The Virtues of Christmas

by Grace Burrowes

  “I like that—having the last word,” she said. “I’ll re-create my three columns and then I’ll go. If you need me after today, send Harry ’round to fetch me. You never did let me offer that gin widow any advice.”

  And Dougal MacHugh would not have lost track of the letter. He was relentless about details, and that letter was not a detail.

  “I’m off to fetch a cab for Detwiler,” he said. “If that old man walks home in this mess, Cousin Avery will report me to the authorities for disrespecting my elders.”

  Mr. MacHugh departed, and the silence in his wake was bewildering. He no longer argued with Patience, didn’t contradict her, didn’t instruct her on the finer points of managing a competitive enterprise. She caught him watching her, peering at her over his glasses, leaning against the doorway of the office when she looked up from her writing.

  By the time he came back—soaked to the skin—Patience was busily rewriting one of the columns George had destroyed. Mr. MacHugh shook out his greatcoat, droplets of melting snow dotting the floorboards.

  One of them hit her on the cheek. She swiped it away and got back to work.

  “Patience, the weather is truly foul. Let me get you a cab.”

  “I have one more column to go. The rain will let up, and then you won’t need to call me a cab.”

  “It’s not raining now. It’s snowing like it means business.”

  “Ah! I need another word for business.”

  A great sigh gusted from across the room. “Commerce, enterprise, trade, mercantile endeavor.”

  Patience considered the walking thesaurus grousing at her from across the room. “I like that last one, mercantile endeavor. I have a question, though, about your own mercantile endeavor. Why name it MacHugh and Sons? You’re not a fundamentally dishonest person, but you are in want of progeny.”

  He shook his scarf out next. Some of the shower hit the cat on the mantel. George woke up, glowered at his owner, then went back to napping.

  “MacHugh and Sons is poetic license,” Mr. MacHugh said. “If I make a go of this place, then I’ll be free to marry, and the sons might well follow. One wants to sound successful while one is trying to be successful.”

  Patience sprinkled sand on the page she’d completed. “Just as I’m Mrs. Horner, a staid, respectable matron with years of domestic experience. Do you suppose Pennypacker is a professor?”

  Every time she brought up the professor, Mr. MacHugh’s eyes went bleak. “He knows his books. He’s no match for you when it comes to domestic issues. I’m for some tea. Would you like a cup?”

  She rose and came around the desk. “You haven’t been getting enough rest. Is that why you’re so surly lately?”

  “I’m no’ surly.”

  Mr. MacHugh’s hair had a tendency to curl when damp, and it was a touch longish at the back. Patience liked it longish. She liked him, and she did not like that he was troubled when, for the most part, all was going well. Rather than kiss him, she slid her arms about his waist and leaned close.

  “Patience, you mustn’t…”

  “This is a hug. H-u-g. Detwiler says we don’t know where the word comes from, but Shakespeare used it, so it has to be good old English. You mustn’t worry, Dougal. Your plan is going brilliantly, and all will be well. Do you miss Scotland?”

  Patience had missed this, the feel of him close and solid in her arms, the rhythm of his heart beneath her ear, the fragrance of his heathery soap blending with the ink-and-starch scent of a publisher at his trade.

  “I’ll miss you, lass.” His arms came around her on that cryptic admission, and for a long moment, Patience remained in his embrace. To be held like this was fortifying, a boon most couples probably took for granted after the first few weeks of courting.

  And yet, holding Dougal was frustrating too. He made no move to kiss her and no move to leave her embrace.

  Was he humoring her? On that horrifying thought, Patience drew back. “Fetch your tea, and I’ll finish up these last paragraphs. I won’t know what to do with myself, now that—what day is this?”

  Now he smiled. An indulgent, understanding smile. “Tuesday, December 21, in the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and—”

  “I forgot baking day. I’ve made nothing to contribute to baking day and I can’t arrive empty-handed. The Windham ladies will be wroth with me.”

