Greetings of the Season and Other Stories (28 page)

Somewhere in the furor of his departure, whilst changing his clothes, gathering together money and his pistol and a hastily packed hamper for the journey, Lord Boughton discovered that he knew what he wanted for Christmas after all. He wanted to be a father.

3

“What does Mactavish want now?” Gerry asked her brother when she saw the note he was holding. Only one person of their acquaintance wrote with such a bold, sprawling hand. Besides, she’d seen the writing all too often enough in the past years. Mr. Euan Mactavish was the India nabob who was leasing Selden House. It suited the wealthy merchant to live in a gentleman’s house. It did not suit
him
to live with falling tiles, smoking chimneys, or leaking drains. Sir Eustace was frequently summoned to their old home to listen to the latest disaster, and to renegotiate the terms of Mactavish’s lease in recompense. Lud knew the Seldens could not afford the repairs and renovations Mactavish insisted upon. Gerry couldn’t help her suspicions that the self-made mogul liked having a titled gentleman at his beck and call, even if Stacey was a mere baronet. “What does he want you to fix this time?”

“I have no idea. The message is addressed to you, sis.”

“Goodness, what could Mr. Mactavish want with me?”

“Perhaps he wants to make an offer for your hand, too,” Stacey teased. “Just think, you could move back to our old house and live like a princess. A much better bargain than Squire and his three imps of Satan.”

Mr. Mactavish was short and bald and took snuff. He was loud, demanding, and used to giving orders. He was also old enough to be Gerry’s father. “Don’t be absurd,” Gerry told her brother, taking the letter from him and slitting the seal on the back. “I cannot imagine what’s on the man’s mind now.”

What was on the canny Cit’s mind was a title. Christmas was coming, and he hadn’t gotten rich by letting the grass grow under his feet, no sir. Who knew what bucks and beaus Squire might assemble for that annual ball of his? Mactavish meant for his little girl to meet all of them and marry the most elevated of the lot. If Squire couldn’t produce anything better than young Sir Eustace, at least his Ginger would get her feet wet in the social waters. Mactavish meant to bring her out in London in the spring. Not all doors would be open to a tradesman’s daughter, of course, but enough would, an’ he make her portion generous enough. The problem was, his little Ginger’d been at a fancy seminary for young females until now. With no wife and no permanent home, Mactavish hadn’t been able to have the rearing of the chit. Now that he had her home, he realized he’d made one of his few miscalculations. Ginger was as pretty as she could stare, and well educated, for a female. The price of her wardrobe could have clothed entire Indian villages. But there was no getting around the fact that his little gal was no dasher. She was a shy, wispy thing who didn’t know how to go on in company. So Mactavish wrote to Miss Geraldine Selden, who was one of the few ladies in the neighborhood, and the only one who gave lessons in the village. Pianoforte and such, Mactavish recalled. She’d even had a London Season before that ne’er-do-well father of hers popped off. Surely Miss Selden would know just what to do to put some life into the little puss.

*

“He wants me to be a kind of companion to his daughter, who is finally home from school,” Gerry told her brother after reading her letter. “And listen to this: he is willing to pay me handsomely, just for showing her how to go on, introducing her around the neighborhood, that sort of thing so she won’t feel such a stranger.”

Gerry twirled around and kissed her brother’s cheek. “Our luck is changing, Stacey, I just know it is! And right in time for Christmas!” Now she might even earn enough blunt to buy Stacey’s horse back from Squire.

Stacey was not quite as excited. He was sincerely happy for Gerry’s windfall, of course, and hoped she’d use her wages to purchase some luxury he couldn’t afford for her. Still, he hated to see his sister going out to work as an upper servant. And a moody young miss who sat mumchance could be as difficult a pupil as Squire’s threesome, who only sat when they were tied to their chairs. “The chit might be a hopeless antidote, you know, besides shy. She could be short and bald like her papa.”

