Regency Christmas Gifts (15 page)

At the beginning of this story, there was
mention of another letter to end it. Margaret sent a note that
evening to Sally by way of her lady’s maid, who delivered it while
Sally and her future husband were cuddling on the sofa and Mr.
Wilson was reading and trying not to laugh at their total lack of
interest in rational conversation.

The lady’s maid looked at Sally and John
sitting so close together, blanched, and handed the note to Sally
with shaking fingers. Mr. Wilson’s housekeeper showed her out and
swore later that the poor thing was muttering about the storm and
thunder about to descend on the entire Patterson household, and how
soon could she find other employment?

Sally opened the note, read it quickly, gasped,
and handed it to her beloved, who groaned, and handed it to Mr.
Wilson, who shook his head.

He handed it back to Sally, who read it again,
as if she couldn’t believe her eyes. “She has written to Mr.
Mallory calling off their wedding,” she said in amazement.
“ ‘I never told John McPherson that I didn’t write those
letters, so don’t say a word, if he should happen to drop by. I
have great plans for him.’ Oh dear.”

So ends this tale of a Christmas in Dumfries.
For those who are interested, the McPhersons went to St. Louis,
Missouri, where they raised an excellent family of Americans. To
the end of her long life, Mrs. McPherson always wore six blue beads
on a gold chain—one for her, for John, and for each of their
children. She never took it off, her gift from the hay wain lad who
remained hers, faithfully.

December 5, 1815

Dear Cousin Miles,

T
hank you for writing. By all
means, dear boy, join us when the Michaelmas Term is done, and
after your parents have seen you. Believe me, you are not inviting
yourself in vain. I am drowning in paperwork and testy females. I
am tempted to bury your cousin Clotilde up to her neck and retrieve
her only an hour before the wedding, no matter how illustrious the
groom. My sister Aurelia Burbage means well, but she is a
wretchedly poor substitute for my dear late wife. She flutters
about, making my cook’s life miserable with her demands. If Honoré
tenders his resignation, I swear I will open my veins.

And Lucy! Lucy mopes about wishing for
Christmas in this house, instead of Clotilde’s wedding. I tell her
that our thoughts must be on her sister’s Christmas Eve nuptials
this year. I know that Lucy misses her mother and all of my dear
wife’s holiday traditions. I have promised her a Yule log,
Christmas pudding, wassail, and caroling and all the rest next
year. “Can’t we have both now, Papa?” she asks, pleading with those
big blue eyes. When was the last time you saw Lucy? Contrary miss.
Aurelia is preparing her for a come out and Lucy could not care
less.

Your father tells me you are returning to
Oxford for more study. I break out in hives just thinking about
that much time devoted to books, but to each his own. It is a fact
that you Bledsoes come from the brainier side of our mutual family
tree!

Join us, cousin. I can’t offer you anything but
tumult this season, but if you can keep me above water by dealing
with correspondence, receipts and milliner’s bills, I’ll—heaven
knows what I’ll do. I can’t think!

Abandon the hallowed halls of Christ Church
College and come soon to the wilds of Kent at your own peril. See
if you can jolly Lucy into a better mood. Let us make that your
primary task.

Sincerely,

Cousin Roscoe Danforth

Miles Bledsoe tipped his chair back in the
confines of his carrel in the Bodleian Library, which meant he
banged against the partition separating his space from the one
beside him.

“
Bledsoe, do that again and you’re a
dead man,” came the voice of the aggrieved scholar whose
concentration he had broken.

Miles smiled to himself. Lord Hartley’s
aggravation would only last until Miles bought him a pint at the
Eagle and Child on St. Giles Street.

“
I just received good news, Hart,”
he said, louder than a whisper, but softer than the occasion
warranted, since this was even more than good news and deserved to
be shouted from a rooftop or two. He waited, knowing that Lord
Hartley liked a bit of gossip as well as the next earl.

