Regency Christmas Gifts

by Carla Kelly

  He retrieved his hat and helped her into her own cloak. “At what time in the Mears household do we open presents?”

  “After church, Captain,” Jem said.

  “That’s another relief. I feared we would have to wait until morning.”

  “It’s never too grandiose, Miah,” she warned him, gratified with the way he immediately took her hand in his when they walked outdoors. “Still, I have always preferred late-night presents, which earns me more early-morning sleep. There now—you know the worst about me. I am a case-hardened layabout.”

  He merely smiled and tucked her hand close to his side.

  Since it was Christmas Eve, Ianthe Mears knew the service, if some sharp-eyed parishioner had decided to quiz her about it afterward. There was a reading from St. Luke, to be sure. The vicar must have said something about Christ Jesus born to save all mankind, or at least he should have. As it was, Ianthe could only guess, because she spent a major portion of the service just staring down at her hand in Captain Faulk’s pleasant but firm grip. His arm went around her at some point, which only made Diana smile and whisper something to her little brother. Jem giggled, which caused Ianthe to suspect it had nothing to do with mangers or wise men.

  She wasn’t sure how it happened, but the children managed to run far ahead of them on the way home. The captain seemed quite content to measure his longer stride to her shorter one. He appeared to be in no hurry, which suited her. It would give her enough time to correct a misapprehension she had only discovered.

  “Miah, I don’t think you’re aware that Jem’s name is Jeremiah.”

  He stopped walking and stared at her, amazement on his face. “But you’ve been calling him Jim.”

  “No. No. Jem. Can you not hear the difference between Jem and Jim?”

  He shook his head and his expression changed to rue. “That’s too delicate a difference for a man twenty-two years before the guns. But why name him after me?”

  “That last letter from Jim—the one you enclosed in the letter you sent me on October 31. It was folded, but not in an envelope. I wonder you did not read it.”

  They had started walking again. He stopped. “Please believe I never had anything to do with your correspondence, once you and Jim married.” He took her hand more firmly. “I have to tell you, though. There was an envelope. He had been carrying it in his uniform pocket. I…uh…oh, Ianthe…it…”

  “…was bloody?” she finished calmly.

  He nodded. “I couldn’t send you that envelope,” he said, when he could speak. “But I didn’t read the letter.”

  “I wish you had. In the letter, Jim asked me to name our child after you, the author of his success at courting me through the post.”

  “My God,” was all the captain could say. He bowed his head, which gave her ability and permission to kiss his cheek, now that it was within reach.

  He was not slow. In another moment he grasped her shoulders. “Jim’s family must have been shocked when you did that.”

  “Indeed they were,” she said, amazed at her own calmness. “Sir William called me terrible names and made accusations that were, as we know, completely baseless. He cut all connection.”

  “Ianthe, you should have named him James!”

  “Never. It was Jim’s last wish to me, as his was to you. So you see, you’ve always been with me.”

  She shouldn’t have said that. It was more than a battletested and well-regarded post captain could manage. She made him sit down on the stone wall that traced the street up from the harbor, holding his hand while he sobbed. She dried his face with her handkerchief, then moved closer into his embrace.

  “I think you should also tell me how Jim died. You need to let go of that.”

  She had him in a vulnerable place. Whatever Jim had suffered, it was long over. Maybe he didn’t understand that as well as she did, she who had waited but not witnessed.

  “I could write it in my journal, couldn’t I?”

  “You could. Would you rather do that?”

  He nodded, in command of himself again. “Those scamps have left us far behind. Was it by design? Are your children so devious?”

  “I fear they are, Miah.”

  He kissed her again, one hand gentle on her throat this time, and the other farther south, reminding her acutely that he was—and always would be—a deepwater man. A bit of a rogue.

  Chapter Six

  When they finally arrived at home, Diana and Jem were already in the sitting room, their few presents around them. Ianthe glanced at the captain, seeing the compassion in his eyes at their meagerness, then smiling at their utter unconsciousness of how little they had, when they had so much.

