I had met one summer.

The next ornament I lifted out reminded me of Aimee, too — but before the days of the mysterious Ewan and the real-life version of Rowena St. James's novel. It was a little Seattle Space Needle decorated by a tiny tinsel wreath: a souvenir of my and Matt's Christmas in America when we were 'shopsitting' for Aimee after her surgery.

"Did I tell you how mommy burnt a goose?" I asked Sylvia. "Or how Aimee pulled a Christmas tree down on herself while trying to decorate it?" The whole thing seemed destined to be a disaster, but we had pulled it together in the end, somehow.

I stared at the goose. It looked only vaguely like a turkey — a turkey who hadn't eaten in awhile, clearly. But I had successfully roasted that bird only a few weeks ago, so this one should turn out equally nicely.

"What do I do next?" I asked Matt, who consulted the cookbook quickly in the process of crumbling bread for stuffing.

"Rub the bird with seasoning," he said. "Usually it's ordinary salt and pepper, but we could be adventurous, if we like."

"Do we feel adventurous?" I asked.

"Usually, yes. I would have watched a few videos online at least, maybe brushed over Nigella Lawson's cooking tips on goose. But since neither of us has time for it today, I would say salt and pepper is the right choice." He glanced at the contents of his bowl, then at the ingredients beside it. "Did we misplace the sage?"

"Try the ingredients I didn't take out of the shopping bags," I suggested. "I'd help, but goose hands." I held them up, wiggling my fingers. Something greasy coated them now, along with flecks of pepper and salt.

"Very lovely." Matt hid a smile as he rummaged through the paper bag. "Here it is." He pulled out a bundle of green, and a little jar of some brownish-yellow powder. "The dried stuff also, just to be sure we have enough," he said, placing them on the table. "Doesn't this recipe call for nuts?" he asked.

"My mom says so. I'm sure I bought some, but, again —"

"Goose hands. I remember." He peeked in the paper sack, then lifted his gaze at the same moment I ceased rubbing the goose. We exchanged glances.

"Did you hear a 'thud'?" I asked.

"I did. Quite a loud one." We listened again. Had Aimee fallen while trying to maneuver on her crutches? Matt and I shared equal worry lines for this unspoken thought.

"Aimee?" I called.

A muffled voice from the other room. "What?"

"Is everything okay?"

"Fine. Just ... tidying."

"Tidying?" Matt lifted one eyebrow as he looked at me again. Aimee hobbled at best, and was barely capable of doing more than restacking some magazines on her living room's coffee table.

"She did seem a bit exhausted when we came back from the store," said Matt. "I thought she might be feverish given how flushed she was, though I didn't say anything. She's rather sensitive when it comes to anyone suggesting she needs more rest, I've noticed."

"I noticed," I answered, wryly. "She did seem tired — usually she jumps up the moment we come back with an armload of groceries, even if her leg's killing her." Aimee had been content to just sit there this time.

"I should check on her," I said. "But —"

"Goose hands," he finished. "I'll go, if you don't think she'll mind."

"Aimee, can Matt check on you?" I called. Another distinct 'thud' from the direction of the living room.

"I'm fine." Aimee sounded slightly breathless. "No need." Matt and I exchanged glances, then we abandoned our respective recipes. I pushed open the living room's partition door with my shoulder.

Aimee was sitting on the sofa, leg propped on the table. Nothing looked out of place, though I thought maybe the sofa and chair had been moved back into place — the worn spots on the old Oriental rug that Aimee usually kept hidden were now out of sight again.

"Now's not the time to rearrange furniture," I said to her. "What are you doing in here that's so loud?"

"Nothing," said Aimee, innocently. "You probably heard my crutches when I dropped them on the floor. I'm just hanging out, as promised. Admiring the decorations." The tree was at her elbow, a ridiculously-sized fir that Aimee insisted on having for the holidays. I thought maybe it needed more water — some of its branches seemed to be sagging, and the garlands and lights looked askew now.

"If you need a few things shifted, I can do it for you," said Matthew. "You shouldn't be risking any injury while you're still in your recovery stage." He looked concerned.

"Everything's fine," she insisted. "Go back to whatever you're doing." She picked up a magazine and leafed through it, flying past articles and recipes on Christmas baking. Reluctantly, we withdrew. I noticed a big grey electrical cord and plug sticking out from behind Aimee's folding screen, which I didn't remember from tidying up two days ago. It looked too big to belong to Aimee's little space heater, didn't it? More like the one to the big heavy vacuum cleaner that Aimee kept in the closet downstairs.

"That tree sheds more needles every day," I said, as I sprinkled my goose's skin one last time for good measure. "Do you think it'll last until tomorrow? It looked a bit disheveled today."

"It's probably fine. We'll adjust the decorations to hide the gaps where it's shedding," said Matt, now adding the wet ingredients to his stuffing. "There's so much of this, I'll need to cook the rest in a separate pan," he said. "Do you have a baking dish handy?"

"I'll find one," I said. I paused before the oven, ready to preheat. The dial with its settings was so worn it was difficult to read, presenting a challenge to me every time I cooked. I turned it to the same general area as the turkey's cooking temperature, then found Matt a casserole dish from Aimee's collection.

"Do you smell something?" I asked. I sniffed the air. "Must be a bit of burnt stuff on the oven floor. Did you use it at breakfast time?"

"It's probably just the way the scent mingles with all evergreen needles," said Matt. "I think you're right that it's shedding more. The smell today seems overpowering sometimes."

"Maybe Aimee used some kind of air freshener while we were out."

The tiny Space Needle turned slowly on the tree's branch. I thought of the smell of blackened goose two hours later as the oven's element overheated, and the revelation that a cleaning snafu earlier had resulted in smashed glass Christmas balls and Aimee being pinned under the tree momentarily. How she ever freed herself and put everything nearly back the way it was without causing further injury to herself still amazed me.

I waited a moment for the memory to dissolve, taking with it the sound of Matt's voice, the scent of crushed evergreen which was surely coming from my own tree. "What's next?" I asked Sylvia, brightly. "Let's see what we have here." I pulled out another ornament from beneath the tissue paper, a tiny little faux fancy sponge made of decorative clay, and reminding me a little of one of Dinah's best bakes for the reality show contest she won.

My mobile chirped, and I forgot about Christmas ornaments temporarily. Matt's number on the screen — I answered it, a video call, breathlessly, after quickly running my fingers through my messy hair, and giving a half wish that I had applied some lipstick earlier to look my best for a change. "Hi," I said.

"Are you busy?" He detected my voice sounded funny, evidently — I was glad that he didn't know it was for the sake of my frumpy appearance.

His face appeared on the screen. Unlike me, Matt managed to look great no matter what he was wearing or what he was doing. Local girls often gazed at him with the same look they gave to the aforementioned television version of Ross Poldark. Dark, tall, and handsome, with a slightly unshaven look so late in the day on his half of the globe, it wasn't beyond understanding. Even without seeing the show, I had been caught in the power of his looks and his subtle charm and warmth in mere days.

It's no understatement to say that I had been attracted to him from the start, when I mistook him for the long-time gardener of Cliffs House my first week here. When I learned about his amazing genius and his former career, part of me wasn't really that surprised to learn there were hidden facets to him. As to whether he was interested in a dark-haired, stubborn, presumptive American event planner with reddish highlights and a penchant for high heels ... well, that would remain an uncertainty for many weeks to come.

The mystery was entirely in my head, as it turned out, since it had been clear to Matt since day one.

But that's another story.

"No. Me and Sylvia are just decorating the Christmas tree and thinking of you," I said. "What are you doing?" I could hear the shuffle of papers on his end, coming from somewhere on his desk below the video's angle.

"Grading a few papers that were turned in early," he said. "Marking some extra credit work that a few struggling students needed to salvage their grade. Thinking of how soon I can board a plane and come home. I'm thinking the morning before Christmas Eve will be the very soonest. I'm keeping an eye on the weather, because there's a slight chance it may change the flight schedule."

"Does it look serious?" I asked, jiggling Sylvia from one hip to the other, my phone changing hands and bouncing its video angle around our cottage as a consequence before returning to normal. I hoped my face didn't look worried on video. I wanted him to see my smile, not my worry frown.

"Not yet. I want fair warning, so I can be sure that I don't lose the best possible chance of flying to London because I'm late to the ticket queue," he said. "I intend to be in Cornwall the quickest I can be."

"I'll be waiting for you." I was eager for the moment I put my arms around him, and buried my face in his coat, catching his scent among that of Boston's smog and two different airports. "Holding hands for a long train ride home — it'll be like heaven to me."

"Me, too." His voice softened. "I'll text you the ticket information, so you know all the details." The smile on his lips, the one I knew so well, had softened also.

Silence followed. We left so much unsaid, because words really couldn't say it. I knew that his throat was tightening on his end of the phone, and that I was feeling helpless without the ability to look into his eyes in reality. Even when we video chatted, the screens between us seemed to block the full glimpse of what we felt deep inside.

"I love you," I said. "I can't wait for you to be here."

"I can't either," he said, in a tone that was going to make me breathless again if he said much more. "Is Sylvia there right now?" he asked. "Can I see her?"

"Do you want to talk to her? Wait a moment." I boosted Sylvia higher in my arms and held the phone in front of her. "Don't press the buttons," I said to her softly, willing her not to disconnect this call with her daddy ... and not to download another app to my phone, either.

Sylvia's face lit up the way it always did when she heard voices talking, be it on the phone or on television, but I always told myself it was different when it was Matt's voice or face she experienced. Surely her baby memory preserved it from the holiday in Boston this fall, when he was the one who read her bedtime stories from Beatrix Potter, and rocked her to sleep each night.

I could faintly catch his voice from my mobile, as Sylvia chortled and crowed in baby speak, her small hand trying to grip the corner of the device in my hold. Outside our window, a little bit of sunshine peeked out from the rain clouds, bringing a tiny bit of cheer to a garden shrouded in winter.

When Matt came back, he would be eager to deadhead those poor choked hollyhocks, I thought, and the raggedy rosemary and lavender, the foxglove that was always out of control. Pungent scents of dry grass, earth, and faded leaf. Nothing would make me happier than seeing him crouched among these plants, putting them to right, guiding them back where they belonged in the garden, and encouraging their seedlings to grow, with a gentleness and focus that I had only ever seen one other person give plants in quite the same way.

I closed my eyes. There was another garden I could visit that might bring me a little comfort and cheer, and I could do the same for it. I could take Sylvia, maybe — she would be excited for a bit of the world outside of Ceffylgwyn, even if it was only another village. I painted the idea in my head, feeling transported to another memory, a sweet one which marked the last months before I would part with Matt for a time.

"Julianne?" Matt's voice reached me, bringing me immediately back to reality.

"I'm here," I said, switching the phone to my view instead of Sylvia's, not wanting to miss a moment of his phone call, if that was all I could have right now.

****

Among the boxes of ornaments I found in the manor storage room were few options for decorating the drawing room. Plastic angels with cherubic faces, obviously two or three decades old at most; a wreath of tinsel too faded to be dressed up by a few vintage baubles. But then I found boxes of old Christmas greetings which someone had tucked aside, and a tiny spark of inspiration suggested maybe this was the treasure trove Amanda needed for her Christmas party.

I put the top back on a box of old sheet music nibbled full of Swiss cheese holes by mice, and moved it aside. Behind it, in the shadows of the back corner, I caught a glimpse of pink and white, an odd pattern of tiny rivets and delicate painted lines that looked familiar, until I drew closer and recognized it.

The tin play house from Pippa's wedding. After the ceremony, it must have been brought back to the manor along with some things borrowed from the estate — though, in reality, Lady Warrington had confiscated it from a rubbish heap to add to her hoarder's collection during her eccentric years. It didn't belong to anybody, truthfully, since its original ownership was long forgotten before its years as a community play piece in Ted Russert's old barn.

A gingerbread-trimmed manor of pink and white, with tiny little hinges that squeaked when my fingers brushed one. It had been meticulously repaired with a tiny metal pin — the whole thing had been carefully cleaned and lovingly restored by Kitty Alderson, my former assistant and possibly the biggest risk of my career to date. I knew it wasn't for Pippa's sake that she did it, but for the sake of the first real assignment anyone had ever entrusted to her — the beginning of a brilliant career. No more stigma as a village troublemaker, daughter of a quarrelsome family of layabouts, rogues, and shady characters.

Kitty was living in Scotland for the time being. On my office desk, I kept a photo from her wedding in Paris, with the Eiffel Tower in the background, a frowning Bets Alderson on one side of her daughter and a deliriously-happy Nathan on the other. Her business cards from her latest job as a music festival's P-R agent read Katherine Menton — more surprisingly, she had signed her last email to me as 'Kat' — an utter 'no no' in nicknames for Kitty these past few years, having been tainted by association with her callous ex.

I moved the tin house into the light, noticing its trim needed a tiny bit of touch up, its paint rubbing off on a nearby box. I left it somewhere I could find it more easily in the future, then lifted the box of cards and made my way to Lady Amanda's parlor.

"I thought maybe we'd slice a turkey and let people nibble on something with proper sustenance," Dinah was saying, reading from a pad on her lap. "There's a recipe for little dressing 'cakes' that I've been longing to try — a sage and onion stuffing with a bit of cranberry in it, only baked separate from the bird in little tins for individual portions."

"Sounds divine," said Lady Amanda. "And the puddings? What flavors, do you think?"

"Figgy and plum are both traditional. But I think people love treacle best, personally. What do you think of a treacle tart or two?"

"I think my mouth is watering," I said, answering for Lady A. "Look what I found in the storage room," I said, opening the lid of the box. "Old Christmas cards."

"Is that all?" Gemma looked disappointed. "I was hoping for something a bit more interesting."

"I think these are interesting," I said. "Look at how beautiful the front of each one is, how unique. We've got churches, cathedrals, birds, snowy scenes, fir trees, bells — anything you could name. There must be three or four different decades of these mixed in with old ornaments and old paperwork."

"No one ever throws anything away in William's family," said Amanda, inspecting a few of the cards. "The magpie gene is from both sides, I fear." She glanced at a few more. "These are beautiful. None of them valuable ... and some of the featured objects themselves would make pretty ornaments, without the colored background."

"My thoughts exactly," I said. "I found some old piano music full of holes —"

"What good is that old stuff?" Pippa intervened from the corner, where she had been busy untangling strings of Christmas lights that had somehow managed to bunch themselves into knots between now and the time we decorated the hall's tree. "If it's what we cleared from the ballroom, it ought to have been burned, only Geoff was too softhearted to do it."

"I think I see what you mean," Lady Amanda remarked, thoughtfully — to me, not to Pippa. "If we could find some simple tree garlands —"

" — and something for the tree topper as well," I said. "I think there are some patterns and templates for cutting ornaments from decorative paper in one of these holiday journals." I flipped through one of the home decor magazines on Lady Amanda's table.

"More scissor work?" groaned Gemma.

"Pish posh. It's for a good cause," said Dinah, delivering her trademark mild-mannered scolding. "I suppose I should go in search of my tart recipe ... you know, if we decided against the turkey, some savory meat pies might be nice. Those nice decorative tin molds in the cupboard are just begging to be filled with pastry."

"That does present a rather difficult choice," mused Lady Amanda. "Which do you think would satisfy our guests?"

"Give me time to consider it," said Dinah, gathering up her things. She passed Mrs. Norbit in the doorway, who was preparing to make her presence known, I thought — or startle us the moment we lifted our teacups to our lips.

"You wanted to see me, Your Ladyship?"

"I did," said Lady Amanda. "As you know, we're having a party at the manor on Christmas Eve, and I was wondering if you wanted to help."

"That would be my job, naturally," replied the housekeeper, stiffly. "I have already addressed the question of napkins and tableware, as requested."

"Yes, yes — I didn't mean formally," said Lady Amanda. "I meant for fun. Trimming the tree, listening to Christmas carols, choosing songs and games for the party ....."

"Fun," repeated the housekeeper. "Perhaps I misunderstood. We were discussing whether I wished to perform my duties on behalf of this house, I believed."

"I'm helping," said Pippa, who managed this despite a slight shudder every time she looked into the steely eyes of the manor's housekeeper. "I won't even be here for the party."

"Can you cut shapes out of old Christmas cards?" I held up a pair of scissors and a card depicting a large sprig of holly.

"Would you like to make paper chains instead?" suggested Gemma, who was looking at Lady Amanda's list of handmade decorations.

"There's plenty to work with. Have a seat and look through the box with us for inspiration." I patted the sofa cushion beside me, encouragingly.

Mrs. Norbit arched one eyebrow, lifting it like a hydraulic bridge allowing a tugboat to pass beneath. "I believe my skills with scissors are sufficient to any task, Ma'am," she answered. "However, I think it would be best if I remained standing. It isn't proper for a housekeeper on duty to sit down in the presence of the house's mistress."

