Carla Kelly's Christmas Collection

by Carla Kelly

  Oh, I am, Withers, he thought. He paused and counted to ten slowly, not wishing to give the impression of over eagerness.

  “Yes, I am. You may show her into the sitting room. I will be there in a moment.”

  When Withers left as quiet as he had come, James clapped his hands and stared at the ceiling. The Lord is good, he thought, and kind to fools this holiday season. He spent a moment before the mirror over the fireplace, and pronounced himself totally shabby, from his worn-out shirt (kept because it grew softer with each washing), to his corduroy vest (buttons long gone but a prized possession because the vest pockets held any number of erasers and pencils), to his country leathers (comfortable beyond all reason, if not stylishly tight), to his shoes (at least they matched today). I could have combed my hair this morning, he told his reflection. Too bad that I did not.

  Olivia, of course, looked as neat as a pin, dressed in a plain dark wool dress of no distinction except that it reminded him how womanly she had become since the day eleven years ago when he and Tim had pulled out her two loose teeth. And goodness, that hair! he thought as he stood in the door of the sitting room, admiring her. She was not watching him, but eyeing the crocodile chaise.

  “Ugly, isn’t it?” he said when he had had enough of gazing.

  She turned around to smile at him. “Actually, my lord, it is so stupendously, marvelously horrible that I confess I like it. Give it to me for Christmas, will you?”

  “Absolutely, and up to half my kingdom, as well,” he told her, meaning each word.

  She laughed, and he felt in his heart that for some unknown reason, he was quite forgiven for his thoughtlessness of last night.

  “The chaise will be enough, my lord. I will have to keep it in my room, else Mama’s pug will go into spasms. Well, are you ready to begin?”

  Begin what? he thought wildly. Is this some carte blanche to pull you onto my lap and make little corkscrews out of your hair, and maybe see where it leads? Not even the Lord is that merciful at Christmas.

  “Looking at your rooms, Lord Crandall,” she reminded him, which only made him realize that he must have been staring at her like a Bedlam inmate.

  “Oh, yes, yes indeed,” he said. “Let us attempt the west wing, Olivia. It’s the newer part of the house.” He held his breath, but she made no comment on his use of her first name.

  To reach the wing, they crossed through the gallery with its walls of Waverlys, Enders, and Crandalls looking down, some single portraits and others surrounded by handsome wives and numerous progeny. It had never occurred to him before how fecund a family he came from, and he was glad that the woman beside him could not read his thoughts. Olivia seemed content to stop, gaze, and stroll beside him.

  “Do you suppose the children played ball in here when the day was stormy?” she asked, as they stood before one portrait.

  He had never thought of such a thing, which his own mother would never have allowed, even if he had possessed brothers and sisters.

  “Would you permit it?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she answered promptly, “after I had removed vases and other breakable items. What a wonderful room for blind man’s buff.”

  It was a pretty thought, and it made him smile thinking of Olivia playing in here with their children. Oh, that is a reach, he acknowledged. Here I am thinking of reproduction, when I should be grateful she is still speaking to me this morning. And why she is still speaking to me, I do not precisely understand.

  There were ten sleeping chambers in the west wing, and Olivia went through them all, making notes on the tablet she carried, but spending more time looking out the windows.

  “Your view is so much better than ours,” she told him when he joined her at the window. “Perhaps it is the slightly higher elevation.”

  He uttered some monosyllable. Then they continued to another room where she admired the view of bare trees and snow-covered ground, and he admired her. If I could think of something brilliant to say, I would, he told himself, and then spoke anyway, as though his brain had no connection to what came from his mouth.

  “Olivia, I was so rude to you last night. Why did you come today?” James winced as soon as he said it, alarmed with himself. But to his unspeakable relief, Olivia seemed unfazed by his plain speaking. She sat in the chair by the window.

