Greetings of the Season and Other Stories (22 page)

“Why should you be sorry for my own stupidity?”

“Do you mean there is some evil in this world I am not responsible for? I was beginning to wonder.”

She smiled at him, and now he had to take a deep breath. “Let’s get this bandaged, shall we?” he said, trying to ignore the warmth he felt spread through him from the touch of her warm skin, the contact of her knees brushing his as he worked on the burn. And Sabina wasn’t indifferent either, for her cheeks were as red as her hair. Or perhaps that was merely the brandy. He cleared his throat. “You’ll have to keep this bandaged until it heals, and you won’t be able to use your hand much, you know. Will you be able to manage? I could send a maid or two from the—”

“Oh, no. Molly will be back shortly, and the boys are quite helpful, really.”

“But, Mama, how are you going to play the church organ for Christmas?” one of the helpful lads asked. “The bishop is coming!”

5

“Oh, dear. Oh, dear.” The vicar was predictably upset at the Greene boys’ news that their mother would not be able to play the church organ. “And the bishop does so love a musical service. He has always sworn that music brings one closer to heaven. I was hoping to bring him closer to releasing the funds for our extension.”

“What if we could find someone else to play the organ for you instead?” Jasper asked, peering at the cleric through one cracked lens.

The vicar looked at the middle boy, then winced at the lurid colors of his eye. Mr. Davenport had carefully avoided asking about the split lip, swollen nose, broken spectacles, and missing teeth: What he didn’t know was better all around, he felt. “Another proficient performer in this town? Why, if you could find one, that would be more than a good deed, my lad. That would be a miracle.”

“What if this organist wasn’t a usual churchgoer, sir? Would that matter?”

“Such talent can only be a gift from God—that’s what the bishop said. So I would welcome Beelzebub himself, if he could play the
Messiah.
But—”

“And it is all right for us to invite this person to come play for you?”

“Of course, of course, but there is no one, lad, no one at all. Perhaps the choir can be encouraged to sing louder.” He waved them off, so despondent he forgot to give their homework assignments.

Once they were away from the manse, the other boys turned on Jasper. “Why did you say we’d find him an organist? We’ll never, and then he’ll make us do more good deeds.”

“I know someone who can play,” Jasper claimed. “Miss Viola Gaines.”

Martin opened his cut lip again, laughing. “She can’t play the church organ!”

“I heard her playing the pianoforte one day when Vicar kept you on after lessons.”

“Is she as good as Mama?”

“Almost,” Jasper answered loyally. “And she’s almost as pretty.”

“She smells almost as nice,” Benjamin added. “I helped her get her cat out of a tree once, and she gave me a biscuit.”

“She dresses better than Mama,” Jasper said, and no one could contradict him. They all sighed, wishing they had some way to earn enough to buy their mother that length of velvet.

“But just because she can play the pianoforte doesn’t mean she can play the organ,” Martin reasoned.

“There’s still ten days before Christmas Eve. Mama can teach her. She taught Georgina Marsden to play
Greensleeves,
and Georgie’s just a dumb girl.”

Martin was beginning to permit himself to be convinced. “But Miss Viola never goes to church. Why should she do it for us?”

“She’ll do it if the vicar asks her special.”

“I’m not writing any more letters,” Martin announced. “Two jaw-me-dead lectures were enough. ’Sides, we made up Dr. Goodboy; copying the signature of a man of God has to be a sin.”

“You don’t have to write another letter, ’cause Mr. Davenport said we could invite her, plain and simple, he did. Only he didn’t know her name.”

“And if that doesn’t work,” Martin said eagerly, “we can get Benjy to cry. That always works with Mama.” Benjy was way ahead of them. “And she and the vicar can get married! Then we’ll have all our good deeds done!”

Even serious-minded Jasper had to laugh. “The vicar isn’t going to marry Miss Viola, noddy! She’s a Bird of Paradise. I heard Squire Marsden say so once.”

“So what? Mr. Davenport is always going on about paradise, too, isn’t he?”

