The Twelve Nights of Christmas by Nina Mason

Author:Nina Mason
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: 0
Published: 2018-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

After rising, Rollo joined the two laborers he’d hired to help with the heavy work, which was progressing faster than expected. That, at least was encouraging—because he was determined to get Hollywell Abbey in order, even if his life remained in shambles.

Yes, he planned to lease it as soon as it was habitable, but that was neither here nor there. To him, the house was more than timber and stone. It was a symbol of his family’s honor.

While his mother lived, they were respectable members of the landed gentry. She’d been the glue that held the family together, and Papa, too, as it turned out. To quell his unbearable grief, Rollo’s father took to drinking and gambling. Soon enough, he became a fixture at the Hazard, Faro, and Rouge et Noir tables in nearby Cheltenham. Being a popular resort with Le Bon Ton, the town was home to an abundance of gambling hells of both high and low class.

To pay the debts he accrued, Papa mortgaged Hollywell Abbey, the Gillingham family seat since their ancestors acquired the former monastery after the Reformation. When the money was gone, the bailiffs stripped the house of its treasures, piece by piece. First, they took the silver, then the paintings, then the decorative accessories, and finally, the Elizabethan furniture his mother took such trouble to preserve.

Watching their family heirlooms being carted off by those to whom they meant nothing had been like losing his mother all over again. Rollo was able to save a few trinkets: his grandfather’s watch, his mother’s ring, and the dueling pistols which had been in the family for generations.

Tragically, he could not save his father, who was hauled off to debtor’s prison under a cloud of scandal. Having no profession or source of income, Rollo was sent to his Uncle John, who purchased his nephew a commission in the Royal Army.

Around noon, one of the Pembroke’s footmen delivered a note to Rollo at Hollywell. In it, Penelope informed him she’d spoken to her parents and would come to him after dinner to relay the result.

I also want to skate like we used to in the olden days. Do you remember?

How could he not? They did not just skate together back then; they adapted actual dance steps to the ice. She’d always adored skating—one of the few physical activities permitted to young ladies—and he was no less fond of the amusement himself. The feeling of gliding along so effortlessly, so swiftly, so gracefully, had been all the more exhilarating with his Sweet Pea holding his hand.

He’d reread her note at least a dozen times, searching for any hint as to what she might say. To his great vexation, there were no subtleties to be found.

At the moment, he was gazing out the parlor window, impatient for nightfall. The shadows of twilight creeping over the snow assured him it would not be long now. The encroaching dusk heartened him. The day had seemed as endless as had the night before.

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