Chapter Three
"I'm telling you, Colin, I had nothing to do with this.”
“Of course you did, you are obsessed with Christmas this year.”
“No more than you!”
“Was this part of your scheme all along? How are the rest of us supposed to compare with an entire pile of presents for the family?”
Kit stared at Colin, gaping, his hands on his hips. “Compare? You think this is a competition?”
“Our entire life is a competition, why should this be different?” Colin scoffed and continued his pacing, glaring at his twin. “You have to be the favorite, don’t you?”
“Colin, you are being ridiculous. For all I know, it was you who had the presents delivered.”
Colin stopped dead in his tracks at the complete idiocy his brother had just spewed forth. “Why would I be appalled by the delivery of a pile of gifts if I had arranged for them?”
Kit folded his arms now, looking too smug, too confident. “Because it is the perfect alibi. No one would suspect you for a moment if you were so stunned and horrified. Was this why you asked what I got Marianne? Trying to see if your present was better than mine?”
“Why would I want to give Marianne a better present than you?” Colin spat. “She’s your wife.”
“That wouldn’t stop you.”
Colin threw his hands into the air and whirled away.
“Was there a present for me in there, Colin?” Kit asked in a calm voice.
“Yes.”
“Exactly.”
Colin scoffed softly. “That means nothing. You would stoop to buying a present for yourself to hide your excessiveness. I know you.”
Kit threw his head back with a derisive laugh. “Oh, that’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?” Colin demanded. “Is it?”
They’d been at this for some minutes now, and he was grateful the study was so far from the breakfast room. The children had no idea what was going on, and he needed to keep it that way. As furious as he was that Kit had lost all sense of self and occasion by completely spoiling every member of this family in a way that Colin could never match, he refused to let any of this ruin their Christmas. He had come too far to lose it all now.
“Well, if you didn’t do it,” Kit continued slowly, “what did you get everyone for Christmas?”
“I don’t need to recount my gifts for your proof!”
“What about Rosie?” Kit pressed, ignoring Colin’s protests. “What did you get Rosie?”
Colin hesitated a long moment, then turned back to give his brother a look that was almost smug. Almost because he had to wince. “A pony.”
He ought to have been used to Kit’s look of disbelief, considering he used it on Colin quite often, but there was something so delightful in seeing his composed twin so unable to process emotion. He blinked slowly once, and then again.
“A… pony?” Kit repeated.
Colin nodded quickly. “You know she’s always wanted one, and I think now she’s actually responsible enough to…”
“Who said you could get Rosie a pony for Christmas?” Kit interrupted, raising his voice.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Colin hissed, looking towards the door apprehensively. “I didn’t know I needed permission!”
Kit ran a hand through his hair with a muffled curse. “That whole near-death experience where she asked for a pony? That was not an invitation!”
There was no cause for Kit to lord over him about this, no matter how he blustered. Colin had thought long and hard on his gift for Rosie, and he would stand by it. “Oh, and what did you get her?” he asked with a sneer.
Kit paused, looking as though he would retort with something truly splendid. Then he scowled. “A saddle.”
Colin laughed once in disbelief. “For what? A bench? According to you, she’s not supposed to have a pony!”
“I thought we could work up to one!” Kit argued, no longer sounding quite so accusatory.
“By the time you think we’re there, a pony will be too small and it will have to go to Bitty! Who doesn’t want a pony! You could get Bitty a frilly frock and she’d be happy!” Colin laughed again and sank into a chair, the fight in him gone now that he faced even more ridiculous things than a mountain of presents. He looked up at Kit, cocking his head. “What did you get her, anyway?”
Kit bit down on his lip hard, fighting a smile. “A frilly frock.”
Colin grinned outright, then rubbed at his brow. “I told you we were going to be terrible at this.”
“That was a given.” Kit leaned against another chair and sighed. “I just want to make sure the girls have a good Christmas for once. Who knows what they had with their mother? Lord knows, Loughton wouldn’t be worth much.”