  “Heaven forbid you lost track of baking day. Shall I send Harry off with a note conveying your apologies?”

  Beyond the window, a proper snow squall was in progress. “Not in this weather. I’ll send an apology tomorrow.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Don’t fret. At the pace you’ve been working, it’s not unusual to become absorbed in the task. The instant you’re finished with your last column, I’m walking you home.”

  And then he was gone, yelling for Harry to shovel the walkway and steps, lest the lord mayor of London fall on his bum and on their very doorstep.

  “I like working here,” Patience informed the cat. “I like working here all too well, and Mr. MacHugh kissed me. Not much of a kiss, but something. How am I supposed to concentrate after that?”

  George yawned, stretched, flicked his tail a few times, and commenced washing his paws.

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  If one thing held Patience Friendly back as an author, it was self-doubt. She quibbled over words, commas, responses, and revisions. Some of that dithering was the writer’s delight in every detail of her craft, but much of it was what happened when nobody appreciated a natural talent, obvious though that talent might be.

  “Have I ever thanked you for how much you encourage Harry and the other lads?” Dougal asked as Detwiler bundled into a coat.

  “I’m the editor,” Detwiler said. “My job is to correct, improve, and admire. The boys are loyal to MacHugh’s, and they are a bright lot.”

  Unlike the publisher . The words hung in the air as Detwiler went about putting the quill pens in order.

  “Be off with you, Aloysius. The cab is waiting at the door.” Dougal slid into the seat behind Detwiler’s desk, opened a drawer, and withdrew the professor’s final two columns.

  At the top of the first page, the overspending housewife—a newlywed in this version of the letter—silently reproached him.

  “You tell that poor woman to throw herself on her husband’s mercy,” Detwiler said, tossing a scarf around his neck. “But when it comes to confessing your own transgressions, you’re not half so forthcoming, professor.”

  “You have the correcting part off by heart, old man. The cab driver’s horse is standing out in this weather while you sermonize at me.”

  “I do admire you, Dougal, and I fancy Miss Friendly does too. Start there—with all that mutual admiration—and the transgressing takes on a different perspective. If a housewife can admit she’s bought a few too many holiday tokens for her loved ones, can’t you admit that your ambitions for a talented author got away from you?”

  Dougal’s ambitions for Patience hadn’t merely got away from him. They’d gone completely to Bedlam.

  “That’s the problem,” Dougal said, staring at the words marching across the page. Schoolteacher words, very articulate, but lacking the warmth Patience brought to her advice. “Patience will think all I admire is her writing ability. She’ll think I’ve engaged her affections merely to use her talent for my own ends.”

  Detwiler jammed a newsboy’s cap on his head. “You are thinking too hard, being too much the academic fellow and not enough the callow swain. There’s a flask in the bottom drawer. May it bring you the comfort and joy my common sense cannot.”

  A gust of cold air wafted in as Detwiler shuffled through the door.

  Somewhere in Detwiler’s haranguing, Dougal sensed a kernel of wisdom.

  A schoolteacher learned the value of judiciously praising ability and honest effort. He also saw the nearly irreparable harm done when both were ignored for too long. How was a woman to hav
e confidence in her abilities when for her entire upbringing she was trained not to bring notice to herself?

  Dougal hurt for Patience and promised himself he’d remedy the harm done to her self-confidence, assuming she spoke to him, wrote for his publications, and gave him the time of day once she learned that the entire Christmas project had been based on a lie.

  He read over his columns one last time and put them back in the drawer, then put his feet up on the corner of the desk and indulged in a pastime from his youth: reading the dictionary. For each letter, he read the entry for the first word his gaze landed on.

  Admire. Patience was a gifted author, and she had a keen instinct for the publishing business. Dougal admired that about her.

  Besotted . Dougal was, in fact, besotted with her energy, her intellect, her kisses, and her determination. She’d made the best of a trying situation, when she might have thrown herself on the charity of distant family, or accepted the proposal of any doddering opportunist who came along.

  That thought gave him a very bad moment, indeed.

