Carla Kelly's Christmas Collection

by Carla Kelly

  “Did I see little Olivia walking home?” he asked.

  “You did,” James replied. He turned to look at his father. “Papa, what do you see when you look at me?”

  His father frowned and stood a moment in contemplation. “Someone pleasant to look at, a little shabby at the elbows, perhaps, and possibly too tall for some doorways.” He shrugged. “Other than that, I can see no glaring defects.”

  James groaned. “They don’t show until I open my mouth, Papa! Do you know… can you imagine… what I said to Miss Hannaford?”

  He felt no relief when Lord Waverly smiled back, the picture of patriarchal serenity.

  “Oh, something inane about pretty ankles or her tiny waist? I am at a loss, son. Do enlighten me.”

  “I could not see her ankles; she was wearing boots,” James said and felt his face grow hot. “I took her hand…” It was so stupid that he closed his eyes and rushed out the rest of the sentence. “and I told her that I have felt many bones from autopsies, but none as nice as hers! Shoot me now, will you?”

  Lord Waverly laughed, which sank James further. “It would be a mercy killing, but I cannot think this county’s coroner would overlook it.” He took James’s hand in his own, “Nice bones, son. And that froze her completely?”

  “Well, no, it did not, now that you mention it,” James said, a little surprised at his own density. “Actually, she went all quiet after she asked what I was doing at All Souls, and I said it would not interest her.”

  A thoughtful look on his face, his father released James’s hand and linked elbows with him, as though to stir him from further self-criticism at the mirror. “Did it occur to you, son, that she might be interested?”

  “The thought never crossed my mind,” James said frantically. “I have mentioned it to other ladies, and heaven knows they did not care.”

  “Perhaps Olivia does.” Lord Waverly nodded to the butler. “Withers, do bring me tea, and something rather more strong for Lord Crandall.” He patted the seat beside him on the sofa. “James, if she is interested in what you are studying, you are certainly at liberty to tell her. Surely it is not a secret.” He leaned closer. “I would be the only man admitting it if I were to assure you that I know what a woman thinks. It is a mystery, indeed, and that is all I know, even after nearly sixty years of sharing this planet with creatures of the fair sex.”

  One could grow bitter with the lack of good advice I have received from this father, James thought as they went to the Hannafords’ the following night to dinner. And the deuce of it is, I tell the man I am in despair, and he just smiles.

  They could have taken the carriage, but Lord Waverly had suggested that they walk, which pleased James. He had a dislike of sitting in overheated rooms and was in no hurry to arrive at the Hannafords’. At All Souls it would be cheese and bread, biscuits with sprinkled sugar and cinnamon, and the window open just enough to make the beer lively. He sighed. Perhaps marriage would be a drawback. Be she ever so complacent, no wife would tolerate such a menu, or winter’s chill in her sitting room. I doubt she would allow me to hang my clothing on doorknobs either, even though it is such a convenience when I am late for tutorials.

  “Papa, how do I know if she is the right one?” he asked suddenly, as they crossed to the side door on the Hannafords’ terrace where they always entered.

  “You listen with all your heart to what she says,” Lord Waverly told him. He put his hand on James’s shoulder and gave it a shake. “Pray you are not so scientific to overlook that kind of heart.”

  Pray I am not, he thought as he knocked on the door. If Olivia had been beautiful last week, with her hair wild, and her cloak snowy, she was incomparable this night, James decided as he sat across from her at the table. His momentary disappointment at not being seated next to her was quickly assuaged by watching her animated good cheer, from the stuffed haddock to the almond crescents. Although she was a small woman, she ate well, with none of the finicky, die-away airs of ladies of fashion. He noticed that she did turn down the stewed pigeon, a particular favorite of his, and promptly decided that should she consent to be his wife, he would not miss it too much if it never appeared on their dinner table.

