The Last Chance Christmas Ball

by Mary Jo Putney

  He muttered something Allie didn’t catch. “Take my sister up to the house,” he snapped. “I’ll try to retrieve the luggage.”

  “But—”

  “Just go!” he told her and without waiting for her response, he slithered down the riverbank, climbed onto the precariously listing chaise, grabbed a bandbox from the swirling current and hurled it up onto the riverbank.

  He saw her hesitating, and yelled, “Go on up and get warm. I’ll join you as soon as I’ve dealt with this.”

  Seeing no alternative other than getting even colder as they watched him, Allie took the shivering girl up to the house.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Allie took Lucilla straight to the kitchen, the warmest room in the house. The fire in the cast-iron range was kept burning through winter, the kettle was always hot, and she’d put on a large pot of soup to keep warm against her return.

  “Now let’s get you out of these wet things.”

  Lucilla hesitated and gave a wary glance around her.

  Allie smiled. “It’s all right, there’s nobody else in the house—the servants are gone for the holidays.”

  “All of them? Then who . . . ?” Again she looked around. Clearly, she was wondering what kind of establishment did without servants.

  “We look after ourselves,” Allie said. She stripped the shivering girl of her wet clothes, toweled her briskly dry, wrapped her in a blanket and sat her down at the kitchen table with a bowl of hot soup with a little added brandy. While Lucilla addressed the soup, Allie hurried to fetch some clothes for her to wear.

  Dusk was falling, so she lit a couple of lanterns and placed one at the front entrance to guide the man called John to the house. Then she went upstairs and went through her wardrobe.

  Luckily, she and Lucilla were of a similar build. She grabbed a gray woolen gown, a flannel petticoat, woolen stockings, a warm shawl, and a pair of slippers. The girl’s brother would no doubt be in need of a change of clothing, too, so Allie fetched some of her father’s clothing, adding his dressing gown to the pile, in case Papa’s things didn’t fit.

  She had only the vaguest impression of the girl’s brother, that he was tall and dark and autocratic. And that he was bleeding. She hurried back to the kitchen.

  “I hope you don’t mind the color,” she said as she helped Lucilla into the dress. “I’m only just out of mourning.”

  “No, not at all, it’s very kind of you.” She gave a worried glance at the door. ‘Do you think John will be all right?”

  “He looks very capable to me,” Allie soothed her. Capable and quite bossy.

  “Oh, he is. He was a soldier, you know, but he had to sell out when our older brother died—he broke his neck on the hunting field. Papa died when I was a little girl, you see, and so Mama quite depended on John coming home.”

  Lucilla, thawed and warm, proved to be quite a chatterbox—or possibly it was the brandy—and in no time at all Allie learned that she was Lucilla Kelsey, that she was almost eighteen, that she was making her come out in the spring, and that she and her brother were on the way to Holbourne Abbey to attend Lady Holly’s ball. She was thrilled by the prospect.

  “It will be my first ever ball, you see, and Mama was going to bring me—she is a friend of Lady Holbourne—Lady Holly’s daughter-in-law—only Grandmamma has come down with the shingles, which is the horridest thing, so, of course, Mama had to stay home to tend her because Grandmamma hates to be ill and is a very difficult invalid and Mama is the only person she will mind, and, of course, I was simply devastated when she said we couldn’t go, because I was so looking forward to it and I had a special dress made and slippers dyed to match and everything.” And here she went into a rapturous description of her dress which was white hail-spotted muslin with the palest green silk underdress and a row of the sweetest little green satin bows around the hem, with crimson satin ribbons tied in the most elegant knots—“Christmas colors, you see—holly and berries.”

  Allie smiled and made appropriate responses as Lucilla chattered on. The girl’s liveliness was endearing, even if it made Allie feel rather dull by comparison. Had she ever been so young and eager and full of life?

  Allie stirred the soup, cut bread and cheese and thick slices of ham and set the kitchen table. John Kelsey would be arriving any minute and he’d be wet, hungry, and half frozen. She hoped he wouldn’t mind eating in the kitchen. Bad luck if he did.