"You mean you stand like a general all the time?" These words popped out of Pippa's mouth, followed by a look of alarm when the housekeeper glanced her way.

"I really don't expect Victorian formalities," said Lady Amanda, looking amused. "A little sitting down is quite acceptable."

"At my previous post, I remained at attention throughout the full day's duties," answered Mrs. Norbit. "I do not sit until evening tea, when I permit myself a quarter of an hour's rest before resuming my evening duties."

Blank gazes were directed at her from the rest of us. "Really?" I said.

"I think it would be for the best that I keep to my station, Your Ladyship," said Mrs. Norbit. "If you will permit me, I will bring you a list of all the supplies I have arranged as well as a diagram of how the tables will be laid for the supper."

"Of course." Lady Amanda smothered a tiny sigh. The housekeeper turned and marched noiselessly from the room. How did she manage to come and go without making any sound, even on hardwood or marble? I could never figure it out.

I sifted through the cards with my fingers, pausing on a postcard that featured a London theater famous for its Christmas Day revue in decades past. Its marquis sign put me in mind of a far different Christmas entertainment, as far from London as a sleepy village like Ceffylgwyn can be. There's no comparison between the Cliff's Edge Playhouse and a box in a celebrated London theater ... except for maybe one little incident I could remember from this Christmas past.

"I wish they put illustrations in the program," I said to Matt, as we settled into two of the squeaky old theater seats in the playhouse's third row. "I like my theater bills to be entertaining."

"Imagine the cost of ink," Matt reminded me. "This is just a small production, after all. They wouldn't have come at all if Millie hadn't wheedled a friend at a dinner party this past October."

"Good old Millie." The director of the local amateur theatrical company had a talent for talking people into doing her bidding. This time, she had somehow managed to persuade a small and exclusive theater group to give their last performance of the Christmas season in our village.

Usually the Cliff's Edge Players hosted a variety show at Christmas time, full of old jokes that have been 'round the village for ages, old carols sung in Cornish, and a few rather moth-eaten holiday sketches and poems, the latter featuring whichever of Lorrie's students she could wheedle into facing a terrifying spotlight. But this year, the stage would be occupied by the ghosts of Ebenezer Scrooge's legendary Christmas Eve.

"I wish they put pictures with the names in the program," I said, opening the handbill and perusing the simple list of actors names, across from a black and white picture of the theater company's home in London.

"Ink, my love."

"I'll become rich someday and donate them money to print better ones." I snuggled against Matt a little, against the theater's chill. I could hear whispers as latecomers settled in the audience. Lorrie was a few rows behind us, using her schoolteacher's authority to silence a group of rowdy sixth form students in the back row, while Rosie was chatting with Martin the curate.

I spotted Millie having a very dramatic conversation with the actor playing Scrooge, who was heavily made up in wrinkle wax and paste, hollow-eyed and whiskered, with wispy hair of grey and white surrounding a balding crown when he took off his top hat. I thought I detected a faint seam where the makeup artist concealed a real head of hair and smiled. I learned a few tricks from the one time I had helped with a Shakespearean production.

"Curtain time," I heard Matt whisper, touching my shoulder softly as he leaned closer to my ear — on cue, the theater's production manager and jack of all trades Gerard lowered the house lights, and the velvet curtain rose on a plywood facsimile of foggy Victorian London, and an interior view of a shabby, drab office in possession of a hoarder of documents and account books, with a clerk shivering as he bent over his open ledger.

I've always loved the amateur theatricals, but this group was good, with some members far more talented than I was accustomed to seeing in small productions. Bob Cratchit's fumbling, earnest self seemed almost real, and the appearance of the ghost of Christmas Past actually made me jump in my seat. The actor playing Scrooge was particularly good — for an elderly figure that seemed a mere whisper of the man he had once been, he brought an energy to his role that defied his seeming frailty.

As the jovial Ghost of Christmas Present faded away into shadows — or some gossamer curtain layers hung in the shadows — Scrooge tottered to the edge of his bed and sat down. His voice, quavering at first, pitched itself with clarity without defying his seeming weakness after the parting warning and advice of the ghost. His speech was a modified one from the books, I thought, although I wasn't any authority on literature. It died away on a fading, expectant breath just a tick of the clock or two before the bells chimed the hour.

From the shadows of his room, another specter emerged: a figure shrouded all in tattered black and grey, his robes stirred by the faintest breeze only when Scrooge became aware of him. The momentary speechlessness of the character, the slight, faint twitch of shock in his face and his hand, was the only betrayal of his unpreparedness for the nature of this apparition, and it was perfect in the fact that it seemed natural. When he spoke, his voice had a trembling bravado that attempted to defy every bit of the subtle tells we had just seen.

"Smashing," I heard Rosie whisper, from behind my right elbow, her voice brimming with admiration that couldn't be contained a second longer, apparently. "They're brilliant, Scrooge is practically a living fossil of the real one — where did Millie find this lot?"

"With luck and good connections," I whispered back. We were both quiet again, for the scenery and curtains of the right side of Scrooge's bedchamber had moved aside beneath the hands of the unseen stage crew to reveal a grim, drab slice of the financial sector. A droll foursome of minor players, in the garb of Victorian bankers, were strolling onto its imaginary cobblestone streets, engaged in conversation already.

The curtain closed a mere twenty minutes later after Scrooge's repentant speech to Bob outside the family's home, and the audience rose in one accord to applaud the show with a standing ovation. The cast gave their bows, and the cheers and whistles of approval came from even the previously-rowdy students in the back row.

"Brilliant, the whole thing," declared Rosie. "I haven't enjoyed anything so much in ages, not since last autumn's Christie play. Millie's been in such a mood for Irish and American tragedies this year." She shrugged on her coat and scarf. "Didn't you love it?" she called to Lorrie, who waved to us excitedly through the crush of theatergoers.

"I thought they were amazing," I said to Matt. "It was almost magical. I've never seen a production of the story that good ... even some of the movie versions weren't as compelling to me."

"Agreed," said Matt. "I've never seen a better Scrooge, frankly — it was quite a different characterization of him, to play the role as a man so late in life. And Bob's earnestness was certainly as good as I've seen it depicted in any other performance. We should see one of their shows in London sometime. I wonder if their comedies are as good."

He helped me on with my coat and guided me towards the aisle. "Wait, I forgot my program," I said to him, ducking back through the crowd.

"Juli —"

"Only a minute," I called over my shoulder. The little folded page lay on the velvet seat I had vacated moments before. I lifted it, and heard a voice near my ear.

"Did you enjoy the show?" It was masculine and familiar, though it took me a moment to place it. The rich timbre and friendliness in it, the American accent, gave it away first.

"Riley?" I turned swiftly, finding him standing behind me, wearing an old wool coat, hands tucked in its pockets. "I mean Ridley," I corrected, using his real name and not the pseudonym he had given when first in this village. "What are you doing here?" I couldn't help the astonishment in my voice.

The famous actor who had sneaked into our tiny Cornish village to hide from his agent — it all came back in a rush, the surprise of learning he was here, and the challenge of keeping his secret. He was the last person I would have expected, though it made perfect sense, given the quality of the acting troupe.

"I thought I'd sneak down for a night, catch a good show," he said. "I haven't been back here since ... well, you know." He grinned.

Only two of us had known Riley's secret: me and my then-assistant Katie, an American intern who had found him more than a little attractive, albeit before his ruse was unmasked. I had seen him only once since then, for a memorable evening watching him play Macbeth in London.

"What are you doing here, though, in Cornwall? In England, for that matter." I had a vague memory of an entertainment mag listing Ridley Cooper as poised to begin production in an all-new legal thriller about an ordinary corporate lackey who accidentally uncovers his firm is involved in an international espionage game. Riley had been back in America for ages, as far as I knew.

"I'm spending Christmas in England with some friends," he said. "I don't have to be in Vancouver until the first week of January, so I accepted the invitation." He glanced at the crowd moving towards the door, as if searching it for familiar faces. "How is everyone?"

"Good," I said. "They still talk about you." As if the Cornish players would ever do anything else, given the truth revealed to them afterwards.

He blushed a little. "I was hoping I'd be a tiny bit more forgettable," he said.

I shook my head. "No such luck," I said. "Wherever she is, she's still thinking about you, too." Though he might be searching for the rest of the cast of our Shakespearean days, I knew he was thinking of my summer intern most of all. I hadn't kept up closely with Katie, but I would be willing to bet on it.

"We email each other, text sometimes." I almost thought I detected the faint return of Ridley's blush. "I'm sure she's got better things to do with her time than chat with a guy who works half the year."

"No chance she's spending Christmas in England with some of her backpacking friends?" I ventured.

"No, but she might be spending spring break in Vancouver," he said. "Maybe." His grin didn't tell me if this was a real plan, a fantasy, or merely a joke — you'd have to know Ridley better than I did to guess the right one, probably. But if I was guessing, I would predict it was the middle one, wishful thinking on his part.

"You should go," he said, softly. "Matt's by the door, waiting."

"What about you?" I asked.

"I have to catch my ride back to London," he said. "I might have a quick drink at the pub first, if I can keep anybody from seeing through my disguise." He popped on a flat newsboy cap and wrapped a thick wool scarf around his neck. "What do you think?" he asked. "Pretty innocuous, right?"

"You'd do better if you were a little more liberal with your makeup remover," I answered. Reaching up, I peeled a tiny bit of wrinkly wax covered in makeup from along Ridley's jawline. "Better make sure you remove all your whiskers before you visit the pub."

He hung his head. "Darn. I thought I fooled you for a second there."

"You're a little too brilliant at what you do," I answered, with a laugh. "Why on earth are you playing Scrooge incognito with a little London performance company? It's not your name in this playbill, but it was definitely you on that stage tonight. I knew it the second I turned around and found you standing here. I knew then it couldn't have been anybody else."

"Consider it a Christmas gift to some friends of mine," he said. "Tell them I said hello, and wish them a merry Christmas for me." With a final smile, Ridley — or Riley — disappeared in the direction of the theater's seldom-used side door.

If he had told anyone he was coming tonight, this place would have been mobbed with eager fans packing the seats and screaming outside with signs bearing his picture and name. But he knew no member of the Cliff's Edge Players would miss a good theatrical night at the playhouse ... and I now wondered if it was really Millie's magic that worked itself on that theater director at the London party.

"What happened?" said Matt, as I rejoined him just inside the theater's door. "Was that someone we know?" He glanced in the direction where Riley had walked, but he was already gone. I suspected he slipped out unnoticed, and if he said 'hello' to anyone else, it would be a handful of other friends at the Fisherman's Rest before he boarded whatever shuttle was taking the theater group to their hotel for the night.

"You could say that," I said. "I'll tell you about it later." I took his arm, and we finished making our way to the theater's main doors and a cool winter's night under the stars.

Everyone knew now that the actor playing Scrooge had been a famous movie star in heavy makeup, a man closer to twenty in age than the eighty-odd years of his version of the miserly money lender. I wasn't the one who told, but I'm sure that either Rosie, Lorrie, or Gerard must have spotted him among the pub's visitors that evening, and couldn't resist telling everyone else about it. The tabloids reported it a day or two later, playing it as a publicity stunt ... but in this matter, I was certain that I knew Ridley better than that.

I laid the postcard back in the box. The next card leaped years ahead, a modern, non-holiday one from the American event planner Nathan Menton, to whom Kitty was now married. I recognized his sloping handwriting, and also the picture on the front of the card, one of a performance hall in Italy. A friendly business message on the back — clearly, this was from Nathan's early years among us, before he settled here and fell hard and fast for my former assistant.

"Look at the one with the kitten!" Gemma pounced on a vintage Christmas card in the box. "We should make a garland of these and string it across the fireplace mantel," she suggested.

"Ooh, I like that idea," declared Lady Amanda. "Let me add it to the list." She reached for her pencil and pad.

***

The path through the woods seemed frosty on a winter's morn, a drop in temperatures freezing the night's moisture to blades of grass and dry weed stalks, which glittered in the morning sunlight. I hoisted Sylvia to a more comfortable position in her baby bunting as we trudged up the path to a little clearing where a garden sleeping beneath winter appeared suddenly at the crest of the path. A cottage that bore telltale signs of disrepair at the far end, a pile of old pots outside of it, and a pair of wind chimes hanging still in the breezeless atmosphere.

Old Bill was in the middle of the garden, picking up dead branches as he leaned on his walking staff. He looked more frail than the last time I had ventured to Littleton to visit him, although nothing short of complete immobility would prevent the elderly gardener from tending his grounds. Although he had once assisted a master gardener of renown in his youth, he was now the long-retired master of only his own dilapidated cottage's landscape. One I could never tire of visiting after I stumbled upon it while in search of answers behind the mural at Penwill Hall.

He looked up and saw me and Sylvia approaching. He raised his free hand in greeting, and a moment later, hobbled in our direction around the corner of the crumbling stones and delicate perennials that bordered his Italian renaissance garden.

"It's a cold morning to be paying an old man a visit, Mrs. Rose," he said. "You were better off seeing the garden in summer rather than in this state."

"I love a garden in winter," I answered. "Just ask Matt when you see him again."

"And how is he?" Old Bill was close enough now that his steps had ceased, and he caught his breath, albeit with as little fuss as he could manage. "Still in America, I believe?"

"Still in America." I hated to say those words aloud, even though they wouldn't be true in only a few days more — at least for a couple of weeks. "He'll come visit you while he's home. He wants your help in designing a living garden sculpture much like your beautiful rose tower. It's all he's talked about this past summer." Matt was a great admirer of Old Bill's most unique rose arbor, which the gardener had designed and built himself.

"I hardly think he needs my help," said the gardener, dryly. "You ought to have waited for him and not taken such trouble upon yourself. It's a fair walk to my cottage from the road — though I see you are better shod than the last time you visited," he remarked, noting my sensible winter boots. Last time, despite my extremely pregnant self, I had worn a pair of short-heeled designer sandals, when paying a farewell visit before Matt began his transition to Boston.

Matthew had grown almost as fond of Old Bill's gardens as our own. He came to assist the elderly gardener sometimes, almost as if he were an apprentice to this master of the craft, although I doubt Old Bill would ever have called Matt his student. Nevertheless, I knew he appreciated the aid of a strong pair of arms at times; and that the admiration Matt had for his work fed a deep-buried hunger for human contact and a kindred spirit who understood his beloved art.

"I wanted to wish you a merry Christmas," I said. "I — we — have something for you to make your tea time a little extra special." I handed him a package containing a beautiful plum cake — not one which originated from my vastly unskilled hands, but those of Dinah, who had made several scrumptious treats for her friends, more than I certainly needed at the cottage.

"We?" said the gardener, then seemed to remember that I had been obviously pregnant this past summer. I folded back the shawl wrapped around Sylvia in her baby pouch, so he could see the serious, small face concealed beneath it.

"This is our daughter," I said. "She's a few months old now. Her name is Sylvia."

His expression changed subtly in response to it. For him, it carried a bittersweet meaning from long ago, conjuring the famous painter whose mural had brought William Ashton from obscurity to admiration once again in life. Sometimes I wonder if that story influenced Matt's choice somewhat, though the name itself, pertaining somewhat to 'woods' or 'wooded land' had meaning in itself for a naturalist like Matthew.

"A lovely name," he answered, at last. "She's a lovely child." The old gardener's fingers touched her dark wisps of hair lightly, trembling with age and with cold. His voice grew more brusque after this softness, as if he remembered his curmudgeonly self. "Do you wish to come in?" he asked. "The garden is a cold place for standing and chatting, when one is doing nothing to keep warm. My old bones stiffen easily."

"Let's go inside," I said. I took his elbow and helped him towards the cottage. Inside, the living space was as untidy as I remembered before, with lots of pots, plant cuttings, newspapers, and the general clutter of life distributed across the little table and the sofa. I got Sylvia safely situated, then went to the kitchen and began rinsing the old teapot by the stove.

"How is the shrub from Windsor?" I asked, peering out the scummy window glass in the direction of the gardener's celebrated cutting.

"Poorly. It's old. My age in a plant's life." This dry remark was Old Bill's version of a joke. "Come spring, I may aerate its roots and see if its vigor can be renewed one last time."

I tapped powdered tea leaves into the tea ball as I waited for the kettle to heat. From the corner of my eye, I saw Old Bill offer Sylvia a cutting from a rosemary plant. Her small fingers took hold of it, examining it curiously — a born naturalist, I thought. Then she put it in her mouth in the same manner as her plastic Cookie Monster teething ring, and I reminded myself that it was a little early to spot a budding gardener's skills.

