Carols & Courtship

Wednesday December 24 {EDITED}

Holly lay under her heavy, down comforter with eyes wide open, staring intently at the jagged crack that skittered across the ceiling of her bedchamber. The clock in the hall struck five o'clock in the morning. It was Christmas Eve. She pressed her eyes shut. "Come on. Just one more hour of sleep, please," she whispered to the empty room.

Her mind was stuck in perpetual motion as it replayed the events of the past weeks over and over again for her, and it showed her only one thing: David Bishop. Her stomach was in knots and it seemed her anxious limbs couldn't stop stirring between the sheets of her bed. His quiet laughter taunted her. How he would always look away from her when he smiled. How terrified he had looked when he had seen her with Victor Embry. Holly wasn't sure she wanted to put a motive behind all of David's actions.

"But could he?" she wondered to herself, her thoughts drifting to the letter in her vanity. "Does he?"

An agonizing knot turned in Holly's gut. She felt simultaneously nervous, and sick, and excited at the thought that David might... love her. Was that what she wanted? Did this nameless agony that tormented her whenever he was near mean she was in love?

Love... the thought sent a shiver down to Holly's fingertips. David would be arriving that afternoon. What would she do? What would she say now that she knew how she felt about him? She was hopelessly ill prepared to handle these sort of situations. Was she supposed to bat her eyelashes across the dinner table and hope for David to get the hint?

"This is terrible," she mumbled.

After a few more hours with nothing but her thoughts, Holly was more than relieved to see Augusta enter her chambers to let her know a bath had been drawn. The process of bathing and drying and then setting her hair for curls took most of the morning. She then had Augusta put her into a pale golden gown that, in her mother's opinion, brought out the bronze tones of her dark eyes. She checked everything twice, hoping her appearance would inspire affection.

When she joined the others for luncheon, they gave her curious looks. The other women of her family were dressed in fancier clothes than for a normal afternoon, but Holly had outdone them by leaps and bounds.

"Planning on spending Christmas Eve at St. James?" Horatio remarked.

Holly felt her cheeks color.

"Leave her alone," Hortensia said, jumping to her defense. "Let her dress how she wants."

Throughout luncheon, all the children squirmed in their seats, knowing full well when the adults finished their tea they would finally get to see the parlor.

"Hurry up, mum," Miles groaned, tugging the sleeve of Hortensia's dress.

"Shall we move to the parlor before the little ones upset the table?" Colonel Ambrose suggested, and without a real answer the boys burst from their seats at the table and dashed out to wait at the parlor doors. Anne waited patiently in her seat beside Holly, content to draw shapes in the jam on her plate with her little fingers until her mother dismissed her.

Hortensia began to wipe Anne's chubby hands as the others followed the boys to the parlor.

Holly didn't know when David would arrive, but she kept one ear attuned for the sound of the bell at all times. As soon as the doors to the parlor were opened by Colonel Ambrose, the family pitched into an unbridled chaos. Overwhelmed by the sight of the towering pine, decked in colorful papers and tinsel and popcorn strings, the boys tore into the presents at the bottom. They stumbled over each other, searching for the small and large packages with their names on the tags.

"Careful now!" Marie called after her boys.

"It's fine," Colonel Ambrose said, with a wry grin. "Once they've opened all their gifts we can exchange ours."