Charity Begins at Home (39 page)

Sensing tears, her brother took the package and ripped the paper off. "I know you say you don't want to celebrate it. But some birthday you'll get over this and want to be cosseted and gifted. And you'd likely never mention your change of heart, so we shall injure you unwittingly. Accept it, Charity, and have done."

It was time to move out of Francis's house, she thought resentfully as she took the red leather-bound book, for he had learned to read her too well.
Journals
, the gilt letters on the cover said. But the frontispiece was more enlightening. "To Miss Charity Calder, on the occasion of her coming of age. May your journey through life be a meandering one. Lady Hester Stanhope."

"Francis, where did you get this? It's her travel journals! Privately printed! Endorsed to me!"

Without a thought to good manners, she opened the book there at the table, reading of the famed explorer's journey through the Middle East. She hardly heard her brother's offhanded admission. "Oh, we correspond, you know. She was kind enough to read and comment on that monograph I wrote on Pitt the Elder's feud with Robert Walpole. She was Pitt the Younger's niece, you'll recall."

But Charity was already deep into an account of how the Druse tribe of Lebanon adopted Lady Hester and made her their prophetess. She was surely the only former debutante, Charity decided, to have become a religious icon.

"Some parts are rather raw, but now that you are a mature adult, I expect you will pass them right up as tedious. Page eighty-four," he added as Charity began flipping through the book.

Page eighty-four contained nothing raw at all, except a description of the camel meat Lady Hester once encountered at dinner. Charity went back to page three and paid no more attention to her brother's teasing.

Her other brothers catapulted in, Charlie carrying a specimen box, Barry fresh and fragrant from a dawn fishing trip. He sent the footman Phipps off with his string of trout and turned to his sister. "What a great Midsummer Eve! Never got to bed because I heard those fish a-calling. You been making more trouble, Sis?" Barry asked this quite as innocently as if he had not been at the center of it. "Crispin told me to tell you he won't be marrying you no matter what. Said that dunking in the brook was the last straw."

"I've told him that for years," she said crossly. "Barry, do wash your hands. You've got bits of worm up to your wrists."

Barry looked with surprise at his hands and took himself off toward the kitchen. "Well, Cris said he wouldn't have you if you begged him on bended knee," he called back through the swinging door. "But then he said you might as well give it a try."

Charlie cleared his throat for attention, then he shoved the specimen box across the table. "Felicitations, Sister."

Touched, Charity opened the lid and took out a magnificent quartz, broken in half to show the hexagonal crystals flashing red and blue. "Oh, Charlie, this is your prize! I can't deprive your collection of this!"

"I knew you'd say that." He took back the box, shook out a little square of cardboard, and handed it to her.

She read aloud, "On permanent loan to the Calder Collection from Miss Charity Calder." Her voice trembled a bit, but her countenance remained admirably straight. "Do you mean my name will appear in your collection? Why, we could call this the 'Charity crystal!'"

Her brother drew back a bit, "The 'Calder quartz' will do. We don't want to confuse the viewers. It will be the centerpiece of the collection, on black velvet with the card underneath. I intend to convert one of the plowsheds into my museum."

Francis was explaining why this was unfeasible when Barry returned and realized the import of the gifts at his sister's place. "Dash it, Charity, why didn't you write to remind me? I would have brought you something, a Trinity scarf perhaps."

"It's enough that you're sharing the day with me."

"You're right, that's plenty enough. Pass me the marmalade, won't you? My birthday is next month, which gives you ample time to plan. I'll be back from my walking tour of Wales.

"Your walking tour of Welsh pubs," Charlie muttered, holding out his hand. "You'd best give me the Calder quartz back, Charity. You wouldn't want to drop it."

"Certainly not when it's put me on the brink of geological fame." She gently transferred the crystal back to its donor and rose. There were a wealth of chores to attend to before she gathered her courage and offered Tristan her heart. After lunch, she decided; that would give him time to rest up and her time to steel her nerve. "Well, the laundry has no regard for my new consequence. We're washing all the sheer drapes today."