  He carried on as brisk a conversation as was his nature, which allowed him ample time to admire Olivia Hannaford some more. Her hair was but partly tamed, a halo of dark bronze ringlets that bobbed when she laughed. I wonder how she brushes that mop, he thought. I wonder if she would let me try. The thought so unnerved him that he performed a juggling act with the brussels sprouts, which nearly saw the entire bowl slide into Lady Hannaford’s lap when he passed it to her. James knew he should be making brilliant conversation, but nothing witty sprang into his brain, that brain so extravagantly admired at All Souls, and even—if he could believe the chancellor—at London Hospital, now.

  Conversation wasn’t essential, anyway. From dinners past, he knew that Lady Hannaford could be relied upon to furnish all the words he lacked. She did not disappoint him, at least, until the pudding, when the subject of Charles in Paris surfaced.

  “Lord Crandall, it is the drollest thing possible, but what do you think Charles is bringing with him from Paris?” she asked him.

  If he remembered Charles—and he did—there was no danger that whatever the Hannaford’s eldest child was bearing home would be in bad taste. “Brandy for your cellar, mum?” he suggested, aware that Olivia was watching her mother, a frown on her face.

  To his discomfort, Lady Hannaford laughed. “No, indeed, James!” she declared, touching his arm, “although Livy declares she will lock herself in the cellar!”

  “Mother,” Olivia said, and there was no mistaking the distress in her eyes. She said no more, and James thought that wise of her, considering that Lady Hannaford never turned loose of a good tale, once launched upon it.

  “Charles is bringing home a fellow diplomatist with the whole intent of finding Livy’s approval! I knew you would be amused!” He was not, but he managed a weak smile at his hostess. He made some inane comment, but it was forgotten the moment it left his lips.

  She continued, “Peter Winston, Lord D’Urst. Perhaps you know him? I believe he was at some college or other at Oxford.”

  Only by serious discipline did James keep from groaning out loud. Peter Winston? he asked himself. Peter Winston? Oh, why not just blend Apollo for looks, Croesus for wealth, and Solomon for his brain box?

  “Yes, I know him,” he said, hoping that his tone of resignation would be taken for a certain languid sangfroid. “He was two years my senior at New College. He is coming for Christmas?” He hoped he did not sound too forlorn.

  “The very man. Charles tells us that Lord D’Urst has expressed a real interest in Livy and all from seeing her miniature that Charles carries about with him,” Lady Hannaford said. “Imagine that!”

  He chose not to imagine anything; the reality of Peter Winston was daunting enough. “I had thought him to be married long since,” he said. Too many single gentlemen roaming loose in England are a menace to society, he thought. “Wasn’t he engaged before? Indeed, I am almost certain of it.”

  “So Charles wrote us, but apparently Lord D’Urst called it off because…” Lady Hannaford leaned closer to him, “the lady was insufficiently intelligent! Claims he wants a wife with brains.” She beamed across the table at her daughter. “Between you and me…” And the vicar, two old maids, Sir Waldo, my father, and your aunt at table, he thought glumly, “… we will be saving the expense of a come-out for Livy in the spring!” Lady Hannaford concluded in triumph. She blew a kiss to her daughter as the footman removed her plate. “And here I feared that your brains would be a detriment, my little love. How silly I am!”

  He could not dispute her silliness, and felt only gratitude when she turned to the vicar to continue her conversation with him. I wonder why Sir Waldo went to all that trouble of securing my consent to pursue Olivia, he asked himself as he stared down with considerable distaste at the blanc mange before hi
m. He could have saved himself the trouble, apparently.

  He put that very question to his host when they strolled to the sitting room an hour later after brandy—which gave him a headache. The other men had gone ahead, and it gave James some wintry solace to realize that Sir Waldo wanted to speak to him. He slowed his steps.

  “Jemmy, I had no idea this was afoot,” he said, his voice low. “Probably the fault is mine. I must have lamented one letter too often about my fears for Olivia.”

  “And Charles is never slow,” James finished for him when he fell silent.

  “You’re not going to give up even before you begin, are you?” Sir Waldo asked, his eyes anxious.

