The church bells rang out midnight, and the countryside echoed with clanging pans, bells, shouts, and the blasts of guns. It was the first day of the new year, the Eighth Day of Christmas, and the Feast of the Circumcision, and the celebration was all around. Richard waited in the darkness down the drive from Copley Grange, watching as the guests went back inside as the sounds faded away.
The door was closed, and then a minute later it opened again and was left ajar, warm yellow candlelight spilling out into the blue-black winter night. He knew that in back a door had been opened and shut, letting the old year out, and now the front door was letting in the new.
And he would be the man who did First Footing at Copley Grange. The first visitor through the door in the new year, if a dark-haired male, would bring good luck to the house, according to the superstition. He double-checked his satchel with its required gifts, and headed up the drive.
A smiling maid closed the door behind him when he entered, and he made his way to the drawing room.
"Hurrah!" the cheer went up when he stepped inside. The enthusiastic greeting surprised him, and he felt a flush of surprised embarrassment. It had been so long since he had felt truly welcome in any home but his sister's, he had forgotten what it felt like.
He grinned and gave a courtly bow. In stately manner he walked up to Captain Twitchen, standing by the fire, and drew out of his satchel the first of the gifts, a hunk of coal.
"To keep your home warm," he said, handing the captain the black lump.
"Hear, hear!" the gathering cheered.
Richard turned to Mrs. Twitchen and took out the next gift, a round loaf of bread. "To keep you fed."
Mrs. Twitchen curtsied and accepted, amid another cheer.
"And lastly…" Richard said, putting his hand into the satchel and holding it there for a moment, building the suspense, although they all knew what was coming. He pulled out the bottle of whiskey and held it high, then bowed again and presented it to Captain Twitchen. "For your happiness and your health throughout the new year!"
The final presentation was met with a final cheer and a round of applause. Captain Twitchen slapped him on the back, then went to work opening the bottle and sharing the blessings with the male guests.
Still feeling self-conscious in a way his usual bluntness never made him feel, Richard cast his eyes over the room, his gaze lighting upon Vivian. She was smiling, her eyes sparkling, her face aglow. He would like to think it was aglow for him. She was the reason he had persuaded himself to this display of good fellowship, in hopes of impressing her with his long-dormant social graces.
Sara had not been able to stop talking about "Miss A'brose," who had impressed her greatly with her sweet tooth. He himself had been content to let Sara prattle, his own thoughts on how close he had felt to Vivian as they sat and talked on Innocents' Day.
He had known Vivian for only a week, and yet his hopes were quickly growing that this Christmas he had been gifted with the wife he wanted. What did the shortness of the time matter, when you had found the one with whom you were meant to be?
He made conversation with those near him, listening with half an ear as Captain Twitchen, the whiskey bottle turned over to another for distribution, jingled a purse of coins that he then gave to his wife. "Money for pins, my dear," the captain said.
Would that next year he himself had a wife to whom to give pin money, a wife who would laugh and thank him as Mrs. Twitchen thanked her husband now. Vivian.
He moved through the guests, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries until at last he found his way to her. She ducked her head, a blush on her cheeks, then looked quickly up at him, smiling.
"When will you stop being shy with me upon greeting?" he asked, feeling his own heart pick up its pace, his growing attachment to her leaving his heart vulnerable to the slightest sign of rejection. To want was to risk being denied.
"I could not say. You have surprised me tonight. I would never have expected you to be first through the door."
"You cannot have thought I would let the new year begin without seeing you," he said, then waited an eternity in the space of a heartbeat for her response.
"I had hoped you would not," she answered quietly.
He laughed with relief. He put her hand in the crook of his elbow and led her to a quieter end of the room, where they stood near a bust of a long-dead Twitchen ancestor, pretending to examine it.
"There's a cobweb in your hair," he said, spotting the wisp of gray, and brushing it away with his fingertips. "What have you been doing?"
"Fortune-telling in the cellar. Penelope and the vicar's daughter insisted I come with them."
"Why the cellar?"
"My guess is because it is dark and cold and suitably unnerving. They had a silver dish full of water, in which they dropped a ring, and we sat around it in the light of single candle, waiting for…"
"Waiting for?" he prompted.
"For the faces of our future husbands to appear," she said, as if embarrassed to admit it. "Someday Sara will do the same thing with her friends, I imagine."
"And did his face appear?" he asked, moving slightly closer.
"I don't know. It was so dark and cold, and we sat for so long, my mind began to wander."
"Where did it wander?"
"Everywhere," she said.
"Did it wander to me?"
She met his eyes: they were as wide and wary as he knew his own to be. "Would you want it to?"
He reached down and took her hand, and after a glance around the drawing room to check that none were watching, led her through a nearby door that went to the library. She came willingly. The chamber was dimly lit by candles in wall sconces, and it was cool after the body-heated warmth of the drawing room. The voices from the party were but a murmur through the heavy door.
He slowly backed Vivian up against a wall of books, standing with his feet to either side of hers, close enough to touch but not doing so.
"I want your mind wandering to me in every free moment of your day. I want you to think of me upon rising in the morning, and to find me in your dreams at night."
"You're already there," she whispered, and the words sent a joyous thrill through his heart, frightening in its intensity.
He knew it was foolish to rush things, that he risked scaring her away, but he had to know for certain. To know the depth of her feelings. To know if she was the one. He bent down his head and kissed her. No lady concerned with appearances would stand for such in the middle of a party.
At first her lips were motionless under his-she was likely shocked-but as he continued the kiss she responded, tentatively mirroring his own movements. He pressed up close against her, gently pinning her to the bookcase, until he could feel each soft curve of her body against his own. He deepened the kiss, and she made a small noise in the back of her throat.
He lifted his mouth from hers, his hips still pressed against her lower belly. "Are you all right?"
"Oh, yes," she said, and her slender arms wrapped around his neck.
She wanted him. Against all possibility, all doubt, she wanted him.
He had found the place he belonged, and was finally free. The joy of it sent him wild. He let loose the reins on his desire, exploring her mouth, her neck, the exposed swell of her breasts, each touch making him hungrier for the next. He breathed in the warm, faintly musky scent of her, and then trailed his tongue up to the hollow at the base of her throat where he pressed gently until he could feel the beat of her heart with his lips.
She was his heart, his desire.
He worked his way up and let his tongue play at the sensitive place behind her earlobe, while his hand went down to cup her buttock and pull her against him, where he could press the firmness of his arousal against the softness of her body.