Under The Mistletoe (23 page)

For a moment—for a fleeting moment after her mind had recovered from its first shock—she surrendered to the heady physical sensation of being embraced by a man and to the realization that she was experiencing her first real kiss. And then she got her palms against her chest and pushed firmly away from him.

“No,” she said. “No, my lord, it is not poor Jane. It is poor Veronica. She has a father who could love her, I believe, but who feels that the conventions of society are of greater importance than love.”

She did not give him a chance to reply though he reached for her again. She whisked herself about and out of the room and fled upstairs to her bedchamber as if being pursued by a thousand devils.

 

It had snowed a little more during the night. The viscount stood at his window, eager to go downstairs to begin the day, yet wanting at the same time to stay where he was until he could safely escape to the Oxendens' house. He wanted to go downstairs because he had told her the truth last night. She had brought Christmas to his home for the first time in many years, and he found himself hungry for it. And yet he dreaded seeing her this morning after his unpardonable indiscretion of the night before. And he dreaded seeing Veronica. He dreaded being confronted with love. He had decided six years ago to the day that he must be incapable of loving enough to satisfy another person. He had confined his feelings since then to friendships and to lust.

She was wrong. It was not that he put the conventions of society before love as much as that he did not believe he could love his daughter as well as a carefully chosen couple would. He wanted Veronica to have a happy childhood. Because he loved her. He tested
the thought in his mind, but he could not find fault with it. He did love her. The thought of giving her up to another couple was not a pleasant one. And that was an understatement.

He was the first one downstairs. Before going to the breakfast room he went into the drawing room to take the parcels he had bought in a visit to a nearby town two days before and a few he had brought home with him and to set them down beside the rudely carved but curiously lovely Nativity scene with its Mary and Joseph and babe in a manger and a single shepherd and lamb. They had been set up last night. He was seeing them for the first time.

He looked about the room. And he thought of his irritation at finding himself saddled with his niece for Christmas and of her sullenness at being abandoned by her parents and left to his care. And of the terrible aloneness of Veronica as she had sat in his hall, like a labeled parcel abandoned until someone could find time to open it.

Yes, Jane had transformed his home and the three of them who lived in it with her. Under the most unpromising of circumstances she had brought the warmth and joy of Christmas. He wondered if it was something she was accustomed to doing. But he knew even as he thought it that that was not it at all. If she had been about to spend Christmas alone at the school this year, then surely she must have spent it alone there last year and the year before. His heart chilled. Had she ever spent Christmas in company with others? Had she always been alone?

Was all the love of her heart, all the love of her life being poured out on this one Christmas she was spending with strangers? With three other waifs like herself? But she was so much stronger than they. Without her, he felt, the rest of them would have wallowed in gloom.

But his thoughts were interrupted. Deborah burst into the room, parcels in her hands. She set them beside his and turned to smile at him.

“Happy Christmas, Uncle Warren,” she said. “Veronica is up. Craggs—
Miss
Craggs—is dressing her and brushing her hair. They will be down soon. I wish they would hurry. I have presents for everyone. I bought them in the village shop. And you have presents too. Is there one for me?”

“Yes.” He grinned at her. “Happy Christmas, Deborah.”

And then they came into the room, hand in hand, Jane and Veronica, and his heart constricted at sight of them. His two ladies. Jane was carrying two parcels. Veronica was saucer-eyed.

And finally it was there again, full-grown—the glorious wonder of Christmas in a young child's eyes, which were fixed on the Nativity scene and on the parcels beside it. He hurried across the room to her and stooped down without thought to lift her into his arms.

“Happy Christmas, Veronica,” he said, and kissed her on her soft little lips. “Someone brought the baby Jesus with his mama and papa during the night. And someone brought gifts, too. I will wager some of them are yours.”

Jane, he saw, had hurried across the room to get down her parcels with the rest.

“For me?” Veronica asked, her eyes growing wider still.

He sat her on his knee close to the gifts, feeling absurdly excited himself, almost as if he were a boy again. And he watched her as she unwrapped the dainty lace-edged handkerchief Deborah had bought for her and held it against her cheek, and the pretty red bonnet and muff Jane had bought her, both of which she had to try on. And then he watched her, his heart beating almost with nervousness, as she unwrapped his exquisitely dressed porcelain doll.

“Oh!” she said after staring at it in silence for a few moments. “Look what I have, Papa. Look what I have, Miss Jane. Look, Deborah.”

Viscount Buckley blinked several times, aware of the acute embarrassment of the fact that he had tears in his eyes. And yet when he sneaked a look at Jane, it was to find that her own eyes were brimming with tears.

“She is beautiful, Veronica,” she said.

“Lovely,” Deborah agreed with enthusiasm.

“Almost as beautiful as you,” her father assured her. “What are you going to call her?”

“Jane,” his daughter said without hesitation.

And then Deborah opened her gifts and exclaimed with delight over the perfume Jane had given her and with awe over the diamond-studded watch her parents had left for her and with warm appreciation over the evening gloves and fan her uncle had bought for her—because she was as close to being adult as made no difference, he explained. She declared that she would wear them to the dance that evening.

Viscount Buckley unwrapped a linen handkerchief from Deborah and a silver-backed brush and comb from his sister and brother-in-law.

And he watched as Jane unwrapped her own lace-edged
handkerchief from Deborah and smiled rather teary-eyed at the girl. And then he watched more keenly as she took out his cashmere shawl from its wrapping and held it up in front of her, its folds falling free. She bit her lip and shut her eyes very tightly for a few moments.