That had Colin nodding fervently. “I agree. But a horde of presents isn’t going to do it, unless we want to make them all incredibly spoiled.”
Kit gave him a scolding look. “I told you I didn’t do it.”
“And I’m supposed to believe you?”
“As if I believe you either.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, then Kit blinked first, which gave Colin the briefest thrill of victory.
“Where are the packages now, Colin?” Kit asked, obviously moving on from his very bitter defeat.
“I’ve had the footmen put them in my study,” he replied, waving a dismissive hand. “No one goes in there, not even me. They’ll be quite safe.”
Kit nodded slowly, knowing that to be true. “Did the children see?”
Colin shrugged a shoulder. “Only Livvy, but I’ve pacified her with extra breakfast. She’s fine, I promise.”
That made Kit chuckle to himself. “Your daughter, Colin. In every way.”
Well, he needn’t make it sound like such a horrible thing. Colin was a decent enough fellow, and he had managed a quite superior wife, so there couldn’t be that much wrong with him. Everybody had their faults. Even Kit.
Especially Kit, given all that Colin knew about his twin.
But that was not exactly the sort of thing one needed to bring up on Christmas.
Some other day would do just as well.
Colin shoved up out of his chair. “I will find out where those presents came from, Kit.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“And if it’s you…”
“It’s not!” Kit shook his head and headed for the door. “I’ll look into it myself, and if I find out it’s you…”
“Wait.” Colin seized Kit’s arm as a terrifying thought occurred to him. “What if it’s our wives?”
They stared at each other in horror as that sank in.
“It couldn’t be,” Kit whispered. “Marianne wouldn’t…”
“The old Marianne wouldn’t,” Colin corrected. “The new Marianne is surprisingly generous.”
Kit swallowed harshly. “And Susannah would.”
“Oh, she absolutely would.”
“But would either of them do so without telling us?” Kit asked in a surprisingly weak voice.
Again they stared at each other.
“They would,” they said at once.
“The question remains,” Colin added, looking speculative. “Did they?”
Kit didn’t seem to know the answer, and Colin knew he had no idea.
“We have to find out,” Kit said in a whisper, as if the wives were somehow eavesdropping on their conversation.
Colin nodded in agreement. “It’s going to take a lot of work.”
Kit nodded back. “We’re going to have to be very, very careful. This whole thing could get very complicated very quickly.”
That was an understatement. Susannah and Marianne were exceptional women, and they did much good for the family and the tenants of every estate, and they certainly kept their husbands in line when things got to be too harried. But they were a force to be reckoned with individually, let alone together. And in recent years, they had found more and more to unite them, which terrified their husbands to no end.
If they had decided to mount this gift-giving extravaganza for the family, it would be absolutely hellish to try and put a stop to it.
“I’ll see what I can find out,” Colin murmured with a nod as he headed for the door.
“I’ll do the same.”
Colin gave his brother a warning look. “Careful. Your wife has claws.”
Kit looked mildly amused by that. “She’ll be delighted you think so.”
“Everybody thinks so,” Colin retorted derisively. “Why do you think we’re all so polite with her?”
He didn’t wait for Kit to respond to that, and strode out of the office, calculating his next step.
Or he would have been, had he not been suddenly acutely aware of the sounds of screaming coming from the breakfast room.
He glowered in that direction. “Happy Christmas, Colin Gerrard,” he muttered to himself as he marched dutifully towards the unmistakable sounds of many Gerrards in some self-inflicted distress.
Footsteps behind him told him that his brother was following, and further steps than that spoke of additional reinforcements coming to flank him.
Brilliant. They would likely need all of them to figure this mess out, whatever it was.
Upon entering the breakfast room, Colin was mightily tempted to turn around and leave the melee for someone far more responsible and adult-like to deal with the issue. It was his first, most natural instinct, and always had been, despite the fact that this was his family, in some cases his children, and he was the adult.