"Come spring, the gardens at Pencarrow are hosting a special event that Matthew thought you would enjoy visiting," I said. "If you feel up to it, we thought we'd ask you to come with us. It's only a short ride, and we would enjoy your company. Matthew says the gardens will be at their best."

"Spring is a long time away," he answered. "Given the difficulty I have rousing myself some days to do a bit of a trim and tidy in the garden, I shouldn't trust myself to agree to any trip by rail or automobile."

"I've never seen your garden in any state less than rambling perfection," I said. I poured hot water over the tea, letting it steep for a moment. "I've always had a sneaking suspicion you couldn't live without it." A rambling state was the natural state of Old Bill's garden. In its wildness, the plants brought together by love, skill, and a naturalist's pity at times, became a living masterpiece beneath his skillful hand.

"That's true. I'll die in it, most likely," he answered, as I brought the tea tray to the table, along with a tin of biscuits I found on the counter.

"Is that the preferred way for gardeners?" I asked. Maybe someday Matt planned to be found toppled among the rosemary and lavender. I shuddered a little in spite of my tone, since this was hardly the cheery Christmas conversation I imagined.

"For some. You return to dust, as the church reminds us." He lifted his teacup. "As you know, to live is to live in a garden, for those who love best the soil." This sounded like a quote from something, and I wanted to ask what, but Old Bill himself changed the subject first.

"I have something for you also," he said, after setting his cup in its saucer again. "I was waiting until spring, but it would do as well for a Christmas present as any other time." He rose from his chair with difficulty and with dignity, and although I was tempted to help him, I refrained. He shuffled to a nearby shelf filled with small pots and leafy cuttings, where he extracted a small terracotta pot with a grey-brown twig protruding from its earth.

"From my very ancient friend," he said. "Possibly the last cutting I shall ever root from it. I thought no one would appreciate it more."

I accepted the pot carefully, as if I had been handed something made of delicate crystal. "Oh, William," I said. "I ... I don't know what to say. He would cherish it. He would be honored." I lifted my gaze, trying to put into words what Matthew would say in return for receiving a cutting from a gardener's most treasured specimen. He would say something that had more dignity and portent than my stumbling words, surely.

"It's for both of you." Gravely, Old Bill seated himself again. "You brought back the memories of the past to me. You brought him here to see the last of an old gardener's efforts. It gives me pleasure, thinking a part of it will live on with both of you."

I felt the sting of tears, and blinked them back fiercely. "Then I feel honored, too," I said, softly. "But I think it's a little premature to be talking about your garden as a thing of the past." Not yet, I thought. Please, not yet. Somehow, I felt as if watching Old Bill's final years was very much like watching Matthew's final stages in the distant future. Ridiculous, and completely fictionalized by my brain because loneliness and distance made me find pieces of him in every experience, but it still felt very real all the same.

"I should move it indoors, I sometimes think," said Old Bill. An odd ghost of a smile on his lips. "Live in a garden. If one lived in a glass house, it would be the same. I've a leaky roof in the spare bedroom, and I've thought before of having someone simply remove its old thatch and replace it with panes of glass — do the same to the walls, too. I could turn half of it into a hot house, and have no risk of tripping over stones and broken pots in the outdoors, and sit down with a cuppa on the sofa without ever leaving my work." He looked at me. "Does that idea of the future suit?" Another joke, in his dry, bitter manner of making one.

"Much better," I said.

I put the cutting in a place of honor at Rosemoor, near Matt's kitchen herb garden where I would be sure to water it regularly without fail. Sylvia looked sleepy after our trip to Littleton, though she was doing her best to stay awake in her high chair.

"You can't fight it forever," I told her. "You might as well go to sleep now so you can be awake for tea. Dinah sent some lovely linzer biscuits for dessert. I'll let you have one if you eat all your peas. Deal?"

Sylvia made a gurgling noise, and succeeded in removing the tiny bow I had clipped in her hair earlier, her wispy ponytail a la the Flintstone's Pebbles now a thing of the past. I picked it up off the floor and set it on the counter, and snapped on the radio, searching for soothing Christmas music that would lull her to sleep as I thawed some meat for a stew.

" ... and storms are due to deliver a severe beating to the northeastern United States in the coming week, with the possibility of blizzards now looming in the forecast ..." The announcer's received British accent faded out at the slightest touch of the radio's knob, and a sentimental Christmas song crooned in its place.

A little finger of dread touched my heart for a moment. I heard my mobile ringing in my shoulder bag, and abandoned the radio to answer it. It was Matthew on the other end.

"Today's your day at home, isn't it?" he asked. "I tried calling earlier, but there was no answer."

"I switched it off while we were visiting at Old Bill's," I said. "I just —"

"How is he?" Matthew asked. "Did you take Sylvia to see him?"

"I did. And he gave me a present for you, and wouldn't agree yet to come to Pencarrow for the garden exhibit," I said. "Matt, I just heard the weather report for Christmas week. It sounds terrible."

A pause on the other end. "It's not ideal, no," admitted Matt, after this silence. "But I think they're making too much of it at the moment. No flights may be cancelled anyway, since Boston is certainly no stranger to a bit of winter weather. I've every intention of being on a plane come the day before Christmas Eve at this moment. It's senseless and extravagant, but I've even thought of purchasing a second ticket for a later flight, in case the plane is delayed coming in to Boston, since they expect the weather to be worse north of Massachusetts."

"Do they?" That sounded a tiny bit more hopeful, although certainly not for travelers in New York or Maine.

"I'm already packed," said Matthew. "I have been for a week. I keep trying to imagine that I might somehow finish my paperwork early and can post the final grades ahead of schedule. I could surprise you by showing up at our front door."

"Oh, Matt, I want to meet you there. Ride back with you by car, ride home with you by train — I don't want you to make the commute alone," I protested.

"It would be worth it to see your expression when you answered my knock," he teased me. "The last person you would imagine, waiting for you on the doorstep."

"I would smother you to death in a passionate embrace before you could enjoy it," I said. "That's how badly I've missed you." I could already feel my arms around him, and it was all I could do to forget about it for the sensible task of defrosting some diced beef.

"Would you let me in?"

"What do you think?" I paused, and all the sauciness vanished from my voice again. "Matt. Please. Be careful." I don't know why I said this, but I felt now how much of his life was lived apart from me. He could do anything, be anywhere, and if something happened to him, it might be hours or days before anybody knew something was wrong. Little or big, every day's plan was something I would have known firsthand, helping him make some of its choices in the way couples decide things between themselves in a casual, offhand manner. I took it for granted then, but now I didn't.

"Always, love," he answered. "Give Sylvia a kiss from me."

"None for me?"

"All the rest belong to you already," he answered.

A farewell, and he was gone. I laid my mobile on the counter, and tuned the wireless signal to the station with the weather report, but the announcer was now talking about banks in Sweden, so I switched it off.

Christmas Blizzard for East Coast? popped up on my mobile's screen when I searched for weather conditions in Boston. I didn't have the heart to read it while there was still hope. I leaned down and kissed the top of Sylvia's head instead.

****

"I think my paper chain is a bit long," said Gemma. It was pooled around her feet, the tiny little music notes and random words visible on its links. "Some of these sheets are pretty, though," she said, laying aside her project and sifting through the music in the box. "It's a pity the mice ate them."

The topmost one had a sailboat on its cover sheet. 'A Sailboat Ride for Two' was printed above the music itself. I thought again of the lighthouse tale of Rowena St. James, only this time of the way it inspired Gemma's writing ambition.

"Made for two hands," said Michael, as I puzzled over the arrangement of the musical bars.

"Oh, for a duet?" I said.

"Exactly." He poured his batter into two buttered loaf pans and slid them into the oven.

"I used to have a toy sailboat," said Gemma. "I always liked the sea."

"But not the wood," said Michael. "You find it scary."

I smiled, remembering what he referred to — Gemma's fear of the 'haunted wood' close by the estate, the site of a long-ago accident. I hid it quickly, however, because I also remembered how quickly Gemma's temper flared when teased about it, too.

"I'm not scared of the wood," said Gemma, hotly. "I only thought it was a silly place to have a romance, a place where nasty piskies live in children's stories."

"Piskies." Michael snorted.

"You must have grown up with proper ghost stories being told to you, too," said Gemma, whose cheeks were red by now. "Only because no one you admire wants to visit a haunted castle you know about or the like, you can pretend you've never believed any superstitions." She planted her hands on her hips with indignation, while Michael hid a smile of his own.

"Michael, stop teasing her," I said. "Do you want to make her angry?"

"Not in the least." He glanced over his shoulder at Gemma, and, suddenly, she blushed for a very different reason. I wondered when or if something more would come of this. If Michael would mention to his family or friends over the holidays that he liked a girl in Cornwall — if Gemma's mother had plucked her courage to ask exactly where things stood between them. After all, it had been more than a year since that sudden kiss between them in the pub.

Was it Gemma's writing ambitions keeping her from pursuing a serious relationship? Maybe she was planning to leave if a publisher said 'yes' to her manuscript and she found herself on her way to being the next Rowena St. James, as she'd always dreamed. Was the chef really a Casanova and none of us knew it? Maybe he had a girlfriend or three already, scattered between here and France.

I wanted to know, but asking any of these things would be horribly nosy. And even my 'Yank' tendency to ask too many questions wouldn't excuse me from that level of interference.

Gemma stole a second glance at Michael as he pushed his loaf pans into the oven and checked the temperature again. A few minutes later, he did the same to her while she was busy sweeping up stray bits of sheet music.

It wasn't so different from Kitty and Nathan, really. The two of them sneaked glances at each other, kept their feelings at bay as long as possible, though not as long as Matt and I managed it before them.

"You can trust him, I think," I said to Kitty. "I think he seems like a very special guy." I watched Nathan across the way in the green room of the Cliff's Edge Players, where he was making small talk with Martin and Rosie. "He's definitely worth getting to know, at least in my opinion."

"I know." She sighed. "It's not him." She looked away, towards one of the mirrors in the dressing room, which reflected a very moody-looking girl with pale skin and black hair curling as it escaped from the updo she had styled for her part in Millie's 'spring sketch' revue.

"Then what?"

"What'dye think?" She looked at me with the 'you're crazy' look that always exasperates Kitty's friends in conversation. "It's Mum. And my crazy family." She shook her head. "It's too complicated."

"How do you know that will be a problem?" I said. "Maybe his family's crazy, too." We didn't know that much about Nathan's past, after all, unless Kitty knew things the rest of us didn't.

"Not the same way as mine," she said. "He talks about them sometimes. They're a proper normal family, all ... middle class." She said it like it had a bad taste. "He doesn't have an uncle who runs a bit of a con, or cousins who've sold stolen car parts. His mum bakes biscuits and tidies the house, she doesn't lie about moaning 'cause her marriage was rotten, watching telly and smoking a half pack a day."

"Maybe he has something worse," I said. "Closet addictions or violent arguments at the holiday dinner table —"

"My mum threw a roast chicken at Uncle Saul last Boxing Day," said Kitty. This gave me pause.

"Look," I said. "I don't think Nathan cares. I don't think he sees anything when he looks at you but you. The real you."

Even now, his eyes sought her in the crowd, drifting back there no matter who spoke to him, or for how long, or with how much enthusiasm. His smile was always polite — but his eyes were different when they found Kitty. I could see the spark in them, the feeling that anchored him to this room even though he had at best a tiny interest in community theater outside of Kitty's love for it.

"I think he would brave a den of lions for you," I said, softly, close to Kitty's ear. And though her nostrils flared with contempt for this idea, I could see the faintest blush in her cheeks. Deep down, she knew it was true that Nathan would do nearly anything for her. He was that hopelessly in love with her.

Ah, Kitty. I turned over a sheet of music called 'Paris in Love,' which brought her to mind instantly, as did all pictures of the Eiffel Tower, all performances at the local playhouse, and any red sneakers on display in shop windows. Kitty's favorite footwear, though she had replaced those grungy old ones with newer, more stylish ones since her first weeks as my assistant. I could still picture them clearly in my head, however, propped up on her desk as she gave serious study to her French language book in an attempt to become bilingual for our international guests.

And, just like that, Kitty was before me in real life. Closing the kitchen door behind her, tugging off a sleek wool coat and hat, brushing the moisture from a pair of high-heeled red shoes so stunning that I had instant envy of them. She met my gaze after all of this, and gave me an incredulous look.

"What are you staring at?" she asked. "Look like you've seen a ghost." But she didn't seem too surprised when I put my arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug.

"What are you doing here?" I said.

"You knew I was coming for Christmas," she said. "I was late. Stopped at mum's to leave my bag and thought she'd never let me go. She wants to come help with the manor party." Here, Kitty released a dramatic sigh. "I told her she's not needed, but she insists there's too much for a cook and a pair of hired hands. She says she'll come for the baking the day before. Don't blame me," she added, in Michael's direction.

Bets Alderson had the worst cooking skills I had ever encountered, making my humble attempts taste like one of Michael's four star gourmet meals. I imagined her helping make biscuits, and wondered if the results would be edible. Then again, since the village once savored the likes of 'whiskey pudding' ....

"I don't care that you're late," I said. "I'm just glad you've come." I glanced over her shoulder. "Where's Nathan?" I asked.

"Coming a bit later. He's in Shetland," she said. "Some sort of tourism promotion bit with a fiddle contest."

"That's a beautiful place," I said.

"Aye." Kitty smiled, a quick one that revealed how much she had liked the remote, rugged island. "I spent a bit of time there with him."

"You did?" I couldn't wait to hear about it — I always hated the fact that Kitty's emails tended to delete the most interesting aspects of her whirlwind life with Nathan, spent moving from one unique place to another for his work and hers.

"We took the ferry across to Norway," she said. "There was an Advent concert in an old stone church in Oslo. You and Matt would've liked it."

"I can imagine," I said. "It'll be dull being here compared to the past few weeks for you two. You'll be missing Christmas in Paris or London or a holiday for two on some tiny Scandinavian island," I joked.

"Dunno about that." Something flickered across Kitty's face as she muttered this reply, and I wasn't quite sure what to make of it, unless it was merely a sign that her train journey had been a long one.

"Never mind that," said Michael. "You haven't said anything to me except for three rude words. What I expect from you, but I would like a little more."

"How about a proper scolding for not sending me some of your biscuits?" But with this snotty reply, Kitty faced the chef with a half-smile that proved their old sharp-tongued teasing of each other was still alive and well.

"London has enough bakeries," he said. "You didn't need my cooking or my patisserie in a place like that."

"Says you," she snorted. Her gaze fell on Gemma now, who looked away and pretended to be very busy pasting together links on her chain again.

"How's things?" Kitty asked this with indifference.

Gemma shrugged. "All right." In response, Kitty shrugged, as if proving she didn't care one way or the other.

"So are you going to help out or what?" I asked.

Kitty's reply was a scoff. But she pulled an apron from the kitchen hook and looped it over her neck all the same.

****

Dinah's menu was well in hand once the decision was made in favor of turkey and a single large meat pie that reminded me of some medieval decorative pastry that Pierre Dupine might have featured in one of his cookbooks — Dinah showed me the picture, the whole thing shaped like a big fish with flaky pastry scales and fins and a glassy eye made from gelatin and caviar.

I would be dubious, having sampled a Bawcock's Eve 'Stargazy Pie' once and found its staring faces very hard to reconcile with dinner, but Dinah assured me that this was the supreme in celebratory pies. Anyway, the menu wasn't mine to worry about, only the matter of making the dining room festive for Amanda's vision of an 'old-fashioned' Christmas.

I linked more paper chains together, remembering when a jar of stick glue and some very delicate colored paper had resulted in a crumpled, sticky mess instead of a beautiful garland, during my first Christmas in this place. I had taught myself a little more about creative paper crafting since then — even a few little origami folds — but I knew this project mostly required templates and tracing.

"Do you think we can use these little paper doilies to make ornaments?" Gemma unearthed them from an old box of forgotten party supplies that could easily have been from the days of Lord William's mother.

"Sure," I said. "Look — tuck some of these card cutouts in them and you have Victorian style ornaments. Fancy Valentines and greeting cards from bygone days." I folded one into a paper fan-style envelope, and tucked a couple of paper sprigs of holly which had been cut free of an old red background proclaiming 'Christmas Greetings.'

"Ooh, fancy," said Pippa, with a whistle. "I wish I could do a bit of this around the house. But Ross tears paper to bits — he's torn the pages out of most of his storybooks, so I have to keep them on high shelves. Ross — get away from those cookbooks!" At the sound of his mother's scolding, Ross backed away reluctantly from a shelf of old cookbooks seldom used in the manor kitchen.

"Bet you haven't made much stuff like this for rich city parties," ventured Gemma to Kitty, who merely shrugged. Gemma gave me a look which said 'see?', as if to prove that friendliness simply wasn't worth the effort.

