Free Marian's Christmas Wish by Carla Kelly Page A

her grip on his sleeve, opened her
mouth, and then closed it again. Lord Ingraham gave her an inquiring look, but
she shook her head. “I shall be circumspect, sir. Good day to you.”
    He took her arm. “Not so fast, my dear. Will you come
riding, too?”
    She made a face. “I am such an indifferent horsewoman.
It was one of Papa’s crosses, I assure you, but horses are so big! I think any
horse I rode would feel my fear and bite me out of spite. Thank you, no, sir.”
    “I wish I could teach you to ride, Marian.”
    Marian darted away from him. “Unless that is your
Christmas wish, sir, it will not come true. And now, farewell. I have other
things to attend to.” She started up the stairs, go halfway up, and leaned over
the railing. “But thank you, Gil, for . . . for everything.” She laughed. “Only
think what your friends would say if you were caught tutoring a schoolroom chit
in riding! You know they would laugh.”
    “I’m already thinking about my friends,” he replied
mildly, and kissed his hand to her. “Hurry, brat, before your brother comes
back and changes his mind and hauls you off to the horrors of the bookroom.”
    Marian changed quickly into dry clothes and wrapped a
towel about her hair. Mama was asleep in her room. Marian heard Percy and Lord
Ingraham in the front hall again, and then the door closed. Sir William was
nowhere in sight.
    “Ariadne? Ariadne?” she asked softly as she knocked on
her sister’s door. “Go away.”
    Marian entered her sister’s room. It was no more than
she expected. Ariadne sat drooping in the window seat. Marian watched her for a
moment—so still, so delicate—and felt a tug of irritation. Dear, dearest
Ariadne, she thought, sometimes you do so remind me of Mama. This is a time for
action, not vapors.
    She almost spoke her thoughts out loud, but
reconsidered. I should be silent. That is what Gil would be.
    Quietly she entered the room and sat down in the window
seat across from her sister. She wrapped her arms around her knees and just sat
there.
    Ariadne’s eyes were red. She held a handkerchief to her
nose and blew it every now and then, little dainty sniffles.
    “Oh, for the Lord’s sake, Ariadne, give it a good blow,”
Marian said finally, casting aside her brief hold on diplomacy.
    With a look half-mutinous, half-pitiful, Ariadne blew
her nose until her curls shook.
    “That’s better,” Marian said. “Now, what are we to do?”
    “I do not know what we can do,” exclaimed Ariadne in
tragic accents. “Mama has told the vicar that I am to entertain an offer from
Sir William. I am sure Sir William lurks below; I dare not leave my room.”
    “Oh, stuff,” Marian said prosaically. “Sir William is
far too fat to lurk.”
    “It was merely a figure of speech,” Ariadne said. “Marian,
Sam will never offer for me now. You know he is too timid.”
    “Then we must stiffen his spine . . . some way or
other.”
    Both sisters fell silent. Marian unwrapped her hair and
began to comb her fingers through it.
    Ariadne got up and came back to the window seat with a
brush. “You will snarl your hair something wretched. Mare,” she said, and
started to brush it. She applied herself diligently to the task, humming as she
brushed, and soon Marian’s hair fell, straight and gleaming, to her waist. Ariadne
kissed the top of her sister’s head and sat down.
    Marian fingered the ends of her hair, coaxing a curl
where there was none. “Ariadne, tell me truthfully, in words with bark: am I
even a little pretty?”
    The question surprised them both. Ariadne looked at her
in amazement.
    “I mean, I know I do not have the Wynswich looks,”
Marian stumbled on as she felt her face grow red, “but do you think I am
attractive?”
    For a moment the light came back into Ariadne’s eyes.
She leaned against the dormer wall and regarded her sister for several long
moments. “I have always thought you were pretty, Mare. True, your hair is
black, but what is that to