Mistletoe Courtship (15 page)

The sermon was delivered well, he decided, with enough punch to keep listeners awake without firing off points like a cannonade. Been a long, long time since he sat in a church pew and heard the gospel preached with honesty as well as passion.

“…how we shared in last week's message, the celebration of God's gift of His Son does not always sit well within our private lives. Many of you carry such a heavy sack of burdens
you've no room in the inn of your hearts for Jesus. Instead of tidings of great joy, this season prompts naught but despair and resentment and pain. You cannot accept the Almighty's gift, much less present gifts of your own to the Christ child, as did the Magi—the gift of your time, your service. Your very selves. So…” palms planted on the lectern, the minister leaned forward, and a portentous aura filled the church “…how many of you remembered, and brought a symbol of those burdens this week? How many of you have the courage to come forward, leave them at the altar, with the One Who promised to help carry them? Only when you release these burdens can you truly celebrate Christmas.”

He spread his robed arms in an inviting gesture. “Come, come, ye faithful yet fearful. Come while the organist plays ‘Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,' place your symbols in the manger, leave with hope in your hearts, and on Christmas Day, when we sing ‘Joy to the World,' the words will resonate with truth…with the birth of your new life in the newborn Christ.”

Movement and murmurs rippled through the pews as the organist began to play. Ethan watched, feeling a hollow sense of detachment shadowing his soul again. What would his symbol have been? The wedding ring he'd never been able to throw away? The stiffly formal letter accepting his resignation from Congress? Or perhaps the blank-paged Morocco-leather memorandum still tucked inside his coat pockets that stood for three wasted years wandering about the country in search of a cure for past mistakes?

The elderly couple beside him excused themselves to join the growing stream of people filling the aisles. Ethan slipped out, moving to the back of the church, and watched the progression. The manger rapidly filled with objects. He watched a woman tenderly lay a doll on top of the hay, which was soon
covered by a man's shirt…a small string-tied journal…eventually the objects had to be placed around the feet of the manger, spilling across the dais.

When the organist launched into the hymn for the fifth time, Ethan's restless gaze fell upon the tall figure of a woman who glided from a side door across to the pile of “burdens.” Winter sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, highlighting the solemn curve of her cheekbone and a wide unsmiling mouth. Her dark hair was worn in an uncompromising knot on the top of her head. Unlike most of the ladies present, she wore no hat. Something about her struck Ethan as both poignant and proud.

A frisson of memory rippled through his mind.

He knew this woman.
Someplace, somewhere, he remembered her. Scalp tingling, he followed her every movement, from the soft swaying of her skirts to the slight tilt of her head when she reached the front of the sanctuary, to the taut line of her spine beneath her gaudy green overblouse.

She laid her object down a little apart from the raggle-taggle mound of other objects. Then, still within an invisible pool of isolation, she melted back into the shadows beyond the sunbeams. The music ceased at last, the minister spoke the benediction, and with the conclusion of the service people gathered around Ethan to speak with him, to shake hands with the stranger.

He smiled and responded politely, all the while keeping the corner of his eye on the woman in green. She wove her way
across the sanctuary, and the sting of recognition now prickled Ethan like hundreds of tiny needles. She reminded Ethan of—himself. Acknowledged, but apart. Known by all, understood by none. On the surface, serene and confident.

Her eyes would be deep pools the color of bitter chocolate, a mysterious blend of intelligence and
…He blinked, impatient with the nebulous wisps of memory.

“Do you know that young woman?” he asked Otis Skelton, a merry-faced little man who had introduced himself and for some reason refused to budge from Ethan's side. “The one with the dark hair, wearing the bright green overwaist?”

“Ah, she's wearing the green one today, then?” Otis gave a dry laugh. “That would be Miss Clara Penrose, Albert's sister. She's a strange one, right enough. Seeing as how you've only arrived a week ago, might be Albert wanted you to settle in a bit, before he trotted her out your way. He's a good man, is Albert, but his sister has a way that seems to twist his bow tie in a knot.”

Albert's sister? A “strange one”? The revelation teased him with an even stronger sense of déjà vu, almost as vexing as a welcome note from someone who hadn't bothered to identify himself. “What do you mean by
strange?”
he asked Otis.

“Well, now.” Otis ran a finger around the bow tie strangling his throat, slid a sideways look as though to see who was close enough to overhear, then jerked his chin once.