*

While the boys were at their lessons, or so he supposed, Connor called at Sabina’s cottage. He told himself it was just polite to see how she was going on, and to deliver in person the tin of soothing salve.

“You shouldn’t have bothered your kitchen staff at a time like this,” Sabina said when she answered his knock on her door. “They must be frantic with the Christmas preparations and the company coming.”

“Actually, I didn’t bother the cooks at all. I had my head groom mix up the stuff from a recipe I had in Spain. It won’t smell as good as the kitchen’s, but ought to help heal the burn faster.”

After such a kind gesture, Sabina had to invite Connor in, as much as she wished to keep her distance. She gestured him to follow her to the little parlor, which was strewn with fabric, trims, sewing supplies, and a sheepskin.

“Dash it, Sabina, not using your hand would help more than any ointment. What the devil are you doing, anyway?”

She gathered some of the material into a pile to make room for him to sit. “It’s the costumes for the children’s Christmas pageant. I thought that, since we will not have organ music, perhaps I can improve on the Nativity.”

“With your hand bandaged? I suppose you’re still cooking and cleaning besides.”

“Oh, no. Molly is doing everything. She’s in the kitchen right now making gingerbread while the boys are away.” She would not let on that the gingerbread was going to be almost the only Christmas delicacy for her sons. With new clothes to replace those damaged in the altercation and new spectacles for Jasper, her meager stock of coins would be nearly spent.

“Is she making gingerbread men?” Connor asked, his blue eyes lighting up. “With currant eyes?”

“Of course,” Sabina said with a laugh, remembering how much he’d always loved the treat. “They’ll be ready in an hour or so. You could come back then for a taste.”

“Or I could wait here…?”

Sabina bit her lip, not knowing how to answer. The man was definitely not healthy for her equilibrium, but, oh, how sweetly he smiled at her now, flashing a well-remembered dimple in his right cheek. She nodded, then picked up some gold braid to pin on one of the Magis’ robes. She was awkward in his presence, and the bandage didn’t help. The pins kept falling.

“Why are you the one doing this?” the viscount demanded as he retrieved them from the floor at Sabina’s feet, then took the fabric from her and proceeded to fasten the braid on, all higgledy-piggledy, but on. “Surely one of the other women in the congregation could help.”

“Who? The village women are too busy with their cooking and cleaning and helping their husbands at work. The farm wives have animals and gardens to tend. And the vicar has no wife, Mrs. Marsden has the rheumatics in her fingers, and the castle has no lady bountiful to oversee the needs of the community. I at least have help with the chores.”

This last, pointed reminder destroyed Connor’s good humor and determination not to argue with her again. Besides, he was pricking himself with every pin he put in. “Thunderation, Sabina, do you have to take on the responsibility for the whole town now?”

“I find that more estimable than not taking responsibility for anything, even one’s own actions, my lord. The life you’ve led…and you are pinning the trim to your coat sleeve.”

“Blast!” He tossed the wretched mess aside. “I have a seamstress at the castle who does nothing all day that I can see. I shall send her down with a wagon this afternoon to pick up this whole jumble, and your instructions. And no argumentation for once, miss, if you please. Now let me see your hand. It would be just like you to put the medicine on an injured rabbit rather than use it for yourself.”

He sat on the floor next to her chair and unwrapped the bandage. While he worked, he told her some of his plans for the castle and its holdings. He thought he might start a small hand-weaving guild, or a pottery to employ more local residents. And he’d see a dam built along the stream, so the workers’ cottages wouldn’t flood come spring. Sabina thought he ought to move the whole lot to higher ground and start anew, since some of the houses were no more than ramshackle huts. Soon they were talking like old times, passing comments back and forth, building on each other’s ideas and opinions. If he could have wrapped a mummy in the time he spent rebandaging her hand, Sabina did not complain.

This was madness though, she told herself. He was bored in the country without his opera dancers and actresses, that was all. That was why he was spending time with his estate managers…and with her. Connor was flirting with her, she decided, trying to seduce her with his newfound respectability. Then he’d leave. He always did.