  It is not a matter of giving up, he wanted to tell the man. I know Lord D’Urst, and I could never measure up. It certainly isn’t too late to return to London, where Papa and I have spent every Christmas since Mama died. “Sir Waldo, he is an excellent man, and I know none of you will be disappointed,” he said, hoping it would be explanation enough. “Olivia cannot help but be impressed.”

  Sir Waldo was silent a moment, watching slowly with his chin sunk onto his chest. “You are the one, laddie,” he insisted as the butler opened the door to the sitting room. “I just know you are. Say you won’t give up yet. And for goodness sake, begin!” Sir Waldo spoke in a whisper, but James could not overlook his intensity. And I have always known you as such an easy-going fellow, he thought in wonder.

  “I will,” he said, the words surprised right out of him.

  “Tonight,” Sir Waldo said, and to James’s ears, it was not a question.

  “Very well.”

  Resolution, he told himself, but still he hesitated in the doorway. He could see that his father had been captured for hard duty at the whist table with Lady Hannaford and her maiden aunts. Olivia had seated herself close to the fire, her embroidery stand in front of her. James did not think she was aware of him, but as he watched her, he smiled to see her slide a footstool toward the chair next to her. If ever a man needed an invitation, he thought.

  Taking his courage in hand, he sat down beside her and propped up his feet. He hoped he looked more relaxed than he felt, but after only a few moments of sitting beside Olivia Hannaford, he began to feel burdens he had been hitherto unaware of roll from his broad shoulders.

  This is odd, he told himself, risking a glance in her direction. She wasn’t doing anything in particular to put him at ease, just leaning forward slightly, her attention on her handiwork. She hummed under her breath. He took a deep breath, and then a smaller, more discreet one as he enjoyed the faintest fragrance of almond. She had a slight smile on her face. There is just something about you, he decided, and then he opened his mouth before he thought.

  “Miss Hannaford, you smell remarkably like a biscuit.” He cringed inwardly, but the fear quickly passed when she pushed the needle in the linen and leaned just a little in his direction.

  “You have found me out, my lord,” she whispered. “I spent too long below stairs before dinner. Extract of almond covers a multitude of sins, I have discovered.” To his utter delight, she smiled at him. “Perhaps I could recommend it to you after autopsies.”

  He laughed softly—not wishing to attract anyone’s attention—put at ease by her commonsense air. “I might just go to the apothecary’s for a bottle of my own.” He cleared his throat. “Let me apologize for my artless declarations of last week. I am only grateful that you did not summon the constable to have me bound, trussed, and admitted to the nearest lunatic asylum.”

  “Oh, no,” she assured him. She resumed her work at the frame. “You and Tim hatched enough schemes that I would be a silly sister indeed if I allowed comments about autopsies to throw me over.” She put down the needle again and looked at her hands. “Just tell me that you did not mean that my digits are bony.”

  “No, Olivia. I should have said bonnie instead of bony.” Well, that was good, he told himself when she laughed, colored up so prettily, and returned her attention to her embroidery. In another twelve or fifteen years I might even be clever around women. Why, by then, Olivia and Pete Winston will have been married a dozen years at least, and have three or four children. I wonder if I could hire a Sicilian to kill the man? Or one of Napoleon’s out-of-work imperial guards? The thought, so absurd, made him smile.

  He stretched out farther in the chair and put his hands behind his head, content to gaze into the flames and breathe deep of almond extract from the Hannaford kitchen as it wonderfully scented Olivia’s hands and neck.

  “And now you are smiling,” she began.

  “I was thinking of homicide this time,” he said. To his relief, Olivia only laughed. He glanced at Sir Waldo, seated beside the vicar, who was using his Sunday gestures, but saying something about “bits of bone and muscle,” and “just wait till spring at Newmarket.” It cannot be a sermon, James realized. The man is far too animated to be discussing something from Holy Writ. Perhaps if he preached from the starting gates, we would be more entertained of a Sabbath.

  As James watched his host, Sir Waldo made a shooing motion with his hands, as though to hurry him along.

  “Resolve,” James said.

