Mistletoe Courtship (18 page)

C
lara lived in a quaint stone cottage with tall brick chimneys at either end. She didn't answer Ethan's knock, but as he turned away from the door a slender cat with the most unusual markings he'd ever seen materialized from beneath a pruned-back rosebush at the corner of the cottage. Wide, myopic blue eyes appraised Ethan unblinkingly. Fascinated, Ethan knelt, stretching out his hand. “Hey, fella. What kind of feline might you be?”

As though his voice was a signal, the cat strolled over, sniffed Ethan's hand, butted its head against the fingers, then commenced purring.

“You sound like a sawmill,” Ethan remarked, obliging the animal by scratching its seal-colored ears and then under the chin. “Where's your mistress?”

The cat turned and whisked with silent grace around the corner. Slowly Ethan stood, dusted the knees of his trousers and followed, telling himself that the animal was
not
responding to the question, but for whatever reason had decided to run off. When he turned the corner he stopped, his mouth dropping open. Though it was winter, he could still see the gifted hand of a loving gardener everywhere he looked. Beneath several
massive oaks, an English-styled garden had been laid out, with neatly pruned-back shrubs and mulched flower beds lying dormant, waiting for spring. The grounds were tidy, as scrupulously tended as Ethan's examining rooms.

The cat waited for him in the center of an ancient flagstone path. When Ethan approached the friendly feline greeted him with a meow that was part growl, part purr and part an indescribable conglomeration of sounds that nonetheless emerged as though the cat were, well, speaking to him. Then it darted down the path, chocolate-tipped tail waving.

“Lewis Carroll must have used you for his model in
Alice in Wonderland.”
Smiling despite himself, Ethan trod along the uneven stones half buried in the ground to the rear of the cottage. An immense thicket of lilacs crowded the back corner of the structure. Peering around the branches, Ethan glimpsed a small shed, a large pile of composting leaves—and Clara Penrose. Her back was to Ethan, but he could hear her talking, and assumed it was to the cat until the animal burst from the lilacs, streaked across the dead grass and leaped into the pile of leaves.

“Nim! You are such a spoiled-rotten boy! Bad kitty. You know this is the first time I've been out here in a week.” She picked up the cat—Nim?—and despite the scolding hugged him close. “Go along now, and let me have a few more moments. Methuselah was about to provide some illumination, I believe. I haven't perfected turtle talk, so you're just going to have to be patient.”

Methuselah? Turtle talk?

Head shaking, Ethan stepped around the lilacs. “I'm afraid Nim's not the only one you'll need to scold.”

She'd been sitting on a crude bench, and sprang to her feet so rapidly the cat panicked. With a hiss and a yowl Nim catapulted from Clara's arms, then vanished behind the garden shed.

“Sorry I frightened everyone,” Ethan began as he walked over to her. “I knocked on your door first. You didn't answer, but your butler showed me back here.”

“I don't have a butler. Oh…you mean NimNuan.” She grimaced. “He'd be insulted if he heard himself relegated to the status of a servant. He's a new breed of cat known as Siamese. It's my understanding they were originally bred by royalty to guard the temples of Siam. A friend of our family knows the British Consul General. The King of Siam gave him a breeding pair of the animals. Nim's descended from them, and he takes his royalty seriously.”

“I'll humbly beg his pardon the next time I see his majesty. Here—what's this?” He dropped the banter and reached for Clara's arm. “Don't flinch away. I'm not initiating an improper advance. But you have a scratch on your neck, courtesy of your royal cat Nim—Noon, did you call him?”

“Nim
Nuan.
It means
supple and graceful
in Siamese, despite what you just witnessed.” She drew in a sharp breath as Ethan took hold of her chin and turned her head so he could examine the scratch. “I—It's nothing, I'm sure. He's usually very careful not to use his claws on people.”

The skin beneath Ethan's fingers felt soft as a newborn's. The chin he held, however, was an uncompromising one and her eyes, the same dark bitter chocolate as her cat's paws and ears, searched his with alert wariness. He reminded himself forcefully that this woman might have left him three very disturbing anonymous notes over the past two weeks, and the purpose of his visit was to have a serious conversation with her, not only as a man, but as a doctor.

He dropped her chin and stepped back. “You're right. Skin's a little puffy from the scratch, but unbroken. You still ought to clean it before bedtime. Cat scratches can turn nasty—they're actually more open to infection than a dog bite.”

“Unless it's a rabid dog. Why are you here, Dr. Harcourt?”