Kitty was cutting a pair of Victorian boots from an old birthday card that had become mixed in with the holiday greetings in the same hodgepodge manner as Nathan's postcard. In front of her was a pile of tiny paper shapes cut from the mouse-gnawed sheet music: ballerinas, ice skaters, Victorian gentlemen and ladies, carriages with horses, and other familiar shapes. She wasn't using a template but freehanding them which surprised me.

"I didn't know you could do that," I said.

"Picked it up somewheres, I guess," she answered. "Thought they'd look nice as tree ornaments, maybe."

"Lady A will love them," I said, twirling a little ballerina. "We could make her a skirt from —"

"— gift wrap," said Kitty. "Or from a bit of old lace." We exchanged smiles, both seeing the same answers for the same task, much like the old days.

Pippa wrinkled her nose. "Is that carriage's window where a mouse nibbled a hole?" she asked. It looked a bit like it, the missing words between lines of 'We Three Kings.'

In response, Kitty rolled her eyes. She laid aside her scissors, rose, and departed through the kitchen's outside door with her coat in one arm. Gemma glared at Pip.

"See what you did," she said. "Julianne said to be nicer to her."

"How was I to know that she was so teasy over a bit of paper?" said Pippa.

"Never mind," I said. "She probably just wanted some air. I'll go see if that's the case." I lifted my own coat and followed, ignoring Sylvia's baby chortles and outstretched arms pleading to be taken along.

It was more than a piece of paper that made Kitty so moody. I had sensed something was a little off since her arrival. Usually Kitty would trade insults with both the house maids and probably best them, whether she was right or not. But to back down after one little remark ... it meant Kitty had something else at stake emotionally that was bigger than her age-old school insults.

I found her leaning against a stone wall in the garden, watching the plants in their restless winter sleep. No dead stalks or seed heads here, since Pollock was thorough about deadheading and mulching for the winter months, I noticed. Nothing to attract Kitty's eye except a little bird hopping among the dead leaves, so I concluded that she was looking inwards, not outwards.

I joined her. "Want to talk?" I asked.

"About what?"

I accepted the blunt tone for what it was — a ruse. "Why you seem to have something on your mind, for instance," I answered. "I know you too well, Kitty," I said, as she turned her head away, gazing towards the sea walk. "Something's bothering you. Is it your mum? Did you have a fight or something?" Bets was difficult to live peaceably with in the best of times, and it was the nature of Kitty's family to be at war with each other.

"No," said Kitty. "Nothing we haven't had before. It's not a row." She tucked her hands in her pockets.

"It's not Nathan, is it?" I ventured this carefully. Kitty and Nathan had only been married a few months. Maybe it was a few months too long? I couldn't imagine it, but still....

"'Course not," said Kitty, scornfully. As if I'd suggested she handle poisonous spiders. "He's fine. We had a grand time in Norway, took the train down from Oslo. A friend of his lent him a summer place on one of the Swedish islands. We had a nice time there. He was saying he'd like to live someplace like that. 'Course, neither of us speaks the language." A little smile played around Kitty's lips. "I'd have to learn it the way I did French."

"Sounds wonderful," I said. She showed me pictures on her phone, of them smiling on a rocky shore's edge with a moss-covered stone cave behind them, and arm in arm on the ferry to Norway, both revealing Kitty's smile at its most natural and happiest, while Nathan looked as if he still thought he was the luckiest man in the world.

"I guess maybe a part of you wishes you'd stayed there for Christmas instead of coming here." I knew it was probably more peaceful, living on a remote island with Nathan, than trading insults with the rest of her family. But Kitty's gaze darkened. I waited.

"He's changing jobs again," she said. "The thing in Shetland'll be over soon, and we'll move on. As soon as the music festival doesn't need me, I reckon." She sighed. "Time to move on, find somewhere else. We've talked about America, maybe the West Coast. He's had an offer from an Australian performance venue." The pictures on Kitty's phone had come full circle, resting on an image from her wedding in Paris, the closest smile to sheer bliss on Kitty's face seconds after their vows in the magistrate's office.

I couldn't tell whether she was happy about this or sad. I thought it was the latter. Maybe Kitty had loved Scotland, and didn't want to leave her work with the local cultural groups. Was it the thought of Australia's giant snakes that was the problem?

"So what do you want to do?" I asked her. Kitty bit her lip, the skin flushing blood before she released it.

"Something different," she said. "I'm tired of the restlessness. But —" She didn't finish, sighing instead. She had already resigned herself to something unnamed. I wondered if it was Paris in Kitty's blood, and if she hadn't been prepared for Nathan's next assignment to be still further from it than London.

"If you want to talk, you know where to find me," I said. Kitty didn't nod, but I knew she was listening. I left her to think about her problems on her own again.

Pippa was forcing Ross into a pair of small boots as he screamed, when I returned to the kitchen. Dinah was absent, but Michael was putting some last-minute touches on culinary treats for friends and family. Gemma sneaked a bit of his candied orange peel; Michael pretended to scowl.

I stole a little myself, glancing down at an open newspaper which had protected bottles of cooking wine from his latest shopping trip. A tabloid headline in the far corner promised photos of an 'elusive Scandinavian royal couple' visiting a London museum, the pair looking slightly familiar to me. Was it Josephine and Kristofer, maybe? They might still be dodging the public eye as Josephine wished, stealing moments away from their Scandinavian castle to slip incognito among citizens in Josephine's homeland.

The ornament at the bottom of the box of decorations was a little resin white stone castle that I could easily imagine resembling Aval Towan as I hunted for just the right branch for it on my Christmas tree. The 'royal wedding' was the last event I had planned before leaving Cornwall temporarily. When I came back, it took time to settle into this world again, though I had never stopped missing it.

Sylvia burbled along with her favorite cartoon program, one about stripey clay cats having a tea party. The DVD came to an end and shut off, and a news program on the telly appeared in its place.

"...and the weather conditions on the U.S. eastern seaboard are worsening as the days pass. Forecasters are observing a massive push by Arctic air which will soon put not only America in the grip of winter weather, but also much of Europe, including southernmost regions which have not experienced significant storms since —"

I fumbled for the remote and turned up the volume. Ugly images of snowstorms pounding city streets, cars buried under a flood of snow. An airport whirling in a blizzard, a weather simulation model showing big swirling white circles over the ocean between here and Matt's current home.

I dug for my phone beneath Lady Amanda's lists and scraps of paper that had drifted into my shoulder bag while making decorations. I pushed Matt's contact button and listened to what seemed like endless ringing before I was connected with his message box. He must be in meetings, or busy entering the final grade information online for his students.

"Matt, this is me," I said. "Please, call me whenever you can." I knew these last few days would be crunch time for him, and probably a few students would be hanging around until the last moment, eager to talk to the imminent guest professor about their future classes and careers.

I sighed. Sylvia looked concerned, her serious baby eyes fixed on me instead of the dire storm warnings on the television. I switched it off, and tried smiling. Put on a happy face, I thought. Sylvia could probably see right through my fake feelings.

My hand reached into the box again, feeling numbly amidst the wrappings for something new to take my mind off these circumstances. I had been happy a moment ago, holding a miniature castle and remembering my first exciting year in Cornwall. I needed to keep that feeling, so I wouldn't worry every second about Matt's dwindling chances of spending Christmas with us.

The next ornament my hand lifted was a pair of red shoes tied together at the laces, that I had put in this box only a month ago. They were Sylvia's first baby pair, a gift from Kitty. I let them dangle between my fingers, the fabric glittering in the light much like Dorothy's ruby slippers. I thought of the happiness of my former assistant's photographed self and the pensive, secretive version who had come back to Cornwall this time.

Oh, Kitty. I sighed again, for the unspoken secrets between friends, the obstacles between a happy Christmas and some of the people I loved most in the world. Including the most important person of all.

****

The drawing room was coming together under Lady Amanda's supervision, albeit with a limited amount of time left to us to completely redecorate it by Christmas Eve. All the glitzy or sophisticated decorations originally added for a holiday charity tea were now removed, and loads of cut greenery, paper chains, and garlands made from vintage holiday greetings had replaced them.

"We still need more for the tree." Lady Amanda frowned. "It's not quite right, is it?" She studied it with a critical eye, the green branches adorned with twinkle lights, Gemma's paper chain, and several of Kitty's sheet music ornaments. "I think it needs twice as many decorations, and at least one more chain to really satisfy one's eye."

She tied the end of the mantel's greeting card garland in place at the opposite corner of its shelf. Above, Gemma was adding some decorative touches to a wreath decorated with paper flowers made from the ruined sheet music, along with branches of holly, fir, and mistletoe, and miniature vintage bells that Kitty had found in another old box of castoff Christmas decorations.

"The box you requested, Your Ladyship." Mrs. Norbit had appeared among us, carrying a cobwebby box from storage. Amazingly enough, none of the grime was clinging to her hands or the stark, crisply-starched black blouse she wore, as if she was covered by a protective anti-stain aura.

"Thank you, Mrs. Norbit." Lady Amanda popped open the box and lifted out a beautiful vintage tree topper, reminding me of ones I had seen in photos of old dime stores decorated for Christmas, or wartime living room celebrations. "Isn't it splendid?" she said to the rest of us. "I simply love patina on mercury glass. And it has a bit of color, a splash of pink and blue to give it just a tiny special touch."

"There is dust debris on the carpet, Your Ladyship," said Mrs. Norbit. "Shall I fetch the hoover and remedy the problem?"

"What problem?" Amanda glanced around, finally spotting a few dust bunnies on the carpet. "Heavens, it's hardly worth bothering with at the moment. We'll tidy up when we're finished for the morning."

"As you wish, Your Ladyship." I thought the housekeeper looked pained, but you had to peer deeply into those eyes of steel and military discipline to be sure of it. She turned on heel and marched from the room again.

"She's a bit scary, isn't she?" Pippa half-whispered this. "I've been half-terrified of her since I arrived. How do you put up with her every day?"

"With great forbearance," answered Lady A, solemnly.

I found Kitty in the kitchen, helping Michael shell peas. The gentle purr of Dinah's mixer was the only other noise, as the cook whipped up the layers to an elaborate holiday cake which she intended to freeze, then assemble, once she arrived at her New Year's destination.

Michael and Kitty had been talking about her time in Paris; she had shown him pictures of places she enjoyed visiting there, including a little patisserie with heavenly jam-filled puffs, apparently. There was no wistful ache anywhere in Kitty's words, and I didn't see the troubled gleam I had witnessed in the garden. Maybe Paris wasn't the problem after all.

"You'd get better patisserie in Nice," said Michael, as he lifted his bowl. "Paris is overrated."

"Says you against the rest of the world," snorted Kitty.

"How did Nathan like Paris, in the end?" I asked, as I poured a cup of tea. I glanced over my shoulder at Kitty.

"Well enough. He liked his work there. I had a better flat than he did," she said. "We'd take trains to the countryside sometimes on weekends. He liked the south country, but I liked Bretan better." She flipped through some pictures, then showed me one of her posed in front of a rustic country church somewhere in France's northern towns.

She could sense that I was watching her. I could see it in the hunch of her shoulders, as if she was deflecting my gaze. Michael glanced from her to me, then cleared his throat. "I have potatoes to scrub," he said. He disappeared towards the pantry.

"I know you thought it was about Nathan," began Kitty.

"I thought no such thing," I pointed out. "I just asked if it was him. It was something big, obviously."

"Obviously." She snorted again. "I guess ... you could say in a way that it is," she admitted. "It's just not directly." Her shoulders unknotted, and she glanced my way, shyly. "It's only —"

The kitchen door opened just then, and another visitor entered, shaking the mist's dampness from their coat and scarf, setting down a leather travel bag on the kitchen floor. "I always forget that winters in Cornwall aren't exactly Christmas postcards," said Nathan. "Why do we always picture snowy English villages back in America?"

As usual, he was wearing a suit and tie and a pair of shoes far too impractical for country walking — I deduced that Nathan must have had a meeting early this morning before taking the next train south. His hand cupped Kitty's cheek as he kissed her in greeting. "Hey, Julianne," he said to me.

"You're a day late," said Kitty, pushing his hand away. "Daft boy." But she didn't look displeased, hiding a smile instead.

"I know. I had a conference call about the venue, then I took care of some forms that needed a little tweaking," he said. "But I'm here now. Ready for Christmas. I got a gift for your mom already, I hope she likes it..." He dug through his luggage now.

The odds Bets would like it were probably slim. "Do you want to walk with your things to the house now?" Kitty asked. Nathan looked up.

"No, I rented a car. I wanted to see you first, and I figured you'd be here, then I thought I'd see if there's a room at the B&B," he said. "I don't want to crowd your mom too much. Plus, I thought if maybe you were feeling a little crazy, you'd like your own space by now." He smiled at her.

"Good thought." Kitty seemed shy all of a sudden. "Dovie won't be booked at this time o' year. She'll give you the best room — anything for the toff who brought the Grand Baking Extravaganza to Ceffylgwyn, I reckon." She flashed him a wicked grin, and Nathan gently tweaked her chin.

"You could be a little nicer to me after a week," he said. But not seriously.

"You wouldn't like me as well." She stood up and let him help her on with her coat. "I'll be back in a bit, Juli," she said. "We'll sort out a room for him, then we'll stop at mum's for the obligatory visit."

"I didn't find that gift," said Nathan, remembering now what he'd been doing a moment before. "Where is it? It's this plug-in device that lets you stream your favorite television programs from the internet on the tv...." He dug around in vain, past folded shirts and a Fair Island jumper in a soft brown shade.

Kitty rolled her eyes. "She'll never use it in a million years," she said to me. As Nathan gave up and took her hand and his bag, they departed from the manor with a farewell wave.

I finished adding sugar to my tea, and sat down at the table. Kitty's problem temporarily vanished from my mind after seeing her and Nathan seemingly happy, but I still had my own troubles. Matt would return my call at any time, and I was afraid it would be with bad news. Today's weather report wasn't promising at all, but seemed poised to shut down travel all along the eastern coast. Matt would be trapped in Boston, alone for the holidays, and I would be lonelier than ever until he rescheduled his ticket to join me after Christmas.

Dinah sank down in the chair across from me. "Mercy, I'm a bit glad for a moment of quiet," she said. "Waiting for a sponge to come fresh-baked from the oven — my favorite part, I confess." She sipped her tea. "Care for a biscuit?" She held out a plate of gingersnaps.

"Love one." I accepted a small one, and crunched it between my teeth. Stress relief comes in the taste of ginger and cinnamon, I decided. It was the only thing making me feel comforted right now. The kitchen had grown quiet indeed, with Pippa and Ross out visiting in the village, and Sylvia fast asleep in her playpen.

"Permission to join your table?" Geoff had entered the kitchen in search of a cuppa for himself.

"Of course," I said. "If you don't mind girl gossip. We're talking about our favorite reality telly, aren't we, Dinah?"

"I like the ones with a strapping bachelor choosing between a dozen lovely lasses," answered Dinah, giving me a subtle wink. "Though having everyone trapped in a house together, sitting 'round in their sleepwear and underclothes while moanin' about how awful their lives are — it can't be missed."

"What's your favorite, Geoff?" I asked.

"I'm afraid I don't have one," he said.

"Neither do we," I assured him, as Dinah and I shared a little laugh. Geoff, instead of joining in, seemed quite serious as he stirred his tea.

He cleared his throat. "Might I trouble you for a piece of advice on a rather ... delicate subject?" He glanced from one of us to the other.

"Of course," we said.

"It concerns a lady," said Geoff.

We exchanged glances, Dinah and I, of surprise. "Are you asking for love advice?" I clarified.

"One could say that." He cleared his throat again, and the usually placid estate manager showed signs of uncertainty for the first time ever. "I made her acquaintance at an opera gala in London. We've chatted a few times since then ... had drinks together before a concert we attended at Oxford by mutual arrangement ... one might could say we keep company, as the antiquated phrase suggests."

Dinah and I digested these facts regarding Geoff's love life during a thoughtful pause. "So," I said, "the question you have would be —"

"Given the circumstances between us, which are rather undefined," said Geoff, "I wondered if it would be imprudent of me to give her a Christmas gift. You see, we've never established the boundaries of our relationship. It's been a matter of chance and convenience in sharing opera seats to this point. But I would rather prefer to move it to something more than friendship."

Dinah and I exchanged glances again. "Are you daft?" said Dinah.

Geoff knit his brows. "I'm sorry?" he said.

"Buy her a gift, Geoff," I said.

"Buy her a dozen," urged Dinah. "Strike while the iron is hot, to use another antiquated phrase."

"You think she would be receptive?" ventured Geoff.

