A Sprig of Mistletoe: Miracle Express, #6

CHAPTER ONE

Euston Station, London

December 20, 1843

Last stop, Euston! The train attendant’s bellow rose over the clamor as the train whistled off, warning that it would soon be underway for Waterford Station.

Lady Catherine Kitty Egerton placed her pink ticket and copy of Bradshaw’s Railway Time Tables—a tiny booklet with a list of train times—in her reticule and cinched it closed, then vacated her luxurious, tapestried first-class seat. She opened the door of her carriage. Come along, Meg, she said, emerging into the bedlam with her dearest friend, Miss Margaret Castleton, at her side.

Your brother told us to remain here, Meg protested. I do not want to disappoint him.

Kitty’s brother, the Honorable Ambrose Egerton, had hurried ahead after instructing them to wait for him while he secured a coach and horses for their use, but Kitty, always yearning for something more, couldn’t remain idle for long. Curiosity burned inside her, and patience wasn’t one of her virtues.

The train will leave with us on it if we do not disembark, Kitty pointed out. Besides, he did not explicitly tell us to wait inside the train carriage, did he?

Well, no. Meg adjusted her gloves. But he’s your brother. I am quite certain he doesn’t want us to trot off willy-nilly.

Oh, Meg. Where’s your sense of adventure? All will be well, Kitty promised. How could it not? Just take a look at this place. Euston Station inhabits a world all its own!

The enormous train station’s thirteen tracks were lined with gas lamps. Men, women, and children from every facet of life darted to and fro. They wore all manner of hats, greatcoats, cloaks, and capelets, the typical attire for mild Decembers, moving in and out of billowing clouds of steam like phantoms. Well-bred ladies begged their husbands to leave the premises while travelers on the Parliamentary trains—used mostly by those of the third class—complained bitterly and loudly. Porters trekked here and there, too, arms laden with valises or pushing carts to carriages for hire. Other travelers converged on the ticket office or waited to board incoming trains that feverishly panted as pinions were driven against their sides. The state of pandemonium flabbergasted Kitty.

A shrill whistle and a cloud of steam enveloped them. She waited until it dissipated, hardly able to contain her astonishment. It was Christmas, her favorite time of year, and the reasons she and Meg accompanied her brother into Town were threefold. As far as Meg and Ambrose knew, they merely intended to buy seasonal gifts and then go to Field Lane, the Ragged School they had arranged to visit. Kitty hoped to buy copies of Charles Dickens’s new book, A Christmas Carol: one for the children at Field Lane, one for Nugent House on Ragged Row—the workhouse in Berkhamstead, the market town where they lived—and one for herself. What her companions didn’t know was that it was a perfect opportunity for Ambrose to spend time with Meg without any notion that Kitty was playing matchmaker. At twenty-eight, he’d proclaimed he wasn’t in the market for a wife. Given a bit of prodding, though, she hoped Meg could persuade him otherwise.

Kitty smiled to herself, feeling buoyed by both the potential relationship between her best friend and her brother, and the people she was in Town to help. She didn’t care that harboring interest in workhouses wasn’t exactly something a refined woman explored. Her ideas originated from the scenes depicted in Charles Dickens’s books, namely those set in Holborn, Fagin’s fictional den in Oliver Twist. An old friend of Ambrose’s patroned Field Lane Ragged School, and it was through this man, Bartholomew Fernsby, that Ambrose had discovered his purpose: to help fund education for poor children everywhere, especially in an overcrowded city like London. It was a passion Kitty shared.

Her stomach churned, and her palms became sweaty inside her kid leather gloves. Philanthropy had long been a family affair. Mama and Aunt Lenora ran a soup kitchen in the grounds of Berkhamstead Castle. Kitty’s father and brother held a mutual interest in Berkhamstead’s workhouse. Ambrose was a member of the Union Guardians, a group that strived to improve poverty laws across Hertfordshire, the heart of humanizing the poor in ten parishes. But no matter how much her brother encouraged Kitty’s charitable efforts, he couldn’t secure her a membership in the union because it didn’t accept women.

Rubbish!

As the daughter of an earl, Kitty had a role to perform. She was expected to hone her feminine graces: learn how to exhibit elaborate manners, manage households, and entertain the peerage. When Papa and the weather obliged, she sidestepped convention and rode astride through the Frithsden Woods, an ancient forest pollarded for firewood. The fact that she took advantage of the family library and read to improve her mind apparently became detrimental to snaring a husband, however, even if her father encouraged her intellectual endeavors.