Ethan contemplated his answer, finally countering with a question of his own. “Do you often talk to piles of dead leaves, Miss Penrose?”

“Only when a box turtle is hibernating in them.”

A box turtle? “You're telling me you were talking to a
turtle?”

A faint blush dusted her cheeks. “I inherited this place from my grandparents. My grandmother loved gardening. When I was a child, I helped her plant over a thousand daffodils imported from Holland. Come spring—”

“Clara…” he emphasized her name deliberately “…answer the question.”

“I'd rather not. You might conclude I'm dotty, not eccentric.”

Despite his suspicions, Ethan smiled. “Possibly. But I'd like to know about Methuselah anyway. That's what you called him, isn't it?”

“He's a biblical and godly man in the Bible who lived for a very long time.” The color in her pale cheeks deepened.

His mouth twitched, but Ethan clamped down the laughter. Her evasive manner might be shyness, but it could just as well be shrewdness. Thoughtfully he studied her. She was tall for a woman, slender—almost bony, her skin pale as alabaster. As usual, her hair was scrunched up in the unattractive bun. More unusual was her attire. In stark contrast to the bold jewel tones to which he'd become accustomed, and especially to Sunday night's elegant gown, today she wore a plain gown faded to an unattractive gray, with only a shawl woven in equally depressing shades of gray over it.

There was nothing about her of glowing beauty or curvaceous femininity or elegant sophistication.

Yet Ethan didn't care a flea's whisker about her appearance, fashionable or not. He did care about self-preservation, which seemed to evaporate around Clara. Something about this mad
dening, confusing woman appealed to him on such a visceral level he was rapidly losing any semblance of control. He needed to reclaim his objectivity, immediately. After finishing his appraisal, he folded his arms and drawled, “I have the afternoon off. I'm quite content to stand here until dark. Since I'm blocking the path, we might as well indulge in a useful conversation. Learn a bit more about each other.”

Her gaze flicked over her shoulder.

Uh-uh. No escaping like your cat.
“Don't bother dashing around the garden shed,” he warned. “Come now, Clara. You were more intrepid three years ago, not to mention the other evening. Here—I'll start. I'm intrigued—and irritated—by you. And I'm not feeling noble. I came to have an honest conversation without interruption. Now it's your turn. Tell me about the turtle.”

For a moment she stood in silence, hugging the shawl closer around her shoulders, her hands restlessly smoothing over its fringe. Finally she shrugged. “Box turtles can live half a century or more. The one hibernating under those leaves was already a permanent resident thirty-odd years ago, when my grandparents moved into the cottage. I named him Methuselah. Sometimes I need to—to clear my head. After I moved here and started gardening, I used to meet up with Methuselah quite a bit. Some years ago, when I was having trouble praying…” she stopped, searched his face, and finished simply “…I started talking to Methuselah instead of God. I've come to believe neither of them mind.” Her chin jutted out. “I warned you that you'd think I'm dotty.”

Not a single individual out of all the people Ethan had ever known—not one of them—would share such a bizarre confession, even with their physician. A decade earlier, he might have been smug and insensitive enough to label that person as mentally deficient.

Life, however, tended to beat the starch out of a body; he was also coming to accept that while God usually didn't
prevent the beating, He at least dispensed grace to make it possible to survive it. “I don't think you're dotty,” he told Clara, his voice gruff. Because she stood there as unmoving as one of the old oaks around them, he reached for her hand and looped it through his arm. “Introduce me.”

“I assume you mean to Methuselah, since you've indicated at least a passing acquaintance with the Lord.”

“Let's say I'm interested in pursuing a deeper understanding of both.”

Her tart response sparked the fire that had been smoldering inside Ethan for weeks. The woman might be unpredictable as a dragonfly, but regardless of her evasiveness and his own wariness, she always made him feel alive. At this moment his doubts seemed more the product of an embittered mind than the observations of a man honed in the world of political chicanery.

Watching her, he lifted the hand resting on his forearm and pressed a kiss against her knuckles. “Perhaps talking to you and a turtle will provide it.”

Clara yanked her hand free. “Are you making sport of me, Dr. Harcourt?”

“I only make sport of ladies who talk to goldfish, not turtles.” In a quick move he recaptured her hand and tugged her over to the leaves. “After Saturday night, I was hoping you'd think of me as Ethan.”