"Undoubtedly she's been waiting for you to say something a bit more romantic than 'see you for the next performance,'" I said. "She's probably been dying for you to ask her out officially."

"A handsome, dashing bloke like yourself," contributed Dinah. In response, I saw Geoff blush — also for the first time ever. But Dinah was right in the fact that Geoff was something of an eligible bachelor.

"I'll take this advice to heart," he said. "Something akin to a nice scarf, perhaps?"

"Just don't leap to jewelry with the first gift," I said.

"Not until next Christmas," added Dinah.

Geoff's love life had never been a topic at Cliffs House before, and I wondered what his opera companion was like. He shared only the most subtle of details about her while at the table, and about his Christmas plans, which I understood to involve a post-Christmas journey to her cottage to share a new Bach recording and Chinese takeaway.

"Wonders never cease," said Dinah, waggling her eyebrows when we were alone again. I agreed, then heard the gentle trill of my mobile phone. Matt, I thought. I ducked into the pantry to answer it, as Dinah's timer began beeping insistently.

"You got my message," I said. "Matt, the weather reports aren't as bad for Boston, like you said, but it's getting worse for us — today has a possible arctic front moving across London, now. It looks as if the whole northern hemisphere could be experiencing winter storms ... I don't know what to think." On my phone, a steady stream of bad news appeared whenever the wireless internet signal was good, and stripped away my facade of Christmas cheer with an alarming speed. It didn't look promising for Matt to come home to us this Christmas, not until several days after the holidays, a fact I was going to have to resign myself to accept.

"I've seen them," he said. "But they haven't canceled any flights between Boston and London yet, and I'm hopeful that they won't. I intend to be on one of those planes, Juli."

"I know," I said. "But ... it looks dangerous, Matt." I bit my lip, wishing I could reframe the meteorologist's technical terms about ice slicks or hidden snowstorms in layman's terms so I could talk about them, although Matt probably picked up on the scientific meaning better than I did. It didn't sound good, was principally what I understood about it, but that was enough for me. "They're describing really dangerous conditions for travel with some of this system."

I took a breath, forcing the thing I hesitated to say aloud. "If we have to ... you can wait to come home. You can move your ticket to a safer travel time. It'll be fine, just not what we wanted." My mind had raced ahead in this scenario, putting together a revised version of the future, which put our Christmas plans on hold until he arrived.

"I'm not changing our plans unless I absolutely must," answered Matthew. "I've been waiting for this for weeks — I don't want to be in Boston a moment longer, but home with you. I already have a second ticket on standby, and I intend to be on whatever plane is still willing to make the flight to London. I'll leave Christmas Eve if they reschedule the plane due to the system passing over Boston, which is likely ... but I'll be there by Christmas Day, if it means taking the milk train after a red-eye flight."

"Matt," I began. Talk him out of this, I thought. It sounded exhausting and a bit dangerous to me, and the only thing stopping me from saying it was the homesickness in Matt's voice. It had been so long since he had been home for more than a few days, seeing us and his friends, his garden and all the places he loved. It was bleeding through his words, as if I hadn't heard it in every phone conversation before.

"I'll squeeze everything into my carryon," said Matt. "No checked luggage to slow my trip — I'll text you the flight arrival time, but since it will probably be delayed or changed I know you won't be able to meet me. I'll come home by train from the airport. I'll be home in time for the party ... we'll come away in time to be alone at our cottage before Christmas Day arrives, I hope." Even now, his tone was one of eagerness and expectation for this moment ... a stolen one for the two of us and Sylvia, away from our friends at the manor.

It all sounded wonderful, even with the heartbreaking truth of cancellations and suspended flights looming behind it. "Anything you want to do would make me happy," I said. "But you know that already."

"I love you, Juli." His voice was so tender I couldn't say another word about him cancelling his ticket. "I'll see you soon."

"I can't wait." I couldn't, though I knew it would be the better choice. Waking up alone on Christmas morning, me and Sylvia gazing at the tree lights and watching old holiday movies, holding on one or two more days for the runways to clear ... it was as lonely a feeling as the one that colored Matt's voice today. It made me want to cry in a far different manner than the fantasy where I fell into his arms at Heathrow on Christmas Eve.

But it was better to face the facts that winter had just defeated us. I knew it, even if my heart didn't want to accept it. I tried calling Matt's number to persuade him to change his ticket, but it went straight to voicemail, so he must be in conversation with someone else already. I didn't leave a message.

It weighed on the back of my mind all day as I coiled strips of medium-gauge metal foil carefully in twisty little icicles for the manor's tree. The metal had a slightly silvery, tarnished look that was almost as antiqued as the sheet music the mice had nibbled over the years.

"Careful of the sharp edges," said Kitty. "Bend the points inwards a bit and it won't catch on you or anybody else. It's not sharp as tin, but it could still cut you proper." Her fingers were deft enough to make twice as many as me, using only a pair of old needle-nose jewelry pliers to bend and curl the strips.

"Where did you come up with this idea?" I asked.

"Me gran," she answered. "She used to make these, and taught me." She shrugged. "Something she learned from her mum. Reckon it was from the war years, when everybody made do. She said the old ones on our tree were made from old food tins cut apart. That was all they had on the tree back then, besides some paper chains and stars."

Madgie, Kitty's grandmother, had been both resourceful and talented all her life, according to the stories I heard of her. I could imagine a poor childhood in a rustic country village, especially at wartime, was the catalyst for her developing her unique skills in quilting, flower arranging, and other domestic arts that she had imparted to Kitty.

"Me mum says her family used to go deep into the woods and cut holly berries to deck the living room from corner to door," said Gemma, who was trying to pull her icicle the proper length as she talked. "They were cheap enough, being free — they didn't buy proper ornaments and lights from a shop until her father had a job on a fishing trawler for a bit."

"You've turned the top wrong," said Kitty to her. "The sharp edges are sticking out."

Gemma scowled. "This is hard," she said. "Why don't we just buy them at the shop? They have the old-fashioned ones there, made from silver foil paper all cut and ready to drape — I've seen them lots of times."

"Because this is traditional, dear Gemma," said Lady Amanda, who, like the Cliffs House maid, had only a handful of finished ones with suspiciously-crooked turns, unlike Kitty's. "We want this party to be traditional — it is the first one since William and I were entrusted with his ancestral duties."

"Still," muttered Gemma. Who looked all the more sour as Kitty deftly corrected the icicle, then added it to Gemma's scant pile.

"My mother used to say the only tradition she truly loved about Christmas was a proper Yorkshire dinner," said Lady Amanda. "Her family was from the north country, originally. But I think she's only pretending, because I know how excited she becomes when it's time to pull the crackers. Quite a fondness for the prizes in them, including the terrible jokes." She tried to straighten her latest icicle's tip in vain.

"What about your family, Julianne?" Gemma asked. "Are their traditions the same as ours? Crackers and Christmas cake and all?"

"What do you think?" A slight snort buried in Kitty's tone for this remark.

"I'm trying to be polite, unlike some people 'round these parts," began Gemma, whose voice rose with irritation. Kitty and Gemma were mere seconds from an argument now, which I decided to nip in the bud.

"We usually play the 'find the hidden ornament' game on the tree," I said. "It used to be with a pickle ornament, but then one of my cousins accidentally dropped it, so now we play with a green frog that my mom found in a junk drawer. Whoever finds it on the tree gets an extra present — usually it's a box of chocolate or some sort of specialty packet of holiday cookies we bought at the store." That was my favorite childhood Christmas memory, that of being quicker than my dad at spotting the ornament among the dark green needles.

"My mum does that, too." Pippa had just joined us, taking off her winter scarf as she sat down at the table — Ross had run to Dinah, throwing his arms around her legs as she stood grating orange peel by the mixer, gazing eagerly up at her for his afternoon biscuit.

"I didn't know that," said Gemma. "What's the prize?"

"Usually mittens," said Pippa. "I never play. I've a drawer full of them already. That's all me grandmum ever gives me." She picked up one of the icicles I had finished making. "Are these for the tree? It's a bit weird, putting ones on it that people used to make out of rubbish, isn't it?" She wrinkled her nose. "The sheet music and the old cards and what not."

"Didn't hear you coming up with any brilliant ideas for it," Kitty muttered under her breath.

"Girls, please," said Lady Amanda, exasperated. "Do try to be friends for Christmas, at least."

I was bracing myself for another petty schoolgirl argument between these three frenemies as I twisted another piece of metal between the grip of tiny pliers. Its silvery color reminded me a little of the color of the slate rocks in a painting hanging on the opposite wall, showing a few small white flowers washed up on a rock ledge in the sea's foam. I wondered if Constance Strong had painted it for Amanda — I wondered where she and Joseph were spending their Christmas this year. Painting northern France's evergreens in the bitter frost of winter? Or curled up with a glass of Joseph's favorite vintage in a home near his latest wine shop?

At home, a framed sketch of her Frozen Bittersweet hung beside the desk, a tribute by Matt to one of his favorite Constance Strong paintings. It was an original, signed at the bottom corner by the painter herself.

"She sent us a Christmas present?" I said.

Matt tore the paper from the packet inside a postal box that arrived at our cottage with the day's mail. "The note says she wanted to congratulate us on our marriage sooner, but was in the Czech Republic at the time and couldn't find something that would suit," he said. "It's more your influence than mine that had her remember us at all, I suspect."

I rolled my eyes. "Says you," I answered. "She was all but smitten with you at that exhibit in Paris," I said. "Why do you think she told me I was such a lucky woman?"

Constance had recognized right away that Matt was someone special — and, being Constance, had no qualms about pointing out that fact, either. She was probably the only person who wouldn't have said I was daft at that point for being determined to spend my life with Matthew no matter the possible consequence. The consequence at the time being a shared life possibly centered on a terminal cancer diagnosis.

"If I had only been twenty years older," began Matt, with a playful little smile and a false sigh that made me pinch his shoulder. "Ouch. A bit hard, Juli love," he said, rubbing the spot as his humor became slightly rueful.

"Sorry." I kissed his cheek. "But, seriously, I think you made a better impression on her than me. All I did was help Lady Amanda put together a wedding brunch and find a few decorations. That's nothing to saving roses from a bacterial plague on the scale of impressive acts."

"Now who is teasing whom?" But Matt stopped at this point because the paper had been stripped away from the gift, revealing a framed pencil sketch in black and white. A few short lines creating the bend and slight break in a fragile plant stalk, with leaves that looked dry and brittle despite being nothing more than a mere shape created by the flick of a graphite tip. Shriveled, mini pumpkin-like shapes, diminutive against the stalk and the stark white landscape, shaded lightly with grey to suggest they were darker in places.

"It's from one of her paintings, isn't it?" I said, quietly. This, after Matt and I gazed at it in silence for a time, overcome by the incredible detail in its simplicity.

"It is," he said. "It's a sketch of the painting I saw exhibited in New York. It must be one of the original sketches she made before she began work on the canvas."

"I remember. I saw it in the book you have." I rested my head against his arm as I wrapped my own arm around him. "Isn't it beautiful?"

"It is." His arm stole around me in turn. "And for what it reminds us of, as well." Our eyes met, and I saw that Matt had been thinking the exact same thing as me.

I drew the curled icicle outwards from loop to tip. This time, it came out perfectly.

****

"Too much cinnamon in that one," said Bets Alderson, as Dinah snapped the mixing bowl in its stand. "Do with less, I always say. Folks never taste the difference — my lot wolfs it down quick enough with their tea. Can't taste the difference between a ruddy Queen's tea cake and a wadded sock, so why go through all that trouble?"

Dinah's mouth had become a tight line. "I think people can taste the difference in a quality recipe," she answered. "I never put less than what's been tried and tested before."

"I always say recipes are for them that don't have much experience," said Bets. "I may not spend my time in the kitchen, but I know what one needs to get by. Me mum was the same way, and never used a book in her life, I reckon, though she fed five of us tea every evening."

Kitty rolled her eyes. "Mum," she cautioned, in a voice that I knew would catch ire from Bets the moment it emerged. Kitty may have been needling the Cliffs House maids despite my many warnings on that habit, but she was getting it all paid back in spades now that her mother made good on her threat to help with the manor's open house.

I felt sorry for Kitty, who looked torn between exasperation and misery at this moment. She mustn't have resorted to outright bluntness in an attempt to prevent Bets from showing up here; therefore, she was still trying to make an effort at family peace, especially after Bets' vehement disappointment over the Paris wedding versus the parish church.

"I've never seen sense in ignoring good, proper instructions on how to do something," replied Dinah, as she sprinkled golden raisins in with her dry ingredients. "Cooking is as much a science as it is an art, and one must have a little of both to do it right."

"Of course, I s'pose it's easier for some," continued Bets, with a sigh.

I thought Dinah looked a trifle murderous as she switched on the mixer. I could see Kitty squirm for Bets's last remark. "Mum, it's how it's done here," she said, as quietly as she could. "You told me you were coming to help, not give a lecture."

"Don't be cheeky. I don't need a lecture from a girl who doesn't know a pastry cutter from a stirring spoon," replied Bets. "Your cousins eat my cooking without half the complaints of my own true flesh and blood. What's more, Nigel says I make a very decent biscuit."

"Well if Nigel says —" Kitty's tongue was getting the better of her now.

"Kitty, would you give me a hand in the pantry?" I asked, quickly. My former assistant caught herself mid-sentence, then laid aside her orange zester and fruit to follow me.

In the long passage-like room where the Cliffs House kitchen stored everything from sacks of flours to chocolate in wrappers, I closed the door softly to block out the sound of Bets instructing Dinah on leaving out the costly figs from her batter. "I thought you could use a few minutes' break," I said. "Dinah's a pro. She can handle an assistant with too many opinions better than you or I can."

"That'd be mum," said Kitty, with ire. "I told her a thousand times that Dinah knows better — me mum's biscuits are ruddy tasteless, and her Yorkshire pudding's like wallpaper paste in gravy. Nigel doesn't stay with her for her cooking, that much I know." She crossed her arms.

"I have something to cheer you up," I said.

"What?" She looked suspicious — then again, maybe that was just because of her usual scowl for any conversation about her family.

"An early Christmas present for you," I said. I turned her towards the back shelves, where an object stood hidden by a generous wrapping of white roll paper and a big red bow. "Go on. Open it." I steered her there by her shoulders; Kitty knelt down obediently and tugged at one paper corner.

It tore away in long folds and small strips; I had been a little too generous with the adhesive tape this time. I saw a smile tugging at Kitty's lips for the difficulty of unwrapping it. A little of the stress of cooking with Bets was wearing off. "Did a proper job on this, did you?" she said to me, with that tough humor that only doesn't offend if one knows Kitty well. "I hope whatever's beneath was worth all the trouble."

"I think it is. I thought of you the moment I saw it," I answered. "I thought maybe it would remind you of where you came from while you're living the grand life in Paris or Moscow or wherever you decide to go in the future."

A big swathe of paper tore away, revealing the pink tin dollhouse. Kitty stared at it, saying nothing at all. But I could tell this wasn't a bad thing.

"Why are you giving this to me?" Her voice was soft. "It's not ... it's as much everybody else's as mine." She was referring to Gemma and Pippa, as well as all the other kids who had played with it when it was just an old castoff in Ted Russert's barn.

She opened and closed the little shutter she had repaired years ago with an old sewing pin, a ghost of a smile on her lips, but only briefly. It faded away almost instantly, as if her troubles were clouds gathering in her mind.

"I thought you would appreciate it the most," I said. "You certainly did the most of anybody to transform it into its best self. Maybe it would remind you that home is where you make it, and all the rest becomes part of it in time. You have the amazing chance to choose anywhere you want in the world, but if you feel there's one part that you love most, that part is worth fighting for. If your heart belongs to Paris, you should go there."

"I don't want to go back to Paris," said Kitty.

"You don't?" I said. "But I thought — you seemed unhappy about moving to America or Australia possibly —"

"I don't want to go somewhere dramatic this next time. I want ... I want to come home." Kitty finished this as if admitting a dark and terrible secret. I didn't know what to say. She drew back from the house, looking at me as she spoke.

I had sucked in my breath with more surprise than I intended to convey. "Home?" I repeated. Here? In Ceffylgwyn? That was the place that globetrotter Kitty had chosen? "But why?" I said this part before I could stop myself.

She shrugged. "I don't know," she said. "It's daft, really. But I've missed it a bit these last couple of years. And though Mum and Saul and the rest are ruddy pains in the — well, difficult, anyway," she said, stopping herself before she went too far. "Even though I was glad to be away from them, they're still my family. And Mum doesn't do as well on her own as she thinks — Nigel doesn't look after her proper, lets her smoke too much and eat processed junk all the time." She drew a ragged breath. "And I miss — miss places I used to go, people I used to see. You," she said, looking up at me again. "And the people 'round the manor, and me old mates, Talisha's crowd, and having a bit of the old ways in my life. Things that remind me of Gran, I guess."