  “I said that I would,” she replied simply, “but we must get one thing straight. Just because I enjoy needlework does not mean that I have no ambition. What it means is that I am a woman.”

  She turned her attention to the view outside the window again, but he sensed there was more. It was his turn to speak, as clearly as though she had told him to, and he knew in his bones that what he said would be the most important words of his life. He wanted to give the matter weighty consideration, but there she was, looking at him, expecting some comment.

  “Do you mind so much?” he asked instead. He quietly sighed when she smiled at him.

  “Sometimes I do, Lord Crandall,” she told him. “Do you remember how I cried when you and Tim left for New College?”

  He had forgotten, but now he sat on the bed recalling her distress all those years ago and how exasperated Tim was. “I seem to remember sordid, rather caustic comments from your brother about watering-pot sisters,” he said and then stopped, struck by a thought so startling that he almost—but not quite—rejected it. “But you weren’t crying because you were going to miss him, were you?”

  Olivia shook her head, rose gracefully, and headed for the door. She turned the page on her tablet. “Two more rooms, my lord, and then I should be going. I cried because I knew I would never be allowed to go to college. I do believe this wonderful hall suffers from no more malignancy than the need for paint.”

  Clearly, she did not wish to disclose any more of herself to him. As he followed her into the next room, and then the one after, he knew he had been granted, for whatever reason, some tiny glimpse into her most private corner. Papa says I should listen to what she tells me, James thought, as they finished in the last room and she handed him her list of suggestions. She kept her own counsel as they retraced their steps through the gallery, and he thought through his conversations with her.

  As she made her way toward the entrance, he knew there was nothing to keep her in the house one more moment, and he had the dismal sense that he had failed her again. Oh, what is she telling me? he asked in desperation.

  And then he knew, as plainly as though his own personal guardian angel—which he most certainly did not believe in, thank you—had tapped him on the shoulder and slipped him a handwritten note from the Lord Himself.

  “Hold on there with that cloak, Withers,” he said to the butler, who was waiting in the entranceway. “Olivia, when you asked me last week just what I was doing at All Souls, you meant it, didn’t you?” He knew from the way her gaze deepened that he had finally said the right thing.

  “I meant it,” she assured him.

  He took a deep breath. “I am studying time and motion, Olivia, and how the efficient use of the latter increases the former.” He was afraid to look at her, afraid that he would see polite boredom overtake her features, which up to now were animated. “The applications are of enormous importance,” he took another breath and then plunged on. “I mean, in factories.”

  “I imagine they would be,” she said with scarcely a moment’s hesitation. “If time and motion equal efficiency, then efficiency equals increased revenue, does it not?”

  It did, but no woman had ever mentioned it to him before. Only the sternest handle on his emotions prevented him from picking up Olivia, and planting a kiss on her forehead.

  “Correct, Olivia,” he replied in what he hoped was a detached, professional tone. “There is a professor at Harvard College in Massachusetts, United States, who is analyzing the motions of mill girls at a textile factory in Lowell. He has written a treatise on the subject.”

  The next logical step was to ask her if she would care to read the paper. He hesit
ated, thinking of his own friends, fellow scholars at All Souls, who had laughed and turned away when offered the paper.

  “It can be as dry as…” He stopped, humbled almost to his knees by the trust on Olivia’s face. How strange that she should look at me like that when I only want to spare her the tedium of Charles Ketchum’s paper, for tedious it is at first glimpse. And here you are, loveliest of creatures, looking at me as though this matters to you. “Would you like to read Ketchum’s paper?” he asked, his voice low, not sure if he was offering her the driest bone in scholarship or a little glimpse of himself—take it or leave it—that he had never shared before.

  “I would like above all to read it,” she replied.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered. He ran down the hall to the book room and snatched the paper from his desk, hurrying back, out of breath, afraid that great good sense would have taken over and she would be gone. She stood precisely where he had left her, except that she was smiling at him.