  She fetched her medicine basket. For all his protestations that it was nothing, that cut on his head needed tending. She glanced outside. Dark was falling fast and it had started to snow.

  Lucilla rattled happily on. “All my life I’ve heard about Lady Holly’s Christmas ball—Mama and Papa met there, you know, more than thirty years ago—so romantic it was, even though they only had old-fashioned dances and nothing like a waltz—do you waltz, Miss Fenton—I’ve had lessons, but I’ve never danced it properly at a ball, not with a real partner—so I was utterly cast down when Mama said we couldn’t go. And then dearest, darling John said he would take me—he was to stay with friends over Christmas—a hunting box in Leicestershire—horrid stuff, but men seem to enjoy it. But instead”—she beamed at Allie—“he is taking me to the ball.”

  Allie smiled. “He sounds like a very good brother.”

  “Oh, he is. Mama told me most men would not give up a week’s hunting to take their little sister to a ball, and that I was not to plague him by chattering nonstop in the carri—oh!” She broke off, clapping her hand over her mouth, looking comically dismayed. “Mama says my tongue runs on wheels. I’ve been plaguing you, haven’t I?”

  Allie laughed. “Not at all. I’m enjoying your company very much.” It was true. She found the girl’s innocent chatter refreshing and the reflection that she would be working with young girls like Lucilla in the New Year cheered her immensely.

  The front doorbell rang and Allie hurried to answer it. John Kelsey, carrying a valise and a couple of damp-looking bandboxes, stood on the front portico stamping snow off his boots. The single lantern bathed him partly in light, partly in shadow. Behind him, snow swirled and drifted against the darkness.

  He was hatless and his thick, dark hair lay on his forehead in damp clumps. A dusting of snowflakes lay on his hair and across his shoulders, his very broad shoulders. His skin was lightly tanned, his cheeks were ruddy from the cold and he looked very big, very masculine, and very handsome. The cut on his forehead was no longer bleeding profusely, but was slowly oozing blood.

  His jaw was firm, his nose was bold, his mouth was stern, and his eyes burned blue in the golden lamplight. They gleamed quizzically down at her, as if he were waiting for something.

  Allie, realizing she’d been staring, gathered her wits, and stepped back. “Oh, I’m sorry. Please come in out of the cold, Mr. Kelsey.

  “Thank you.” He stepped inside and the entrance suddenly felt quite a bit smaller.

  Allie shut the front door against the bitter cold and turned to face him. She picked up the lantern, suddenly at a loss for words.

  His blue eyes glinted. “My sister has recovered from her fright, I take it?”

  “Yes, she’s perfectly well. She’s changed her clothes and had some pea and ham soup with a little brandy in it and it seems to have done the trick.”

  “Thank you for taking care of her, Miss—?”

  “Fenton. I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself earlier”—instead of staring, she added silently—“I’m Alice Fenton. Welcome to The Oakes.”

  “And I am, as I’m sure Lucilla will have told you, Kelsey, of Kelsey Manor in Yorkshire. Thank you for tending to my sister and for offering us shelter.” He glanced around, frowning slightly, and Allie knew he was wondering where the servants were.

  There was no point trying to conceal the fact that she was alone here; he would find out soon enough, so she said, “I’m afraid you picked the wrong place to be stranded in, for I’ve given the servants a holiday and we will have to fend for ourselves.�
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  He frowned. “Do I understand that you’re alone here?”

  “For a few days,” Allie said tranquilly. “I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself and a couple of guests. Come this way. You won’t mind the kitchen, I hope—it’s the warmest room and the best place to tend your injury.”

  She led him to the kitchen, where Lucilla exclaimed over the damaged hatboxes. She anxiously examined the contents, several elegant hats that proved to be only slightly dampened.

  “Lucilla, would you help your brother remove his coat and boots, please? Mr. Kelsey, if you would sit here please?” Allie indicated the chair closest to the fire.

  “It’s Lord Kelsey,” Lucilla corrected her as she put a hat down and hurried to help her brother with his boots.

  “Lord Kelsey.” Allie handed him a towel to dry his hair. She should have realized he was titled from the way he’d introduced himself earlier: Kelsey of Kelsey Manor.