“
Well, tell me,” Hart said. “This
jaw-me-dead treatise on tenth-century tenants and land rights is
calling my name like a diseased harlot.”

Miles laughed out loud, which meant a chorus of
shushes and foul words from other carrels. He stood up and looked
over the partition at Lord Hartley.

“
I have a cousin … words fail
me,” he whispered. He waved Roscoe’s letter. “I’ve just been given
carte blanche by her father to jolly her out of a bad mood incurred
by the approaching marriage of her sister.”

“
The old green-eyed monster, is it?”
Lord Hartley asked.

“
Lucy’s not jealous that her sister
is marrying. She is upset because the wedding is on Christmas Eve,
making the usual Christmas traditions null and void this
year.”

“
So you’re going to …
to—”

“
Tidwell, Kent, to try my luck. Lucy
knows me so well—we’re second cousins, after all—but Hart, I think
I love her.”

Hart leaned back this time. “My first cousins
are barely tolerable, my second cousins even worse.”

“
Lucy is much more than tolerable.
I’ll have to play this carefully. She has no idea of my feelings.
Wish me luck, Hart.”

“
Very well. Good luck!” Lord Hartley
said. “Now leave me alone so I can keep reading this fascinating
bit of British history. The entire civilized world is waiting for
my paper on the subject.”

Miles laughed louder, which earned him several
paper missiles lobbed in his direction, plus an apple core. He
caught the apple core and threw it back, then sat down to read his
cousin’s letter again.

Lucinda Danforth, he thought. Could a fellow
even hope for a nicer Christmas gift?

“
T
hings are
not shaping up well, Miles,” Lucinda Danforth announced as she
flopped into the chair in her father’s bookroom, a place Papa
avoided at all costs. She knew better than to flutter about with
die-away airs for her cousin from the quieter Bledsoe side of the
family tree. “Not at all well.”

“
Nonsense, Lucy,” Miles Bledsoe
said, after he blew gently on the drying ink. “You cause half of
your own problems by bludgeoning about in your graceless fashion.
How in the world are you going to convince some hapless rich man
with a title to marry you someday?”

She slumped lower in the chair. “Don’t remind
me that I am coming out in a few months. I call that monumentally
unkind.” She folded her arms and glared at the disgustingly calm
man seated behind her father’s desk.

And what did he do but laugh at her? She bore
it with what she considered remarkable grace by grimacing at him,
rather than sticking out her tongue.

He took out his timepiece and stared at it.
“Another fifteen seconds and your face will freeze like that
permanently,” he told her, which made her laugh.

“
That’s better. What is wrong now?”
he asked.

She had a million retorts and complaints, but
Miles had a way of giving her his full attention that reduced them
to one fact she had been avoiding since the start of
Advent.

“
I miss my mother,” she said
simply.

“
I miss her, too,” he said, and
folded his hands on the paper-strewn desk. “Cousin Penelope would
have gone about in her quiet way and organized this whole circus,
without any pain to anyone.” He took out his handkerchief. “Have a
cry, Lucy, and blow your nose.”

She took the handkerchief and did as he said.
When she finished, she folded the material into squares. “I’ll
launder it. Thanks, Miles.”

“
Anytime, cuz.” He gave her his
patented familiar look, which meant permission to carry on, if she
felt like it, and she did.

“
All Clotilde does is moon about and
cry if anyone looks at her. I thought that being in love and
getting married meant a smile or two, at the very least. Doesn’t
it?”

He shrugged. “What would you do if you were in
love, Lucy dear?”

She smiled at that, wondering for a second why
some female didn’t snatch Miles to her bosom and refuse to let him
go. He was tall and handsome and had big brown eyes, round ones
that made him look younger than she knew he was. Maybe his black
hair made him intimidating. How did she know? He was Miles—the
cousin, out of all her relatives, who never failed to make her feel
better.

She thought about what he said. “You know, I
doubt I would be any different than I am right now.”