  There wasn’t much furniture in the sitting room, but Diana indicated the captain should take the remaining chair, then gestured to the ottoman in front of it. “Mama, that’s for you. You’re always one to let us take the biggest piece of beef or the nicest bolt of fabric.” She sighed elaborately. “I suppose this means you must use the captain’s ottoman, if he will share.”

  To Ianthe’s utter bliss, Miah laughed, and reached over to ruffle Diana’s carefully coiffed hair. She looked at him indignantly, then pinked up nicely.

  “Very well. If I must,” Ianthe said, seating herself on the ottoman, so close to the captain’s legs.

  He got up then, and went back into the entryway, rummaged in his duffel and returned with gifts of his own. He sat down again, this time with his legs on either side of Ianthe. Diana nodded her approval, then glanced at Ianthe with a look of woman to woman and not daughter to mother, which warmed Ianthe almost more than sitting so close to Captain Faulk.

  Their presents to each other were the usual: fabric for a new dress for Diana, a book for Jem and a lace collar from both of them to her. Ianthe gave the captain mittens she had managed to finish before his return.

  “Since you are bound for Australia, I doubt you need these now,” she said.

  “No fears. If I get blown off course and fetch Antarctica, I’ll be the happiest man alive,” he joked, as Jem laughed.

  Diana and Jem gave the captain two steel pen nibs. “I suppose you mean me to continue my journal,” he said to the children. “I can use these. Thank you, my dears.”

  Ianthe tried to rise then, to send everyone off to bed with Christmas biscuits and milk, but Miah put a hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s my turn,” he said. “Why do you think I went to Plymouth?”

  “To see the port admiral?”

  “Well, that, and a few other things. Here, Diana, catch.”

  He pulled a hatbox from out of a burlap sack and lofted it her way. Eyes wide, Diana untied the ribbon, then gasped with delight as she took out the bonnet.

  “Mama!” she exclaimed.

  “I had some help selecting it,” Miah said. “The milliner said it would be all the rage at Bath.”

  Ianthe felt a snag of conscience. It serves me right for putting off giving Diana the bad news in that quarter, she thought. Well, it can wait. “That is a splendid bonnet, Diana.”

  The next present was Jem’s, but the captain held the box in his hand for a moment, looking down at it, getting control of himself. Ianthe hoped the children wouldn’t notice, but she leaned against Miah’s knee, simply because he seemed to need the comfort. Her answer was a touch on her head, as he confirmed her effort.

  “This is yours, Jem,” he said. “It’s the right time.”

  She watched her son as he opened the box, and saw his face soften and then his lips come tight together. When he lifted out the telescope, she couldn’t help her own intake of breath.

  “Your grandfather gave us each one. They’re made in Edinburgh, where all good telescopes come from. Your father used it well.”

  Jem put the instrument to his cheek, and Ianthe felt Miah’s leg tense and then relax, as the rightness of it seemed to comfort him, too.

  “Was he a good officer, Captain?”

  “One of the best, lad. I’ve never found
his equal in a mate.”

  Miah must have felt things were getting too serious, because a moment later she felt the soft slap of leather on her shoulder. “Couldn’t find a box the right size,” he said, his voice gruff. “I think they’ll fit, though.”

  They did. She wished her fingers weren’t shaking as she pulled on the most exquisite pair of kid gloves she had ever seen. “My word, Miah, these will put you in the poorhouse,” she murmured.

  “No, I assure you. Now, where are you going?” His hand was on her shoulder again.

  “I still have some refreshments in the kitchen.”

  “I can get them, Mama,” Diana said, already on her feet. “And maybe Jem can help me.”

  “Belay that,” Miah said, in a voice of command that dropped both children in their chairs again. “I’m not finished. If Jim could be here, he’d remind me I have a number of Christmases to make up for.”