“I did, until you provoked me. Frankly, I don't know what to think. You're not acting like the congressman I met three years ago, nor the thoughtful gentleman who helped me with gifts the other night. You—well, you're acting more like my brother, the way you're—”

“Clara—” he bent so his lips brushed the shell of her ear “—this is not how brothers behave toward their sisters.”

“The last time Willy nibbled on my ear he was eight months old and teething.”

Her voice had gone breathless. Ethan could hear the light rapid exhalations, feel the pulse skittering beneath his fingers. And the way she looked at him…

If she kissed him, he'd be lost. For months Lillian enticed him with bashful gazes and half-parted lips until he would have followed her off the edge of a cliff. After that fateful evening when she'd pulled him behind an urn bursting with greenery and pressed those lips against his, he'd asked her to marry him the very next day.

He'd been twenty-three, and an idealistic fool.

“Ethan…you're hurting my fingers—”

“Sorry.”

He dropped her hand as though it were a bundle of thorns. Silence thickened between them until he finally scraped up the courage to meet her bewildered, half-angry gaze, the eyes grown dark as the dregs at the bottom of a cup of very bitter coffee. Swallowing hard, he ran his hand around the back of his neck and prepared to abase himself. Then Clara spoke.

“She really hurt you, didn't she? Your wife?”

In three years, no one had dared broach the subject, even indirectly. Yet this indefatigable woman, a woman he had just manhandled and frightened, sliced through all the polite social fabrications to offer him something he'd forgotten existed—honest empathy.

“Yes, she did.” The admission still stung. In a flash of insight Ethan realized how much he'd needed to talk about Lillian with someone, instead of immersing himself in mindless flight to a place where nobody knew him from Adam's house cat.

Festering wounds to the heart required lancing as much as boils on the skin. “Can we sit down on that bench? Perhaps Methuselah will listen in, and have some helpful counsel.”

“I've learned that most times, just listening is enough.”

T
hey sat on the damp wood bench, shoulders almost touching. Thin silver-gold sunlight washed over the yard, and a stray wisp of breeze twirled a couple of leaves. Somewhere a bird twittered. Clara sat quietly, her mood contemplative, her gaze steady on the pile of leaves. She kept her hands folded in her lap, and didn't speak or even clear her throat because she didn't want to distract Ethan. He had indicated a need to clear the air between them. While her heart might palpitate with fearful hope, his behavior toward her was erratic; one moment he was tender, solicitous—the next moment he was crushing her fingers, his expression cold as a winter wind.

She could not afford to trust this troubled man.

All of a sudden he began to talk, the words halting at first, then escaping in a geyser, and Clara forgot about the need for caution. “The adulteries were humiliating enough—but what hurt more was her vindictiveness. I wasn't the man she'd wanted me to be, I refused to turn a blind eye to her infidelities, so she delighted in making them as public as possible. I think by the time she died, I—” he turned slightly, watching Clara with fierce intensity “—I think I hated her. I wouldn't have
wished her to die like she did, but I was glad I wouldn't have to deal with her anymore. It's a desecration of the spirit, allowing that poisonous emotion to take root.”

“Oh, Ethan…Even if you did grow to hate her, you never acted on your feelings. Based on what I saw at Senator Comstock's party, and what I've learned since, you're a private man with a reputation for personal integrity. Of course you'd need to build a wall around yourself to try to cope with a wife who possessed neither. I'd say your hatred was over the circumstances and your wife's behavior, not a reflection of your true feelings toward—her name was Lillian?”

“Yes.”

He chewed over that a while, then shook his head. “I never should have gone into politics. I'm afraid I've spent the past three years avoiding the whole blamed mess because I don't want to forgive either her, or myself for being relieved that she's dead.”

“Obviously I've never been in your position. If anything, at times I know all too well
I'm
the embarrassing weed in the Penrose family garden. But…” she relaxed her guard, even as common sense stridently warned against it “…but Ethan, I can tell you I'd probably feel the same way you do—did, if I'd had to step into your shoes.” He flashed her a grateful look, and Clara told her common sense to hush and go sit in the corner. “She betrayed you, in every way, publicly and repeatedly. I'm so sorry.”

“A lot of people said that to me, back then. You're the first one I actually believe.”

Oh! His compliment sang through her. “One of my more awkward flaws is my inability to dissemble to spare someone's sensibilities. You may have noticed?”

“The trait has manifested itself upon occasion.”

