“There will be none of that,” he says. “You have missed your chance and will need to wait for next Christmas. Do you know how much time I spent crafting that kissing ball? Holiday decorating is exhausting. I cannot imagine all the bother other people go to, putting up trees and hanging wreaths. I hope you’re quite content with that single ornament.”
He knees open the office door. Something smacks the top of it, and I crane my neck up to see a sprig of greenery hanging from a red ribbon.
“Wait,” I say. “Is that more—?”
“More what?” he says, deftly swinging me around so I can see it. “Stop squirming, Lady Thorne. You’re worse than that kitten of yours.”
“Also much, much heavier,” I say. “I’m going to suggest you put me down before we reach the top of the stairs. I’m carrying a few extra pounds these days.”
“So I’ve noticed. I’ve always encouraged your obsession with scones, but you may want to curb your intake. You seem to have developed a bit of a . . . belly.”
“Pretty sure I’ve always had one.”
“No, you have a lovely, lush figure, which is currently somewhat unbalanced in the center. I blame scones.”
“I blame you.”
“Me? I’ve been in Yorkshire all these months, unable to feed you a single biscuit or other sweet treat.”
“You just have Freya help you mail them to me. In large boxes. Which are much appreciated but still . . .” I lay my hands on my bulging stomach. “Even those treats are not responsible for this. Now set me down—”
“Too late.”
He takes a step down the stairs. I shake my head and go very still, which isn’t necessary. The Victorian country lord’s lifestyle is active enough. Add an insistence on doing one’s own property work, and the result is a man who has little difficulty carrying his not-small-even-when-not-pregnant wife down the stairs.
When we reach the bottom, he turns me around again, so I can’t see where we’re going. I don’t miss the kissing ball over the next doorway either, though he pretends not to see it.
“May I walk now?” I say.
“Certainly not. It’s pitch black and freezing, and I fear the cats have eaten our supper.”
“So I’m imagining the candlelight?”
“You must be.”
“And the crackle and heat of a blazing fire? The smell of a hot meal?”
He frowns down at me. “You didn’t catch a fever in that airplane, did you? You appear to be suffering from the most dreadful hallucination.”
“Including the smell of a pine tree?”
“Indoors? Dear lord, who would do such a thing?”
He takes another step and then pauses, his foot moving something that swishes over the carpet. I twist to see a brown-paper wrapped box with a bow on top.
“That’s not a gift, right?” I say.
“Certainly not. Someone has dropped a parcel on the floor.”
My gaze drifts over a pile of boxes. “Quite a few parcels, apparently.”
He sighs. “I cannot keep up with the post. Boxes upon boxes of saddle soap and shoe polish. Thank goodness you’ve finally arrived to tidy up after me.”
He deposits me on the sofa, and finally moves aside for me to see the room.
I gasp. I can’t help it. Yes, after seeing the kissing balls, I suspected he’d done a bit of decorating. Yet this is beyond anything I imagined.
There’s a magic to Victorian Christmases, even if it’s just our twenty-first century fantasy version, one that didn’t actually exist outside a few very wealthy Victorian homes. The appeal for us is the simplicity of the decorations and the emphasis on nature. Brown-paper parcels with bright scarlet bows. A real tree, smelling of pine and blazing with candles. Wreathes and holly and ivy and mistletoe, none of them mass produced in plastic. It’s a homemade, homespun Christmas.
That is what I see here. The fantasy, as if William pored over modern representations of that Victorian dream and brought it to life.
Brown-paper gifts piled under the tree, each wrapped in bright, curling ribbon. Evergreen boughs woven and draped across the mantel. Victorian holiday cards tucked into the boughs. Sprigs of holly scattered over every surface.
The tree stretches to the high ceiling, and the sharp scent of pine cuts through the perfume of the roaring fire. The tree is bedecked in red bows and ribbons. No candles—such a fire hazard—but hand-blown representations of them instead. The reflection of the roaring fire makes the glass candles dance, as if they’re alight themselves.