  “Beg pardon?” Olivia asked, her eyes still on her work. Had he spoken out loud? “Resolve, my dear, resolve,” he stammered, buying a moment. “I am resolved to do something about shabby appearances and out-of-date furnishings.”

  She looked at him, narrowing her eyes as though she were actually contemplating his person. “I do not think your coat is so old, Lord Crandall.”

  “I mean the house, Olivia,” he told her, even as he resolved to seek out his tailor when he returned to Oxford. “Mama’s crocodile chaise still leers at us from the sitting room, and the draperies have more dust on them than the pyramids.”

  “Oh, dear! That was a fashion several years ago, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “Dust is always fashionable in my chamber at All Souls,” he joked. To his distress or delight—he wasn’t sure which—she jabbed the needle into the fabric and pushed away the hoop this time.

  “Sir, I mean the crocodile chaise!” she declared, speaking with some emphasis, even as she kept her voice low. “You mean this, and I mean that, and we are ever at cross comments. If you do not say what you mean, how will we ever manage when…” She stopped and turned quite red to his greater amazement.

  “When what?” he asked, more curious now than surprised at her unexpected vehemence.

  “Oh, nothing!” She looked so adorably confused and off balance somehow that he surprised himself by taking her hand.

  “My declaration is this then, in plain terms, Miss Olivia Hannaford.” He could not continue, because she had turned quite pale at his words, and was gripping his fingers so hard that he winced. He peered closer. “Olivia, are you breathing? I wish you would.”

  The moment passed. She took a deep breath and relaxed her tenacious grip.

  “It is this,” he continued, not certain anymore. “Our house is shabby from neglect and needs the critical eye of a female. Will you come over tomorrow morning, walk through my house with me, and give me advice on what to do about it short of a bonfire?”

  She seemed relieved at his question. He could almost feel her sigh.

  “Of course I will do that.” She pulled her fingers away and looked beyond him across the room. “Oh, my Mother is either exercising her fingers from too much discard at the whist table, or she wishes me to see about tea. Do excuse me, Lord Crandall.”

  She rose gracefully, quite herself again, and left him there with only the scent of almond extract for company. Women are strange, he thought. Thank goodness that men have no luck with subterfuge. He sat there peacefully enough, admiring Olivia’s handiwork on the embroidery hoop. She returned in a moment with tea for them both, and seated herself behind the hoop.

  “Nice work,” he said after a sip.

  “I like embroidery,” she replied, her attention on the hoop again. “What a good thing that is, consider
ing that I will have a lifetime of it.”

  “What, no ambition?” he teased, and was astounded when she took a long look at him and then rose and left the room. Too embarrassed to look at anyone in the suddenly silent parlor, James sat staring into the flames until what seemed like four centuries later, when his father tapped him on the shoulder and said that it was time to go home.

  He spent a completely sleepless night, certain that she would not show up in the morning, and equally positive that he would never see her again. The thought numbed him and set him pacing about, berating himself. All I do is apologize to her, he thought. Charles and Peter Winston are due to arrive any day. It is not a matter of fixing my interest with Olivia Hannaford before the competition shows up. I cannot even get beyond apology. Lord D’Urst will come as a great relief to Olivia. Or so he reasoned at three-thirty in the morning.

  Nothing had changed his opinion by breakfast, except that he had a great dread of spending one more day at Enderfield. After a long moment staring at breakfast on the sideboard, he turned on his heel and stalked to the library, where the furniture was comfortable and much more conducive to sulking. To avoid looking at the clock, he attempted to review his notes and then glance over his sketches. Easier said than done. He found himself mentally wagering how much time had passed before each glance at the clock.

  By eleven o’clock, he decided that Olivia was not coming. And who could blame her? he berated himself. He, for one, would not. Resolutely he turned away from the clock and tried to absorb himself in his studies. It must have worked. He was sitting at his desk, staring out the window and thinking about action and reaction, when he heard a discreet cough almost at his elbow. He jerked his head around, startled out of his contemplation, to see the butler.

  “Beg pardon, my lord, but the Honorable Olivia Hannaford is here to see you. Sir, are you in?”