She had always appreciated dry humor. “I've tried to…
ah…control it by…by writing.” A nervous gulp of air shuddered through her body as she confessed details of her most closely guarded secret, one she had not shared even with Eleanor. The sense of fellowship with this man was a potent elixir, and Clara had been thirsty for a long time. “I spent most of my childhood with a leaky pen, holed away in nooks while I scratched ponderous thoughts on papers I scrounged from my father's study.”

Pausing, she glanced up at him, wondering vaguely about the aura that seemed to have gathered around him like a cold gray mist.
Don't dry up now, Clara. He's listening closely to you, not searching for ways to shut you up.
“The habit's never changed,” she plowed ahead. “Writing, I mean. I believe I mentioned nobody outside the family knows about my eccentricity? My parents never approved—my mother deplored my ink-stained fingers. Father was annoyed every time I pilfered through his desk looking for paper, even more so after he gave me an allowance and I spent most of it buying journals and foolscap instead of hairpins or hat pins or other feminine fribbles. When it became apparent that I—that I…” she stumbled a bit, then finished matter-of-factly “…that I was destined for spinsterhood, they sent me off to college, mostly because they hoped it would at least retrain my energies on something of value, like teaching or nursing. I disliked both. I now have a useless degree gathering dust in a trunk, and my parents have given up hope of reforming me into a proper Penrose. It was a relief, moving here to the cottage, where I can indulge myself to my heart's content.”

“So you've never outgrown your…writing habit?”

“Well, no. And I probably wouldn't have told you, except I'd already mentioned it at my parents' dinner party.” Self-conscious now, she forced the rest out before fear froze her tongue. One bared heart deserved another. “I wondered…you might want to try writing yourself? It's very therapeutic, you
know. Actually, most of what I write these days are letters to editors, offering unsolicited my opinion on, um, everything. I've always admired the courage of men like you, who sought public office to proclaim their platform. Albert told me you were one of the few men he knew who believed women should have the right to vote. I've wished ever since that night we'd been able to discuss the subject. Of course, I don't have the courage to flout
that
much convention, so I write letters.” After clearing her throat, she finished sadly, “Even then I use a pen name so I won't embarrass the Penrose family name.”

 

Letters.
She wrote letters, using a pseudonym.
Despite his unwillingness to accept the obvious—Clara possessed the time, the convoluted mind and now, the predilection for the medium—he did not want to believe she was the author of the notes. It required a tremendous effort of will for Ethan to keep his voice uninflected, stripped of emotion, yet warm enough to avoid spooking the young woman sitting beside him. “So you have no secret ambition to emulate the Brontë sisters or Jane Austen? Write charming stories of life in American towns instead of English villages?”

“Heavens, no! I've little use for fiction. Why waste all your energy making something up, when real life offers more challenges?”

“Point conceded. But if you write make-believe stories, you retain all the power of the creator, where with the stroke of a pen you bless, or curse, your characters.”

“A rather Machiavellian-esque touch in your mind, Dr. Harcourt? Well, I already know I'm too opinionated. Whatever characters I might create in a work of fiction would be held hostage to my own will, so I don't create them at all. Letters, on the other hand, leave the option to be blessed, or cursed, upon the reader.”

Feeling trapped, Ethan casually shifted sideways. “So what do you write about, in your letters to editors?”

“Hmm?” She blinked several times. “Lots of things. Political, religious, social issues—sometimes I chastise them for their abuse of their responsibilities as journalists to, well, strive for objectivity and truth. The written word holds power, would you agree?”

Ethan managed a short nod, and Clara continued, her pale face lightly tinted with apricot. “Since I use a pseudonym, I'm fearless. My family of course would be horrified. For them public decorum and private discretion are nonnegotiable. I have a dear friend, but I've never shared this secret with her. She's a born debater and we engage in lots of lively discussions. But I don't want her reading over my shoulder. She'd argue about every phrase.”

An awkward pause ensued until Clara finished lightly, “You're the only one who knows my secret vice. You'll have to promise either to be Methuselah, who certainly knows how to keep a secret, or Nim, who thinks paper was intended to be scrunched into balls and chased.”

“I don't know whether to feel honored or intimidated.”

Beside him Clara stiffened, and Ethan couldn't blame her; his response sounded as friendly as a trapped wolf. He wanted to bang his head against the garden shed. This was neither a stupid nor a silly woman; her candor left her particularly vulnerable, through no fault of her own. He felt like a clod, being angry with her when he was still unwilling to confront her with the suspicions that fueled the anger. Obviously she sensed something of his internal violence. Tone of voice, his expression…women possessed a sensitivity to atmosphere God had not seen fit to pass along to the male of the species. Or perhaps God just wanted to teach Ethan Harcourt a lesson in—what? Hadn't he eaten enough humility pie?