  Callow. Patience would have no interest in the attentions of a naïve, unfledged boy. She deserved a man who’d stand toe-to-toe with her, give as good as he got, and yet, grasp that fostering her confidence would be a delicate undertaking.

  Dougal had made it past o-is-for-obligation and onto p-is-for-passion, when a signal truth beamed up at him from the pages of the lexicon.

  He owed Patience Friendly for giving him the foundation upon which he could grow his business.

  He also loved her.

  The realization put something fundamentally right with him, because love was the word that encompassed all he felt for Patience. Affection, desire, respect, protectiveness, friendship, all tied up with a bow defined as love.

  And with that realization, he grasped as well how to unravel the problem he’d created with the fictional Professor Pennypacker.

  For Christmas, Dougal would offer Patience all that had been tendered to her previously—a future, a husband, a lover, security, a family of her own. At some point, years and several babies hence, Dougal would find a casual, merry moment over breakfast and mention that he might have penned a column or two as Professor Pennypacker.

  Patience would be surprised and amused, and tell him she’d speculated as much—might he please pass the teapot?—and they’d share a laugh as they recalled how well the whole plan had worked.

  Dougal continued to leaf through the dictionary, pleased with the reply he’d fashioned to the conundrum of his situation with Patience. He didn’t read any more words, he simply enjoyed the feel of the lexicon in his hands, the sound of each page turning.

  Marriage. Good old, traditional, happily-ever-after marriage. The notion, worthy of the learned Pennypacker himself, left Dougal feeling so rosy and replete, he started humming Christmas carols.

  * * *

  A rough, warm sensation against Patience’s wrist woke her.

  “George.”

  The cat paused in his licking, squinted, then resumed taking liberties with Patience’s person. In the darkness, the beast’s eyes glowed like nacre, giving him a predatory beauty he lacked when lounging above the hearth.

  The fire had burned down to little more than coals, and outside, all was darkness.

  “Oh dear. I suppose I must thank you. The columns are complete.” Very good columns they were too. Patience put them in Dougal’s top drawer, King George having proven himself a menace to paper, if not to mice.

  The next challenge was extricating herself from Dougal’s chair. Her back protested, her feet were cold, and her eyes gritty. She detected neither light nor sound from beyond the office door. Dougal would never have left her alone on the premises, and yet, business hours had apparently ended.

  Patience lit a carrying candle and went to the clerk’s office. The air was noticeably cooler, and because the heat source was a parlor stove, the room was without illumination other than her candle. Dougal sat at Detwiler’s desk, his feet propped on one corner, a book open in his lap. His arms were folded, and his chin rested on his chest.

  “Oh, you poor dear.” Patience took a moment to memorize the sight of him, the ambitious publisher asleep amid the trappings of his empire. His weapons were the quill pens and foolscap neatly stacked on each clerk’s high table, his mission to relieve ignorance and boredom at a reasonable price.

  She gently lifted the book from his lap—a dictionary, of course—and then unhooked his spectacles from his ears.

  As a younger woman, she would have pitied the lady whose lot was to be courted by a man in trade. A merchant or professional was all very well for those born to that strata, her papa had claimed, but better families could look higher.

  “What higher purpose is there,” she murmured, “than to enlighten and enliven the lives of those who do the actual work in this life?”

  Dougal’s eyes opened. “Is that a quote?”

  Patience handed him his spectacles. “We can make it the MacHugh and Sons business motto.” His gaze was tired—this project had demanded quite a bit from him too—but even weary, he was attractive.

  He sat up and rubbed his eyes, then put his glasses back on. “Patience, why didn’t you wake me? It’s dark out.”

  “I fell asleep too. George woke me, probably to tend his personal fire. Are we alone here, Dougal?”

  He rose and stretched, hands braced on his lower back. “But for George, I suppose we are.” He flipped open a pocket watch, the gold case gleaming by the light of the single candle. “God in heaven, Patience, it’s nearly nine o’clock.”

