Under The Mistletoe (19 page)

“Is this Papa's very own house?” Veronica was asking Miss Craggs.

 

Her own awkwardness and awe and even her excitement had been forgotten. Although the great hall was the hall of her dream with the addition of a painted and gilded dome, and although the staircase was wide and magnificent and the drawing room large and splendid, Jane noticed them only with her eyes and not with her heart. And her own bedchamber with a separate dressing room was large and richly furnished and far surpassed anything she might have dreamed for herself. But she merely glanced at it when she hurried in to change her dress for dinner—to change from one drab gray dress to another.

Her time and her attention and her heart were otherwise engaged than in the perusal of a mere house and in the recognition of a dream come true.

She had never had anything to do with very young children. The girls who came to Miss Phillpotts's school were older and more independent and did not really need her for anything outside her capacity as a teacher.

No one had ever needed her. The thought came without any self-pity. It was simply the truth.

Until today. But today she had seen a small child bewildered and frightened by the loss of her mother and by her arrival at the home of the father she had never seen before. And her heart had lurched with all the love she had never been called upon to give.

She had taken a comb from her own reticule in the drawing room and drawn it gently through the soft baby curls. And she had sat by the child and helped her to food and milk. And then she had taken her to the nursery, where a bed had been made up, and had helped her
unpack her little bag, which had been full of surprisingly pretty dresses. She had taken the child down to dinner, although she would probably eat in the nursery on future days, and had helped her wash and change into her nightgown afterward. She had tucked her into bed.

A maid was to stay in the nursery next to the bedchamber and sleep on a truckle bed there.

“Good night, Veronica,” Jane said as she was leaving. Her heart ached with unfamiliar love and happiness. Someone had needed her for almost half a day and would need her again tomorrow.

“Good night, Miss Craggs,” the child said, peering at her with wide eyes over the blanket that had been tucked beneath her chin. “When will Mama be coming back?”

Ah, poor child. Poor child.
“Mama had to go away for a long time,” she said, walking back to the bed and smoothing her hand over the child's head. “She did not want to leave you, Veronica, but she had to go. She sent you here, where you will be safe.”

“Miss Craggs,” the child said, “don't leave.”

“I'll stay for a while,” Jane said, seating herself on the side of the bed. “You are quite safe, dear. My name is Jane. It sounds a little nicer than ‘Miss Craggs,' does it not?”

“Miss Jane,” the child said, and closed her eyes.

There was a rather painful aching around the heart to hear her name spoken aloud by another person. Jane sat quietly on the side of the bed, waiting for the little girl to fall asleep. But after a few moments the child's eyes opened and she lay staring quietly upward.

And the door opened softly, and when Jane turned her head it was to find Viscount Buckley standing there, his hand on the doorknob.

“She is still awake?” he asked after a few moments.

“Yes,” Jane said.

He came to stand beside her and gazed down at his daughter. A daughter he had had with a mistress. A child he had never seen until today. And a child he seemed not to know what to do with. What
would
he do with her? Jane felt fear for the defenseless baby who was still staring quietly upward.

“Veronica?” he said. “Is there anything you need?”

“No, thank you,” the child said, not moving the direction of her gaze.

“You are tired?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Go to sleep, then.” He leaned forward rather jerkily to lay the backs of his fingers against her cheek for a moment. “You are quite safe now. I will arrange something for you.”

The child looked at him finally. “Good night, Papa,” she said.

“Are you coming, Miss Craggs?” he asked, looking at Jane.

“I will stay until she falls asleep,” Jane said.

He inclined his head to her. “Deborah is having an early night,” he said. “Will you join me in the library as soon as you may? I need to talk with you.”

Veronica was asleep no more than ten minutes later, not having spoken or moved since her father left the room. Jane got carefully to her feet, bent down after a moment's hesitation to kiss the child's forehead, and tiptoed from the room.

How wonderful it must be, she thought, how wonderful beyond imagining, to be a mother.

 

He sat in the library resisting the urge to refill his brandy glass for the second time. If he drank any more he would be foxed. The thought had its definite appeal, but getting drunk would solve nothing. He had learned that much in his almost thirty years of living.

Deborah was sullen and unhappy—and angry.

“How could you, Uncle Warren?” she had said just before going to bed. “How could you let her stay here and announce for all the world to hear that she is your daughter? Mama will be furious with you. Papa will kill you.”

Yes, they would be a trifle annoyed, he conceded. But it served them right for foisting their daughter on him without so much as a by-your-leave.

What was he to do? How did one go about finding a good home for a young child? Aubrey would doubtless know, but Aubrey was in London, about to take a holiday with his family. Perhaps Miss Craggs would have some idea. He hoped so.

He was relieved when she was admitted to the library less than half an hour after he had left her in the nursery. He rose to his feet and motioned her to a chair. She sat straight-backed on the edge of it, he noticed, and clasped her hands in her lap. Her face had the impassive, empty look again now that Veronica was no longer present.

“These things happen, Miss Craggs,” he said. He wondered how shocked this prim schoolteacher was beneath the calm exterior.

“Yes, my lord,” she said. “I know.”

“Can you blame me for taking her into my own home?” he asked. “What was I to do?”

She looked fully into his eyes but did not reply. He shifted uncomfortably. He had never encountered eyes quite like hers.

