Regency Christmas Gifts (21 page)

Aunt Aurelia stiffened, and Lucy held her
breath. With a sigh, her aunt relaxed again. “That would be
pleasant. Henry and your cousin are in London right now, probably
gambling at White’s.” She passed her hand in front of her face and
then brightened. “I would have the house to myself, wouldn’t I? Or
nearly so. Maude keeps to her room.”

“
You could get up when you wanted,
eat breakfast when you wanted,” Lucy said. “I do like
breakfast!”

“
I know you do, Lucy,” Aurelia said
playfully, becoming the energetic but enjoyable person Lucy
remembered from years ago, before troubles and challenges turned
Papa’s sister so brittle. “I remember that time you ate so much
bacon in my breakfast room that you had a stomach ache and swore
never to eat pork again.”

“
I didn’t keep that vow very long,”
Lucy said. She took her aunt’s hand and tucked it next to her
cheek. “Trust me to finish up here what you have begun so
admirably. Papa will happily loan you his carriage for a trip home,
and we will see you back here on Christmas Eve.”

They turned to each other. Aurelia put her arms
around Lucy, who felt her own troubles slip away. “This is my
Christmas gift to you, dear aunt,” she whispered. “You have done so
much for us.”

Lucy stayed a few minutes longer in her aunt’s
room, listening as Aurelia talked now of the few remaining things
she wanted to do at her home, before Christmas came. Lucy blew her
a kiss goodnight and closed the door quietly.

She stood in the darkened hall a long moment.
She heard the front door open and close downstairs, and Milsap
greet her father, who had taken dinner with a neighbor. Through
more mature eyes, she saw Roscoe Danforth for what he was—a
troubled man floundering about without his wife to guide him.
“Bless you, Papa,” she said in the dark. “I pray time will
help.”

She went to her room, but paused with her hand
on the doorknob. It was far too late to bother her cousin, wasn’t
it? She tiptoed to his door and looked down to see a bit of light
coming from inside.

It’s just Miles
, she told herself.
He
won’t mind
. She knocked her usual knock: two knocks, a pause
and two more.

“
Lucinda, what in the world do you
want?” she heard.

“
You, I think,” she said. The door
opened more quickly than she would have thought. He must have
leaped from his bed.

He was in his nightshirt, a handsome
blue-and-white-striped affair that showed off his legs to some
advantage. She could tease him about that later.

“
Get back in bed,” she ordered.
“You’ll freeze your toes.”

He did as she said, and she saw a flash of more
Miles than she expected. She sat on the chair by the bed, hopeful
that blushes didn’t show in near dark.

“
I did it, Miles,” she told him.
“Aunt Aurelia is going home tomorrow.”

He had been sitting up. On that news, he
flopped back and made her giggle.

“
Seriously?” he asked, raising up on
one elbow.

“
I never joke about liberation,” she
teased, and then turned sober. “Miles, all she wanted was someone
to listen to her and sympathize a bit. I went to her room
determined to do that in jest and meanness, just to get rid of her,
but I listened instead, I really listened. Life has been hard for
her.”

“
Lonnigan hard?” he asked, his hands
behind his head now as he watched her.

“
No. She will always have enough to
eat and wear, even if Henry Burbage gambles on cards in the winter
and horses in the summer. Hard just the same. She has disappointed
hopes.”

It was absurd in the extreme, but Lucy wanted
more than anything to curl up next to Miles and never move until
morning. She sat where she was. There would be plenty of time in
the new year to work through her own silliness.

Staying there wasn’t helping those thoughts go
away, so she stood up and went to the door. “I wanted you to know.
She will leave in the morning, and I will be ready to go with you
to London with the Lonnigan boys.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything. He just
looked at her with those wonderful deep-brown eyes of his, round
like a child’s.

She stood in the open doorway a moment more.
“Mama listened to people,” she said, and closed the door behind
her.