Not necessarily this sleepy village, I realized, but Cornwall itself. Kitty missed her roots, something that neither America nor France could give her, whether in a Cornwall-christened American town or the heart of Breton with its Celtic ties.

"Are you coming back here?" I asked. "I know you probably wouldn't want your old job, but Lord William and Lady Amanda would have you back in a heartbeat. Or there's plenty of room for event planners or P-R people in Penzance and Newquay...." I trailed off, getting ahead of myself. "What's wrong with coming home?" I asked her. Something was, that much I sensed, because Kitty wasn't smiling or hiding enthusiasm of any kind.

"I haven't told Nathan." Kitty's voice sounded miserable. "He'll think I'm daft for sure. He knows how much I liked Paris and London ... and how teasy my family makes me." Here, a little of the scowl returned, if only for a moment. "He won't understand at all, and he'll think Truro's small chips compared to the West Coast in America. Wouldn't exactly be the highlight of his career, would it?"

"So you haven't talked to him about this at all?" I said.

"No. I haven't exactly had the right chance for it," said Kitty. Her fingers traced the house's intricate printed-on gingerbread trim. "He probably thinks I'm glad enough about going somewhere a bit more stylish than the likes of here."

"You need to tell him the truth, Kitty," I said. "I think he'll understand better than you give him credit for." For all his career enthusiasm and 'too-American' drive, Nathan was surprisingly understanding and sensitive, at least when it came to Kitty's life. "Give him a chance to talk through this with you so he doesn't find out later that you were holding out on him."

"Easier said than done." Kitty scoffed. "Me in the thick of it with my family again, making his life miserable with Sunday tea once a month — working as the promoter to some summer passion play instead of headline acts at the Hollywood Bowl. He'll love it, I'm sure." Sarcasm flavored her words with a bitterness that even I could taste.

"Kitty, give him a better chance than that," I said.

She closed the tiny tin shutter. "Thanks," she said. "For the house. It's lovely. Though I don't know exactly how to put it on a plane for California yet." She brushed off her knees and her apron and stepped past me, opening the pantry door. She paused for a moment. "You won't tell him, will you?" she said. "Or anybody? I don't want word getting to Mu—to anybody, because they'd hold it against him for wanting to leave, probably."

"Of course not," I said. "I wouldn't tell anybody if that's what you want."

A brief, faint smile from Kitty. "Good." She slipped out of the pantry, leaving the door open. I looked at the dollhouse in the corner of the room, and let a deep sigh slip from my lips.

This definitely was not the dilemma I had imagined Kitty wrestling with at this point in her life. Not a return to the same place where a scarcely-grown rebellious girl had run off to work in a Land's End tourist trap just to get away from local whispers about her misdeeds.

"... and an extra dash of rum is all they want in the cake's flavorin' anyways," I heard Bets saying.

Tensions were running high in the Alderson household this holiday season, and I knew that without the sound of raised voices within its council house walls as I waited in the narrow front garden. Kitty came slamming out of the front door, cheeks red as she jerked her coat closed around her. Teatime must have ventured into dangerous topics.

"Are you okay?" I asked. Kitty rolled her eyes.

"Just Mum's being a stick in the mud," she said. "Like me and Nathan are a posh power couple selfishly hoarding our wealth, just because we aren't backing one of Uncle Phil's scams."

"What is it this time?" I asked.

"Watches. Knockoffs of some expensive brand, but they're complete rubbish. He knows someone who scored them cheap, she says, quality with serial numbers from the designer, as if that's true. He's been selling them from the back of his van, but she thinks Nathan could peddle a few among his friends for commission."

I made a face. "Still want that drink at the pub tonight?" I asked.

"'Course. How else am I going to make it through this holiday?" she asked.

Nathan was waiting for us at the Fisherman's Rest; I spotted him right away, because there was something un-missable about him in a crowd, even after he'd spent years in England. His clothes and gestures remained essentially American, so he never blended in with the natives. But they seemed to like him well enough despite this fact — or maybe it was simply that Old Ned pegged him as someone with enough quid to buy several pints for a friend.

"Hey, how was your day?" Nathan embraced Kitty, kissing her cheek.

"Awful," she said. "How's yours?"

"Not bad. I had a couple of conference calls, then a job interview. Thankfully, the video connection lasted until the end," he said. "The internet's really spotty this week."

"Satellite trouble again," I said. "Maybe it's the storms from the arctic air or something." I sat down at the bar, Kitty between me and Nathan. "My browser crashed twice while I was researching English Christmas traditions." Worse yet, it crashed while I was trying to video chat with Matt turning our communication into wordless still shots instead of a conversation stream.

"Is everything ready for the party?" asked Nathan. "If you need a hand, my artistic skills may be poor, but I'm good at moving heavy stuff around."

Kitty laughed. "You couldn't budge that bureau in our flat a couple of weeks ago," she said. Nathan's face turned red.

"It was screwed to the wall," he said. "Be fair, all right?"

"I seem to recall your gingerbread cookie frosting skills were better than anybody else at the manor," I pointed out.

"Thank you, both of you," said Nathan. "I think I should find somewhere else to spend my evening." He made as if to leave, as Kitty snagged his sleeve.

"Don't be dramatic," she said. "You can come help shift furniture in the dining room the day of the party. Lady A needs a proper buffet supper set up for the festivities. No glitter involved."

"Thanks," he said. "I'd like to keep a little of my masculine dignity intact."

"Is that word of the manor's Christmas Eve party I hear?" asked Old Ned, who had moved close once again — with an empty pint glass, I noticed. "I remember the old ones, you know."

"Really?" I said. "What were they like?" Lord William had been vague on the details of the ones held during his boyhood.

"Good times, aye," said Old Ned, reminiscing. "A fiddler from Mousehole come up one year and played all the old tunes — they took out the carpets in the big drawing room and had a dance that year. The housekeeper brought out a big pudding all aflame — you ne'er saw such excitement among the young ones, though they was too tired to keep awake the whole time. Oh, grand times, all right."

"Are you talking about the manor's party?" Lorrie the schoolteacher had joined us now. "The one this Christmas Eve?"

"We're talking about bygone ones, actually," I said. "Old Ned remembers them. Have you heard the old stories before?"

"Not me," said Lorrie. "I wasn't native enough to the village — no kin around these parts, except an old aunt in Par, and I don't think she was much for parties in small villages."

"It sounds like it was good fun for the whole family," I said.

"Aye, aye," said Old Ned. "'Til midnight, when things turned a bit wild. I remember that well enough — one time, old Jerry Pike pitched a chair straight out the open front door and into the grand garden."

Nathan choked slightly on his pint. "What?" he said, looking shocked.

"Thought it was a lad courtin' Jerry's missus for the reel," explained Old Ned. "It was the whiskey puddin's doing, o' course, and not his fault. It only took a little bit and you couldn't see straight in front of you, and staggered like a sailor."

"Whiskey pudding?" said Lorrie. "I've never heard of it."

"I think it's basically home brew fermented into a solid," I said.

"Sounds disgusting," said Nathan.

"And dangerous," said Lorrie.

"What? Whiskey pudding? 'Tis no worse than drinking a couple of glasses of good stout ale." Wallace Darnley intervened now, setting his empty glass on the bar. "Only a bit less palatable to some folk. Fine stuff, though. I have his old lordship's recipe, one me father used to make it. Not for the faint of heart, though." He clapped Nathan heartily on the shoulder, spilling part of the event promoter's pint with a splash. "It'll make you see double with the first bite, and stars with the next one, he liked to say. I like it a bit sour myself. Leave out the sugar put in at the last if you want the proper flavor."

Lorrie's expression was that of distaste. "I believe I shall pass," she answered. "Tell me there's something better on the menu than a pudding that intoxicates with two bites?"

"Plenty of better things," I said. "I don't think his lordship even has his grandfather's recipe for the old party's piece de resistance."

"I'll send it up to him," declared Wallace. "Might find it handy if the evening turns dull to have some about. I remember my father telling me of one lass dared by her friends to try a slice — she ended up in the garden, dancin' in an indelicate manner, ye might say, and was bundled home by the rest afore things were out of hand." He laughed heartily for this story.

"What's this I hear of whiskey pudding?" Rosie the 'crazy cat lady' appeared at Wallace's elbow, looking interested in our current topic. "Is this the legend I've heard whispered of in the village — the one that set men mad and put hair on the chest of local lads who were innocent previously of liquor's taste?"

"Think they'll be serving the rum biscuits of old?" Ned pondered.

"They will if my mum has her way," muttered Kitty. Nathan squeezed her shoulder.

"Relax," he said. "She's not so bad, your mom. It's just for the holidays, anyway." He smiled at her. "Just try to forget about whatever fight you had today and have a nice evening." He tilted her chin so she could see his face, looking into her eyes. "This holiday, we'll do whatever you want to make it a happy one, I promise."

You have no idea what you're promising, Nathan, I thought to myself. Not unless Kitty found the courage to tell him what was really on her mind this Christmas.

****

The drawing room was in grand style the day before Christmas Eve, if not quite as finished as Lady Amanda hoped for. The morning of, she was still looping ribbons through a handful of Gemma's unfinished ornaments from the previous afternoon.

"I felt last night that it was still a bit bare," she explained to me. "I know we had our hands full putting up more decorations in the dining room and improving the tree in the foyer, but I didn't intend to leave the drawing room at sixes and sevens." She gathered up the tin icicles and the cut paper trees and snowmen and carried them through to the drawing room.

"Are you sure it wasn't a trick of the lighting that made you think it was bare?" I asked, stopping short in the doorway, directly behind Lady A herself. "It looks perfect to me."

The tree was decorated from tip to base as thoroughly as any tree could be. Sheet music paper chains adorned its limbs with fluffy, antique garland, while lacy paper fans and envelopes framed a number of the vintage and recycled Christmas card images. I hadn't realized that we had curled so many icicles, either — there was one hanging from nearly every branch, it seemed, beneath a layer of silver tinsel like Gemma had suggested.

"It didn't," said Lady Amanda. "Not last evening. I hadn't even put on the tinsel yet ...." she trailed off as she gazed at it. "Someone must have added the rest of these last night or early this morning."

"Gemma?" I said. "Or Pip?" But Pip was leaving this morning on the train, and had been packing the night before. And Gemma had plans with her family last night, I recalled.

"Kitty?" Lady Amanda suggested.

"She was at the pub with Nathan all evening." I touched one of the paper chains, seeing the precision that joined its ends together, every link cut and pasted identically. The folds for the newest fans and envelopes that I didn't recognize from before were clean and precise, and nary a trace of the original colored background could be seen around the edges of any of the elaborate paper figures cut from old cards, from a jack in the box to a Father Christmas with a heavy sack of toys. There was something so familiar about all of this: this rigid perfection, its utter attention to detail that surpassed even Kitty's critical eye.

"Do you think ...?" I began, then hesitated. "No, surely not. But who else —?"

"Who?" said Lady Amanda.

"Your young guest is preparing to depart, Your Ladyship." The sound of Mrs. Norbit behind us made us both jump. "She's in the kitchen saying farewell to the temporary chef."

"We should go say goodbye," I said. Lady Amanda held up one of the new paper ornaments.

"Do you know if anyone has been in the drawing room today, Mrs. Norbit?" she asked.

"No one, Your Ladyship. Except for yourself, Mrs. Rose, and I." With that, Mrs. Norbit stepped aside to leave, pausing only to lift a stray piece of tinsel as if it were a cockroach, carrying it away for disposal.

Lady A glanced at me. "You think ...?"

"Who else?" I shrugged my shoulders.

"The scissor lines are military precision," said Lady Amanda. "As for these corners, not even a hospital bed would demand something so neat and square. There's really no other hand capable of that. I really had no idea she cared." A little smile appeared on Lady Amanda's face.

"Something tells me she possesses hidden depths we can't imagine," I answered. I spoke from experience on this one.

Pippa was embracing Dinah in the kitchen, while Ross was trying to fit two raisin biscuits into his mouth at once. "I'll miss you," she said to the cook. "I know you think I'm an awful excuse for a housekeeper and an awful cook to boot, but I did learn a lot from you, you know, even if it looked as if I weren't listening."

"Oh, go on with you," said Dinah, with a tiny bit of her usual scorn. "I'm sure you do well enough. Don't blubber about silly ideas from the past, it's hardly worth the waste of tears."

"You could be a bit nicer, couldn't you?" said Pippa, with slight disappointment.

"Niceness is well enough, but sometimes a practical word has its place," answered Dinah. Nevertheless, she took a brightly-wrapped package with a bow on top from behind her mixing bowl and placed it in Pippa's hand. "Keep safe on your return trip and try not to lose that wild lad of yours at the station."

"I didn't get you anything," said Pippa, holding the box with surprise. "I didn't know you were coming. You shouldn't give me a present if I don't have one for you."

"Not another word about it," said Dinah, in that final tone which silenced so many past conversations without needing a rise in pitch. "Off with you now, before you miss your train." She turned back to her saucepan of milk and butter on the stove, as the rest of us took our turn embracing Pippa and little Ross, who howled when his last biscuit half split into pieces.

"Enough of that noise, they'll pitch us off the train," protested his mother. Gemma scooped up the little boy and carried him out, as Pippa waved farewell one last time with her travel bag in hand.

"I'm going to miss this place," she sighed. With that, she closed the kitchen door. Lady Amanda and I watched from the high windows as Pippa and Gemma crossed the garden, both chatting and laughing one last time as if they were still the two starry-eyed half-grown girls of yesterday.

"Perhaps she'll come back by the spring," remarked Lady Amanda. "Little Ross might not be quite so wild then. Time has a hand in making children less difficult. I remember Edwin when he was in his terrible years. Now he's quite well-behaved, really."

I managed not to smile, thinking of how the aforementioned Edwin had disrupted a play circle for 'gifted children' recently with a homemade slingshot of two pencils, a rubber band, and a handful of buttons stolen from his mummy's sewing box. "Time does make a difference," I said, feeling this was a safe reply.

Michael was the next to leave that afternoon, having finished his baking and packed his bags to catch a flight north, I learned — his first stop on his Christmas holidays wasn't France but Norway, where he was meeting an old friend or two. I had pictured a cozy family gathering in the French countryside, an image dashed by the mental picture of three old schoolmates eating smorgasbord and ice fishing, or whatever Norway's variation on Scandinavian food and fun might be.

"Take care of this place while I'm gone," he said to Dinah, and I knew he was only half kidding.

"Never less," she answered, stoutly. "You needn't leave a list of instructions for me. You'll find everything in its place when you come back — though I see you've moved the patty tins to a different cupboard."

"It's more convenient to have them share with the fish pans," he answered. "You'll find extra spices in the shortbread tin in the cupboard, if you run out of them suddenly. My emergency stash." He shrugged on his backpack. It was the first time in a long time that I had seen Michael wearing something other than his chef's whites and dark stain-proof trousers in the kitchen. For once, he didn't have his scowl of concentration or the general fierceness and focus of his working self, either.

He paused before Gemma. "I'll see you soon," he said to her. They looked awkward standing so close together, making small talk and trying to look innocuous and not too romantic — like two teenagers on a first date more than two mature, grown people who were choosing to explore romantic feelings. "Happy Christmas, Gemma."

Suddenly, I tried to look very busy feeding Sylvia her applesauce, and not at all as if I was curious about their farewell.

"Have a nice holiday," she said. "Have fun with your mates."

After a hesitation, Michael leaned forward and kissed her cheek, softly and quickly, as if taking a risk by doing it in full view of others. Gemma's eyes were locked with his for a long moment until it was time for him to leave. There were roses in her cheeks as she pretended to be interested in sweeping crumbs off the table.

"You could have given him a proper kiss," said Dinah, after the door was closed. "We wouldn't have minded."

Gemma's face was the color of flame. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said, loftily.

"Are you and he going to make something of all this, or simply waste time?" answered Dinah.

Gemma's face was completely scarlet now, and her answer was to depart the kitchen without another word. This was very much like the Gemma of old, I thought, who was never above a flash of temper for someone's impertinence.

"I think he's the one being the fool, although I could be wrong," said Dinah. "I suppose this is the way young people prefer to go about things, so it's none of my business, is it? Only I know I wouldn't have dallied in this nonsensical manner if I was one of two unattached, reasonable people attracted to each other."

"Gwa!" declared Sylvia, clapping her hands.

The voice on television was thickly French, masculine, and dusky. "Then, pour the wine into the pan while it is still hot, and add a pat of butter, in order to deglaze it. This will be the liquid we use to baste our goose...."