  “I did not move,” she assured him. He took her by the arm to prevent any possible escape and walked her to the library, where only hours before he had stewed, despaired, and cursed his own ineptitude and paced the floor.

  “I think I have quite worn it out with reading,” he said as he handed her the document. “Do have a seat.”

  She sat on the sofa, her eyes on the paper. In another moment, he could have turned in circles, barked, and scratched himself for all the attention she paid him. As he watched in amazement, Olivia drew up her legs and made herself comfortable, her eyes focused on the close-written pages before her. He had the good sense to leave her in peace.

  When luncheon came, he made an effort to tempt her with food, but she shook her head and waved him away. He did leave a tray within reach, noting to his amusement that every now and then her fingers would range across the plate without her eyes leaving the paper. He could have fed her cotton wadding. He knew the paper was long and involved, and he was not surprised when she propped a pillow behind her head and settled down in more comfort with her knees drawn up. He laughed to himself and sat in a chair just out of her vision, content to watch.

  He woke later that afternoon to find himself covered with the light blanket that his father often used in the library. Olivia, sitting straight and proper now, watched him, her excitement visible even in the way she sat forward on the edge of the sofa.

  “I thought you would never wake up,” she said when he opened his eyes and looked around in surprise. “Oh, I covered you. Lord Crandall, you looked so tired.”

  That is only because I was up all night, worrying about whether I would see you again, he thought, touched to his soul. Fuddled with sleep as he was, he could tell that only a lifetime’s training in manners held her in check.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked, acutely aware as he looked at her that probably not many men ever asked such a question of a woman.

  She leaped off the couch as though springs released her and pulled up a footstool to sit close beside him.

  “Do you know what this says?” she demanded, gesturing at the paper held so tight in her grip. She colored up then, in a most adorable way. “Of course you know what it says! I am silly. Oh, my, it is all about value and work and time.”

  “And efficiency,” he added.

  She looked at the paper in her hands. “It is all so simple,” she told him. “Are all great ideas so simple?”

  “Most of them, I think. Someone puts forth a theory, and the rest of us just slap our foreheads and say, ‘I could have done that.’ “

  She nodded, so serious that he almost smiled. “Do you have your own ideas about what Mr. Ketchum has written?” she asked.

  No, he decided as he leaned closer to Olivia . This woman must never be thrown into Almack’s, where ladies are only ornaments. Sir Waldo, you were so right to put us together.

  “Yes, I have my own thoughts on what Ketchum has postulated. I have even begun a paper in response to his. Would you…”

  “Above all things,” she interrupted. “Only let me borrow it, and I will return it tomorrow.”

  He stood up. “It’s still a work in progress. If you have any suggestions…” he began and then stopped. That is too much to ask. And yet… “I will entertain any and all suggestions from you for the improvement of my paper,” he told her. I love this woman’s laugh, he thought. He held out his hand to her and helped her up from the footstool. “And now I suppose your mama will be wondering if I have abducted you. Come with me, and I will fetch my paper.”

  She walked with him to the book room and took the paper from him with great seriousness. “I will guard it with my life,” she assured him.

  “See that you do,” he said, his smile concealed in the face of her solemnity. “Heaven knows there are legions of road agents between my house and yours. Probably even Mohicans, and each one desperate for that treatise.”

  She claimed her cloak from Withers this time, and let him put it about her shoulders.

  “Oh, drat,” she said under her breath as James opened the door for her. She looked at him. “I suppose we must go into your attics tomorrow and look at musty old furniture when I would much rather talk about your paper.”

  “We could leave the crocodile chaise and the campaign beds where they are for another season,” he suggested.

  “We daren’t, not when I have selected colors for the walls that will never match Egyptian flora and fauna.” She held out her hand to him. “But we will be fast in the attics and efficient enough even for Mr. Ketchum!”

  Not too fast, he thought. One can overdo the value of efficiency. He took her hand. “Olivia, you are completely remarkable,” he said.