“Oh, I forgot,” he was saying, reaching into his pocket. “I brought a pair of spectacles a guest left behind at the castle. I don’t know if they’ll do for Jasper until you can have another set made up, but these were going to waste.”

Sabina smiled. “Between the boxing lessons and your offer to let the boys ride Espinham’s cattle, they already think you are top of the trees. Pulling new spectacles out of thin air should convince them you can walk on water.”

And their hearts would be broken when he left, too. “You…you won’t disappoint them, will you?”

“What? Go back on my word? Such an accusation would be cause for a duel among gentlemen, by Jupiter. I have been waiting until their bruises are healed, is all. But, thunderation, do you really believe me to have so little honor as to lie to innocent children? I keep my promises, madam.”

Except for the ones that hung between them:
I’ll love you forever. I’ll be back.

Connor got up from the floor and strode to the mantel, where he stared at the framed miniature of Jessup Greene. “Did you love him, Sabina?”

Sabina could have taken umbrage at his familiarity, but she felt she owed him an honest answer.
“I…
I respected him. He was kind.”

“Kind? Is that all you can say about the man who fathered your children?”

She shrugged. What more was there to say, except that Mr. Greene was not used to children, not used to women having thoughts, and not used to his steady, bachelor life being continuously disrupted. She’d always wondered what he thought would happen, taking a young wife. And she still resented his giving the trustees absolute control over her finances, as though she could not balance her bank accounts. “I did not know him well. He kept himself apart. But I was not unhappy,” she quickly added. “And I had my sons. Other women fare much worse in their marriages of convenience.”

“Yet you wore my locket.”

Sabina’s hands flew to her throat, where the locket usually rested on its chain. She’d removed it after Connor’s first visit, hoping he hadn’t recognized the only piece of jewelry she had on, other than her wedding ring. Silly notion, that. “I don’t have much jewelry,” she tried to explain. “Mr. Greene was a frugal man.”

“So he was a nip-farthing besides a lecher. But to wear another man’s token, Sabina?”

“He believed it had come from my mother. I saw no reason to disabuse him of the thought. And, very well, if you must know, I wore the locket to remind me of those other times. Days when I was neither caretaker for my father or for my children, nor a necessary inconvenience to my husband. I wore the locket to remind me that once, very briefly, I was loved for myself, and in love with the world. It was a magical time.”

“Just like Christmas.”

She ignored him. “And I took it off because I am not that girl anymore.” And because she did not want him to think she’d been wearing the willow for him all these years. She’d never say that, though, so she told him, “I have a rich, full life, with people who love me and need me. That’s enough.”

But was it? she asked herself. Had it ever been enough? Could it ever be again, when he was gone? Sabina had no answers.

6

Viola Gaines almost burst her stays, laughing, when the little boys asked her to play the church organ. What a chuckle the girls back in London would have over this. But she wasn’t back in the city; she was in a tiny, respectable town, and she was bored with her own company. Besides, Viola was used to being the center of attraction, not being treated as if she had the pox. What she had was the lease to this cottage from her last protector, and no desire to go back to her old way of life. So why shouldn’t she perform at Christmas, especially if that prim and proper young Widow Greene was sending her boys over to second the vicar’s invite? Miss Gaines had played for merchant princes and members of Parliament. What was a bishop or two? Viola was fairly confident she could master the pipe organ, too.

Viola did not need a great deal of convincing. Neither did the vicar—he needed smelling salts. Oh, dear.

When Mr. Davenport found his breath again to speak, he addressed the three red-haired imps grinning up at him, instead of the woman by the door. “What trouble have you wretched children gotten into now?”

“Remember how you said you’d welcome Beelzebub himself if he’d play the organ?” Jasper asked. “We couldn’t get the devil, but we did get Miss Viola.”

The next worst thing to the vicar’s thinking. “Oh, my. Can she play?”

“Like an angel,” Martin told him. “Like the one you sent us to find.”

“Like an angel in Paradise,” Benjy chirped. “It’s a miracle, isn’t it?”