According to a parade of prospective suitors, men desired women to be humble, docile creatures, not bookish females intent on changing the world. Still, Mama encouraged Kitty’s maturing intelligence while Papa did everything in his power to find her a proper husband. She’d been nothing but a bitter disappointment to him thus far. To quiet the screaming shrew inside her head, she read Charles Dickens’s stories, finding solace in Martin Chuzzlewit, a satirical view of America that was published in monthly installments. At twenty-three, neither she nor Meg had any prospects. They were vastly different, living totally dissimilar lives. Meg was a vicar’s daughter and easily swayed by the trappings of Society while Kitty felt imprisoned by the uncompromising rules of propriety. Still, their friendship had thrived for fifteen years.

The iron monster gave a shrill whistle. Kitty started. Trains were loud, frightening beasts traveling at thirty miles an hour, a velocity human beings were not meant to reach as the minutes fused into space. The risk, however, invigorated Kitty. She’d taken great delight in the twenty-eight-mile journey across the countryside, flying as if on winged horses, and had reveled in how effortless it was to travel from Berkhamstead to London and return in one day. Years ago such a thing had been inconceivable!

The London and Birmingham Railway cut a gateway through her town in Hertfordshire to markets in the Midlands, baptizing the Chiltern Hills with its incessant clamor. It was even more proof that the great land serpent was a permanent addition. Not only that but Berkhamstead’s population had expanded by two thousand souls in five years. New houses and market squares accommodated canal builders and train labor. Railway construction companies invaded the town, the spike in employment giving rise to increasing violence and crime; many of the penniless vagrants were sent to Nugent House after the railway moved on. In the midst of the Industrial Revolution, a prevailing anger clung to Great Britain as the aristocratic elite thrived and the poor tumbled toward anarchy, something Queen Victoria was attempting to remedy.

Kitty turned and smiled at Meg, who stood speechless beside her. She gave out a great sigh, and then breathed in the contaminated air, longing for the blue skies and scented evergreens of Berkhamstead. A hill among birches, it was far preferable to London’s beehive of humanity where the sun, with all its radiant power, failed to disperse the smog snaking over the rooftops. But Berkhamstead wasn’t where the greatest need existed; London was the place to be in order to do the most good.

Nerves fraught and senses alert, Kitty placed a handkerchief over her nose. How do you suppose people endure this on a daily basis?

Meg shook her head, befuddled. You’re a lady, Kitty. You aren’t meant to endure this. But in my experience, she said, smiling mischievously, people do what they will, or must, no matter who advises against it. A draft of air disturbed the gold feather on Meg’s caramel-colored bonnet. Its shimmery fawn lining set off her blond hair and amber eyes. She adjusted her capelet, arranging the embroidered edges over her Devonshire brown gown. Papa left London because it’s always been overcrowded.

Berkhamstead is a small town in another world, Kitty conceded. It was much easier to turn a blind eye to human suffering in such a place. Meg’s father was a Congregationalist, with definitive opinions on every subject, schools of thought that did little to enhance one’s Christmas spirit. And Meg, clinging to delusions of a life she longed for but did not have, didn’t understand limits because of it. Perhaps they were born to the wrong fathers.

Kitty shrugged. London can be diverting when one needn’t worry about the marriage mart and being auctioned off for slaughter.

Meg gasped. Kitty! You cannot mean that. Your father only desires to find you a good home. I would give anything for Papa to show an inkling of interest in me.

He does, she assured her, censoring her doubts. Never believe differently. Meg longed to be respected and financially sound, and a wife and mother, but with no dowry at her disposal . . .

Kitty bit her lip. Her father, Charles, the Earl of Bridgewater, offered a sizable purse to anyone who’d agree to marry her. The problem was that no one was taking the bait. I feel . . . She shrugged, grasping for words that conveyed her restless nature without sounding churlish. I do want to marry, but I want to do more with my life than wear a chatelaine, organize menus, and embroider cushions. Is there anything wrong with wanting to help improve the lives of others?

Gracious, no! Meg’s cheeks turned rosy. It’s a very noble aspiration. But Mama does say ‘charity begins at home.’

Yes. Thankfully, Meg’s mother was the embodiment of kindness, which helped ease the brutal sting of Meg’s father’s cruelty. It does. But how can that be so when every man I’ve met is intimidated by my intelligence?

Meg quirked an eyebrow and smiled. Your brother has a high opinion of his friend. Perhaps he—

Mr. Fernsby? she asked. Ambrose had talked about his friend the entire train ride to London, boasting about the man’s affluence and good-natured personality. Plainly, he meant Mr. Fernsby to occupy Meg’s mind, not hers. Impossible! The man has never accepted invitations to join us for Christmas. And— she fought for the right words —frankly, I find it hard to believe a man like him exists.