“Heiresses are never the wrong height or hair color, silly. And Mactavish can afford to purchase her a wig!” Gerry was not going to be discouraged. “I’ll call on them this very afternoon. And I’ll bring along a special gift, so Miss Mactavish understands that I wish to be her friend, not merely another instructor. The poor girl must be tired of lessons after all these years. Of course, I’ll have to make sure she can do the country dances, and I know she’ll be asked to entertain the company at some party or other. I’ll have to see what she can perform on the pianoforte. And if she knows the proper way to pour tea, how low to curtsey, that type of thing. Goodness, there’s not a moment to spare, with Christmas right around the corner.”

Unfortunately, Christmas was not the only thing coming around the corner.

Sir Eustace went off about estate business, leaving Gerry to dither about which gown to wear for the visit, not that she had a great many to choose from. ’Twould never do to appear dowdy, not when Mr. Mactavish was counting on her—and paying her—to bring Miss Mactavish into style. In the end she selected her newest walking dress, a dainty sprigged muslin copied directly from the pages of
La Belle Assemblee.
The fact that the frock was more suited to a September stroll than to a winter’s walk was irrelevant. What was warmth compared to making a good impression? Gerry pulled her heavy brown wool cape on over the gown, instead of her more fashionable but thin pelisse. The niffy-naffy butler who had taken Mamford’s place at Selden House was the only one who would see such a plebeian article. Besides, the voluminous cape had pockets both inside and out to hold pencil and paper for making lists, the latest novel from the lending library, and the gift she was bringing to welcome Miss Virginia Mactavish to Upper Ossing.

Rather than trudge the entire two miles along the winding carriage drive, Gerry decided to walk the short distance along the high road to the gap in Selden’s stone wall. From there the house was a mere stone’s throw away. The high road, though, was in poor condition after the recent rains and yesterday’s market day traffic. Gerry stepped through the gate and picked her way carefully between puddles and ruts and piles of horse droppings. The pair coming from the other direction took no such precautions.

The horse was huge and black, and covered yards with every pounding step. He wasn’t at an all-out gallop, but a steady gait that could last for miles. The rider sat tall and straight, with his caped greatcoat billowing behind him like some dark angel’s wings. He was bare-headed, with his black hair pulled back in a queue. Together they were a magnificent sight, one she was sorry Stacey would miss. Gerry stopped walking to admire the superb pairing of horse and rider as they neared, until she realized that they were going to pass altogether too near. She’d be pelted with the gobs of mire and muck tossed up by the stallion’s hooves. She was going to arrive at Mactavish’s looking like a wet, filthy mudhen. With a yelp, Gerry leaped backward. Only there was nothing beneath her feet, behind her. She screamed as she skidded to an ignominious seat in the roadway, almost under the stallion’s feet.

The rider tried to stop, truly he did, shouting and pulling the horse back on its hind legs till it was a miracle he stayed aboard. But now a frightened, confused mass of black muscle was towering over her, with metal shoes about to descend. Scrabbling for purchase in the mud, Gerry heaved herself away and rolled to safety—in the ditch.

She was sopping wet, covered head to toe in filth, and stank like a midden heap. All because some London toff was in too much of a hurry to mind where he was going. Gerry had no doubt the rider was from the City, as full of himself and his importance to the world as her half boots were full of stagnant water. “Damn you to hell!” she shouted to his receding back, as she tried to pull herself out of the ditch.

Lord Boughton had ridden just far enough past the fallen female to let Riddles gain his footing, then he turned and sped back, leaping off the stallion, dreading what he might find. Thank God the woman was standing, not lying with her head against a rock, or her limbs twisted, or her neck broken. Brett did not even hear her curses over the pounding of his heart. He reached down to lift her from the knee-deep scum.

Gerry couldn’t help but notice that the gentleman’s boots, at her eye level, were still gleaming. And the hand he held out to her was gloved in immaculate York tan kid. She took great satisfaction in putting her own sodden mitt in his. And greater satisfaction in telling the arrogant bounder just what she thought of such reckless, irresponsible, cow-handed riding. “How dare you act as if you owned the very roadways! Are you so high-and-mighty that no one else is allowed to share the very air you breathe?”

The air surrounding the bedraggled female was none too aromatic, so Brett quickly released her hand, once she was back on the roadway. She did not even pause in her diatribe. “Don’t you even bother to look where you are going, or are we lesser mortals supposed to anticipate your presence and run for safety?”

