Regency Christmas Gifts (20 page)

She couldn’t think of any current national
emergency, now that Napoleon was at his leisure on St. Helena. As
she thought, she remembered something she had wanted to tell their
cook. In the confusion and distress of Mama’s death, she had
forgotten. She remembered now.

“
I meant to tell you this months
ago,” she began, and then the familiar tears welled in her eyes.
When
would she ever get over those betrayals of her
innermost feelings? She took a deep breath. “Thank you from the
bottom of my heart for being so willing to fix Mama those little
favorites of hers,” she said, not trusting herself to look at him.
“I … I know it was inconvenient at times, but when she just
took a bite of something, it was a bit of a victory.
Merci
.”

“
I never met a better woman,” he
said, when he could speak.

“
Nor I.”

They sat in silence, until she began to speak
of Mama’s annual Christmas gifts to the less fortunate in the
village. “I want to continue Mama’s gift, and here is how: there is
a Mrs. Lonnigan, a widow whose husband died at the Battle of
Salamanca, defending us from those evil Frenchmen who usurped your
own country.”

“
I remember that battle well,” he
said, tears forgotten. His voice hardened. “Marmot, Clausel and
Foy—three marshals could not defeat Wellington!”

“
How sad that men die, even on the
winning side,” Lucy said. “Mrs. Lonnigan is going to sew for Mrs.
Little, and Mary Rose would like to help in your kitchen. Could you
allow her, Honoré?” She paused a moment. “I am certain it would
have been Mama’s wish, too. After all, she worked so hard to get
the Lonnigan children, Catholics all, into the village
school.”

While he thought about the matter, Lucy
delivered what she hoped what her coup de grâce. “Honoré, if I ever
marry, and I suppose I must, all I want you to do is serve us
strawberries dipped in chocolate, if it is summertime.”

He smiled at her now, probably well aware of
her little subterfuge, but perhaps willing to overlook any
manipulation. “That is all? You would perhaps let me serve you
champagne to go along with
fraise enrobé de
chocolat
?”

“
Champagne makes me sneeze,” she
said, “but if you would like to serve it, very well.”

“
And if you should marry some fine
gentleman in the winter?” he asked, more at ease now, because the
deep crease between his eyes grew smaller.

“
I will hope for a snowstorm so
there will be no visitors to bother us,” Lucy said after giving the
matter some thought. “We will slip and slide our way to the church,
and get married. I will toast cheese with my husband and drink your
wassail.”

“
That will never do,” he scolded
gently. “Wedding parties must be noisy, elaborate affairs, where
everyone goes home with a headache and perhaps a few regrets.
People expect a party.”

“
It will do for me,” she said, her
voice equally gentle. “Until I find such a paragon, you need not
worry about Clotilde or my Aunt Aurelia muddying the waters here.
Will you have Mary Rose in your kitchen?” she asked.

“
Oui, mademoiselle
. I like
your idea. Have her here at eight of the clock, for her first
day.”

He gave her a sly look next, that exiled son of
La Belle France. “And if you can really find a way to keep Lady
Aurelia away—”

“
I will do my best,” she promised.
All she knew was plain speaking. Perhaps if it came from her, the
least important member of the household, Lady Aurelia would be so
surprised she would leave. One could hope, and it was the season of
hope and cheer, after all.

Lucy kissed his cheek and darted for the hall,
hoping that the Frenchman would not change his mind. She looked
around the entryway, which in a few days would be decorated with
garlands and bows. Everyone would celebrate such an advantageous
match for the daughter of a country gentleman, the daughter who was
probably even now crying and wringing out her overtaxed
handkerchief. What on earth was the matter with
Clotilde?

“
P
lease have
these in the right hands by morning,” Miles said to the post rider,
in his many-caped riding overcoat.

The man took the letters and money and gave a
cheerful salute, opening the bookroom door just as Lucinda was
trying to enter from the other side. They bumped into each other,
which made Miles’s cousin laugh and apologize. The post rider gave
her a quick salute and hurried on his way.

