Her heart gave a deeper, echoing stutter at the thought.
And when it became obvious he wasn’t going to answer her question, she forgave him immediately. A young man in the grip of burgeoning love was bound to get a bit tongue-tied, after all.
Turning back to the others, she saw victory in her grasp. Creath and Arabel beamed, Lady Trentingham nodded encouragingly, and Matthew shrugged his manly indifference. Even Lord Trentingham looked a little excited. “All in favor?” Chrystabel asked.
When five voices said, “Aye!” Joseph seemed to come awake.
A rueful smile tugged at his lips. “Aye,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“Wonderful!” Lady Trentingham dabbed at her mouth with her napkin and rose. “Lady Chrystabel, I’ll leave you to planning our secret Christmas while my family discusses some issues of significance. Henry, shall we meet in your study in an hour?”
NINE
THERE WAS NO time to waste.
Chrystabel’s schedule for the day quite suddenly seemed at least a mile long. Somewhere between her first bite of bread and her last sip of ale, she’d gone from having nothing to do to wondering how she could possibly get everything done.
After the meal, her first stop was the kitchen, where she surveyed what she had to work with in planning her menus for Christmas Eve supper and Christmas breakfast. She squealed with delight when she found a basket of ripe red fruit in the pantry.
“Strawberries?” she asked Mrs. Potter, the Ashcrofts’ rosy-cheeked cook. “In the winter?”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Potter said with a smile. “Lord Tremayne grows them in his conservatory.”
“Does he?” Thinking she needed to see strawberries growing in winter, Chrystabel mentally added a visit to Joseph’s conservatory to her long list of things to do today. “I think we should have a big strawberry tart. What else in your pantry may we use?”
Finding that the kitchen had stocks of turkey, chicken, and bacon, she decided to have them baked into a large Christmas pie. Usually Christmas pie also included goose and pigeon at a minimum, but she was certain the one she planned would be just as delicious.
She also found fish, cauliflower, and a basket full of small artichokes. Mrs. Potter had a number of fine ideas for employing those items, so Chrystabel left them to the cook’s creativity. Fresh white manchet bread and a large sallet would complete the meal.
For Christmas breakfast, she examined the larder again and planned panperdy, buttered eggs with bacon, and hot pan cakes with butter and sugar.
“Do you have any red wine?” she asked Mrs. Potter. “Or is only the Tremayne wine served here?”
“Oh, we have plenty of red wine in our cellar.”
“Excellent. I hope you won’t mind me invading your kitchen later this afternoon, because I’d like to make the mulled wine myself.”
“You’re quite welcome here, my lady,” Mrs. Potter assured her. “We all have to look at each other most every day of the year, so we’re always glad of a new face.”
Chrystabel chuckled. “My heartfelt thanks.” It took some tinkering and lots of tasting to make a perfect batch of mulled wine. She preferred not to risk leaving that task to a kitchen servant.
The mulled wine would be for tonight, of course, but what to prepare for a morning drink? Something sweet and delicious, as it was the most special of holidays.
“I don’t suppose you have cocoa beans?” she ventured, her fingers fiddling with her lion pendant. Parliament had banned chocolate as a sinful pleasure, but…
“I certainly do,” Mrs. Potter admitted, proving Christmas was the season for miracles. “Just a modest little hoard, but I’m not saving it for anything in particular. Shall I have the beans ground for you?”
“Oh, that would be marvelous!” Chrystabel loved chocolate nearly as much as she loved secretly ignoring ridiculous Puritanical laws. “I’ll have all our kitchen staff fetched here to help you. Thank you once again, Mrs. Potter. Until this afternoon,” she said as a way to excuse herself.
Now it was time to start decorating. Although first, she needed to stop by her brother’s chamber.
On her way upstairs, she wondered if Lady Trentingham was holding the enigmatic family meeting yet. Chrystabel was insanely curious to know what the countess meant to discuss with her husband and son, because the lady’s carefully offhand manner had made her suspect it was something quite serious. And she’d long ago learned to trust her instincts in matters such as this.
Could the Ashcrofts be meeting to talk about their guests? Were they unhappy to have the Trevors foisted upon them? Maybe…but last night Lady Trentingham’s invitation to stay had seemed sincere, and today she’d agreed to let Chrystabel plan a secret Christmas in their home. It didn’t make sense.
So she’d have to keep wondering.
When she knocked on the door of Matthew’s chamber, he came to greet her with a quill in his hand. Glancing past him, she saw several open account books on a table. His hair was sticking up in places, as though he’d been running his fingers through it.
Was he anxious about their finances? She hoped everything was all right—but she had no time to worry about anything like that today.
“May I borrow a hat?” she asked, craning around him to try and spot one. “Or are they all still packed away in the wagon?”
“I think John brought up one or two.” John was his valet. “But why do you need a hat?”
“For Creath. I mean to tuck her hair up under it.”
He blinked. “Why on earth should you want to do that?”
“You and I must go out walking to find a yule log for our secret Christmas. Creath said she longs for the outdoors, and if we her disguise her as a boy, she’ll be able to come with us. You’re too tall to loan her clothes, but I’ll beg some off the younger Cartwright boy.” The Cartwrights were the two musically talented brothers in their household.
She expected Matthew to call disguising Creath a harebrained scheme, since he often berated her ideas—but
