Alison’s question was one Caroline had been asking herself a lot lately. Why was she so worried about Christmas?
“I don’t know. The earlier part of this year was rather trying, what with three family weddings, not to mention the scandals which surrounded all of them. But the last few months have not been a problem. Ewan keeps telling me that I need to relax and take time for myself, but I just can’t seem to settle.”
Keeping a hold of Caroline’s hand, Lady Alison towed her toward a nearby door. “Let’s take a moment and have a cup of tea.” She turned and nodded at one of the nearby maids. “Tea and some fruit bun please, Margaret.”
The door led into Lady Alison’s downstairs sitting room. At nine and seventy, she was getting too frail to climb the stairs of the keep more than once or twice a day. Her son Ewan had shifted the castle’s literary collection to the chapel which sat across the other side of the bailey, repurposing the ground-floor library into a smart space for his mother.
Once inside, Caroline helped her mother-in-law settle into a comfortable chair, then took a seat on a low sofa close by.
“My back and knees hate standing for any length of time these days,” complained Alison. Caroline smiled in agreement. “It’s always worse when we have just arrived here or back home in London. All that sitting in the coach plays havoc with my hips.”
“Now, what are we to do about you young Caroline?” asked Alison. Caroline was well into her fifties, but she would always be ‘Young Caroline’ to her mother-in-law.
“I don’t know. I suppose once everyone arrives and they are all settled, I shall be able to find a moment or two for myself.”
That was a barefaced lie and they both knew it. At the first sign of a travel coach, Caroline would be flitting about the keep like the proverbial headless chicken. She had spent the morning helping the servants dust the great hall and her functional apron was marked from polishing silver. She looked more like the castle housekeeper than its mistress.
“Hmm. I think you ought to listen to your husband. He tells me you have been out of sorts for some time. Are you still going through the change, my dear?”
Oh, wonderful. My husband has been talking to his mother about my health.
Ewan was going to get a clip over the ear for his troubles. And he could forget about her promise of a bedroom rendezvous this afternoon. The farther she was away from his balls, the better for him.
She was still going through changes in her body. Her courses had come and gone for some time, then completely stopped. Her relief at not having to worry about them had been tempered by the odd mood swing and horrid lack of sleep.
But that was her private, intimate business. Ewan had no right in making mention of it to anyone.
“My physician says that I should hopefully be on the other side of things soon. He has given me some tea to drink before bedtime to help me sleep, but I find it makes me too drowsy,” said Caroline.
She suspected the herbal tea contained a powerful drug—one which rendered her unconscious within an hour. While the sleep was welcome, Caroline found she woke the next morning feeling nauseous and with a muddled head. That hadn’t helped with any plans for special morning cuddles, so she’d stopped drinking the tea. She might have been tired in the morning, but at least her brain wasn’t full of gray fog.
“The worst of the change were the hot flushes that had me perspiring like a blacksmith working over his forge. I endured several Scottish winters wearing nothing more than two layers of thin muslin,” said Lady Alison.
Caroline had been spared the overheated body, but she knew other women who spent their days constantly wiping their brows and changing out of sweat-soaked gowns. “As I recall, you had a habit of trapsing up the side of Strathmore Mountain, often in half-blizzards. You were oblivious to the elements.”
Her mother-in-law softly chuckled. “Oh, yes, I remember those days. People kept offering me coats and cloaks, while all I really wanted to do was to strip naked and stand out in the freezing cold.”
It was so unfair. After all the years of either being with child or dealing with not being pregnant each month, women then had to go through this rite of passage.
“I am fine. I’ve been eating well and trying to take walks each afternoon in Hyde Park.” She was at pains to reassure Alison that she would make it through Christmas without falling apart or running off up the mountainside in her birthday suit.
Now if we could just find some more blankets, I would feel better.
Lady Alison, bless her, had the good sense to let the subject of Caroline’s health go. “Do you know who we are expecting to arrive next? Hugh and Mary are usually not that far behind you.”
Caroline reached into the pocket of her apron and took out her over-used guest list. “Alex and Millie should be here tomorrow. Hugh, Mary, and Clare will be close behind. I am not entirely sure about Lucy and Avery, but I would expect them by the end of the week.”
Her gaze drifted over the names. Adelaide and Charles had said they, and Francis, were leaving on the nineteenth, which should have them arriving Christmas Eve. She wasn’t particularly happy about that, preferring that everyone was settled in at the castle before the usual festivities.
While the villagers didn’t officially celebrate Christmas, Ewan always hosted a bonfire and wild boar spit on Christmas Eve. It gave everyone a taste of things to come for New Year’s Eve and the Hogmanay celebrations.
“I’m not sure about James and Leah. They hadn’t written to me confirming either yes or no before we left London. I am assuming they are not coming, “said Caroline.
But knowing the Radley family members as well as she did, there was an even chance that James would suddenly decide to bring his new bride all the way up from Cornwall to Scotland. A room had been set aside for them just in case.
She was not going to be taken by surprise by any last-minute arrivals. Everyone in the castle would have somewhere comfortable to sleep.
And food.