  Patience rummaged around in her emotions for dismay, alarm, some vestige of the young lady’s fear of ruin, and found only anticipation. Ruin lay ten years in her past, but to be alone with Dougal at such an hour inspired all manner of fancies.

  He was at the window, scowling down at the street. “There’s two feet of snow on the ground and more coming down. It will take ages to get you home in this mess.”

  “Dougal, don’t be daft. Nobody has shoveled the walkways at this hour, and the only people abroad are those preying on the unwary. I wouldn’t let you walk me home tonight for all the crumpets in London.”

  “You’ve grown bored with crumpets,” he said, letting the curtain drop. “This is not a good situation, Patience. If anybody learns that we’ve been alone for this long, under these conditions, your good name is compromised beyond recall, and so is mine.”

  “Your safety matters more to me than my good name, Dougal, and so does my own welfare.”

  She expected him to argue, and looked forward to it, in fact. Lately Dougal had passed up every opportunity for confrontation, and she’d missed his logic and his unshakable confidence in his own perspective. He was a worthy opponent and thus a worthy ally.

  “Your safety matters to me more than my own,” he countered. “I haven’t seen a storm like this since coming to London. After this much snow, the temperature can plunge drastically. The Thames will likely be frozen by morning, or very nearly.”

  While Patience’s heart was melting. Tired, worried, and rumpled, Dougal was ten times the man the viscount had ever aspired to be. Happy Christmas, Happy New Year, happy rest of her life.

  “You’re often the last one here at night, aren’t you, Dougal?”

  “Aye. I own the place. If it fails, I own that too. Are you hungry?”

  Starving . “A bit, also chilly. I should keep a shawl here.”

  He looked at her, a direct, considering gaze, the first in many days. “I can get you warm. Let me see to the fire in the office, and we’ll asses our situation over a pot of tea.”

  “For a cup of strong, hot tea, I would write you an entire column at no charge, Mr. MacHugh.”

  “You’ve grown light-headed with fatigue,” he said, moving into his office. “Don’t jest about giving your work away, Patience. When your labor is your sole means of earning coin, then nobody should expect you to part with it in the absence of compensation
.”

  “Are you sure you were a schoolteacher, Dougal? You sound like a preacher.”

  He stopped before the hearth. “You are very calm for a woman who’s in the process of being compromised. This situation is serious, Patience.”

  Patience went up on her toes and kissed him. Not a buss to the cheek, but not a declaration of unending passion either. He had a point: Her words were valuable.

  So were her affections.

  “When the viscount tossed me aside, my name went into the ditch along with my prospects. I don’t know if he saw to that, or if polite society—notice nobody refers to them as compassionate, kind, or tolerant society—did me that favor. My true friends stood by me, Dougal, and they won’t quibble because I had the sense to stay out of a dangerous storm.”

  “The lads won’t breathe a word,” Dougal said, tucking a lock of Patience’s hair behind her ear. “Detwiler’s discretion is absolute. I only wish…”

  In all of Patience’s dealings with Dougal MacHugh, she’d never heard him use the verb wish. “What do you wish, Dougal? My last columns are complete. Your project has earned MacHugh’s the notice of half of London, and the new year promises success to us both. I wish you’d thought to pit me against Pennypacker like this two years ago.”

  He took her hand and led her to the sofa. “The time wasn’t right. You were still finding your balance, and there wasn’t a Pennypacker to pit you against.”

  They sat side by side, and Dougal kept her hand in both of his. The moment might have been awkward—last week’s kiss was but a memory, and Dougal had been anything but amorous since—and yet, Patience was at peace.

  Hard work had won her a measure of security, and though her feelings might not be requited, she’d found a man she could esteem greatly. Dougal was capable of desiring her, for all he seemed reticent to take any further liberties, and that reassured the part of her rejected so long ago.

  The problem wasn’t her—the problem had never been her.

  “Patience, I account myself an articulate man, but some words elude capture when I need them most. You know I respect you.”