Christmas Gifts

by Mary Balogh

  There was something about him too. A certain brightness about his eyes and a certain curving of his mouth. Anna could hear her heart beating in her ears.

  Her new mama sat down at the edge of the bed, and Papa’s hand transferred itself to her shoulders. And Mama leaned over and hugged her.

  “Poor Anna,” she said. “It is wretched to be unable to sleep, is it not?”

  Anna put her arms up about her new mama’s neck and closed her eyes.

  “Mama,” she whispered softly.

  She was saying good-bye in her mind, behind her tightly closed eyelids. Good-bye to the loveliest Christmas ever. She did not notice the curious little silence.

  “What?” Papa said, also in a whisper.

  Perhaps there was hope. Perhaps if she could just get him to see Mama as she saw her . . .

  “Mama,” she said again.

  And then Papa was crying. He turned sharply away from the bed and Anna could tell that he was trying to control himself, but he was crying nevertheless in noisy gulps.

  She should have said his name too. She did not want him to feel left out. She did not wish it to be just Mama and her. She wanted it to be the three of them.

  “Don’t cry, Papa,” she said.

  And then he was on his knees beside the bed, his face against her stomach, his arms about her tight enough to crush the breath from her.

  “I still love you too, Papa,” she said, pushing her fingers through his hair. “Even though I have a new mama.”

  He looked up at her suddenly, and up at her new mama, and he was laughing although his eyes were wet.

  “A new mama?” he said. “What little bird has been up here ahead of us, telling you that?”

  “I knew,” she said, looking up to see that her mama was smiling back at her, her eyes wet too. “It was my Christmas wish.”

  Papa looked thunderstruck. “Your Christmas wish?” he said. “Emma was your Christmas wish?”

  “She came early,” she said. “Yesterday, not today. I knew her as soon as I saw her.”

  Papa got to his feet and ran a hand through his hair. He looked down at her and down at her mama.

  “Would someone care to tell me if I am dreaming?” he asked.

  They both looked silently up at him.

  “Anna.” Mama said, cupping one of her cheeks as Papa had done earlier, “I will be very honored to be your new mama, dear.”

  “Are you going to marry Papa?” she asked.

  Her mama nodded. “At the end of January,” she said.

  Anna looked up to her papa, whose hand was resting on her mama’s head.

  “I won’t ask you if that will make you happy, little imp,” he said. “You have been playing determined Cupid since yesterday, haven’t you?”

  Anna did not know who or what Cupid was, but Papa looked pleased. She smiled.

  “Oh, Anna,” he said, gazing at her, and he looked for a moment as if he were going to start crying again. “My little Anna.”

  “May we have a baby?” she asked.

  He looked dumbfounded. Her mama turned scarlet. Had she said something wrong?

  “A brother?” she said. “Everyone has a brother except me.”

  “I tell you what,” Papa said, stooping down again and kissing first Mama and then her on the lips, “you go to sleep, Anna, and leave Mama and me to discuss your suggestion. We will work on it during the next year. And perhaps next year your Christmas wish can be for a brother.”

  Anna moved her head about on the pillow until she was comfortable and burrowed her arms beneath the blankets while her mama pulled them up under her chin. She sighed with contentment and closed her eyes.

  All was well after all. She had had her wish and it was all quite, quite perfect. Christmas, she decided, was the best time of the year. And perhaps next year there would be a real baby in a cradle just like the baby Jesus in his manger, and Mama bending over it on one side of the cradle and Anna on the other, just like Mary downstairs in the drawing room. And Papa would be standing just a little distance away loving them all and keeping them safe from all harm, just like Joseph.

  Next Christmas.

  “Or perhaps a sister,” she said, opening her eyes briefly. “I would not mind a sister instead.”

  “We will see what we can do,” Papa said. “Won’t we, Emma?”

  “Yes,” Mama said. “We will see what we can do, Anna.”