  That should have warned her, but nothing could have prepared her for what happened next. His hand was still on her shoulder. In fact, his thumb was caressing her neck in a way she was finding disturbingly pleasant. Hopefully, Diana wasn’t watching. Heaven knows Jem wouldn’t care.

  He handed her a document and what looked like a bank draft. He leaned closer to speak more in her ear. “You probably know how seamen are when they make port. They spend their blunt on the strangest things. Merry Christmas, Ianthe.”

  It was the deed to her house, and a bank draft for the sum she had suggested Mr. Trelawney place on her house. He bought my house, she thought. The dear man is giving me back my deed. She glanced at the bank draft. And the crazy darling is turning over the sum he paid, too.

  Speechless, she turned around to look at him, then back at her son. “Jem, you didn’t tell him…”

  The hand on her shoulder was firmer. “I weaseled it out of him. You’d better look at this, too.” He handed her another document. “I don’t know what a good dowry runs these days, but Mr. Brustein nearly choked on his collar button when I suggested this figure. Dearest, don’t cry.”

  What could she do but cry harder? And then Diana was in her lap, demanding to know what was going on, and Jem seemed to balance easily enough on Miah’s leg. She couldn’t talk, but took Miah’s handkerchief from him again while he grumbled good-naturedly about not having enough handkerchiefs for the Mears family. She hugged Diana, who was crying, too, and protesting about so much dowry money, and insisting that she needn’t return to Bath because it was an awful expense, and she didn’t much care for the headmistress, anyway.

  “I’ve never met such a family of watering pots,” Miah said finally. “Diana, rally your brother and fetch those refreshments from the kitchen, if you don’t think they’ll get soggy. Take your time. Handsomely now.”

  After they left the room, and with no fanfare, Ianthe curled up on his lap for a good cry. In a moment he was crooning to her as if she were a child, and not a widow thirty-five years old with too many responsibilities and not enough resources. When her tears subsided, she couldn’t help noticing how comfortable he was, for a hard man in a harder profession. She circled an experimental arm around his back, which made him sigh.

  She could feel him laughing, even though it was soundless. “What now?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid to show you the next document.”

  “I know it’s not an eviction notice, because I have the deed here,” she teased.

  He handed her another document, this one for James Mears, her son. “I’ll have the name corrected to Jeremiah when I’m next in Plymouth,” he said. He opened the document because her fingers were beginning to shake again. “Jem told me he is interested in the medical profession. He is only ten, though, so whatever he decides upon will do just as well.”

  “How can I ever repay you for all this kindness?” she whispered, when she could speak.

  “You could marry me,” he said. “That way I wouldn’t have to be jealous of solicitors in Paignton, or anyone else, should the men of Devon grow brains and realize what an utter nonpareil you are. Ianthe, I have loved you for years. I know how devoted you were to Jim, and if I’m out of order…”

  She put her hand to his lips. “Shh, Miah. You’re right. I loved Jim. Would you think me very odd if I told you I turned my attention to Jim because I knew you would never offer for me?”

  “Heavens, Ianthe.”

  It was his turn to be dumbstruck. She closed her eyes against the sound of him struggling to control himself again. It was her turn to make those crooning sounds of comfort.

  He collected himself, borrowing back his sodden handkerchief. “Of course I wouldn’t have made you an offer, my love. I was the son of Sir William Mears’s steward, with nothing to recommend me. You’re still beyond my league, but times have changed. You really love me, Ianthe?”

  He sounded like a lovestruck mooncalf, and not a dignified post captain of experience and wealth. She nodded, then rested her head against his chest.

  “I came to love Jim, because I couldn’t love you,” she told him. “I hope you’re not disappointed in me.”

  He kissed the top of her head and held her closer. “No. That’s the way the world works. If Jim had lived, you and your little family would have been happy with each other, and I would have been, well, what I am now. Or was.” He kissed her again, and rested his cheek close to hers. “It was a near run thing, Ianthe. If Jem hadn’t lost that money in Plymouth, I’d be at the Drake tonight.”