G
iving Aunt Aurelia a
heartfelt embrace, Lucy waved goodbye to her next morning from the
front steps.

After baked eggs, toast and rashers of bacon in
the servants’ hall that made the Lonnigan brothers’ eyes open wide,
Mrs. Lonnigan gave her own contented sigh and arranged the first of
several petticoats on her lap to hem in Mrs. Little’s comfortable
sitting room.

Mary Rose, her eyes hopeful now, scraped
carrots and chopped them under Honoré’s watchful eye.

“
She is adept, for one so young,”
the family chef whispered to Lucy.

“
I knew she would do,” Lucy
whispered back. “Remember to give her bites to sample now and then.
She has been hungry for too long.”

Honoré drew himself up with pride. “No one
leaves this kitchen hungry, mademoiselle,” he said. He leaned
closer. “Is Lady Burbage truly gone?”

“
Truly,” Lucy assured him. “She will
be back Christmas Eve for the wedding.” She gave him her best
smile. “If she becomes a bit managing then, you can bear it,
Honoré, because it will only be for a few hours.”

“
I believe I can,” he agreed. He
kissed his fingers and stretched his hand in her direction. “Miss
Lucy,
quelle magnifique
!”

“
Indeed she is.”

Lucy looked around with a smile to see Miles
wearing his many-caped coat and low-crowned beaver hat, two little
boys on either side of him. For the tiniest moment, she imagined
they were his own children.
Miles, you will be such a father
some day
, she thought.
I wonder who their lucky mother will
be?

It was a beguiling thought, but one which did
not please her. How in the world would such a wonderful man find a
lady good enough?

Lucy shrugged off her unease. She knew she
could bully and tease her cousin to her heart’s content, but the
matter of his finding a wife was patently none of her business. For
one moment, she wished them both children again, with few worries.
The moment passed, because she knew she could do more good, and do
it right now, to make sure this was her best Christmas ever, even
with Mama gone.

She couldn’t help but admire the Lonnigan boys.
Mrs. Lonnigan had turned them out in what Lucy suspected was their
best clothing. They were shabby but tidy, faces serious because
life was a serious business. She realized with a pang that they
knew more about hard times than she ever would. In one respect,
they were equal: the boys had lost a father, she a
mother.

“
Will we do?” Edward asked, the
older of the two.

“
You will,” she assured him. She
gave him a pat on the shoulder and straightened his collar. “I am
impressed.”

“
What about me?” Miles
asked.

The little boys laughed as Lucy scrutinized
Miles, walking around to view him from all angles. Edward chuckled,
a child again, when Lucy made a great show of tugging at her
cousin’s neckcloth, then licked her finger and wiped a smidge of
shaving soap off his neck.

Lucy stood so close to him, nothing unusual in
itself, except that it was, because she felt herself breathing a
little faster, her face warm.
It’s just Miles
, she reminded
herself, but that admonition did nothing to slow her respirations.
She stepped back, irritated with herself.

“
Well, uh, let’s go outside,” Miles
said, and she wondered why he should seem so ill at
ease.

Without asking, Michael took her grip in hand
and started after his older brother. “Thank you, kind sir,” she
said, which earned her a smile from a boy far too
serious.

She realized with a start that what happened to
these boys today came close to life or death. A modest career meant
a chance. Anything less could spell ruin.
Mama understood
,
she thought, and blinked back tears. With great clarity, she
remembered Mama’s last words to her: “Do all the good you
can.”

She hadn’t said anything like that to Clotilde,
and Mama had clung, wordless, to Papa’s hand as the final moment
approached. “Be sweet,” had been her final words to Clotilde, who
had sobbed and sobbed. Mama had said nothing to Papa, only looked
deep into his eyes, because no words were necessary.

Following behind Miles and watching Edward
walking with him, Lucy suddenly understood what Mama meant.
You
expect me to do, rather than just be
, she thought, and realized
that keeping Christmas this year meant exactly that. Christ hadn’t
come to earth to be an ornament—he’d come here to
do
. She
would have to tell Miles about this, if they had a quiet
moment.