Charlie and Francis exchanged alarmed looks, and Charity exclaimed, "I promise I won't ask any of you to take them down. Phipps will help us without a single complaint."

"That is what servants are for." Barry nodded his thanks to the footman and began sawing the head off his steaming trout. "To do the tasks we can't abide. Where's the cat?"

"Don't toss that fishhead on the carpet, for goodness' sake." Charity grabbed a plate from the sideboard and interposed it under Barry's offering.

"Trinity College never countenanced such barbaric manners in my day," Francis muttered. "You'd think he'd spent the last term in an alehouse." With a significant look at the laughing Charlie, he added, "You may help the maids boil as many sheers as you like, Charity, but be properly dressed for tea at two. You must divert Mrs. Hering when I go to purchase that pasture from the squire."

"Francis, really, I have better things to do." But he was already out the door. So much for my birthday, she thought as she followed him out. But Mrs. Hering was indeed a far tougher negotiator than the squire, who would, out of her presence, likely trade the pasture for a good hunter. And they could have a good coze, discussing all the events of the fair. Well, not all of them. Just the ones before midnight.

And if she waited until four, she wouldn't disturb Tristan's painting time, she told herself, secretly relieved to have the moment of truth postponed.

At two she stood waiting in the entry hall, arrayed in a gown of shadow-striped silver muslin sure to distract the fashion-conscious Mrs. Hering. Instead of Francis, however, the opening door revealed a groom with a note. The tea was off, the squire having been called away, and Charity was free to boil her sheers.

I'll just surprise Tristan in his studio, she decided, and put on her bonnet. Perhaps that won't put him in a loving mood, she thought, and took her bonnet off. Her dilemma was resolved when Charlie burst in, disheveled and breathless from his long run.

"Charity, come quickly! Haver— it's all ahoo— the countess is crying— I told Jem, he's bringing the gig. Hurry!"

As Charity expected, agitated noises greeted her as she approached the Haver drawing room. But as she sailed across the threshold, ready to reorder the chaos, she stopped short. There was a party in progress, spilling out onto the terrace, complete with pink and white bunting and crystal punch bowl, no doubt the most unusual assembly Haver had ever hosted.

Charlie, laughing when he had previously been anxious, tugged her into the crowd toward the people who had come to help her celebrate her day. Uncomprehending, she held out her hand to the squire and Mr. Langworth, offered her cheek to Mrs. Hering and Cammie and Anna, bent to hug the Haverton boys, shook her head at her secretive brothers. So many friends were there: a few tenants in their Sunday best, Mr. Perry playing sentimental ballads on his fiddle, all three Ferris girls in their crisp maid uniforms, Crispin chatting up the always amenable Polly— what would his parents think if Crispin took her as a substitute for Charity?

Aunt Grace bustled up with her fragrant cushioned embrace and her horrified whisper, "Is it true? You aren't marrying that lord?"

"I think so, Aunt," she said absently, her gaze drawn mesmerically to Tristan standing on the edge of the party, laughter lighting his eyes.

"You think you aren't, or you think you are? Really, Charity, now that you are of age, you must team to be more precise— and less precipitate."

Borne away by the Haverton boys, Charity could not respond to this. Lawrence sat her down in a chair by the window, and, clambering up on the sill behind her, he put his hands around her neck. She flinched then felt the cool of metal against her throat and heard the snap of a clasp. "I got your necklace fixed. I paid for it myself. You didn't lose the locket, did you?" he said, climbing down.

"No, dearest, it's in my jewel box."

"This is for the jewel box, too." Jeremy elbowed his brother out of the way and handed her a little red clay heart. "It's a pin. I made it. It says 'Love' on the back. L-O-V-E."

"It's lovely, Jeremy, thank you." She pinned it to her bodice and turned to accept felicitations and a heavy volume from Cammie.

"It's a guidebook to the Vatican, with engravings of the Sistine Chapel. Very improving. I wish I might see it. Perhaps when Charlie builds a stone bridge to the Continent."

