In Love by Christmas: A Paranormal Romance (21 page)

“Well, plan on coming home for Christmas. Can you amuse yourself for two months?”

“Yeah, I’ve got that debutante party next week. Some folks in England want me to visit their estates and go hunting, play polo.”

“There’s your agenda. Keep in touch, Leroy. If you need anything, call me.”

“Wait a minute! The debutante party is next week. I could go to it and fly home afterward. I could visit Cass and come back if you needed me here.”

Leroy once saw someone throw a bucket of water on a cat. It ran out of there as fast as Will’s amiability took off. “We’ve talked about this before, Leroy. The Institute doesn’t allow visitors. Not me. Not you. Not Santa Claus. I’ve got to get back to war at Numenon. It’s not a good time to be in Woodside.

“Have a good time. Go foxhunting. Play with the debutantes.” Will patted Leroy’s shoulder. All of his good will wasn’t gone.

Leroy wanted to say something about the debutantes.
I’ll be true to her. I won’t be the way you were.

Will looked back, seeming to read Leroy’s mind. “We talked about what went on at those balls when
I
went to them, Leroy. I’ve come around to Grandfather’s point of view about intercourse, but you’re a big boy. You’re on your own.”

They stood there, the air vibrating between them. If Leroy could have listened to Will’s heart, he would have heard it say:
I love you. You’re everything I want a son to be. Everything I wish I could be.
Will’s deeper heart would say,
I want you and Cass to marry and be happy and give me grandchildren. I want a truly rich life.
And Leroy did hear it.

Will didn’t have Leroy’s abilities, but he had enough intuition to read what was written on the young man’s face,
I love you. I want to be close to you and marry your daughter. But you can be great, and you can be a jerk. You scare me.

When Will left for Palo Alto, Leroy felt empty, and yet full. He’d discovered he was a supremely powerful shaman. In that bright moment, everything seemed possible, even certain.

Cass would get well. They would marry and be very happy. He would
love
having Will for a father-in-law. Maybe. He would work for Will and earn money so he didn’t need to have things given to him.

He wasn’t going back to his dad and their ranch. The last few months had made him a different person. Leroy felt for a moment that he’d slipped on someone else’s skin. But then he realized that the skin was his, polished and tailored and ready for a new life.

26

Debutantes

L
eroy stood in
front of a tall mirror, wearing his complete ensemble for the first time. The Ball was a white-tie affair, very different than the simple tuxedo/cummerbund/black tie getup that passed for formal dress almost everywhere. Leroy’s tailcoat and trousers were bespoke clothing, along with his shirt and white pique vest. And his white tie, of course.

Tom, the valet, and the tailor stood by, breathless. Leroy looked at himself. The jacket flowed over his shoulders and chest perfectly. Not a bulge or any other imperfection marred any part of his regalia. His patent leather shoes shone from underneath his trousers, which broke at exactly the right spot above his instep. White tie, white vest, black tailcoat: all perfect. Slick and tight as the gloves on his hands.

“Does it please you, sir?”

“It’s good. Excellent. Thank you very much.” Leroy then studied the only part of his presentation he hadn’t taken in: himself. He considered his face in the mirror. Brown eyes with hazel splotches. Long, curling black eyelashes. Flaring nostrils and wide lips. A high-bridged nose. High cheekbones, smooth cheeks and brow.

He was beautiful. Leroy had to acknowledge that. Usually, he brushed off compliments about his appearance, but he couldn’t this time. His cheeks flamed. Leroy felt profoundly embarrassed.

“Sir, your car is ready. It’s time to meet Lady Clarissa at the hotel.”

He was escorting a sixteen-year-old little girl that he’d met once to a gigantic farce. Regardless of that, he knew how much it meant to her and he was committed to seeing that she had a good time. Melancholy and hopelessness had radiated from her when he met her at Lord Ballentyne’s home. He wanted that to go away, at least for the night.

His driver pulled up to the hotel. The Debutante Ball had been held there for years. He waited more than fifteen minutes for Lady Clarissa and her parents, Lord and Lady Martingale, to pull up behind him in their Bentley.

He got out of his limousine and smiled in the direction of Clarissa’s car. He liked her. She and her cousin, Lady Arabella, had roped him into taking her to this silly thing. Sad and lonely and whatever else she’d been at the Ballentyne’s party where he’d met her, she was a sweet child making her début to society at one of the fanciest balls on the planet.

When she got out of the Bentley, Clarissa’s face was white and pinched. She grabbed his arm, dashing toward the hotel. Leroy looked back and found out why. His Lordship and Ladybird were fighting, falling out of their vehicle in a drunken rage.