Seemed Miss Penrose was the family oddity, a public-spirited young female with a mind of her own, smart as a whip but who dressed more like a floozy than an old maid, much to the despair of her elegantly turned-out family. Never married. Nobody quite knew what to do with her…. “Spends her days teaching younguns piano, and doing good works. Myself and the wife, we always had a soft spot for the girl. Brings us vegetables from her garden, fresh-baked bread. I remember one time when she—”

Someone called Otis's name, and with a faint air of wistfulness the man left Ethan's side. Clusters of parishioners still stood about talking, one of the groups including Albert Penrose. Not wanting to intrude, Ethan debated briefly before making his way to the other end of the aisle. If his calculations were correct, when Miss Penrose finished speaking to a pair of fidgety girls, she would have to pass him to reach the door.

Sure enough, after the two girls darted off, Miss Penrose walked toward him, one hand idly brushing over the ends of the pews, her step brisk and her gaze focused inward.

She would have run smack into Ethan if he hadn't pointedly cleared his throat. “Miss Penrose? We haven't officially been introduced, but—”

“Yes, we have.” Startled dark brown eyes searched his face with unnerving intensity. A flicker of some deep emotion stirred, then vanished. “Dr. Harcourt, formerly Congressman Harcourt of Pennsylvania.” Her voice was a clear contralto, unforgettable. “We met several years ago, at one of those holiday levees in Washington. I don't expect you to remember.”

Like the Red Sea, the veil that shrouded Ethan's life parted in another rush of memories, once again sweeping him three years into the past, only this time to a vast terrace behind a mansion filled with people. He'd been sitting in stupefied misery on a garden bench, and a willowy woman dressed in a plain blue gown had materialized out of the night.

“But I do remember, Miss Harcourt.” He smiled down into her wary eyes while the tug of that encounter filled the air with the same brilliant colors as the sunlit stained-glass windows. “Back terrace, Senator Comstock's Annual Christmas Fete. I rescued you from a nasty tumble.” Without warning his palms tingled from yet another memory—the feel of that stiff, slender waist beneath his gloved fingers.

“Yes. I don't see very well in the dark.”

His gaze swept over her with sufficient thoroughness to infuse the pale cheeks with color. “You mentioned as much that night. I escorted you to a patch of moonlight, and we enjoyed gazing at a moon as round and white as a pearl. We…talked.”

“I understand you've lost your wife. I'm very sorry.”

“Don't be. It was a long time ago.”

She flinched at the curt tone, but to his surprise—and relief—did not retreat. “She was…very beautiful.”

“You were more honest three years ago,” Ethan returned quietly. “Lillian was also shallow and insensitive.” Among other, far more reprehensible flaws. “I apologized on her behalf, and you told me not to, that I was not responsible for my wife's lack of manners.”

The flush in her cheeks deepened to rose, and her mouth half parted. “I—I—You really do remember. I never expected, I mean there was no reason…There were so many people—
Fiddlefaddle.”
Ethan watched in fascination as her hands clenched into fists, and a vein in her forehead pulsed. Her chin lifted, and before his eyes she transformed from startled doe to a proud lioness on the verge of attack. “This is ridiculous. We shared a brief conversation. That's the end of it. There is no reason to attach any importance to the exchange, Dr. Harcourt.”

Lightheartedness, an emotion he almost didn't recognize, sawed at the rusted bars around his heart. “Until a moment ago I would have agreed with you, Miss Penrose. Now…I'm thinking that brief exchange on the terrace might turn out to be one of the most significant in my life.”

“Miss Penrose!” A coltish girl of about fifteen bounded up, a mass of curls bouncing around her indignant face. “Molly says you told her she could play ‘Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' at the recital. I wanted to play that one. I've been practicing…”

“We can continue our conversation Tuesday, over dinner,” Ethan murmured. He stepped past Clara and the young girl with
a buoyancy he hadn't experienced in, well, longer than he remembered.

Tuesday suddenly promised a lot more than succulent pot roast. A soft chuckle slipped out; Ethan shook his head, then turned his attention to the three sober-suited gentlemen and a plump-cheeked lady who were gathering the last of the “burdens” from the altar. Not until they departed, arms full, did Ethan notice they had missed the object left by Clara Penrose. Keeping one eye on Albert, he strolled over and picked it up—a small pill box holding a dull silver watch charm of…the Capitol Building.

A charm of the Capitol?