  The Porcelain Madonna

  Mary Balogh

  THE GENTLEMAN strolling along Bond Street was doing so purely because he had spent all morning at White’s reading the papers and arguing politics, and he needed the air and exercise. And perhaps he walked along that particular street when he might have chosen a quieter one because he derived a cynical sort of pleasure from watching the world indulging in its annual observance of the great myth.

  Christmas! He touched his hat to two ladies of his acquaintance and stepped off the pavement into the gutter to let them pass. And he grimaced as he stepped back up again. Yesterday’s light snowfall, which had been hailed by the populace of London as a sure herald of that rare phenomenon, a white Christmas, had turned to muddy water on the streets and pavements and to brown slush in the gutters.

  Christmas! He looked down at his top boots and frowned at the spatters of mud that overlaid the high gloss his valet had produced that morning. And he hunched his shoulders inside the twelve capes of his greatcoat and would have been quite prepared to swear on a stack of Bibles without fear of perjuring himself that the damp cold had penetrated to his very bones. He almost wished that his beaver hat had flaps to cover his ears. The thought amused him, though his pale blue eyes did not lose any of their cold cynicism.

  A carriage drew to a halt alongside him, and he grimaced anew at the spray of murky water thrown up by the wheels and the horses’ hooves. He drew to a halt too as two ladies hurried from the shop to his right and a liveried servant jumped down from the box of the carriage to relieve them of the numerous boxes, bandboxes, and other parcels they carried. They must have been shopping for hours, he thought, dithering over exactly what gift would suit this aunt or that nephew or the other brother. And doubtless the carefully wrapped gifts would be torn open on Christmas Day, exclaimed over, and dropped into an upstairs drawer never to be looked at again.

  And yet both ladies, neither of whom he knew, turned to him when their arms were empty to thank him for giving them the right-of-way and with the most perfectly cheerful smiles wished him a happy Christmas.

  Nonsense and fiddlesticks, he thought as he touched his hat and wished them a good day. And everywhere it was the same. People rushing hither and yon and spending and smiling and calling out cheerful greetings for all the world as if they believed that peace and goodwill really would float down to earth and to mankind in three days’ time and remain there forever after. They would eat their goose and Christmas pudding and drink their wassail and their punch, and then they would settle before the warmth of the Yule log and have a comfortable gossip before nap time, massacring the reputations of all acquaintances not then present.

  Not for him. Not this year. This year he would stay in London and behave on Christmas Day as if it were any other day of the year. Though that would prove not quite possible, of course. The servants would expect their gifts and their time off, and they would expect him to have a goose and mince pies and all the rest of the traditional Christmas fare so that they might enjoy their portion.

  He sighed inwardly. And Lady Lawrence, having heard that he was to remain in town for the holiday, was after him to attend her Christmas party and dance on the evening of the twenty-fifth. Who had told her? he wondered. He had certainly not been going about blabbing the good news.

  And then his footsteps slowed and his lip curled. Now was not that the perfect picture of Christmas sentimentality, he thought, looking ahead and across the street to a jeweler’s shop. It was enough to make anyone of any sensibility grab for a large handkerchief and dab at moist eyes. He wonder
ed what she was gazing at so intently in the window.

  Whatever it was, it was without a doubt many fortunes beyond her means. She was shabby and as out of place on Bond Street as he would have been at Newgate. Her cloak had once been blue, he guessed, though now it was faded to a nondescript gray. Her bonnet had never been anything else but gray and very plain. She must be cold, he thought. But if she was, then it was partly her own fault. Gazing at some bauble, she was, her back to him, dreaming the impossible dream. Dreaming Christmas.

  He withdrew his eyes from her. And yet something drew them back again, and he found himself hesitating, shrugging, and stepping out into the street to cross over. He wanted to see what it was she gazed at. He wanted to see the extent of her foolishness.

  She was not the only person out of place on Bond Street, of course. There were always varying numbers of young men and urchins lounging against the corners of buildings, darting in and out between the legs of horses and the wheels of carriages, yelling out their willingness to carry parcels for a small pittance. Christmas time was especially lucrative for them, with its extra parcels and its extra goodwill.