Lady Clarissa’s blond hair was styled in tousled curls. A veil dropped from the top of her head, almost obscuring her bright blue eyes. The veil didn’t hide the tears swimming in them.

“Why do they have to do this now? This is the most important day of my life. They
always
do this. They did this the night of auntie and uncle’s dinner party. That’s why I was by myself.” The tears poured over her lower lid. “Oh, no. I’m
crying.”

Leroy noticed two things: she had that classy voice even when upset, and she thought this party was the most important event of her life. Why? It seemed stupid to him from the get go. Will had spent a fortune on him. Clarissa’s gown made it two fortunes. How many more fortunes in silk organza did that hotel ballroom hold?

“Hold on, girl. Let me help you.” He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her his handkerchief. “Breathe slow a couple of times. I’ll help you.” He let a little energy flow.

She relaxed and looked at him. “What did you do?”

“Oh, jus’ something I can do.”

He squired Lady Clarissa to an area in the hotel where all the girls and their mothers waited, preparing to be presented. Presented to what? Queen Elizabeth had called off the royal participation in the debutante tradition in 1958. Her husband, Prince Philip, called the whole thing “bloody daft.”

In the old days, the debutantes were presented to Her Majesty, giving a regal stamp to the proceedings and making the participants true nobility, if only for an evening. The royals backing out didn’t do a thing to stop the ball. The tradition was reincarnated with a different focus. Girls wearing enough silk to make a thousand parachutes stood around, picking at invisible flaws in their gowns.

He felt angry. The excess of it. Girls who would never work in their lives wearing million dollar dresses, almost levitating about how exciting the evening was.
Wasn’t this great?
Spending more money than most folks would ever see for a party? Except they said those words in those high-toned voices that made it sound like being presented
was really
great.

The snobbery wasn’t below the surface. By the angles of those pedigreed noses and the way they looked at him, some of those …
girls
would be asking him to bus their tables by the end of the evening. The only thing that kept him in that hotel was little Lady Clarissa, who was sniffling softly.

“Hey, you want to split? We could go to a movie.”

She looked at him in amazement. “I couldn’t possibly leave. They’re not going to have a debutante ball anymore—this is the last year. 1997. This is my only chance to come out.”

They began moving forward, the girls in their frothy white dresses walking beside their mothers, who wore beaded, sequined, less-frothy white gowns. The excitement became almost frenzied as mothers and daughters approached the area where they were to be presented. The closer they got, the more upset Clarissa became. Leroy was about to go out in that Bentley and bust some aristocratic ass, when an angel appeared, with her mother.

“Clary, I’m so sorry,” Lady Arabella was a vision in that pale blue that accentuated her eyes. They were of a powdery hue impossible in the human species. She put her arm around her cousin. “If this had happened to me during my début, I don’t know what I would have done. We would have come over sooner, but we didn’t realize …”

“Darling, I’ll stand in for your mother.” That was her aunt, Arabella’s mother, Her Grace Violetta, the Duchess of Raddenbery and Cloudfill appearing in a suitably overdone dress.

“Oh, Auntie, I can’t believe they …”

“I can, my dear. Your parents need to be curbed. Now, wipe your eyes and I will present you.” She moved forward with the other pairs of moms and debs, but Clarissa held back.

“Stay with me,” Clarissa whispered to Leroy.

“I ain’t left yet and I don’ intend to.”

“Mr. Watches, this is most unusual. A man co-presenting a debutante,” said Her Grace.

“It is, indeed, Your Grace, most girls Clarissa’s age don’t have to deal with their parents fightin’ in Bentleys an’ lettin’ them down all the time. ‘Specially now. Lady Arabella, why don’ you come along too?” He couldn’t take his eyes off of Arabella. She made him forget
everything.

“All right, Mr. Watches. They aren’t having the Ball next year. Who can say what’s proper? Let’s give it a good last go.” The two young ladies hooked arms with Leroy. Her Grace preceded them and the four made their way to Clarissa’s presentation.

Leroy practically guffawed when he saw what they were presented to—a giant cake. Mothers and daughters approached the cake with reverence. Someone called out their names and pedigrees as the crowd oohed and ahhed. Then they bowed to the cake. Wasn’t just a bow, either. The girls leaned over so far he thought they were doing a nose-dive into the floor.

Their foursome went up, the only such group in history. Lady Clarissa did her swan dive and they left, followed by astonished glances and muttering.

Leroy could barely contain his laughter. Why were they bowing to a
cake?
He sure could see why Queen Elizabeth shut this deal down. He’d bow to Queen Elizabeth—she did a great job. But a
cake
?

After that it was just a standard formal dinner in a palace with tons of really rich people and girls in white dresses. And their mothers, wearing white sequined corsets. Leroy’s sense of humor was going to get him into trouble. He didn’t see another brown face, including the waiters.