Moments like these made him regret that he had grown up, though he had been an adult for several years now.
But he highly doubted any adult in the world could be prepared enough for the next generation of Gerrards.
Freddie had Rosie by the hair and was forcing her to walk around the table until she apologized for something, while she screamed and gripped at the braids he was pulling, defiantly not apologizing. She was reaching for any and all silverware, but all remained safely out of range. Bitty watched them in horror, giving off small squeaks of screams to echo her sister’s. Ginny tried to trip Freddie every time he came near her, but didn’t seem to care very much if she did so, considering she was also calling for him to pull harder.
Livvy was eating quietly, but flinched when Rosie screamed. Rafe and Matthew, only just able to feed themselves, were a complete mess, but happily ignorant of the strife the others were creating, tossing their food across the table to the empty spaces.
The two footmen in the room looked horrified and torn between laughing and stepping forward to act.
The nannies tasked with minding the children were nowhere in sight.
He heard Kit offer a mild expletive behind him.
“Any direction as to how to handle this would be much appreciated,” Colin muttered to him.
Kit exhaled, and Colin could feel him shaking his head. “I’ve got nothing here, brother. I just keep thinking what Duncan would do, and that doesn’t seem particularly helpful right now.”
Colin found himself smiling. Duncan would take charge and bark orders that would be implicitly obeyed, somehow terrifying everyone without doing very much at all. Kit’s brother-in-law and one of Colin’s best friends was a very large and imposing man, but would probably be just as commanding if he were the size of any other man.
Like Colin, perhaps.
“What would Duncan do?” Colin said to himself. “Right.”
He lowered his brow and strode into the room. “What is going on in here?” he bellowed with all of the irritation, frustration, and annoyance he had felt building up in the last few days.
The room stilled and everyone stared at him in surprise.
Surprise was not exactly terror, but at least it made things stop.
Kit was swift to come to Colin’s side and folded his arms with the sort of authoritative attitude that he’d always managed.
Bitty whimpered and tried to make herself smaller in her chair. Freddie stopped yanking on Rosie’s hair, but still held her braids in his grasp. Rosie wasn’t struggling anymore, but she looked as though she wasn’t about to be intimidated by her brothers or their attempts to manage her. The little ones were shocked, looking as though they might cry at any minute.
Ginny, on the other hand, was grinning at her brothers in delight. “Rosie told Freddie he ate too loudly. Freddie told Rosie she eats too much. Rosie said Freddie was dumb. Freddie said Rosie was ugly. Rosie said Freddie wasn’t actually part of the family, then Freddie got up and yanked her hair and turned her into a cart horse until she said she was sorry. Which she did not do.” She nodded primly to herself at her recitation, then took a large bite of biscuit with jam, apparently perfectly at ease now.
Colin looked at Kit for a moment. Ginny might have been a bit of a trial, but they had long since learned that when it came to her siblings, Ginny had an absolutely perfect recollection of events as they had transpired.
“Ginny!” Freddie and Rosie protested at the same time.
“Oh, Ginny,” Bitty said with a heavy sigh, rubbing at her brow.
Ginny shrugged. “He asked. I told. You’re the ones who did it.”
“I should have gotten her a muzzle for Christmas,” Freddie muttered, “but she takes after her sister.” He tugged on Rosie’s hair again for effect.
“Ouch!” she shrieked, gripping at it.
“Colin, do something!” Susannah snapped from behind him.
“Kit!” Marianne echoed.
Belatedly, the brothers sprang into action. They forcibly separated Rosie and Freddie, which took some effort, as Rosie had it in her mind to throttle Freddie once his hold on her hair had lessened. Colin finally hefted his son over his shoulder and carried him from the room, while Kit, less inclined to do the same with their sister, simply restrained her while they left.
“Put me down, Papa,” Freddie demanded as they moved down the corridor.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” Colin replied, listening as his wife and Marianne cleared the children from the breakfast room in the sort of tone that would have sent him running from them even now. “Not until you are perfectly calm and able to explain to me in a rational manner what possessed you to act in that way.”