  He noticed the one particular urchin because he was behaving atypically. The boy was strolling down the street, minding his own business, just as if he had a definite destination in mind. And he was eyeing with darting glances—there was no head movement—the reticule that the shabby lady dangled carelessly from one hand. And then not only the boy’s eyes darted—his left hand followed suit, snatching the reticule deftly, and then his feet.

  Except that his feet ran out of a place to run as the collar of his patched jacket somehow hooked itself over the gold-headed cane of a tall, well-caped, and cynical-looking gentleman—the very one who had been crossing the street to look into the jeweler’s window. The boy moved both hands defensively to loosen his collar at the front and prevent strangulation, dropping the reticule in the process.

  “Not clever enough, my lad,” the gentleman said, the boredom in his voice suiting the expression on his face. “Boys of your stamp do not stroll along Bond Street unless they are up to no good. It is an observation you might wish to remember as this will be a thrashing you might wish to forget.”

  Turning the boy beneath his arm was the matter of a mere moment despite the flailing of thin arms and ill-shod feet and despite the fact that the urchin cursed the air blue with vocabulary that even the gentleman found original. He raised his cane.

  “Don’t.” The word was not shrieked or even spoken loudly, but the gentleman’s hand and cane paused in midair. Several interested spectators sidled past, too well-bred to stop, but curious to witness the thrashing.

  “Don’t,” she said again, her voice a little firmer. “I thank you for recovering my reticule, sir, but please do not strike the boy.”

  Good Lord. She was Christmas itself—shabby and dignified and softly spoken and beautiful. Her face was oval and delicately featured. It glowed with color from the cold. Her hair beneath the drab bonnet shone golden. But of course she was beautiful, and of course she was educated, and of course she was impoverished, he thought scornfully. What else could he have expected? And she had been admiring, not a golden bracelet or a diamond necklet, but a porcelain Madonna with a curled and naked baby in her arms, enough to melt any tender female heart.

  And this female obviously had a tender heart. He lowered his cane and let the boy up, keeping an iron hold on his collar.

  “Ah,” he said. “I will wish him a happy Christmas, then, ma’am, and send him on his way. The thrashing might have done more to warm him up, though.”

  She did not argue with him or look at all annoyed by his sarcasm. But of course she would not. She was all sweetness and sensibility as well as tender heart. The brim of her bonnet was on a level with his chin. And her eyes were green, an interesting and unusual shade of green. He pursed his lips.

  She looked steadily at the boy, who was trying to wriggle his face right down inside his collar. He had succeeded in hiding only his chin. “Why did you need it?” she asked.

  The gentleman closed his eyes briefly. She would be far better advised to swing the reticule back and belt the boy across the head with it. But, of course, she was the spirit of Christmas.

  The boy wisely did not answer.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  The boy sniffed wetly, and the gentleman actually caught himself in the act of reaching toward a pocket for a handkerchief. He raised his eyebrows and left his handkerchief where it was.

  “Are you all alone?” she asked. “Or do you have a family?”

  The boy seemed finally to have realized that the iron hand on the back of his collar had made it impossible for him to duck his face down quite out of sight. He gazed up at her instead with eyes that became instantly soulful, so much so that the gentleman felt an inward wave of amusement. He tightened his grip and pursed his lips afresh. He waited for the inevitable description of the family.

  “There’s me muvver,” the boy said, his voice high and piping, “an’ there’s Vi’let an’ Roddy an’ me pa.” His eyes would have done justice to an offspring of Garrick or Kean. “An’ there’s the new one wot me ma is ’xpecting.”

  Oh Lord. The gentleman turned up his eyes to the gray skies above. And she would fall for it too. There was no doubt in his mind. But the boy had missed his most golden chance. He had not explained how he was the sole breadwinner for the family.

  “Me pa works on the wharves, missus,” the child said. “But ’e ’ad ’is ’and crushed last month an’ I’m the man of the family now, missus, an’ ’as to feed ’em all.”