“It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” she said before turning to him, her face looking almost agonized. “Thank you. But I have nothing for you. I did not think it would be seemly.”

Veronica had wriggled off his lap and was gazing down with Deborah into the manger at the baby Jesus, her doll clutched in both arms. Deborah was explaining to her what swaddling clothes were.

“You have given me a gift beyond price, Jane,” he said quietly, for her ears only. “You have opened my eyes to Christmas again and all its meanings. I thank you.”

She gazed back at him, the shawl suspended in front of her from her raised arms.

But Deborah had decided it was time for breakfast and was assuring Veronica that she could bring her doll along and they would find it a chair to sit on and a bowl to eat from. His niece seemed to have quite got over her shock at being exposed to the company of his illegitimate daughter.

“Come,” he said to Jane, getting to his feet and extending a hand to her, “let us eat and then we must have the servants up here for their gifts. They will doubtless be happy to see that I can do it without a frown this year.”

He smiled at her and she smiled rather tremulously back.

 

Once, when she was seventeen, Miss Phillpotts had given her a porcelain thimble in recognition of her new status as a teacher. It was the only gift she had ever received—until today. Jane set down her handkerchief and her shawl carefully on her bed, as if they, too, were of porcelain and might break, smoothed a hand over each, and swallowed back her tears so that she would not have to display reddened eyes when she left her room.

But the best gift of all was what he had said to her.
You have given me a gift beyond price, Jane.
And he had smiled at her. And he had held Veronica on his knee and had looked at her with what was surely tenderness.

Going back to Miss Phillpotts's, being alone again, was going to be more painful than ever, she knew, now that she had had a taste of family life, now that she had fallen in—No, that was a silly idea. That she would have fallen in love with him was thoroughly predictable
under the circumstances. It was not real love, of course. But however it was, she would put up with all the pain and all the dreariness, she felt, if only she could know that he would keep Veronica with him. She would give up all claim to future Christmases without a murmur if only she could be sure of that.

It was a busy day, a wonderfully busy day. There were the servants to greet in the drawing room while Viscount Buckley gave each of them a gift, and toasts to be drunk with them and rich dainties to eat. And there were gifts from almost all of them for Veronica to open. It was certainly clear that his staff had taken the viscount's young daughter to their hearts. And there were carols to sing.

After the Christmas dinner, taken
en famille
in the dining room very early in the afternoon, there were the young guests to prepare for. There was no containing Deborah's excitement. As soon as they had arrived, all of them bright and merry at the novel prospect of a party all to themselves without adults to spoil it and tell them to quieten down or to stay out of the way, they were whisked out-of-doors.

They engaged in an unruly snowball fight even before they reached the hill where the sledding was to take place. Deborah, Jane noticed with indulgent interest, was almost elbow-to-elbow with Mr. George Oxenden, the two of them fighting the common enemy, almost everyone else. But before she knew it, Jane was fighting for her own life, or at least for her own comfort. A soft snowball splattered against her shoulder, and she found that Viscount Buckley was grinning smugly at her from a few yards away. She shattered the grin when by some miracle her own snowball collided with the center of his face.

Jane found herself giggling quite as helplessly as Deborah was doing.

The sleds were much in demand when they reached the hill as the young people raced up the slope with reckless energy and then zoomed down two by two. Nobody complained about the cold even though there was a great deal of foot stamping and hand slapping against sides. And even though everyone sported fiery red cheeks and noses.

Veronica stood quietly watching, holding Jane's hand.

“Well, Veronica,” her father said, coming to stand beside them, “what do you think? Shall we try it?”

“We will fall,” she said, looking gravely up at him.

“What?” he said. “You do not trust my steering skills? If we fall, we will be covered with snow. Is that so bad?”

“No, Papa,” she said, looking dubious.

“Well.” He held out a hand for hers. “Shall we try?”

“Can Miss Jane come too?” Veronica asked.

Jane grimaced and found the viscount's eyes directed at her. They were twinkling. “It might be something of a squash,” he said. “But I am willing if you two ladies are.”

“I . . . I . . .” Jane said.

“What?” His eyebrows shot up. “Do we have a coward here? Shall we dare Miss Jane to ride on a sled with us, Veronica?”

“Yes, Papa,” his daughter said.

And so less than five minutes later Jane found herself at the top of the hill, seating herself gingerly on one of the sleds, which suddenly looked alarmingly narrow and frail, and having to move back to make room for Veronica until her back was snug against the viscount's front. His arms came about her at either side to arrange the steering rope. And suddenly, too, it no longer seemed like a cold winter day. She was only half aware of the giggles of the young ladies and the whistles and jeers and cheers of the young gentlemen. She set her arms tightly about Veronica.

And then they were off, hurtling down a slope that seemed ten times steeper than it had looked from the bottom, at a speed that seemed more than ten times faster than that of the other sledders when she had watched them. Two people were shrieking, Veronica and herself. And then they were at the bottom and the sled performed a complete turn, flirted with the idea of tipping over and dumping its load into the snow, and slid safely to a halt.

Veronica's shrieks had turned to laughter—helpless, joyful, childish laughter. The viscount, the first to rise to his feet, scooped her up and held her close and met Jane's eyes over her shoulder. Perhaps it was the wind and the cold that had made his eyes so bright, but Jane did not think so.

Oh, how good it was—it was the best moment so far of a wonderful Christmas—how very good it was to hear the child laugh. And beg to be taken up again. And wriggle to get down and grab at her father's hand and tug him impatiently in the direction of the slope. And to watch her ride down again with him, shrieking and laughing once more.