  She placed a bowl of hot soup in front of him, added a generous splosh of brandy, and handed him a spoon. “Drink this while it’s hot. It will warm you from the inside.”

  He took it, eyeing her with an expression she couldn’t quite read. His steady blue gaze made her oddly flustered.

  She took refuge in busyness. “Lucilla and I will leave you to change out of those wet things. There are dry clothes there.” She indicated a pile of folded clothing on a chair. “I hope they fit. My father was not as tall as you, nor quite as broad in the shoulder, but should they prove insufficient, his dressing gown should cover you well enough.”

  “There’s no need—”

  “There is hot water and more soup on the stove if you need it, and the brandy is on the table—help yourself. We shall return in fifteen minutes and I will tend to that cut on your forehead.”

  “It’s perfectly all right.”

  She smiled. “Of course. Nevertheless, you will indulge me in this.”

  His brows rose and his lips twitched in a hint of a smile. “Will I?”

  “You will,” she said, quite matter-of-factly. “A gentleman must always indulge a lady. Besides, my house, my rules. Come, Lucilla, let us make up the beds.”

  Lucilla blinked but, with a bemused expression, she followed Allie upstairs.

  John Kelsey hid a smile. Lucilla, making beds? As he drank his soup—very good it was, too, and the brandy a welcome addition—and ate the bread and cheese and ham, he considered his hostess, Miss Alice Fenton.

  She had the sweetest face. His mother and Lucilla would probably say it was too round to be considered beautiful, but John found no fault with it. That small, decided chin balanced the roundness perfectly, as did the tip-tilted, rather imperious little nose, and the big gray eyes. Add to that a flawless creamy complexion, a luscious, very kissable mouth, and a figure that was rounded in all the right places, and Miss Fenton made a very fetching armful.

  He stripped off his sodden breeches and dropped them on the stone-flagged floor. He’d had to wade into the river to retrieve one of the bandboxes and his lower limbs were half frozen. He toweled himself vigorously.

  What the devil was she doing here all alone, with not so much as a single servant to attend her? The house didn’t look impoverished—he’d noticed dust sheets over the furniture in some of the rooms as he came in, but it was all clean and well-kept and the kitchen was clearly lavishly stocked—not that he was much acquainted with kitchens.

  Her clothes were dark and not particularly fashionable. Was she some kind of superior servant—a governess or a paid companion, perhaps? And the family had gone away and left her behind, dismissing the rest of the servants for the holidays?

  He felt mildly indignant on her behalf. Nobody should be left alone at Christmas, let alone in an isolated house in the country. And what if he and Lucilla had been villains? She would have been at their mercy.

  He stripped off the rest of his clothes and toweled himself briskly until the feeling crept back into his frozen extremities.

  Miss Fenton was quality born. The assurance with which she’d invited them in, and the way she’d taken command of Lucilla—and she hadn’t exactly held back from contradicting his orders, either, and the way she’d told him to sit and be taken care of indicated a habit of command. But was it simply a governess-y habit or natural assurance?

  She wasn’t intimidated by him or his title. He found himself grinning as he imagined his sister making a bed—he doubted she’d ever made a bed in her life—ladies didn’t. But Miss Fenton was clearly familiar with both bed making and cooking.

  But “my house, my rules,” she’d said, as if she owned the place. She was a mystery, one he’d very much like to unravel—in more ways than one.

  He sipped the brandy slowly and pondered the enigma of his hostess. It was very good brandy—another indication that it was not poverty that had caused her to be left alone at Christmas.

  A few minutes later, Lucilla and Miss Fenton entered the kitchen. “Ah, I thought Papa’s coat would not fit,” Miss Fenton said, gathering up his discarded clothing, which still lay in a sodden heap on the stone flags.

  John felt instantly embarrassed, seeing her clear up after him like a maid. He hadn’t given his wet clothing a thought. Lucilla wasn’t the only one who wasn’t used to taking care of herself.

  “Let me—” he began.