He didn't know what precipitated the impulse, but instead of following the gather-uppers and handing over Miss Penrose's offering, Ethan tucked box and charm inside his vest pocket. When Albert Penrose finally extricated himself from a clutch of parishioners and turned with effusive apologies to Ethan, the same inexplicable impulse restrained him from handing the charm over to Miss Penrose's brother.

She had left this burden at the altar, her private symbolic gesture of renunciation, and Ethan could not betray that privacy, especially to a family member. By confiscating it he had already trespassed enough, though anticipation dulled the sting of guilt.

He hoped that over dinner on Tuesday he would gather more insight into the personality of a woman he suddenly wanted to understand—very much.

C
lara wore her scarlet shirtwaist with her black watered silk evening skirt for the Tuesday dinner with her family. She convinced herself the bold red was her acknowledgment of the holiday season, and when uncertainty wove hairballs she defiantly tied an equally bold red ribbon around her topknot. Then, to prove her nerves weren't strumming over seeing Dr. Harcourt again, she spent half an hour revising her latest treatise on the efficacy of setting aside vast tracts of land for national parks.

As usual, the distraction made her late.

The Penrose family was famous for its hospitality. Though this particular meal was considered a “family” dinner, Louise had reminded her that a half dozen other guests were invited along with Dr. Harcourt. “Don't worry. I've made sure you're seated beside him. But do please try to remember this is a dinner party, not a debate.”

Her sister's heavy-handed matchmaking usually elicited a barbed retort on Clara's part. But it was disingenuous to protest when her heart whirled and her mind spun at the prospect of seeing Ethan Harcourt again. She had even made a stab at flir
tation, with Nim as her masculine representative. Since the cat already adored her and, being feline, considered himself master of their small domain, the exercise only proved how silly she could be over a man. Pragmatism nagged her to quit weaving dreams out of dandelions.

One puff of reality would blow them away.

When she reached the stately Georgian brick house three blocks from her cottage, her mother was waiting.

“Clara, dear! Late as always, but I'm grateful you've at least—Oh.” The flow of words ceased as Mavis Penrose took Clara's hat and cloak. Lips compressing into a straight line, after a final motherly perusal she gestured toward the hallway behind her. “Well, you're here now. Everyone's in the drawing room. You might want to rescue Dr. Harcourt. I'm afraid Patricia Dunwoody's monopolizing his attention.”

Patricia Dunwoody,
Clara thought, determination faltering. “Where's Willy? He's been panting after her for a year now.” The mayor's daughter was a dainty debutante with lustrous black tresses and a helpless air that seemed to attract men the way navy serge attracted cat hair.

“Your brother is amusing himself with Mr. Pate, arguing the opposite political view. Ever since he joined the debating team, he's become almost as obnoxious in his public discourse as you.”

“I've trained him well.”

Her mother sniffed, but a rueful smile flirted at the corner of her mouth. “All this intellectual energy must be from your father's side of the family. Sometimes I despair of the two of you, at least in a social setting. If only you…” She stopped, waved a graceful hand. “Never mind, let's join everyone before the dinner bell rings.”

Clara's first task upon joining the fray in the drawing room was to rescue Mr. Pate. When she waded in, he was thumping
his ivory-handled cane on the parquet flooring while he berated her youngest brother.

“…nothing but a glib-tongued young whippersnapper! You listen to a lecture delivered by some musty professor who hasn't left the classroom in forty years, then consider yourself knowledgeable enough to tell me how this country can recover from the Panic?”

Willy grinned down at the elderly gentleman. “Yes, sir.” At fourteen, Willy had been a mischievous brat; at twenty-one, his lanky frame might be elegantly draped in a black dinner jacket and striped trousers, but the mischievous brat remained. Clara inserted herself between him and Mr. Pate, one elbow administering a sisterly jab to Willy's ribs. “Welcome home. Still arguing about free silver, are we?”

“Still insist on wearing garish colors, do we?” Willy lifted her hand and gave it an exaggerated kiss. “As always, you brighten the room just by walking into it.”

Clara gave his cheek a sisterly pat. “Trifle warm in here, isn't it? May I fetch you a glass of the famous Penrose Christmas punch, Mr. Pate? Mother's given it a new twist this year, adding grated orange peel to the cloves and cinnamon in the cider.”

“I'm fine,” the man retorted testily. “If I want to be coddled, I'll fetch Mrs. Pate. I'd rather hear your opinion on Secretary of State Olney's accusation that the British violated the Monroe Doctrine in British Guiana.”