I ain’t seen so much white outside the Good Ol’ Boys Club back home. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen so much white, anywhere. Lord, I hope they don’t get a drunk up and ask me to wash the dishes.

They were getting a drunk up, fast. He noticed the English were good at many things. Drinking was one of them. The kids were drinking too. Somebody reached over to fill Lady Clarissa’s glass. He put his hand over it.

“You don’t want to get messed up with that, Your Ladyship. You’ll go the way of your parents. Don’t drink now, or ever again,” Leroy said in the voice that had tamed demons and made them good. “All of you,” he spoke to the table and those around him. “Don’t drink. That’s the devil in a glass.”

Clary looked at the crystal glass, squaring her jaw. “You’re right. Grandpapa was the same as Mum and Da. He died from it.” She turned to Leroy. “Help me, I don’t want to be like them.”

He put his huge hand on her tiny one. “I will, Your Ladyship.”

“Clary.”

The dancing was as white as everything else. Fortunately, Leroy could waltz and rhumba and paso doble with the best of them. Other debutantes wanted to cut in on him and Clarissa. That reminded him some of what Will had said, but he couldn’t call it a stampede.

He stuck with Clarissa. She was upset and he wouldn’t leave her. He wanted her to have the enchanted night she had dreamed of. Her parents never showed. Clary’s cheeks flamed hotter the longer her parents
didn’t
appear.

“You OK, Clary?”

She nodded vigorously. “Yes. If my parents came now, they’d fall all over and start screaming and clawing each other even at the party.” She looked up at Leroy, baring her soul. “Do you know what my father did once?” Leroy shook his head. “He took his trousers off at the Polo Ball. And his …
Everyone
saw. No one stopped him. Only the servants. I never want to go anywhere with them again.”

“Folks do stuff like that, Clary, blacked out-drunk. Run down the street naked. Stuff like that. It’s his …”

“Do you know what they’re doing, Leroy?” she whispered as they danced. He shook his head. “They’re at our country estate, throwing things at each other, drinking everything in the house—and having sex all over. Even with the servants there.” She elevated her head, with its pretty sculpted nose and elegant features.

“Oh, Clarissa, I’m so sorry.” He hummed to her a bit. “You can have a life of your own. You don’t have to do what they do. You are a very good person.”

Arabella stood next to them, a pale blue vision. “Well, cousin Clarissa, may I dance with the handsome prince?” Clary looked up with a preternaturally knowing little smile.

“Of course, cousin Arabella.”

He took Arabella in his arms. They glided away to some sugary tune. Her smile dazzled him. In seconds, the shock came. Energy rushed up his spine, pleasure swirling around it. She grabbed his shoulder, having to reach high to get it; her right hand clutched his left.

“Leroy, what’s happening to us? It’s not a mistake. It’s
something.”
She moaned and her head tilted back.

“Shh. Not here, girl.” Not ever if Cass lived. He piloted her to a quiet corner, aware that everyone in the room followed them with their eyes. “It’s somethin’ in my culture and in my religion. If a man and woman are perfect for each other, they’re called soul mates. When they touch, it’s like with us.”

“
We’re
soul mates?” Her eyes were misty.

“I’d say so, but my grandfather isn’t here. He’d know for sure.” Leroy had realized that the old chieftains and warriors had often more than one wife. Maybe the Great One had sent him Arabella to be his second wife, not a spare in case Cass died. That was
really
impossible. So many nights, he’d dreamt he was rolling in Arabella’s plump arms, only to have Cass’s anguished eyes make Arabella disappear.

She stood before him, with those eyes yearning. “Do soul mates marry?”

“As soon as possible, yes.”

Her head fell forward and her forehead touched his chest. She was silent, and then her shaking shoulders told him what was happening. He pushed her away, so he could see her face. Silvery tracks ran down her cheeks.

“Father will never let me marry you. I want to marry you, but he won’t let me. I’m twenty-three years old, Leroy. I made my début seven years ago. I would have married a dozen times, but for my father. No one’s good enough for me. He has to have a better title than mine. Be richer than us and have more land. He has to have been to university.” All of those let him out. “But most of all …” She looked up at his face.

He knew what she was seeing. His nose was twice as wide as hers and didn’t end with a sharp point. His hair was short, but very curly. Most of all, his skin was brown.

“He won’t let you marry a black man.” Leroy’s jaw clenched. There it was; what Doug had said so long ago. Cut him to the core. He turned and walked toward the main door, intending to leave. Good old Lord Ballentyne who loved him and his ability to play golf. Invited him to his country house to play polo and go fox hunting. Leroy was good enough for anything, but marrying his daughter.