  She shivered. “Let’s not think about that, not ever again.”

  “We won’t.” He kissed her long and deep.

  It was well after midnight before everything was sorted out. When Faulk asked, Ianthe brought his 1805 journal downstairs and left him alone with it at the kitchen table. He would spend Christmas Day with them, then take a post chaise to London and the Court of Faculties and Dispensations for a special license. He had neither time nor patience for banns, nor even a parish of his own to cry them in.

  He wrote his account of Jim’s death slowly, not because he had forgotten any of it, but because he remembered it all in such vivid detail that he had to wait between words practically, for his hand to stop shaking. He cried all the tears he had not cried at the time, because he was too busy and the war had no patience for grief.

  When it was done to his satisfaction, he doused the lights in the kitchen and carried the journal upstairs. Maybe someday he’d let Jem read his account, but not now. The house was dark and quiet, but he was beginning to know it, and he had no trouble navigating. He stood a long time at the top of the stairs, completely unwilling to go into the room he shared with Jem. He went to Ianthe’s room instead.

  She was awake. Maybe she was even waiting for him. Wordlessly, he set down the journal and all his burdens, too. She helped him off with his clothing and into her bed, where he clung to her, savoring the sweetness of her body, much as he had in his dreams throughout all sea lanes in the known world. He felt as though he had had a lifetime of practice in making love to Ianthe because she had never been far from his thoughts, particularly when the cruelty of the blockade often meant watch and watch about, with only brief moments of actual sleep. He had dreamed of her awake then; only Ianthe could ever totally banish the terrors he had lived in the middle of for so many years. Maybe someday he would tell her of the hundreds of letters he had written, but never sent.

  Still, he hesitated, until she took his hand and placed it on her breast, which he began to knead gently. She kissed his forehead. “Miah, you have my permission. Don’t think for one moment I haven’t been imagining this.” She took his other hand, raised it to her lips, and to his great humility, kissed it. “I don’t pretend to understand my heart, dearest,” she whispered, her lips moving against his hand.

  He freed his hand and ran it down her body. “I swear you have the softest skin,” he whispered back. “Especially here.” He stroked her inner thigh and then higher, smiling to himself as her breath came ragged now. He knew he could probably dally about
and work them both into a froth, but that could wait for a more leisurely moment. He wanted inside her and that was where he went.

  Ever the gentleman—or maybe the barest sybarite who ever trolled the planet—he allowed her to climax twice before he took his own pleasure. He should have been more quiet; he could only hope Ianthe’s children were sound sleepers. Heaven knows he had done the mating ritual before, but Ianthe took him by surprise as she wrapped her legs around him as though she would never let go. Well and good—nothing could have moved him from her bed then.

  God help them both, she burned like a torch and so did he. If anyone were to ask him in years to come, what was the supreme moment of his interesting and challenging life, he would have to lie and say it was Trafalgar, or maybe the Battle of the Nile. Only Ianthe needed to know it was the first time he made love to the woman he adored, and whom he had proposed to years ago, in letters sent through another.

  When they were warm and naked in each other’s arms, he quietly told her how Jim died, how the splinter had pinned him to the deck, nearly dividing his body. “He suffered, but not over thirty seconds, dearest. My arms were tight around him and I was lying next to him, so he did not die alone. He thought only of you, and I suppose me, when he told me to watch over you. God bless the man.”

  She let out a long, shuddering sigh, and threw her leg over him to pull him closer. He knew he could sleep now, probably better than he had in years. He was bathed, clean and whole.

  With only the slightest of misgivings. “I probably should go to my virginal pallet in Jem’s room, dearest.”

  Her answer was a snort as she tightened her leg. “Well, perhaps,” she admitted, but did not loosen her grip.

  This was a good time to tell her his next scheme. “Ianthe, I’m still sailing to Australia this spring.”

  “I understand. I’ll be here when you return.”