Across the room, Clara saw Dr. Harcourt say something to Miss Dunwoody, then begin weaving his way through the crowd, directly toward Clara.

Her hands turned damp, and a tight sensation squeezed her middle. “I know England…ah…feels we're overstepping our sovereignty,” she began, distracted by the approach of the man who would now be comparing her to Patricia Dunwoody.

“If you want to talk foreign affairs, addressing the problem
of Spanish oppression in Cuba is more important, I'd say,” Willy put in, his chin jutting.

“Whole world's headed for a fiery destruction,” Mr. Pate grumbled. He peered around Clara. “Dr. Harcourt. You're looking fit as a fiddler's fiddle tonight, young man. And that tonic you insisted I take seems to be doing the trick. Mrs. Pate won't let me hear the end of it, I tell you.”

“Glad to hear it. Are you taking those daily walks I mentioned?” Tall and imposing in his evening wear, the town's new physician ran an alert gaze over Mr. Pate before turning to Clara and wishing her a pleasant evening. Instead of replying in kind, Clara's throat locked, and every polite social response drummed into all Penrose children from the time they could sip cider from a cup vanished in a fog of uncertainty.

Willy was staring at her strangely. Worse, Dr. Harcourt looked as though he were—bored? Amused? Contemptuous?

“No need to bother spouting pleasantries with this young woman,” Mr. Pate broke the awkward silence. “Don't know if you've noticed, Doctor, but Miss Penrose here's possessed of a mighty adroit mind. In fact, last time I was here she trounced me at a game of chess.”

“Dr. Harcourt.” Patricia Dunwoody floated up beside him, a vision in peach-colored silk and lace, her shining ebony tresses artfully piled in cascades of ringlets interwoven with strings of seed pearls. “I've come to rescue you.”

“From what?” Willy challenged.

“From you and your sister,” Patricia returned, smiling a white-toothed smile as sincere as a panhandler's. “The two of you do like to go on and on, about matters much too serious for a dinner party.” She turned back to Dr. Harcourt. “I'd very much like to finish telling you about the Christmas Festival this coming Saturday. I'm sure you're used to fancy galas, having been a congressman, but we acquit ourselves quite adequately
here in Canterbury. Miss Penrose and I are on the planning committee, of course.” She laughed lightly. “It's quite the battleground on occasion.”

Clara exchanged glances with Willy, and wondered if her own emotions were as easy to read as her youngest brother's.
She's not worth it,
she longed to warn him, love and the instinct to protect finally unlocking her throat. “My brother and I believe God endowed human beings with the ability to think, and to make reasoned decisions. We enjoy lively debates, even when it's over a seemingly simple issue, such as whether to include Sousa and Stephen Foster melodies along with Christmas carols at the town's annual Christmas Festival, in an effort to allow unbelievers as well as believers to feel that they're part of the community. I love Christmas carols, but I'm also partial to a lively march or a nostalgic folk melody.”

“Clara, really, the matter was settled weeks ago!” Patricia glanced up at Dr. Harcourt. “Do you see what I mean? She's always so serious, one can't enjoy a simple tête-à-tête without Clara Penrose turning it into a verbal jousting match. Besides which,” she added, “the committee agreed with me. Sousa and Foster are more suitable for the Fourth of July, not Christmas. How like you, to keep badgering an issue when you've already lost.”

Losing did not necessarily equate to being wrong, Clara almost whipped out—except she would only prove Patricia's point. Stung, she lifted her chin and forced her lips to curl up in a smile. The couple looked good together, Ethan Harcourt's restrained virility the perfect foil for Patricia's dainty femininity. Clara might have been whisked backward to Senator Comstock's party, when Dr. Harcourt's wife stood impatiently beside her husband, her gaze passing through Clara as though she were invisible. Which was worse, she wondered bleakly—invisibility or condescension?

Why did beauty always win over intellect?
“Willy, why don't you and I go find Albert?” She finally patched words together to form a sentence. “I haven't been able to annoy him in almost a week now. How about you?”

Willy managed a laugh. “I told him just last night I always thought the word
pettifogger
was coined because lawyers fog the facts with petty notions. I annoyed him just fine then, but I'm always open for more opportunities.”