“
I doubt you would be, either,” he
agreed. “You’re sensible and smart.”

“
Implying that my sister is not?”
she asked, wondering what it would take to actually ruffle her
cousin’s even temperament. No wonder he was considering a career in
diplomacy.

“
Clotilde is beautiful and pours tea
better than you ever will, scamp. I want to be a diplomatist, so
that is all I will say. Stop laughing!” He gave her a more serious
look. “You know you’re going to miss her.”

If someone else had told her that, Lucy would
have supplied an instant denial. Since it was Miles, she gave the
matter her attention. He was right, of course. Everything was
changing before her eyes and she didn’t know how to stop
it.

“
Whatever her mental acuity, I love
her, you wretch. When she comes back to visit, she won’t be my big
sister anymore,” Lucy said finally. “She’ll be a married woman. She
won’t want to crawl in bed with me and laugh about things, or tell
me ghost stories, or even go for walks with her shoes
off.”

“
That’s the price,” he said. “My
older brother—you know, Roger—is on occupation duty in Belgium now
and commanding his own regiment. We have to let them grow
up.”

“
I suppose we do,” Lucy agreed. She
stood up and leaned across the desk to kiss her cousin on the top
of his head. “Thanks, Miles.” Almost at the door, she looked back.
“I still want to do something that Mother would have done for
Christmas.”

“
What?”

“
I haven’t decided. You’ll be the
first to know, when I do.” She opened the door and laughed.
“Probably the only one. Everyone else is too busy with the wedding
to keep Christmas.”

L
ucy suffered considerable
penance (for her) by hemming one of Clotilde’s new nightgowns and
listening to her sister sniff a bit and cry gracefully into a
handkerchief more lacey than substantial. Lucy thought of Mile’s
efficient handkerchief in her pocket and wondered what Cleo would
do if she whipped it out and offered the damp thing to her.

“
This isn’t funny,” Clotilde
declared. “Lucy, you try me.”

And you don’t try me?
Lucy thought and
had the wisdom not to say it. She thought about what her cousin
would say, instead. She gazed for a moment at her beloved sister,
who had turned into an ogre, and took a page from Miles’s
book.

“
I don’t mean to try you. I wish I
knew how I could help you.” Lucy took a deep breath. “I wish Mama
were here to give you a shoulder to cry on. Will I do?”

She did. With a sob, Clotilde was in her arms
and crying prettily. Lucy wondered if her far lovelier sister had
perfected that talent in a mirror. Tears slid delicately down her
face, and her nose neither ran nor turned red.

Now that I have her, what shall I do with her?
Lucy asked herself. Where are you when I need you, Miles? “Do you
wish to talk to me about it?”

“
Lord Masterton sent me a list of
ways I can improve myself,” Clotilde said. She gave a little
hiccup. “This is the worst part. I can quote it from memory. ‘Miss
Danforth, you must remember that you are marrying into one of the
first families in the nation, and not another commoner’s house in
Tidwell.’ ”

Lucy gasped. “Have you mentioned this to
Papa?”

“
I wouldn’t dare,” Clotilde replied.
“Think how it would hurt his feelings.”

A long silence followed. Lucy toyed with saying
exactly what she thought, but didn’t think Miles would approve.
Still, this was Clotilde, perhaps not the brightest mind in two or
three shires, but certainly the kindest.

“
Cleo, are you completely certain
that you want to marry Lord Masterton?” she asked. “Papa is a
gentleman and he is wealthy. We don’t need Lord Masterton to give
us countenance. We don’t require a family title.”

“
Yes, I am certain,” Clotilde said,
too quickly to suit Lucy. “All the arrangements are made, my dress
is finished, I have a wonderful new wardrobe, and we are bound for
a month in Paris, now that Napoleon is gone. Wasn’t that the
purpose of my London Season?” She sat up and blew her nose.
“Besides, I love him.”