Inside the pocket of his trousers, the tiny charm of the Capitol Building seemed to scorch through the layers of fabric to burn fresh shame on his soul.
Be a healer, Ethan, not a blasted judge and jury. You've learned that at least over the past three years.

“I've bored you, haven't I?” Clara announced. Her hand jerked in a half-abortive gesture. “Made you feel awkward, prattling away about a girlish habit I should have outgrown years ago. Forgive me. Would you like some apple cider? I still have some leftover Sally Lunn bread from the Festival I can offer as well. The cottage is woefully untidy, but you're more than welcome. Don't worry about the lack of a chaperone. I'm too old and too contrary to care. If you're uncomfortable being alone with me, Nim's pretty efficient at the task of maiden aunt.” Her quick laugh emerged too high. “Which of course I am already. You needn't feel confined by convention, Dr. Harcourt…Ethan.”

She stood, forcing Ethan to follow suit.
What do I do here, Lord?
“Convention is pretty necessary, under some circumstances,” he returned slowly. “But not between us, hmm? We've never been conventional, have we, Clara, even three years ago? Some cider sounds pretty good.”

Clara nodded without looking at him, then set off toward the front of the cottage. When they reached the door, Ethan quickly stepped in front of her to open it. She was correct—the cozy rooms on either side of the minuscule entryway
were
a mess. Comfortable horsehair furniture feminized with lace antimacassars was covered with dozens of embroidered and needlepoint pillows; sheet music spilled onto the floor out of an opened music cabinet by an ebonized grand piano; stacks of newspapers and periodicals bulged from several walnut stands. A faded oriental rug covered the wide-planked floors. To Ethan's left, the other front room bulged with bookcases filling
two of the walls, and a ladies' desk in the far corner. Wads of crumpled paper littered the floor, and a colorful paisley shawl draped forgotten over the spindle desk chair.

Not a single sign of Christmas, not even a sprig of holly, was on display.

Clara wandered across the parlor to the right, surprisingly turning on a pair of electric floor lamps before she lit the fire in the fireplace, laid with old-fashioned wood. With more force than finesse she gathered up an armful of sheet music and stuffed the pages into the music cabinet before finally returning to Ethan.

“Well? Would you like to sit by the fire while I prepare a tray, or shall I invent an engagement I've forgotten and allow you a graceful exit?”

He had hurt her. Now he could either inflict the coup de grace and level his accusation—or he could heed the remnant of idealism still clinging to life in a corner of his soul. “Clara…” Her name emerged on a long sigh as he surveyed her carefully expressionless face. “How about if we flout all the rules further, and I follow you to your kitchen? While you serve us up some cider, you can tell me why there's no evidence of the Christmas season inside your home.”

Some indefinable emotion flickered across her face, and her erect posture seemed to droop. Then her chin lifted. “Just because I don't decorate for Christmas doesn't mean I don't celebrate the occasion.”

“You have lots of habits I'm coming to know. One of the more annoying is avoiding a direct answer when you don't like the question.”

“Why should you care one way or the other? Is your home fragrant with ropes of evergreens? Do you have heaps of gifts all wrapped in ribbons and sprinkled with stardust, waiting to be delivered on Christmas Eve? Is there a crèche on display in your waiting room?”

“Perhaps you should come see for yourself.”

“I'm not sick.”

Ethan cocked his head to one side while he sifted through the passionate outburst. “You feel you can't compete with your mother or, for that matter, your sister-in-law? Is that what this is all about?”

Clara swiveled on her heel and marched over to poke at the fire. “Don't be ridiculous. I don't decorate because it's a distraction, a sentimentalization of what should be a reverent, holy celebration.”

“Hmm. I suppose a manger full of straw, surrounded by smelly cattle in a dark stable, does lend itself to reverence.”

“Now you are mocking me.”

“Only a little.” His mood turned contemplative as he chewed over thoughts that had jigged about in his brain for a while. Here with Clara, they finally settled into place. “I've always considered the birth of any baby a miracle, worth celebrating whether the birth takes place in a stable or a castle. Perhaps all the lavish decorations folks like to display for Jesus' birth merely reflect their inadequate attempts to acknowledge what God gave up when He squeezed Himself into human form. Doesn't matter whether they live in a castle or a stone cottage, it's a way of saying, ‘Welcome to the World, we're glad You stopped by.'”