  “No, it’s quite all right.” She pulled a chair closer to the fire and hung his coat and breeches over it. “Lucilla can rinse out the shirt and your smalls and stockings.”

  At Lucilla’s shocked expression, she laughed. “Sorry, have I assumed again? It’s just that my mother insisted I learn to do every job in the household—she said if I learned how everything ought to be done, and knew how difficult or easy various jobs were, I’d be in a better position to run my own household when I grew up. Leave it then, Lucilla. I’ll do them after I’ve tended to your brother’s injury.”

  John opened his mouth to assure her he needed no such tending, but she caught his gaze and gave him such a look that he found himself laughing and saying, “Oh, very well, if you must.”

  A dimple appeared in her cheek. “I must,” she said with mock severity. She put a basket on the table beside him, and said to Lucilla, “Men think it unmanly to tend small injuries, but cuts can infect so easily—we had a gardener once who died of the tiniest scratch from a rosebush. Do you want to watch, Lucilla, or does the sight of blood distress you?”

  “Not at all.” Lucilla came eagerly. Miss Fenton had made a conquest of his sister, John saw.

  He sat silently while Miss Fenton tended his injury and explained to Lucilla what she was doing and what the salve she was going to use was made of. “Mrs. Meadows, my cook, makes it herself and it’s very good.” She began to list the ingredients, but John wasn’t listening.

  His attention was wholly engaged by the proximity of his lovely hostess—the very close proximity. With no apparent self-consciousness she’d stepped between his knees to tend his cut—well, it was the obvious position to do it, and if she’d been a physician John wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But she was a luscious armful of femininity and what she obviously didn’t realize was that in this position the only thing he could look at was her bosom. Her lush and fragrant bosom. Just inches from his nose.

  Not that it was in any way exposed—her dress was high cut, warm, and modest—but beneath the sober fabric he could see her breasts moving—right in front of his eyes—as she gently washed the dried blood off his forehead.

  He ought to be ashamed of himself for looking, ought to close his eyes in simple decency, but he couldn’t help himself. It was an entrancing sight.

  He held his breath as she lightly smeared pungent ointment over the cut, then bound it with a long strip of gauze that she wound around his head. Her breasts lifted and fell with each turn and once or twice they brushed against him as she reached back to straighten the bandage.

  He fought the impulse to put his arms around her waist and just draw her
to him, burying his face in those soft, lush, hidden breasts.

  “There, that’s better than vinegar and brown paper,” she said as she stepped back and surveyed her handiwork. “I never understood why brown paper, though I suppose Jack and Jill’s mother had to use what was to hand.”

  “You look quite dashing, John,” Lucilla said. “Like a wounded hero.”

  “Thank you, Miss Fenton,” John said softly, his eyes on hers.

  A faint rosy flush crept into her cheeks. “My mother taught me well before she died,” she said gruffly, and turned away to put his wet shirt and smalls into a bowl of soapy water. “They’ll be dry by morning; we never let the kitchen fire go out—oh! The sitting room fire! I meant to put more wood on it when I came in.”

  She made to hurry from the room, but John stopped her. “That’s a task for me,” he said firmly. “Along here, is it?” He indicated the corridor he’d entered through.

  “Yes, it’s the only door that’s closed—to keep the warmth in. There is wood—”

  “I can manage,” he told her with a faint smile. But he didn’t feel like smiling. She ought not to be here on her own, worrying about keeping fires going and looking after stranded guests. But he could do nothing about it.

  He built up the sitting room fire to a good blaze, then returned to find Miss Fenton hanging his wet clothes on a drying rack she’d set up in the corner of the warm kitchen.

  “I’ll do that,” he said brusquely, taking the damp shirt from Miss Fenton. It wasn’t right that she had to care for his things the way a servant would.

  “Your valise looks quite wet, John,” Lucilla said. “I think you should open it in case water has leaked inside.”

  “I know.” He opened his valise and, as expected, all the items in one corner were damp. He hung them on the drying rack.

  Lucilla exclaimed over the number of damp items. “I’d better check the contents of my trunk,” she said. “Where did you put it, John?”

  John glanced at Allie, then said, “It’s still in the boot of the carriage.”