He’d seen the brown dab of a girl step through the little cottage’s gate, of course, but naturally assumed she’d get out of the way, not stand and gape at him and Riddles like a bacon-brained booby. She’d cost him enough time already, though, so rather than stand arguing in the ill-kept road, Brett reached into his pocket and tossed the chit a coin. “For your inconvenience,” he said.

“Inconvenient? You call this inconvenient?” Gerry gestured to her befouled cape, the bonnet that was floating, upside down, in the ditch water, her ruined shoes. Now she could not go to Mactavish’s this afternoon at all, and this great gawk of a so-called gentleman thought it was an inconvenience! “You puffed-up popinjay! I could have been killed!”

“And still might be,” Brett muttered under his breath. What a little shrew! Some poor fool might have been saved a lifetime of misery if the archwife had drowned in the ditch after all. He tossed her another coin so he could be on his way. The
inf
uriated female caught the gold piece and tossed it back in his face, along with a dollop of mud. At least Brett hoped it was mud. He closed the distance between them and took her shoulders, growing angry himself at the delay. “You should learn to hold your temper, girl, before your betters.”

“When I come upon someone better, I shall know precisely how to behave, sirrah! Unhand me, you dastard.”

This close, Brett couldn’t help noticing that her thick brown hair was fallen like a velvet shawl over her shoulders, and flame sparked from the depths of dark brown eyes. The petite country hoyden would be quite an attractive armful, he decided with a connoisseur’s eye, except for her waspish tongue. Well, he knew how to still a woman’s mouth, all right. He kissed her.

Her lips were cold and wet, but Lud, they sent a fire through him. There must be something about rustic wenches and their very earthiness, Brett thought, that moved him as no hothouse London beauty had in ages.

Miss Selden was stunned. She’d never experienced more than a timid peck or a chaste salute, hardly kisses at all when compared to this…this ravishment. Good Heavens, no wonder so many girls came to grief in the City! Of course, this devilishly handsome rogue, with his blue eyes and cleft chin, had to be an expert at the art. Why, she’d felt that kiss down to her toes—her waterlogged and frozen toes, the cad! How dare he take such unfair advantage of what he undoubtedly thought was some poor milkmaid or a farmer’s ignorant daughter. So she slapped him.

Rubbing his cheek, and incidentally spreading dirt from his no longer pristine gloves, Brett drawled, “My apologies, miss.” He was not about to tell this rag-mannered wench how affected he’d been by her innocent, unaware sensuality. “It was only a kiss, so you can stop sputtering now. Not a very proficient kiss, as these things go. Perhaps you’d like lessons, my dear?”

Not very proficient? That was more insulting than the stolen kiss! “How dare you bring your licentious ways to a decent neighborhood, you rakehell. You libertine, you immoral bas—”

So he kissed her again, longer and deeper. Then he stepped back to wait for the slap, knowing he deserved it, knowing the kiss had been worth it. Instead the girl gasped, patted her pockets, and shouted, “Bandit!” Brett glanced both ways along the road, searching for the danger, until he realized she meant him. “Dash it, I stole a kiss, nothing else. I admit I was riding too quickly, but I am no highwayman.”

She wasn’t paying him the least attention, rushing around in a frenzy. “Not you, you clunch. Bandit’s a kitten. He was in my pocket.” She bent over to peer into the ditch, leaving
him
with a draggle-tailed but delightful view.

Brett knew he should be on his way, but there was just something about this female that made him reluctant to leave. And he was, in truth, responsible for her difficulties, to say nothing of the liberties he’d taken with her person. So he stepped nearer, to help in the hunt, poking with his boot toe behind fallen branches, echoing the chit’s “Here, kitty, kitty.” And feeling like a prize fool on all counts.

“There you are!” she exclaimed, tearing her befouled mittens off to lift something out from behind a rock.

“That?” Brett asked, staring at the handful of lint she held. “That’s no cat, that’s what’s left in the currying comb after I brush my horse.” But she was cooing to the palm-sized dustball with blue eyes and a pushed-in face like a pug dog’s. “Great Scot, did it get squashed in the fall?”