“
Are you all right, cousin?” Miles
asked, imagining how any other young lady of his acquaintance would
have shrieked and put on die-away airs.

She nodded, and plumped down in her usual
chair. “I admire a man who lets nothing stop him from his appointed
rounds. Is he taking your letters?” she asked.

“
Aye, miss,” he said, trying to
sound like the post rider, which made her dimple up in that
adorable fashion he relished. “How did you fare in the
kitchen?”

She gave him a sunny smile. “Beyond my
expectations. I played on Mrs. Little’s kind heart, and sewed a
terrible seam to make her look forward to Mrs. Lonnigan’s arrival
in the morning.”

“
And Honoré?”

“
Miles, he is more than happy to
employ a little kitchen girl whose father died fighting those
dastardly French who drove his beloved royals off the throne of La
Belle France.” She tucked her legs under her. “I promised him that
if I ever get married—”

“
Which you most certainly
will—”

“
That is open to doubt, Miles,” she
said. “I promised Honoré that if I marry in the summer, all I will
require of him are strawberries dipped in chocolate and eaten
outside on the lawn. I did agree to champagne.”

He laughed at that, remembering how champagne
made her sneeze. “And in the winter?”

She gave him a complacent look, the sort that
passed between friends and needed little, if any, explanation. And
crazily enough, he understood her completely. “All I want to do is
shoo everyone home and eat toasted cheese and drink wassail with my
darling husband, should I find such a creature. Honoré is convinced
I have lost my mind.”

Miles marveled how something so simple should
sound so right. “You may have hit upon something, Lucinda. Toasted
cheese and wassail.”

She gave a gusty sigh. “Easy for us to say. We
are neither of us in love. Perhaps being in love makes people turn
crazy and demand towering cakes with Pisa-like tendencies, flower
arrangements, and dresses that itch.”

He laughed at that, which made her snatch up a
pillow from the sofa close by and throw it at him.

“
I ask you, Miles, how would
you
feel with scratchy lace digging into your armpit?” she
asked. “That is my unfortunate lot.” She sighed again. “I would
prefer flannel and bedroom slippers, but no one asked
me.”

“
Nor will they, scamp,” he said. “I
managed to corner your father when he returned from dinner at your
neighbor’s, and he was only too happy to let you accompany me to
London tomorrow and then to Portsmouth, with our little charges in
tow. I have already arranged for a post chaise for the four of
us—we’ll be crowded but they are small. We haven’t the luxury of
time to wait for replies. Pack a bandbox and be ready.”

She gave him another one of those smiles that
was making his heart do strange things. He would have to request
some bicarbonate of soda before he went to bed. Perhaps the filet
of sole for luncheon was slightly off.

“
Oh, please, at least one night in
London with your parents,” she asked. “I love them.”

“
Certainly. They would disown me if
I were to deny them a visit from you.”

“
That is the correct answer, Miles,”
she told him, in all complacency. “I will pack and be ready first
thing in the morning.”

He wanted to ask her to stay a little longer
but there was no particular reason, beyond the reality that he
liked her presence. Miles Bledsoe had thought he wasn’t a man who
required company, particularly since he had spent so much time
recently in library carrels. He watched her leave, marveling how
she seemed to suck out the air with her. He must be tired; that
explained the sudden feeling of loss.

He tried to tell himself that she was warming
to him, beyond her own natural affection as his second cousin. He
had seen her reaction when he whispered in her ear; it was all a
lover could wish. And then she had done the same thing to him,
perhaps as a joke.

He knew himself as well as any man his age
probably did. From his years at Oxford, he was already
well-acquainted with his tendency to over-think matters. Was he
trying too hard? Was he not trying hard enough?
Great gobs of
monkey meat, what next?

