A Christmas Engagement

Chapter 1Near Stroud, Gloucestershire, October 1805 Charles Denham sat at the solid desk in the study that he continued to regard as his father’s, steadily working through the backlog of estate correspondence. It was only four months since his father’s passing and Charles half-expected his parent to burst through the door, as large as life, to teasingly berate his eldest son for stealing his place before establishing himself in his rightful setting. Charles’ pen stilled mid-sentence on the sheet of paper. I wish to God that was possible, he thought, his heart contracting with a pang of raw grief. It was hard to believe that the elder Mr. Denham, a country squire in the prime of life, hale and hearty and full of good cheer, was suddenly no more. Charles felt that aching gap in his life all too keenly, as well as a sense of inadequacy, of being unready and unable to fill his father’s shoes. The elder Mr. Denham had suffered a mild apoplexy in late spring, alarming Charles sufficiently to return from London a month or so earlier than anticipated, despite the gentleman’s protestations that his family was fussing about nothing. He scolded his eldest son for making an unnecessary journey and teased him he had arrived too late to be of any help with the shearing season. Thank God I took the trouble. Only a few weeks later, when Mr. Denham had almost returned to full health, he was struck down by another much more serious attack from which he did not recover, lying between life and death for a month. Charles’ only comfort was that, together with his mother and siblings, he had been present at his father’s bedside when he took his last painful breath. Then the waking nightmare started. Despite his blunted senses in the fog of such a loss, Charles was expected to bear the weight of estate matters, which proved hugely convoluted. It wasn’t that his father was improvident, simply that he, together with all those around him, expected him to live a full three score and ten years and hold the reins of his property for decades to come. So there was a great deal of untangling of unfinished business and half-finished projects, duly loaded onto the shoulders of the unfortunate heir. By late summer, Charles should have been glad to lose himself in the annual cycle of the harvest, in which he had taken part from boyhood. But out in the fields, rather than being engrossed in the familiar rhythm of scything and stacking the sheaves, he missed his father all the more keenly as the workers waited for Charles to direct them in their tasks. As summer faded into autumn, at some point during the torrent of paperwork, Charles reached a life-changing decision. His current and future responsibilities meant his life as a young man about town was abruptly curtailed. His carefree days in London already felt long over, not a hundred miles distant but a million miles away. With this sudden change of circumstances, Charles vowed to dedicate his energies to safeguarding his land and property and completing the schemes and plans his father had begun. His aim in life was to support and protect his bereaved mother and younger siblings. To that end, he had determined that at twenty-five it was high time he chose a suitable wife with the prospect of producing an heir. It’s what my father would have expected, he told himself firmly, even though his parent had never broached the subject. Charles tightened his lips with concentration as he signed the letter, putting it to one side for the ink to dry before starting on the next. The fly in the ointment to his pragmatic launch into matrimony was the memory of an attractive man with the kindest smile imaginable, laughing hazel eyes, and a head of wayward, curling fair hair. When he briefly returned to London to their shared lodgings to pack his belongings, Charles recalled the expression of shock and bewilderment on those much-loved features. Due to his change of circumstances and priorities, Charles felt it proper to conclude their longstanding, mutually-acknowledged romantic attachment with a few terse words. He clutched the pen tightly. Charles had effectively cut Avery Mallory from his present and future. If only he could find a way to banish Avery’s lingering image from his mind.