“Send her back where she came from?” he asked. “I could not do it, ma'am. She is my own flesh and blood.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said.

“What am I to do, then?” he asked. “How does one find a home for a child? A home in which one can be quite sure she will be well cared for. It is an infernally awkward time of year. Everything will be complicated by the fact that it is Christmas. What am I to do?”

“Perhaps, my lord,” she said, “you should celebrate Christmas.”

He frowned at her.

“You have a young niece,” she said, “who is unhappy at being abandoned by her parents at this of all times. And you have a small child who is bewildered at the disappearance of her mother. Perhaps it is the very best time of year. Let Christmas bring some healing to them both.”

He might have known it. For all her drab appearance and seemingly sensible manner and bearing, she was a sentimentalist. Christmas bringing healing, indeed! As if there was something inherently different in that day from all others. Besides, how could Christmas bring any sort of happiness to four such very different people—Deborah, Veronica, Miss Craggs, and himself?

“You believe in miracles, Miss Craggs?” he asked. “Do you have any suggestions as to how this healing can be effected?”

She leaned slightly forward in her chair, and there was a suggestion of eagerness in her face. “We could decorate the house,” she said. “I have always dreamed of . . . There must be greenery outside that we can gather.”

“Holly and such?” he asked, still frowning.

“And mistletoe,” she said, and interestingly enough she blushed.

“And that will do it?” he asked, a note of sarcasm in his voice. “An instant miracle, Miss Craggs?”

“Deborah needs company,” she said. “She is of an age at which it seems that life is passing her by unless she has company of her own age and activities to keep them busy and happy.”

He grimaced. “Company of her own age?” he said. “From memory and experience I would say that young people of Deborah's age are usually ignored at Christmastime—and all other times of the year, for that matter. Adults want nothing to do with them, yet they are too old to enjoy being with the children. It is an unfortunate time of life that has to be endured until it passes.”

“Perhaps,” she said, “there are other young people in the neighborhood who would be only too happy to get together independently of either the adults or the children.”

“Are you seriously suggesting that I visit all my neighbors within the next few days, seeking out the young and organizing a party here?” he asked, aghast.

“I think that a wonderful suggestion, my lord,” she said.

He should have left the woman where she was, he thought. She was definitely dangerous.

“You would doubtless be left to organize and chaperon such an affair,” he warned her. “I will be invited to join a sane adult party.” And he would accept, too, though he usually sent his excuses.

“I am accustomed to supervising young people, my lord,” she reminded him.

“Very well, then,” he said. “On your own head be it.” He was feeling decidedly annoyed. Except that her suggestion made sense. And it would definitely solve the problem of Deborah. “I will have to postpone making a decision about Veronica until after Christmas. I suppose it will not matter greatly. She is a quiet and well-behaved child.”

“She is hiding,” Miss Craggs said quietly.

“Hiding?” he frowned.

“She suspects that something dreadful has happened to her mother,” she said. “And she knows that you are a stranger, although you are her father. She is not at all sure that she is safe, despite your assurances to her and my own. She does not know what is going to happen to her. And so she has found a hiding place. The only one available. She is hiding inside herself.”

The notion was thoroughly preposterous. Except that he recalled his impression that morning that Miss Craggs herself did most of her living far inside herself. What was her own story? he wondered briefly. But there was a topic of more pressing importance on which to focus his mind.

“But she must know,” he said, “that I will care for her, that I will find her a good home. I always have cared for her.”

“Why must she know any such thing?” Miss Craggs asked. “She is four years old, my lord. A baby. Financial care and the assurances of a good home mean nothing to her. Her world has rested firmly on one person, and that person is now gone.”

“Miss Craggs,” he asked quietly, though he already knew what her answer was going to be, “you are not suggesting that I keep the child here, are you?”

She looked down at the hands in her lap. “I am suggesting nothing, my lord,” she said.

But she was. She obviously knew nothing about life. She knew nothing about the types of relationships that might exist, between a man and his illegitimate offspring.

And yet, even as he thought it, he recalled the totally unfamiliar experience of standing in the nursery looking down at his own small child in the bed there, lying still and staring quietly upward, in a most unchildlike way. And he felt now, as he had felt then, an unidentifiable ache about his heart.

She was his child, the product of his own seed. She was his baby.

“Miss Craggs.” He heard the irritability in his voice as he got to his feet. “I see clearly that nothing can be done and no decisions can be made until Christmas is over. It is looming ahead of us, a dark and gloomy obstacle, but one that must be lived through. Make of it what you will, then. Load the house with greenery if you must. Do whatever you will. And in the meantime I shall call upon my neighbors and try to organize that unheard-of phenomenon, a preadult party.” He felt thoroughly out of sorts.

“Very well, my lord,” she said, and looked up at him.

He felt almost as if he might fall into her eyes.

“Come,” he said, extending an arm to her even though he had brought her here as more of a servant than a guest, “I will escort you to your room, Miss Craggs.”

She got to her feet and looked at his arm with some misgiving before linking her own through it. Her arm was trembling quite noticeably though she did not feel cold, and she stood as far from him as their linked arms would allow.

Good Lord, he thought, had she been shut up inside that school for so long?

He stopped outside her dressing room and opened the door for her. “Thank you,” he said, “for agreeing to accompany Deborah here. And thank you for showing kindness and gentleness to Veronica. Good night.”