He went to the window and stared out at the
loveliness that was Kent, even in the depths of winter. And if by
the smallest chance Lucinda Danforth discovered that she loved him,
too, would someone as quiet and dear as she enjoy the life of a
diplomatist’s wife?

“
You’re over-thinking, Miles
Bledsoe,” he scolded his reflection in the mirror. He wished he
could talk to his older brother Matthew and ask him what to do.
Matt was a husband and father several times over now.

On a whim, he picked up the Bible. He turned
first to Proverbs 17, and saw, in his mind’s eye, Lucinda as the
merry dose of medicine that probably kept Cousin Penelope alive for
a few more precious months. He then turned to Micah 7, and read
again, “When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto
me.”

They weren’t even Christmas verses. As he
closed the Bible thoughtfully, Miles knew that if he survived this
season, they would always mean Christmas to him. “Try not to
over-think Lucinda Patterson,” he told himself as he lay down to
sleep, sighed, and turned the matter of Lucy over to the Almighty.
A man in love can only so do much.

H
er mind a perfect blank,
Lucy knocked on her aunt’s bedroom door. She opened it when the
voice within permitted her and saw her redoubtable aunt just
sitting there at her dressing table, hairbrush in hand, shoulders
slumping.

She wanted to be angry at this managing lady
who was trying to wrest all power into her own hands and organize
the dickens out of them, but she found she could not. She saw a
tired woman before her, one looking at her now in the mirror’s
reflection.

“
Aunt Aurelia, let me do that for
you,” she said, coming closer.

Her aunt turned the hairbrush over to her, and
Lucy ran its boar’s head bristles down Aurelia’s beautiful tresses.
She brushed and brushed until Aurelia’s reflection looked almost at
peace.

“
We’ve worn you out here,” Lucy
said. “That was never our intention, dear aunt.”

Then came a litany of scolds and trials that
seemed to tumble out of her mouth in a never-ending stream. Shocked
at first, Lucy began to listen, and her heart softened
further.

Probably not even aware of it, Aurelia had
segued from Clotilde’s inability to make up her mind about
anything, to her brother Roscoe’s cowardice or laziness in wanting
nothing to do with anything that smacked of exertion, to her own
disappointment at Sir Henry Burbage, who was gambling away the
family fortune, to her distress at a long-faced daughter who would
probably never marry, to another daughter dead in childbirth five
years ago, and then to their only son, who seemed to be following
in his father’s rackety footsteps.

Lucy brushed and listened, thinking of the
times she had poured out her troubles to Mama, who probably had
troubles enough of her own. She thought suddenly of Miles, who
never minded dropping everything to listen to her, when she was
melancholic about Mama, or dreading her upcoming London Season.
When had she ever listened to him?

What happened as she brushed her aunt’s hair
was an epiphany Lucy never expected, not when so much was going on,
and she felt powerless.
We only want someone to listen to us
with love
, she thought.
I am eighteen now. It is time I
started listening to others
.
I wonder if Miles would let me
listen to him? I believe I want to
.

When she finished, when Aunt Aurelia’s handsome
gray hair was an electrical nimbus, Lucy laughed out loud and
kissed her aunt’s head, wherever it was down there. She pulled her
hair and began to braid it as Aurelia sighed and then was
silent.

“
There you are now, Aunt,” she said,
after tying each braid with a bit of yarn.

They were both small, so she sat on the narrow
bench beside the woman she had been fearing. Looking in the mirror,
she saw her own resemblance to Papa’s sister, here when she had
thought she looked so much like her own mother.

“
Look at us,” she said softly,
unwilling to disturb the moment. “We have the same blue
eyes.”

Aurelia smiled at their reflections. “I believe
we do.”

Mama, help me say the right thing now
,
Lucy thought. “Aunt, we have worn you out. I so wish you would go
home tomorrow and rest a bit. Just think: Clotilde’s wedding will
be on Christmas Eve. You can be back here in four hours, and you
will be rested and ready to enjoy it. You’ve laid the groundwork
here, and I can carry on.”