  “I am nothing of the sort,” she said and then made a face. “Please don’t laugh, but I used to wish and wish that I could be at New College with you and Tim.”

  Laughter was the furthest thing from his mind. “What would you have studied?” he asked, conscious that her hand was still gripped tight in his.

  She stared at him. “Do you seriously wish to know?” she asked after looking around to make sure that no one eavesdropped.

  “Yes, I do!”

  She sighed and released his hand. “Lovely, lovely geometry,” she confided almost into his ear, her voice low. “I used to do Tim’s papers for him when you two attended school at the vicar’s. Oh, I confess it, I have ideas about geometry.”

  With a shout of laughter he grabbed her by the shoulders and planted a loud smack of a kiss upon her forehead. “And here I thought I knew everything about Tim! Do you know that the vicar never could understand why he did so well on the work from home and so poorly on examinations?”

  “Now you know!” With a smile, Olivia gathered her cloak tighter around her, and rolled up his paper to fit into her reticule. “Tomorrow, sir!”

  He knew tomorrow would not come soon enough. Over dinner that night, he confided to his father what he had done. “She promised to read my paper and offer any suggestions,” he said. He shook his head as Withers came round again with the dish of stewed haricots.

  “Suppose she actually has suggestions?” his father asked.

  “I will take them, of course!” he declared. “You know how atrocious my spelling is. I confess to less uniformity than is commonly allowed.”

  “So you do, if that is all she wishes to change,” Lord Waverly muttered, with enough hesitation in his voice to make James wonder.

  He did not wonder long. When he composed himself for sleep that night—and it came sooner than usual because of his little sleep the night before—his heart was pure, his mind clear of everything except his love for Olivia. After Christmas I shall engage an estate agent to find me a house in Oxford, was his final thought before he slept.

  He was impatient for her to arrive in the morning, so eager was he to see her again. Confess it, James, he told himself as he stood at the window. You crave her praise and adulation.

  He wondered at her tardiness as the clock’s hands moved s
o slowly. Charles and Lord D’Urst must have arrived, he thought with a pang. How I wish Pete Winston had been set upon by brigands between here and Paris! My, I must look like a two-year-old here at the window, he told himself . It is a wonder I have not mashed my face against the glass.

  And then he saw her, hurrying along the lane, with that peculiar bounce to her step that he found so endearing. He looked closer and laughed out loud. The day was warm for December, and she had not felt the need to cover her head. Her hair was as he remembered it from years past, gathered into that funny topknot that she resorted to when time and curls thwarted her. Will it seem odd when someday soon I ask a portraitist to commit that casual look to canvas? Olivia is my Christmas ornament, my funny little mantelpiece decoration.

  While he had far too many manners to actually shove the footman aside, James opened the door for his sweet thing and found himself almost taken aback by the liveliness that seemed to careen about in the entrance hall once she was in it. She is a life force all by herself, he thought in wonder.

  “Mama says I should be locked in my room and fed bread and water through the keyhole for going anywhere looking like this,” she apologized by way of greeting. “Lord Crandall, there are mornings when this trial of mine that sits atop my head absolutely defeats me.”

  “I think it is charming,” he told her.

  She made a face at him, and only the sternest kind of discipline kept him from sweeping her into his arms for a kiss from which she—or he—would never recover.

  He put his hand to his heart as though she had stabbed him and was rewarded with that laugh he so longed to hear.

  “My dear Olivia, I am a mature man now,” he said. “I would never tease you.”

  “Then you will never be much fun.” She made a pretense of trying to reclaim her cloak from the footman, who was watching the exchange with an expression close to delight.

  “Well, I will only tease you now and then,” he said, wondering in the deepest corner of his heart if she had already consented somehow to a lifetime of his company. When did this happen? he asked himself in bliss that was close cousin to reverence. Is there something understood? Or better yet, is there something I don’t understand?