Tell me you haven’t stopped believing in miracles, Meg replied.

Kitty smiled fondly at her dearest friend. Meg always spoke from the heart, revealing her inner goodness. Born to humble parents, she lived in a simple cottage isolated in England’s backwaters. Because of her religious upbringing and reading novels like The Monk and The Mysteries of Udolpho, Meg longed to live in a manor house like the one Kitty’s family had owned since Elizabethan times, with its massive gardens and inclusion to the aristocracy.

You know I do. She longed to share her life with someone who didn’t want to change her, but until that man came along, she intended to spread her wings. Nevertheless, Kitty said, a tree’s roots must seek water.

I’d rather be a branch adorned with beautiful foliage and paraded about for all to see, Meg said, her voice bubbly and gay. Leaves don’t crawl through dirt to reach lofty heights.

Kitty’s vision blurred. Dearest Meg, how I wish we had been born sisters! Then things would be quite different for both of us. Meg would be loved and cherished, and they could conquer the marriage mart together. But then Ambrose would be Meg’s brother, too, and that wouldn’t do. Meg was in love with Ambrose—or at least the idea of him. Hence Kitty’s interference . . .

She squeezed Meg’s hand then broke away, turning to study the smartly polished crimson-and-black first-class train carriages rimmed with gold behind them. She had never seen anything so grand. It was almost as if the carriages had been built to resemble Queen Victoria’s own royal coaches. Each was equipped with three separate private compartments, decorated with luxurious interiors. There was a stark difference between the packed second-class accommodation and the windowless third-class carriages, which were truly fit only for livestock. No wonder the lower class bounded out of their carriages with boisterous glee, causing a scene at which the well-to-do people frowned.

Her sadness for Meg’s situation fading, Kitty tilted her head to gaze in wonder at the station’s glass ceiling, marveling at its pristine architecture. Centuries of soot and dense fog had yet to mar its beauty, which was the main reason why people flocked to Euston Station—to appreciate the masterful splendor. But like relationships, tarnished by pride and prejudice, nothing existed for long without blemish. Life even scarred lovers.

Love and duty had brought her to London. She was only standing here now because Papa had ordered her to pry into her brother’s affairs, something she found terribly offensive. She’d agreed, if only to visit poorer sections of the city that called to her heart. Her brother was supposed to meet his old friend from Eton there—Bartholomew Fernsby. Mr. Fernsby and several investors were campaigning for a new Poor Law Union that would regulate education in London’s most deprived areas, which meant he had connections her father could utilize. Papa desired to expand the Bridgewaters’ philanthropic efforts to the East End, and Mr. Fernsby’s connections would help make that possible. But could the man be trusted? He’d been a phantom, darting in and out of Ambrose’s life for the past fifteen years, which made Papa suspicious. If Papa was going to support the new Poor Law Union—and the schools it spawned—he wanted proof that Mr. Fernsby wasn’t a fraud. And if she suspected Mr. Fernsby misled Ambrose, Papa had ordered her to put an end to their relationship by whatever means necessary.

She took no pleasure in spying on Ambrose, and doing so weighed heavily on her. What right did she have to destroy Ambrose’s friendship—or his ambitions—when all she wanted to do was share them, to do likewise and take her philanthropic place in Society?

All aboard! a porter hailed from the platform.

Thief! another demanding bellow followed. Get back here, boy!

The engine whistled more loudly than the previous time, preventing her from hearing more of the altercation as she dragged her attention away from the decorative ceiling to search the platform for its source. In London, or anywhere crowds gathered and innovation excelled, pickpockets roamed, and wherever there was a crush of people, thefts and accidents occurred.

Compressors for the brakes shifted, creating a chuffing sound. Steam and exhaust burst forth from the train, propelled with great force from a continuous line of pipe, giving Kitty hardly any time at all to respond before the little thief suddenly appeared out of the ether.

Get out of me way! he spat before barreling into her. Kitty lost her balance grappling for the child, their limbs intertwined, as she tried to prevent both of them from falling to their deaths. I’m sorry, miss. He broke free and ran off, leaving Kitty struggling to regain her balance.

Tangled in her skirts, she started to fall. Help! she shouted, her heart pounding so hard it might break out of her chest.

Two large, strong hands circled her waist, and she was yanked into a solid wall of muscle, the daring act sparing her from toppling between two carriages and bludgeoning her head on the ironworks. Oh! she exclaimed at the impact.

Are you hurt?

She froze at the deep baritone voice. No. She blinked and dizzily raised her head, making out the buttons on a black greatcoat. She could hardly comprehend