Onscreen, Pierre Dupine, looking a few years older than on his last episode of the Grand Baking Extravaganza, but equally handsome in a well-seasoned manner. He brusquely whisked a spatula over the hot pan's bits of onion, garlic, and caramelized herbs, setting them free in a sea of red wine and melted butter.

I turned the page in the cookbook on my kitchen counter, trying to find just the right recipe among Harriet Hardy's seasonal favorites in An English Christmas Old and New. Sticky toffee sweet rolls, chocolate-covered caramel center marshmallow tea cakes that looked a tiny bit like Cadbury Easter eggs when sliced open. Maybe the cranberry bread with pistachios and sugared walnuts, an adaptation of a New York restaurant's specialty that Harriet featured on last week's Christmas baking program?

"None of these are your daddy's favorites, though," I informed Sylvia, who was eating a set of plastic baby keys while watching Pierre truss his goose with poultry string. "His favorite dessert is the special sticky toffee pudding that was your grandmother's recipe. But I think we should wait and bake it when he comes home."

Matt and I mixing ingredients in the kitchen Christmas morning — one of the many things I could look forward to, if only these winter storms would dissolve into harmless cool mist. I reached for another cookbook on the shelf, this one a well-thumbed book of holiday biscuits, and thought about Matt's love for chocolate shortbread.

I texted him. Still worried about the weather. I listened for the reply's chirp as I turned the book's pages past iced gingerbread, strawberry biscotti, and macaroons in bright holiday colors.

A mobile pip sounded. Flight still on. I'll be there, Matt wrote. I tried not to frown, the lines in my forehead knitting themselves anew.

Delayed? If it was, then the weather was reaching Boston early, or definitely hitting London tomorrow during Matt's travel time. I waited for the answer.

Yes. But don't worry. He knew what my text was going to be, obviously. It sounded so easy to type those words, but they did nothing to ease my concern, or the fact that disappointment was almost sure to result — and maybe with Matt stranded alone at an airport, instead of the comfort of his little apartment.

Tell me the time and I'll be there. I would wait all day and night at Heathrow, likely enough; I thought maybe I would see if Gemma would keep Sylvia, because she had a time or two before when I was away for a night. She was a good babysitter, and Sylvia was usually a good baby — better behaved asleep in Gemma's room in an old baby cot than in a busy airport waiting room.

Stay there, Juli. I'll come to you. He tweeted back.

I want to come.

Stay at the party. I don't want you stranded at an airport for Christmas if the weather worsens. Please.

He realized, too, that this was a risky holiday plan. He was making sure that Sylvia's first Christmas was spent with at least one of her parents, should Matt's flight be grounded altogether in the end. Which, as I looked at the weather models of the winter storm, seemed more and more likely.

Can you call me? I texted, hoping I could talk him out of it with words.

Can't. Coffee with department head. Tried to get out of it, but failed. Dinner afterwards. Matt actually used a disappointed emoji for this, a rarity when he was messaging. Proof just how disappointed he was, I suspected.

Call me tomorrow, then.

I will.

I laid my phone on the counter and turned the page in the cookbook, to one of brightly-iced Father Christmas cookies made from gingerbread. On the television screen, Pierre had finished stuffing his goose with a cornbread-cranberry mixture seasoned with sage, onion, and his French garden herbs, saluting his accomplishment with a little glass of red wine. Outside the window, a cool rain began drenching the garden, and even the cheery picture of these Christmas biscuits didn't shut out the gloom in our cottage.

I compromised on the miniature treacle puddings. They looked warmer, cozier, and more comforting, and I needed all three right now. Matt and I had made a similar recipe in one of our first joint dessert cooking adventures, and that made this choice all the more welcome to me.

****

The day before the party dawned with heavy winds sweeping in off the sea. Angry waters pounded the shore, and the Christmas storm that has delighted residents and visitors for many past holidays was breaking with a rough, cold edge.

I shivered as I stood in the back garden and breathed air that was flavored with something foreign and unpredictable. The storms off the English coast could strengthen or break apart — forecasters were undecided, based on an unpredictable shift of atmosphere over the Mediterranean. Everything could change in a matter of hours, they claimed.

Flights from Boston to London were still scheduled, including one now listed as departed from the Boston terminal after midnight due to a delayed landing from an Atlanta plane. I knew that Matt would be on it. He had called me last evening to say that he was on his way to the airport for the last flight out before the storms worsened, and that the winter storm descending the northeastern coast was sweeping south of the city now, so flights shouldn't be cancelled.

"Matt, are you sure?" I said. "As much as I want you here, I want you safe and warm, not cold and lonely for the holidays." Only a few days difference doesn't matter, does it? I won't cry in front of the Christmas tree, I promise — not in front of Sylvia, anyway.

"I'm sure," he said. "The flight may be delayed, but it should still take off within a reasonable time frame. I'll be landing in Cornwall by lunchtime, if not sooner, depending upon how many problems the storm created."

"I'll be waiting," I said. "Text me before your plane leaves."

"I will," he said. "I'll call you if I can."

"I'll have my phone with me all the time," I said. "Call me the moment you land, too."

"I promise," he said. "I can't wait, Juli. Truly." The eagerness from before had returned to his voice.

I pictured him waking up on a plane early this morning, a flight descending into turbulent skies over the British coast. The 'fasten seatbelts' light would come on, and flight attendants would ask everyone to remain calm, that there was nothing to worry about.

Matt's text had reached my phone around two this morning, around boarding time for his flight. I had heard nothing from him since then, making me wonder if he simply slept with exhaustion while waiting for takeoff, after working so hard these past few weeks. I closed my eyes, imagining that any time now, that flight would touch down on a Heathrow runway, and Matt would be hastening to the nearest train station for a — likely late — departure to Cornwall via rail.

Inside, I wrapped Sylvia in the quilt I had made for the Ceffylgwyn sewing circle's fete booth the autumn before last. The comfort of all those familiar appliquéd squares with their special meanings — lighthouse, cottage, willow tree, fancy sponge on a platter — made me feel better. I traced the stitches that Pippa had taught me, taught to her by Kitty's grandmother years ago.

Sylvia's small fist bunched the fabric of a block depicting Castle Azure and stuffed it in her mouth. "I think we can find something better for breakfast," I told her, as I lifted her out of her crib in the parlor and carried her to the kitchen. Muffins and coffee for me, milk and a little bit of strained plum and beets for Sylvia, then it was time to turn our thoughts to the party, and away from the wait for Matt's next text.

Decoration work was done at Cliffs House, whose gardens looked chilled and forlorn under the influence of the cold northern intruder winds. Gemma's breath puffed against the window glass as she stared outside.

"It looks a proper London Christmas out there," she said. "The waves look awful pounding the beach — no proper height, just a bit of iciness to them somehow." She, too, shuddered. "We might have a bit of snow, rare as it is."

"No snow," declared Dinah, who was rattling dishes in full chef's multitasking mode. "Just a chill in the bones is all we'll see of it. That, and a bit of wickedness on the sea, so fisherman had best stay off the waters today. Now leave the weather to its own devices and come roll out this pastry dough."

"I'll do it," said Bets. "Needs a proper arm. Too many roll it thin, and there's nothing left to chew. Men like a proper crust on a pie."

I could see Dinah's consternation building. "I'll do it," I volunteered. "I'm free, and that way you can go on with ... whatever it is you're doing." For the moment, Kitty's mother seemed busy cutting biscuits that looked like very misshapen sprigs of holly.

"Those are nice," I said, for lack of anything better to say as I rolled the dough deftly to Dinah's preferred thickness, leaving it a neat oval on the dough board. "They're very unique — kind of like snowflakes." No two were alike, that was for certain.

"Too many people are perfectionists with biscuit cutters," said Bets. "Dusting 'em with flour, cutting twice when there's wee edges that come out poorly. All too much effort for something eaten in two bites."

The snort from Dinah could be heard two rooms away. "Did you walk here with Kitty this morning?" I asked, to be conversational.

"That girl." Bets' tone conveyed a bit of disgust. "She's here somewheres about, but she's hiding, I reckon. Rotten in the kitchen, that's Katherine. She never had the patience for doing any sort of cooking. I tried teaching her sensible recipes as a child, bit of household economy, as it were, but she shoved 'em all aside. Said she wanted to do proper cooking, the sort that they do on telly. As if I had time to cook like Julia Child with her fancy French ducks and artistic breads."

"Artisan," said Dinah. Bets stared at her.

"Well, I don't know about all that," she said, at last. "Only I know that my Kitty couldn't make a sensible biscuit if she tried. More's the pity for that poor bloke she married." Another sad-looking biscuit plopped down on the pan, and I almost felt sorry for Bets, who was always unhappy about everything. Her divorce had colored life in shades of grey, maybe .... or maybe this outlook had been the cause of her unhappy marriage.

"I really must stop eating all these currants," said Lady Amanda, who was sampling whatever culinary treat she was mixing for the event. "Julianne, be a dear and get the new bag from my shopping. I left it in the car, actually — Geoff meant to fetch it, but he forgot this morning."

The shopping bag was in the car's boot, containing mostly dried fruits and a few glittery sprinkles for decorating party treats. I lifted it out and reached to close the lid, only to feel another's hand do it for me.

"I got this," said Nathan. With his other hand, he took the shopping bag from me. "You've probably got tons to do today. Isn't Matt due in from America sometime this morning?"

"He is," I said. "He said not to meet his flight. Last I checked, it was scheduled to land at around ten this morning, after all the delays. He's excited to be here for the party tonight."

"He probably misses this place like crazy," said Nathan. "Sometimes I do, too." He glanced around, though we were nowhere picturesque — the converted old stables of the manor had a very rustic, earthy workshop feel that was permeated by the scent of petrol for the field lorry and Lord William's chainsaw, among other things.

"Really?" I said.

"What? So surprised?" said Nathan.

"No, I just — I thought you liked traveling as much as Kitty did," I said.

"I'm sentimental, I guess," said Nathan. "Sometimes I think about me and her meeting here. Me spending weekdays in Truro in video conferences or waiting for trains, dreaming about the weekends, when I could come down and see her. I didn't think she could stand the sight of me back then, so I was scheming pretty hard to get her to like me."

"It was all pretend," I said. "She never really disliked you."

"I know that now," he said. "But it wasn't so obvious when she was telling me I was a 'toff' and a 'posh moron', and throwing in a few other insults. You know, like 'emmet,'" he said, using the term applied to badly-behaving tourists in these parts.

"Still feel like one?" I asked. "Especially with her family?"

"They're not so bad. I mean, they're pretty awful, I won't deny it, but I've met worse. Sometimes I actually think Bets is learning to like me. Not just because she thinks I'm a rich American businessman who stooped to marry her daughter, either," he clarified. "It's not like my family's that perfect. My brother Steve can't stand our brother-in-law ... my father has this really bad habit of telling total strangers his life story whenever we're in line somewhere. That's just how it is in life."

Kitty had no idea he felt this way, I realized. "Have you tried talking to her?" I asked. "About what's on her mind?"

"Sort of. It's hard to bring up stuff. She's good at dodging conversation topics," he said. "That's why I hoped she'd come to you." He met my gaze. "You and she were pretty close in the past. I figured if she had a problem, there was no one else she'd share it with first, if it's something she couldn't tell me." I had a feeling I knew what was coming.

"What's up with Kitty?" he asked. "I know I should know ... I shouldn't worry about things like this, either ... but she hasn't seemed right for the last couple of weeks. I thought coming home would help, but it hasn't. And I was thinking maybe she talked to you...." He trailed off, taking a deep breath. Hoping I had the answer he was longing to hear.

Reaching out, I touched his arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "It's nothing to do with you," I said. "I know that much. Except that Kitty's afraid of letting you see that you might accidentally make her unhappy."

His brow furrowed. "How?" he asked. "Is it something I said?"

"Talk to her," I said, softly. "Make her tell you the truth. I think you'll be surprised by what she says in return."

Nathan's face held both worry and curiosity. "Can't you just tell me?" he asked. "Kill the suspense?"

"It's not my place," I said. "Plus, she swore me to secrecy." I shrugged my shoulders. "Nothing I can do about it now."

"Thanks," he said, with a sigh of disappointment. "Not that I'm ungrateful — let me rephrase that —"

I laughed. "You don't have to," I said. I took the shopping bag from his grip, and walked with him towards the house. "I didn't realize you were coming here so early today."

"Kitty let me help, remember?" he said. "She promised, no icing biscuits for me, so we have a deal."

"Scout's honor that we won't force you into the kitchen," I said.

With any luck, he would find Kitty and bring up the problem which had been dangling between them these past few weeks. I pictured the possible outcome of the two of them finding a place in Truro, and imagined having Kitty back in Ceffylgwyn, part of its everyday fabric again. It would feel strange after so much time, but it would also feel right. A part of her would always belong here, no matter where she traveled.

This would have to be kept secret, and I sealed my lips before entering the manor kitchen again, where the scene had not changed significantly during my absence. Lady Amanda was emptying the last of her dried fruit into her mixing bowl, Dinah was stirring savory ingredients in a sauté pan over the stove's flame, and Bets was grousing about the design for the meat pie.

"It would taste just the same put in a regular pie pan," she said. "No need for this fruity mold with a fish eye on top. Just the sort of thing that dragged down the old posh houses, making fuss over silly things like that."

"In this house, nothing less than the best will be served." The voice of steel cut into the room, freezing all of us within its range. "It would never do to serve anything less in a house of this reputation and size. I assure you of this fact."

Mrs. Norbit's sudden appearance and conviction of speech, bearing rarely-used italics on her part, had startled Bets into complete silence. Her mouth clacked open, paused, then snapped shut as she stared at the housekeeper, who was a stone enigma in the middle of the kitchen, hands clasped before her starched-beyond-natural-movement black skirt and white apron.

"Well," said Bets. And that was it. In silence, she returned to cutting out biscuits for another baking sheet, many of which were missing the pointy holly leaf's corners. Mrs. Norbit glided to the table, where she inspected my work on the pastry shell as if it were a bed made for a visiting foreign general.

"Thank heavens you came down," breathed Dinah to the housekeeper. If Mrs. Norbit was surprised by this compliment from Dinah of all people, she didn't betray it. The finger that was ever checking for dusty portrait frames lifted my crust to examine it for approved thinness.

"Quite satisfactory," she declared. I smiled, knowing this was tantamount to high praise from her.

"Idle hands are the devil's workshop," I quoted jokingly, though only in part. It was keeping my mind from other personal and pressing issues to throw myself into party prep. "Give me another task and I'll perform it as requested."

Mrs. Norbit's eye fell on my mobile phone, which was lying propped against a pitcher of poinsettias. Poised in case Matt's valuable phone call came through while I was rolling pastry to a perfect evenness. The screen's backdrop was a photo of Matt holding Sylvia, which I had taken in Boston.

"Things beyond our control have a habit of turning out well, when we've done our own part as we should," she said, stiffly. "We needn't expend too much of our time or energy imagining the worst."

She was being comforting — as comforting as Mrs. Norbit knew how to be, I supposed — which was touching in its own way. "Thanks," I said. The housekeeper moved on without another word. I checked my messages in case I had missed something, but no such luck. I sighed, but not loudly. I was afraid that Lady Amanda was watching me, and might think I was fretting, which I wasn't. Not much, really. Just concerned about Matt's wellbeing, the weather, the fact that nothing would be quite right for me until he arrived. That was all.

We helped Dinah truss the turkey and prepare the fruit and spices for the wassail bowl, and arrange biscuits on decorative platters to be covered in cling wrap. During the brief break for a 'cuppa,' I took Sylvia for a walk, sensing she was getting restless and cranky before her nap.

The atmosphere seemed almost biting outside the house. The grey clouds had an ominous look as they built a fortress wall behind the sea. An omen regarding the weather at sea? I shuddered, and turned my face another direction, walking towards the manor's hothouse.

Inside, it was significantly warmer. Dried vines from flowering annuals clung to its panes, except where Pollock had stripped them away and cleaned the glass. Lord William's mother's rose looked lush and thriving, though it wasn't in bloom — Matt had worked miracles on it during our first Christmas, bringing it back from the brink.

Sylvia reached for its glossy leaves, but I steered her away. "You don't need thorns in your fingers," I said. "When you get older, we'll find you a pair of protective gardening gloves to wear, then you can touch plants all you like." Sylvia was way too young to have Matt's cut fingers and calluses from impromptu gardening sessions.

I took a deep breath of the green, earthen smell mixed with moldy-scented wet potting soil and humus, with the faint perfume of flowers forced into bloom for decorating the house this Christmas. A poinsettia with blooms ready to cheer the December weeks was on the table, a pair of secateurs beside it. Pollock had left it mid-trim to finish his work elsewhere. I steered Sylvia away from its poisonous leaves as I opened the door and emerged into the wintry outdoors.