Ethan Harcourt emitted a deep-throated chuckle that caused Clara to gape at him in astonishment. “No wonder Albert warned me about you,” he told Willy. “Frankly, I think I might prescribe a daily dose of brother
and
sister.”

His eyes twinkled down at Clara, and for the first time she noticed their color—green, with flecks of amber when they twinkled. Surrounded by dense black eyelashes, and attractive laugh lines at the corners…Willy loudly cleared his throat. “I beg your pardon,” she mumbled. Her cheeks burned like chilblained skin. “I'm afraid I didn't catch that.”

“I said,” Dr. Harcourt responded congenially, “your older brother's a good friend and a conscientious attorney, but—” he stepped close enough for his coat sleeve to brush against Clara's shoulder, and finished in a conspiratorial whisper, “I'm afraid Albert's a bit stuffy, isn't he?”

Overhearing, Willy grinned. “Like the moose head hanging in Father's study. Well, doc, since you brought it up, I'll go administer another dose. Tell you what, Miss Dunwoody, how about if you join me? You can make sure I don't slip up and administer an
over
dose.”

“I need to speak to your father about a, ah, matter,” Mr. Pate announced. Cane thumping, he effectively herded Patricia and Willy along ahead of him, Patricia with a backward look of ill-concealed vexation, Willy with an irrepressible smirk.

Clara and Dr. Harcourt were alone.

“Smile, Miss Penrose,” he commanded her softly. “And stop comparing yourself to Patricia Dunwoody.”

“How did you—” Clara bit her lip, then gave up and allowed a pent-up sigh to escape. “It's an exercise in futility, at any rate, isn't it? Comparing oneself to another person?”

“Yes, but I've done so myself,” Dr. Harcourt admitted. “Usually to my disadvantage…except for the time when I was a reluctant member of a gang of outlaws.”

“Are you trying to divert me from wallowing in self-pity, Dr. Harcourt?”

“Absolutely, Miss Penrose. From personal as well as professional experience, I guarantee that self-pity is not conducive to good health.” His expression turned reflective. “You have no need for such feelings toward yourself, you know.”

There it came again, that disorienting sensation of being flung into dizzying mist. She fiddled with the ruffles on her basque, stalling, then gave herself an impatient mental pinch. “Do you talk with such familiarity to everyone you meet, Dr. Harcourt?” The breathlessness in her voice made her wince.

“Not for a very long time, Miss Penrose.” The melodic tinkling of the dinner bell sounded behind them. He offered his arm, and after a panicked internal skirmish Clara laid her hand on it. “I'll share some particulars over the meal, if you like. I've had it on good authority that you're to be my dinner partner.”

“My younger sister Louise.” Clara sighed. “I'm sorry. My family is famous for many admirable traits, but subtlety is not one of them. I'm their thorn in the flesh, a spinster of independent means who scribbles prose nobody reads. They all think if they could procure a hus—”

“You're a writer, Miss Penrose?”

Loose-tongued, empty-headed…
twit
. Nobody outside her immediate family knew about her secret pastime. “Not really.
Please forget I said that. I'd really rather hear about that band of outlaws you mentioned.”

For some reason the twinkling green eyes had turned frozen as hoarfrost and his expression—No. She realized as she pondered his face that it was wiped clean of any expression at all. “Dr. Harcourt?”

“Mmm? Oh, sorry.” With a dismissive headshake he resumed speaking, and the skittish fingers scraping down her spine disappeared. “The outlaws. Yes. As Albert may have told you, for the past several years I've been wandering about out west. Last summer I was on a stage, bound for some tumbleweed town in the Nevada Territory. Gang of bandits ambushed us. Killed the drivers, threw open the doors and started on the passengers—an old miner, seventy-four years old, on his way to visit grandchildren he'd never seen…a young couple from Missouri. Homesteaders—they shot them dead, every one.”

The quiet words spoke of brutality and horror, of actions inflicted by humans upon fellow human beings. “I read a lot,” Clara murmured, self-consciously glancing around the room. In its hundred-year history, this dignified old Virginia home had survived war, financial chaos and illness, yet somehow retained its atmosphere of Christian charity and decency. “I've seen greed. I've witnessed poverty and hopelessness and helplessness in tenement housing. But I've never witnessed cold-blooded murder. I won't even try to pretend to understand.” Dr. Harcourt's story reminded Clara anew of her privileged circumstances, rekindling the lifelong tussle between pride and inadequacy. “Why didn't they kill you as well?”