“I…”
“And remember, I witnessed it,” Colin overrode. “So you are already starting on treacherous ground.”
Freddie said nothing as Colin carried him towards his study. The boy heaved a sigh and slumped over Colin’s shoulder in resignation. “Yes, Papa.”
Colin nodded, then winced as he realized he could not go into his rarely used study, as it was currently hiding an excessive amount of presents that he could not let anyone under the age of twenty-five see.
He shifted direction and moved to enter one of the sitting rooms, closing the door behind them.
“Are you calm, Frederick?” Colin asked.
“Yes, sir,” came the dejected response.
Colin nodded, then moved Freddie down to sit on the sofa, pulling a nearby chair closer for himself. “Now, tell me what happened.”
Freddie looked confused and his brow wrinkled. “You heard Ginny,” he told him, waving his hand towards the breakfast room. “You know she never lies.”
“Well, that is a debatable point,” Colin mused with an almost smile, “but she certainly never lies about stuff like this.”
Freddie almost smiled back. “She was fairly accurate.”
“I want to hear your version,” Colin told him with all the patience he hoped to attain in his life. “Why did you bait Rosie?”
“She started it,” Freddie pointed out with marked defiance.
It was all Colin could do to avoid sighing. He had heard this argument many times over the years, and had made it many, many times himself in younger years. Only as a parent did he understand the irritation that phrase could inflict upon the listener.
“That is neither surprising nor helpful,” Colin said, managing to sound gruff. “You know how Rosie gets. Why provoke her?”
Freddie shrugged a shoulder. “I wasn’t in the mood for her rudeness this morning. And I don’t understand why she gets to say whatever she wants and I don’t.”
“Siblings everywhere wonder that exact thing about at least one of them,” Colin assured his son. “It’s not just you.”
“But the point remains,” Freddie reminded him.
“Yes, it does.” Colin did sigh now and shook his head. “I don’t know why Rosie is so difficult, but Kit is dealing with her at the moment, and I trust his judgment will fit the crime.”
“Not in my mind,” Freddie grumbled.
“What was that?” Colin asked without patience, though he knew what had been said.
Freddie did not care to repeat himself, and chose to glower instead.
If anyone had told Colin that parenting would be this challenging to one’s sanity, he might have thought twice about taking on the endeavor.
But it had seemed like a good idea at the time.
Amateur mistake.
“Fred,” Colin tried in a much gentler tone, “what set you off? Why the physical torment?”
Freddie looked up at him with a furious expression. “She said I wasn’t part of the family.”
Colin nodded slowly, feeling something twinge and twist in the pit of his stomach. “Yes, I heard that, and you know very well that we will not take that kindly. But was that really cause to attack her?”
“Why shouldn’t I defend myself?” Freddie demanded. “I know I’m not a real Gerrard, but why does that matter?”
“Hold on,” Colin scolded sharply. “Just hold on for one moment. Not a real Gerrard?”
Freddie ducked his chin and folded his arms.
“Is that what you think, son?” Colin asked, suddenly feeling much worse about the entire situation than he’d imagined. “Is that how you feel?”
“No,” Freddie admitted reluctantly.
“Tell me.”
“I don’t feel any different than Matthew or Livvy, or baby Amelia,” Freddie said, losing his defensive air for the first time. “It feels like you’re my real father, and our houses are my home. It feels like Rafe and Cat and baby Daphne are my cousins. I even feel like family with the girls.”
“That’s because you are!” Colin insisted, reaching out to put his hand on Freddie’s shoulder. “You are. Like it or not, Frederick Robert Gerrard, you actually are a Gerrard. A real one. Whatever that is worth. You are one of us, and no one should make you feel otherwise, regardless of what they say.”
Freddie looked at him for a long moment, then nodded and rose to give Colin a hug.
