A Christmas Homecoming: A Novel

he bedroom they were shown to was large and richly curtained in dark wine red. There were chairs near the fire, and the fire itself spread such light and warmth that it was unnecessary to use the candles provided, except on the bedside table.

“I told you,” Joshua said gently, as soon as the door was closed behind the footman who had brought their cases. “We are very welcome.” He was smiling, although his face, which concealed emotion so easily now, could not hide either his weariness or a degree of anxiety.

Caroline walked over to stand close to him, then reached forward and touched his cheek softly with her fingertips. “Don’t worry about it tonight, my dear. You’ll all work on the play tomorrow, and it may not be nearly as difficult when you rehearse it together as it seems now on the page. How often have you told me that about other plays?”

He leaned forward and kissed her. “But it’s actually awful,” he said ruefully. “It’s a very difficult thing to adapt a book for the stage, and Alice Netheridge really hasn’t much idea how to do it. I wouldn’t even attempt this if we weren’t at our wits’ end to find a backer for next year. But without Netheridge’s support we would all be facing a pretty bleak spring.”

“That’s not true, Joshua,” she corrected him. “The company might, but you could always find a part somewhere. I know of at least three other managers who would leap at the chance to have you.”

He winced very slightly; it was just a tightening of the skin across the bones of his cheeks. “Walk away and leave the rest of the company with nothing?” he asked. “The theater is too small a world to do that, even if I were willing to. It’s not only Mercy and James, or Lydia—not to mention Vincent, although he would probably find something else. It’s all the others as well; the bit players who take on a dozen other tasks: moving scenery, fetching and carrying, building props, looking after the costumes.”

She had known he would say something like that, but when he did, it still gave her a rush of warmth, stronger than any heat the fire could offer.

He was frowning a little. “Are you afraid?” he asked. She had been used to being provided for, more than adequately, all her life. First by her father, then by her first husband, Edward Ellison. This was the first time she had ever realized, more than in theory, that it was possible that she could become cold or hungry, or truly at the mercy of debt, to the point of being afraid when a knock sounded on the door. Should she lie and deny that she had thought about these things? Or was honesty between them worth more than the kindness of the lie, than taking heart and having courage?

“Not yet,” she said with a tiny grimace, choosing the middle ground. “As for Alice, just don’t expect too much. Can you steer some sort of path between her work as it stands and what you would consider good enough professionally?”

“Between the rocks and the whirlpool?” He said it with a twisted smile, but there was no laughter in his eyes. “I can try. And keep Vincent from taking over and hogging the stage, Lydia from giving up altogether, and Mercy and James from endlessly defending each other from attacks that no one has made, while at the same time teaching Alice Netheridge how to do all the extra parts, and playing a credible Count Dracula myself?” He shrugged. “Of course. My wife overrates me perhaps, but she believes I can.” His voice lowered a little. “At least she says so.”