  He had done the boy an injustice. Apart from the nonchalant and inappropriate sauntering down the street, he was showing himself to be a remarkably intelligent young man.

  “You poor boy,” the shabby, beautiful lady said gently. “But if you steal, you know, you will be thrown in prison or even hanged, and then your family will certainly starve. And grieve for you too.”

  The gentleman looked down at the boy and almost smiled outright when he saw what looked suspiciously like a tear beading on the child’s lower lashes.

  “I wish you had asked me for help instead of trying to take it,” she said. “But there, you did not know that I would not have frowned and spurned you, did you? I shall give you something.”

  “Ma’am.” The gentleman could hold back no longer, much as he had been enjoying the thoroughly predictable drama unfolding before him. “The rascal probably lives with a den of thieves. He has probably never even known a mother or father.”

  She looked up at him with those remarkable green eyes, just as if she had forgotten his existence until that moment. “Then his lot would be all the sadder, sir,” she said. “However it is, he would not be stealing if there were not the need.”

  And she bent her head to her cracked and ancient leather reticule and unclasped it. And doubtless, he thought, she would withdraw an equally ancient purse from it and open that to reveal two lone pennies, one of which she would give to the boy, who would cheerfully have helped himself to both and laughed about it too.

  “Wait!” the gentleman said, and there was irritation now for the first time in both his voice and his heart. For he was about to step up onto the stage and take a part in this most despicable of melodramas. “Put your purse away, ma’am.” After transferring his cane to the hand that clutched the boy, he reached into an inner pocket with his free one and came out with his own bulging purse of new and soft and expensive leather. “Here, lad.” He finally released the boy, judging—correctly—that he would not run away at this interesting juncture. And he handed the boy half a crown, cursing himself for passing over both the sixpence and the shilling, cursing himself for falling into the trap in the first place. “But next time it will be my cane across your backside no matter who is pleading for me to stop.”

  The half crown disappeared as neatly as in any magician’s trick. The tears had disappeared too, the gentleman noticed without the l
east surprise.

  “You are very kind,” the lady said. “Thank you, sir.” But she was turning her attention back to the boy even as the gentleman was wondering idly how creamy her complexion must look when not rouged by the cold. She smiled. “You can buy some food for your family now, child. What is your name?”

  “Charlie Cobban, missus,” the boy said.

  The gentleman was somewhat surprised that the boy had not taken to his heels the instant the half crown had disappeared among the rather ragged folds of his clothes. But perhaps he had realized the imminence of the ultimate sentimentality, as the gentleman had not.

  “Are you hungry, Charlie?” she asked. “And cold? Shall we find a pastry shop, and I shall buy you a meat pie?”

  Good Lord. The woman must have escaped from Bedlam. The gentleman looked at her in fascination. The boy sniffed and tried the disappearing act with his head again. With considerably more success this time.

  “Ma’am.” The gentleman felt the terrible compulsion to interfere again. “I would not so encourage vice if I were you.”

  “Vice?” She looked up at him once more. “Not poverty and desperation and despair?” She looked as if she must have firsthand knowledge of at least one of those three.

  “Well,” he said, and he blamed the words that he knew were about to issue from his mouth entirely on the green of her eyes, “I know of an excellent pastry cook’s a mere few steps farther along. Their specialty is meat pasties.” In reality he had no idea what their specialty was. “Allow me to treat you both.”

  Two sharp eyes were peering upward from the boy’s frayed collar. The lady was possibly blushing, but it was impossible to tell for sure since her cheeks had been scarlet to start with.

  “It would not be proper, sir,” she said. “I do not know you.”

  Lord. Oh Lord. Perhaps he should go running for one of the dragon hostesses of Almack’s to effect an introduction.

  “Allow me to present myself,” he said, removing his hat and making the woman a bow, to the interested view of the crowds moving along the street. “Darcy Austin, Earl of Kevern, at your service, ma’am.”