The manor looked brightly-lit and welcoming as we moved in its direction. I entered the main doors to the foyer this time, hoping that Lady Amanda could use a hand in the dining room — meaning Nathan had found Kitty somewhere and actually talked to her about their upcoming move.

The dining room was empty, but the drawing room's grand doors were ajar, revealing the traditional, humble elegance of our handmade ornaments. It looked better than I had imagined when I first toted the boxes of mouse-gnawed sheet music and old greeting cards into Lady A's personal parlor. It welcomed you in with a marriage between Christmas past and today's joyous celebration — it was beauty and a touch of holiday glitter without overwhelming the gaze, leaving room for something else to bring the full spirit to this room, namely the laugher and happiness that would be gathered here soon.

There were voices in the dining room now, I realized, as I stepped into the hall again. A crooked Christmas globe ornament on a tabletop tree, undoubtedly brushed against by one of Lady A's helpers — I reached out and untangled its hook from the branches.

Kitty and Nathan, I thought with a smile, as the two people moved closer to the door. Only it wasn't. It was Gemma and Nathan, who were talking in worried tones.

"... so I looked it up, and the flight information was listed as unavailable," said Nathan. "I thought it was a glitch. But I called a friend who's leaving today, and he told me that everything is being grounded now, including his own plane, and rumor has it it's because the tower lost touch with one of the inbound U.S. flights."

"But it can't be," insisted Gemma. "They'd put it on telly if they'd lost a plane to this weather —"

At my feet, the ornament crashed, shattering into dozens of little pieces. Both Gemma and Nathan turned my way, realizing I had been within hearing range. Gemma's face went pale. She whirled on Nathan, who looked both panicked and guilty.

"Sorry," I said to them. Turning away, I forgot about picking up the broken pieces, or finishing tucking the branch's garland in its just-right place. I was walking away, trying not to look shaken or panicked. My heart was pounding hard and fast in my chest at just the suggestion of what that conversation meant.

"Juli, wait." Nathan was following me. "Julianne, listen —"

"I didn't mean to," I said. "I heard what you said, but —"

"It's just a crazy rumor," he said. His hands were on my shoulders, steering me into the alcove near the grand stairs to face him. He lowered his voice. "Like Gemma said, if any of it was true, it would be on the news by now."

"So they really lost a plane?" My voice was controlled. Those were not tears in my eyes, just little reflections of lights from the stair rail's garland. I was not losing my calm.

Nathan hesitated; then I knew there was some truth to the rumor. "Weather and radios aren't good together sometimes," he said. "Maybe the tower's just having issues because of the storm. They're canceling all the other flights for today, but that's just a precaution. All my friend knew was there was an issue with a flight, but nobody knew anything for sure."

He looked miserable. "Julianne, I'm really sorry," he said. "I honestly didn't mean to worry you. I got a text from my friend, Gemma was there — I made the mistake of calling him back and listening to his airport worries while she was standing by. This is all my fault — please, don't worry about it because he had no idea if any of it was true."

"Of course not," I said. "Don't blame yourself. I'm not angry at you." I squeezed his hand as I moved both of them from my shoulders. "I can't help but worry, though. You have to expect that from somebody who's waiting for their loved one to arrive and they're late."

"Call Matt and you'll feel better," said Nathan. "He'll tell you everything's fine. Probably let you talk to the pilot to prove it." He smiled, although it was a ludicrous joke given the locked cockpits of today.

"I will," I said. I blinked hard and smiled. Sylvia squirmed in her baby pouch, and I let her take hold of my fingers. "Don't feel bad, Nathan. Really."

He hung his head. "I should learn to keep my mouth shut when I hear rumors, huh?" He gave me a wry smile.

"I'll be in the kitchen if you need to apologize a dozen more times," I said, keeping my smile in place. Still calm as I turned away from him, hoping Nathan wouldn't kick himself too hard for the consequences of my eavesdropping on what I thought was him and Kitty patching things up.

I got what I deserved for that one, didn't I? My fingers pushed the button for Matt's mobile, listening as it went directly to message box with every try. My text went into space without receiving a reply as I gazed anxiously at the screen.

He should answer by now. Even if his plane was delayed, it should have landed by now. Nothing should be preventing him from contacting me, the way he promised he would when he reached London.

My shaking finger opened my phone's web browser: there were no stories about planes potentially falling into the icy ocean, or crashing in suburbs south of London following instrument failure. But the information for Matt's flight had disappeared from the list of today's flights on my airline app. All inbound flights had been removed — the site had suffered a malfunction, or its updates had been suspended temporarily. But fixing it wouldn't be a priority if the weather had caused the potential loss of a whole plane, I knew.

Stop thinking like that! I struggled to keep my eyes from blurring, to keep my thoughts from panic. Sylvia was making grumpy noises, her face puckering as she fought her oncoming nap. I only half-noticed, because Sylvia's hand holding mine felt far away, while the mobile phone in my grip felt like a heavy piece of iron weighing me down. Fear had a grip on me so tight that I couldn't escape it. It was all I could do not to fall apart.

Where are you, Matt?

****

The first guests arrived early to the manor. The tree was lit in the front windows like a beacon formed by twinkling little stars and colored lanterns in the form of Christmas globes and silky ribbon garlands reflecting the light.

Someone brought a bass fiddle, another person wheeled a cello case. I recognized my friend Nikki among them, a formerly shy young musician who had found her footing in the local talent show. She was carrying her fiddle case, her hair dyed a peculiar shade of purple in her latest expression of fashion, the same color as the dragons embroidered on her jeans. I had heard that a local master fiddler was teaching her some of the old Cornish tunes, which was undoubtedly what she was here to play tonight, among classic carols and a few dancing tunes that cross Celtic boundaries.

Normally I would greet her with multiple questions about her studies and her music, and help the cellist find a good spot near the drawing room's piano and music stand, but I was too distracted to think or act rationally.

All calls to Matt's phone reached out to silence. All texts vanished into cyberspace without a word of reply. Something had happened, or Matt would reply to me. He wouldn't be busy collecting his luggage, because he had nothing but a carryon. By now, he should be on a train heading south, but somehow I knew he wasn't.

"Everything looks perfect," breathed Lady Amanda. Beside her, Lord William smiled eagerly for each guest from the village, shaking hands and exchanging remarks with those who were the estate's closest neighbors or regular visitors. The cheerful young couple greeting guests (and their precocious little boy, now chasing three other children through the foyer, against his mummy's rules) must paint a stark contrast to the days of the former Lord Harbury with his flaming puddings and raucous post-midnight revels, I imagined.

It would make me smile, only I simply couldn't. I moved like a ghost through the kitchen, hands automatically helping Gemma and Dinah with biscuit trays, miniature dressing muffins, meat pies and little potato cakes with leek and mushroom gravy. Dinah's buffet was already groaning upstairs and she hadn't even uncovered the treacle tarts yet.

"Do we have enough, do you think?" she asked Gemma. "I'll have to send up some of Bets Alderson's biscuits, I suppose. I'll pick out the worst ones and put them aside for Edwin to eat later." She pulled back the plastic wrap from the crookedly-cut ginger cookies with their slapdash frosting. "It looks a proper mess, and hardly toothsome," she commented, as she picked through the tray.

"I think the rest looks scrumptious," said Gemma. "Will you let me sneak a bit of the treacle tart?"

"Not on your life. Take those up to the buffet and scurry back spit spot," ordered Dinah. Gemma obeyed, the scolding not erasing her smile, since she knew Dinah's ways too well by now.

"Are you all right, dearie?" Dinah looked at me. "You look pale. That baby is too heavy to tote about all day. Put it down and have a cuppa before you take the pies up to the table."

"I'm fine." If I stopped to have a cuppa, I would collapse. "I don't want to leave the kitchen shorthanded, do I?"

"Something's the matter." Dinah's gaze remained intent. I shook my head vehemently. With her staring at me, I was afraid I might lose my composure at any second. I couldn't tell her why I was afraid, I couldn't tell anyone — crazy rumors, unanswered phone calls and texts. It would bring a laugh, maybe ... or bring other people to the point of worry you reach when you know deep inside that something is wrong and you don't know what it is.

"Come on, Sylvia," I said, lifting the pie without another word and going upstairs. The shadows of the kitchen stair gave my eyes a moment of privacy to look worried again before the bright lights of the main hall. I was greeted by a scene of celebration once more, as people mingled from the foyer to the drawing room thrown open to Lady Amanda's old-fashioned Christmas.

"Let me take her for a bit," said Kitty. She was at my elbow as I put the pie on the buffet. I don't know what I said in reply, but Sylvia was in her arms a moment later, head nestled against Kitty's shoulder. I lost track of my former assistant in the crowd. Everybody was here now, it seemed. Old Ned was singing a sea ditty in solemn tones. The musicians were setting up to play, a fiddle already accompanying the old pub regular's tune as Nikki scratched out the refrain softly. I spotted Lorrie bringing her schoolteacher authority to bear on a too-energetic Edwin and friends, and heard Rosie's laugh from somewhere in the vicinity of the mistletoe. There was Michael, talking with Gemma by the fireplace, though he was supposed to be in Norway by now. Or maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, because they were beginning to blur very badly.

I pushed my way through the packed room. Geoff — not with his mysterious lady friend, but with Wallace Darnley — was savoring some of the wassail, while Dinah was conversing with someone from the Cliff's Edge Players, maybe Millie or one of the sisters from costuming. I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"How's tricks, Mrs. Rose?" One of Kitty's cousins greeted me genially. "Seen Kitty's toff about somewheres?" he asked. "There's a rumor he's movin' her back 'round these parts, but Kat only tells me to sod off when I ask, so I'm goin' to the proper source."

Nathan said that? Normally I would scan the room and find Kitty herself, catch her eye to see if it was true, but at the moment I was having trouble seeing anything except a blur of lights and color.

"I haven't seen him," I answered, not even correcting the fact that once again Kitty's relatives had failed to use Nathan's proper name. "I have to go. I'm sorry." I escaped him, and escaped the room, brushing past Gemma's mother and one of Pippa's family members.

I paused outside of the closed doors to another room, struggling to regain my composure. I couldn't face the party right now, or the people who were still entering the manor and engaging Amanda and William in conversation. The conviction that something was happening to Matt had simply taken over, and I was blindly functioning in its world.

"Are you all right, Ma'am?" Mrs. Norbit's voice reached me through this breakdown's waves.

"I lost Sylvie." That seemed to be the only logical reply I could find. "Kitty has her. And ... I think I need some time. Matt's plane is late — he should be here by now, he should have called or contacted me — but the storms have affected some planes in flight —" That was the end of my speech, because I didn't intend to say these last couple of things. I knew that my face had betrayed my worry entirely, and that all these pieces strung together formed only one conclusion.

"Wait in the privacy of the morning study, Ma'am." Mrs. Norbit opened the door to the room beside us. "I'll have Mrs. Menton bring you your baby directly." She ushered me into the little study and closed its doors behind me.

I sat down on the tiny sofa before the main bookshelf. On either side, the tall windows had drapes drawn to look outside at the darkness, their closing neglected by Gemma in the party's excitement. That would never do in Mrs. Norbit's book, I thought, and a tiny smile fought momentarily against the cold dread inside me.

This was the room informally known as the 'book nook', the little private library and study where Matt and I were married in a private legal ceremony on our day. There had been a little garland of flowers on the lectern for the minister's book and the table that held our license of marriage. I could still hear the choked sob of either Lady Amanda or Gemma from behind me as I recited my vows, and see my parents' teary eyes from my side vision in the second before Matt lifted my veil and looked into my face for the declaration that we were joined legally.

Maybe it hadn't been coincidence that this was the door I retreated to when escaping the party, my mind stuck on one subject. If something happened to Matt — but I couldn't think that. I couldn't lose him, and I couldn't bear the thought that an impulsive decision to risk everything to see us could end horribly.

It was my fault for not stopping him when I had the chance. I had been weak and soft, as desperate for him to come home as he was to risk it. I had been crazy not to beg him to change his mind the moment he proposed that plan.

Why did I let you come? Why didn't you stay in Boston where it was safe, Matt? Two days wouldn't have been so unbearable, not like this. What did I mean by that? Did I mean that I believed the worst?

I heard the door open, the sound of commotion from the party, the greeting of a newly-arrived guest. I choked back the tears threatening to come, letting the escapees slide down my cheek before I wiped them away. "Do you have Sylvia?" I asked.

"I do," said the voice behind me. In response, I died and came back to life in two ticks of the German clock on the shelf. For it was Matt's voice, and Matt standing behind me when I turned around. He had Sylvia in his arms, her hands playing with the topmost button on his coat as she gazed up at him.

It was all I could do to get to my feet; a wonder that my knees would support me without folding like a house of cards. Gently, Matt eased Sylvia onto the sofa, her arms outstretched for him a moment longer before she occupied herself with a pillow's exciting fringe trim. He held his arms out to me and I hugged him fiercely and tightly, unwilling to let go. I buried my face against his collar. The smell of two airports, of his aftershave, of unknown patisseries and an unfamiliar air freshener.

I rocked closer to him, letting the tears that had been dying to escape leave their traces on the shoulder of his wool coat.

"It's all right," he said, softly. "It's all right, Julianne."

"Why didn't you call?" My voice was choked.

"I couldn't," he said. "My phone died suddenly. Bad battery, I suppose. I couldn't get it to come back to life when we landed, and I couldn't find a public phone or call box. I thought I could come home in time that you wouldn't worry. But I see I was very wrong about that." His arms tightened around me, reassuringly.

I heard the soft click of the 'book nook' door closing. Over Matt's shoulder, I caught a brief glimpse of Mrs. Norbit's starched skirt and apron just before it happened. As always, there was always a surprising sensitivity lurking just beneath the housekeeper's stiff outer self.

"How did you get here?" I drew back from Matt now, looking into his face as if making sure it was really him. Same strong jaw, same dark eyes that I had known and loved for years now. "Your plane was supposed to land this morning, only I couldn't find the time because the website malfunctioned —"

"The train had just left when I arrived," said Matt. "But I bumped into a friend at the airport whose flight had been canceled, and who was rather sick of being stranded waiting for another one, so we came home together."

"Michael," I said, realizing it now. "He didn't make his flight to Norway."

"The car he borrowed was parked in the lot," said Matt. "We saw no sense in spending Christmas where we were, if we could be someplace we loved." He gave me a smile — pure Matthew, right down to the gentle teasing that almost seemed serious when I first knew him. "It was pure chance, I suppose."

"It was anything but that," I answered, feeling as if every prayer I had made since childhood had just been answered. I buried my face against him. "Don't ever do that to me again," I said, releasing a little groan against his shoulder. "You aged me by twenty years, Matt."

"I'm sorry, my love." He kissed the top of my head, then moved my face gently to kiss my lips. "It was stupid of me to leave you wondering where I was for so long. It won't happen again, I promise." He sighed. "But you can't imagine how good it feels to be home again."

"I think I have an idea." I held him tightly a moment longer, then released him as Sylvia's chirps for 'up' grew more persistent. Matt hoisted her into his arms, a toss and catch move that always made her laugh. She gazed at him with complete fascination as he held her, two pairs of dark eyes locked together in wordless communication, Sylvia's little hand clutching at the lapel of Matt's coat the way she clutched to her baby blanket.

Seeing the two of them together, I forgave the last few anxious hours of my life. Matt's other arm encircled me, pulling me close again. The three of us stayed that way for a long time; I gazed into the darkness of the window's glass, seeing the reflection of a family in its surface. A perfectly wonderful Christmas, I thought. This was only its beginning.

"Shall we go join the party for a bit?" Matt asked, softly. "It would be rude not to greet all those friends in the neighboring room."

"Maybe we can go home early, though," I suggested, not moving my head from his shoulder just yet. "I think I feel an urge coming on to make sticky toffee pudding. Care to help?" I lifted my gaze to his, drinking in the deep feelings and steady gentleness in those dark eyes.

"More than anything." His arm stayed around my shoulders as I opened the door to the sitting room, and we rejoined our friends in the main drawing room, who all greeted Matt heartily after so many months absent. Among them was Kitty, whose smile looked relaxed for the first time since she arrived back in Cornwall ... where, I began to imagine, she might be staying for longer than the holidays, too.

My mind, however, was already someplace beyond this happy party. Sifting flour with Matt in our tiny kitchen, making hot chocolate for two in the little blue and gold teapot that Lady Amanda had given me for my birthday. Opening one last box of ornaments to finish trimming our tiny tree as Sylvia slept in her parlor crib, and Matt and I shared the first minutes of Christmas Day in the glow of twinkling holidays lights and the fire in our hearth.

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