Always she was aware of Tristan, of the warmth of his gaze, the tension of his slim form. Polly blocked her view, however, twirling a gaily printed sunshade. "I hear the Mediterranean sun is bright," she said significantly, closing the parasol and handing it over.

Charity thanked her, musing that if the entire county thinks she was going to Italy, it must be true. She raised her gaze to meet Tristan's, just as Lawrence announced, "My uncle has a present, too. I'll show it to you."

"No, I'll show it to her myself." Tristan crossed to take her hand and pull her to her feet. To Lawrence, he said, "You'd best apply yourself to cozening your future steppapa. He's not so indulgent as I."

"But he has guns. He's going to teach me how to shoot."

"Not till I'm a league away, I hope. Come, Charity, let me show you your gift."

Even away from the curious crowd, Charity could not bring herself to speak her heart. Just as well; Tristan apparently had other plans for her. He pulled her into his studio, and she looked about, enjoying the careful chaos. She didn't even feel the need to tidy up. Still— "Tristan, should you leave your brushes to dry on that dusty shelf?"

He grabbed the dustrag from her hand before she could apply it. "My brushes will be fine. Now come here and see. I didn't have time to frame it. In fact, it isn't even dry. I was up till dawn finishing it. But that was all right," he assured her with a grin. "I couldn't sleep anyway."

Her color rising, she approached the easel he indicated. The canvas, about two by three feet, was covered with a baize cloth, and with a flourish he pulled it off.

She felt his arm tense under her hand and reassured him. "A painting is the best gift you could give me." It was that study in brown, she realized, almost disappointed. The canvas glowed with that most prosaic color. And perhaps the subject was unimportant, as Tristan said, but this was very odd. Two girls kissing?

"It's me," she whispered ungrammatically. "I don't remember—"

"Don't you?" Tristan's voice was urgent, his hand stealing around her waist. "How could you forget? I couldn't. See the dirt the boys tracked in? And the broken vase? And you were wearing a brown riding habit."

"But the mirror?" Memory glimmered. So much had changed since then: Haver Hall had been in mourning, the entrance hall shabby, the boys so wild, Anna sunk in melancholy. But she'd just come from London where everyone had liked her so well, and she'd been so pleased with herself she gave into a silly impulse and kissed her image in the smudged mirror. "You were watching, you— you voyeur!"

"Artists are all voyeurs. We're given lessons in lurking and creeping about unnoticed. Do you remember now?"

"You must have thought me very vain."

"Well," he confessed with a laugh, "I thought you very odd. But charming. In a vain way."

She did look charming, that doubled girl in the painting, her dark eyes alight with laughter, her pretty mouth curved in a kiss. Gamine, engaging— and very vain.

His left hand stole around her waist and clasped the other, pulling her close against him. She turned in his arms to look at him. "You aren't going to call it A Study in Brown, are you?"

"I expect you like The Kiss better."

He brushed her mouth with his own, and she drew away, breathless, to admit, "I do like kisses better than studies."

"You might take up studying kisses." And he kissed her again, lingering this time to give her lips a thorough study. But then he raised his head. "I forgot. I must explain the painting. You are distracting me from my script."

"Your script?"

"You are not the only playwright here, my darling. None of this romance comes naturally to me. So I wrote out my script last night. I had a most productive night, though frustrating."

"You truly wrote a script?"

"One for your brothers, too. The painting . . . the painting . . ." He turned her to face the canvas. "Ah, yes. When I first caught sight of you, you were bestowing a kiss on that charming girl in the mirror. I was captivated but confused. Such a very unusual thing to do in someone else's home. But— no, don't explain, for I think I know better than you why you did it."

He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, so she could feel the rise and fall of his hard chest. "It was because you loved yourself. No, it's not conceit. It only makes sense, after all. You are lovable. But not for the reasons you think— not because you are so kind and sweet and helpful and clever. It's because you love life so well, so you must love yourself, because there is so much life in you. And you teach us all to love life, too."