Colin wrapped his arms around his son and held him close. “You were always going to be one of us, you know that? From the first moment we met you. If I didn’t marry your mother and adopt you, Kit was ready to adopt you himself.”
That made Freddie laugh in surprise and he pulled back. “Really?”
“Really,” Colin said with a nod. “So be grateful I’m your father and not him, eh?”
Freddie pretended to consider that, which made Colin whack him lightly on the back.
“You are going to need to apologize to Rosie,” Colin told Freddie as he stepped back.
“What?” Freddie protested loudly.
“Yes, son,” Colin insisted. “She may have laid the final blow for you, but yanking on her hair and parading her around the room like a prized pony is not exactly gentlemanly behavior. It was wrong; quite wrong.”
Freddie looked at him with a speculative air. “But amusing, right?”
Colin almost laughed, but by some miraculous feat of parental strength managed not to. “It was wrong,” he said again. “And you will apologize, or you will spend the rest of the Christmas season in your room.”
Freddie opened his mouth to reply, but Colin was quick.
“Without books,” Colin added. “With nothing to amuse you at all except Bitty and her hair ribbons.”
The horror on his son’s face echoed what Colin would have felt himself at the threat, which was why he had made it. No twelve-year-old boy wanted to be trapped with an eleven-year-old girl who was so mesmerized by fashionable accouterments and finery that it was all she spoke of.
“Yes, Papa,” Freddie finally said, moving to the door of the room.
“I’d wait a few minutes, Fred,” Colin suggested as he sat back in his chair. “Rosie takes a while to cool off once her temper has spiked.”
Freddie nodded and opened the door. Susannah stood there, Amelia still in her grasp, and she gestured for Freddie to come to her. He hugged her around the waist, and she kissed his head, then sent him on his way.
Colin put his hands over his face and slumped even more.
“That was well done, love,” Susannah praised as she entered the room.
“It felt like torture.” He slid his hands down and looked up at her. “Did you hear all of it?”
She nodded reaching out for his hand. “I was outside the door the entire time.”
“I’d have done the same thing at his age if anyone had said that to me. And to have it be Rosie…” He shook his head and squeezed her hand. “Why would she say that?”
“You know she didn’t mean it that way. My siblings and I used to say the same thing to each other, and it became a running joke.” She sighed softly. “It just means something different for Freddie.”
“I wish it didn’t,” Colin murmured to himself. “We’re all Gerrards, every one of us, but that basically just means we’re mutts. It’s not something to seek after. I’m not sure I’d want to be part of us if I wasn’t already.”
“I would.”
He looked up at her in surprise. “Really?”
Susannah smiled at him warmly. “I always wanted to be a Gerrard. You and Kit fought so vigorously with each other, but then five minutes later you were best friends again. Your life had been so hard, but you just lived on and never lost your spirit. I wanted to be part of that.”
Colin cocked his head, considering his magnificent wife in a new light. “And now you are.”
She shrugged lightly. “And now I am. And I couldn’t be more pleased about it.”
“Even today?” he asked dubiously.
“Even today.” She tugged on his hand, forcing him to get to his feet. When he’d done so, she slid her hand up into his hair and pulled him down for a slow, leisurely kiss that dismantled him from the inside out and made him forget everything but her.
Susannah broke off and chuckled. “Feel better?”
Colin cleared his throat and tugged at his cravat. “Much.” He looked down at his daughter, who eyed him with a curious, yet knowing smile. “What have you to say, Miss Amelia?”
She suddenly flailed a hand towards him, and he scooped her up quickly, tossing her into the air, making her squeal in delight. He brought her close and showered several kisses on her plump cheeks.
“Sir?”
Colin groaned and looked to the door, tucking Amelia against him. “Yes, what is it?”
Harward stepped further into the room. “Sir. Mr. Johnson from the stables says you sent him on an errand this morning to scour the land.”
“I did,” Colin confirmed with a nod. “What of it?”
“He says he’s found one, sir, and that it will be perfect.”