“
Oh, wait,” she said suddenly to
Miles. “One more thing. I’ll meet you outside.”

It wasn’t ladylike, even in her own home, but
Lucy pulled up her skirts and dashed up the stairs. She burst into
Clotilde’s room.

Her sister gasped in surprise and stopped her
contemplation of her face in the mirror. “What in the world,
Lucy!”

Here I go
, Lucy thought, as she took her
older sister by both arms. “Clotilde, Aunt Aurelia has gone home
for a well-deserved rest. I will be in London with Miles for a day
or so. Honoré knows what he is doing, and Mrs. Lonnigan is
finishing your trousseau.”

Clotilde nodded, her lovely eyes open
wide.

“
I want you to take a serious look
at what you are doing,” Lucy said, her voice firm. “You’re moping
about and crying. If I were in love, I would be over the moon with
joy and counting every second until I was Mrs. … Mrs. …
oh, I don’t know, Mrs. Bledsoe. Whoever.”

“
It’s not that simple,” Clotilde
replied, striving for dignity.

“
I think it is,” Lucy said. “It is
also never too late to change your mind.”

“
You are absurd,” Clotilde told
her.

“
Probably.” Lucy kissed her sister.
“Just promise me you’ll think about it. I’ll be back soon. I love
you.”

The post chaise was a tight fit made easier
because Michael sat beside her and Edward beside Miles. She smiled
inside to see the wonder on the boys’ faces, and understood that
any previous travels had been on the crowded mail coach.

So she thought. Edward disabused her of that
notion when he leaned across the aisle and tapped his younger
brother’s knee. “Mikey, do you remember those days when we rode on
the caisson in Papa’s battery?”

“
You had better fill us in on your
Spanish exploits,” Miles said. “I have a strong feeling that you
have lived a far more exciting life than we have.” He winked at
Lucy. “We’re boring old sticks, compared to these two.”

Lucy wondered how Miles knew the precise way to
draw out these solemn children who had seen their fair share of
challenge, and then some. Her heart opened up and took in the
Lonnigan boys, too, noticing how they sat taller, with a certain
quiet pride. She couldn’t help but sit taller, too, happy to be in
the company of little heroes and a man who had a fine instinct
about people. Funny she had never noticed that before.

The miles flew by as the boys took turns
telling Lucy and Miles about battles, and heat and dust, and babies
born on the march as their father, an artillerist, plied his trade
in Wellington’s army. The animation on their faces told Lucy
everything she wanted to know about the little Lonnigan family,
sticking together through war and tumult.

They stopped for luncheon not far from London
at a tavern more ordinary than she would have thought necessary,
considering how plump in the purse both she and Miles were. She
watched the boys as the chaise slowed and then stopped, noting the
return of their serious faces, coupled with worry.

The worry vanished when Miles ushered them
inside the working man’s eating place. It was warm and noisy and
full of people exactly like the boys. She couldn’t help her
amusement to see how the talk died down when Miles found them
places, and realized that
they
were the odd ones. They were
eating here to keep their little charges comfortable.

“
Pasties and cider,” Miles said to
the man behind the counter. He leaned closer. “We’ll take some with
us, too. Growing boys, you know.”

Lucy never ate anything better.

They arrived in London mid-afternoon, the
chaise slowing to a walk as the post rider expertly threaded his
way through crowds that had Michael and Edward staring, and Lucy,
too.
I really don’t want a London Season
, she thought.
Give me a quiet place
.

“
You really don’t care for London,
do you?” Miles asked her.

His evident concern touched her heart, deep
down in that place she thought was hers alone. Miles Bledsoe was
watching out for her; he listened to her. For the first time in her
life, she knew she could share that part of her heart someday—maybe
with someone like Miles.