A Christmas Keepsake (25 page)

Abruptly a gong sounded. Christy started, and glanced at Sir Oliver, who currently kept her company.

“It is time for supper.” He rose and bowed before her. “Lovely lady, will you be my partner?”

She smiled. “This is one event I know I won’t flub, at least. Thank you, I’d be delighted.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of James standing in a small knot of people. He’d been very busy this evening, never lacking a partner. And never even offering to sit out a dance with her. Had he already begun to realize he was better off without her? Suddenly, irrationally, she longed to prove him wrong. She took Sir Oliver’s arm and allowed him to lead her out.

The dining room once more had been transformed, this time into an elaborate buffet. Strains of music drifted through the door, along with muffled laughter. From the servants’ hall, she realized. They held their own celebration this night. She accepted the plate Sir Oliver handed her and made selections from the delicacies laid out.

James entered, and on his arm hung one of his pseudo-princesses, a tall, willowy blonde who seemed to float rather than walk. Christy suppressed an urge to trip her as they passed. Titled ladies, all of birth, beauty, and undoubtedly fortune as well. Why should he spare even a passing glance for a mongrel like herself?

Suddenly, she wanted very much to go
home
, to her mother’s tiny house. The whole family would be gathered about the fire, singing carols while Jon and Gina played their guitars, drinking hot spiced cider and eating the cookies they would have all spent the day baking. Would they miss her if she weren’t able to get back to them? She would rather be there than here, any day.

Why had fate—and that damned book—upset her life? She’d be much happier if she’d never heard of Major James Edward Holborn Stuart.

She looked up, across the room, directly into his eyes, and her heart constricted. She had already lost her family for this season, she couldn’t bear to lose him as well. Somehow, in the short time they had been together, he had become her world.

She escaped from Sir Oliver with a murmured excuse, only to collide with Brockenhurst before she could attain the door. He swept her an elegant bow and directed a smile at her that probably dazzled ninety-nine ladies out of a hundred. It left her cold.

Apparently oblivious of this, the viscount, still beaming at her, returned her to the ballroom where the musicians had once more taken up their positions. “Are you spoken for?” he asked.

Through the door she saw James approach, his lovely partner still clinging to his arm. Rashly, she turned back to Brockenhurst. “No, I’d be delighted.”

He led her onto the floor and into one of the lines.

“You may have to prompt me,” she said nervously.

“Indeed?” His lip curled into a sneer that would have done St. Ives credit. “Surely you jest.”

She’d made a big mistake. Her courage failed, and she took a step backward, only to collide with someone. She spun about and looked up into James’s calm, smiling face.

“Excuse me. Permit us to join you.” He positioned his partner—Lady St. Ives—next to Christy and himself stood beside Brockenhurst.

“Don’t worry,” the countess whispered to Christy. “We’ll prompt you. James was quite high-handed, you must know. As soon as he saw you with Brockenhurst, he dragged me away from my partner and begged my assistance.”

Her surprised—and grateful—gaze flew to James, and the warm gleam in his eyes left her breathless. He did this to save her.

The music started, and she had time to think of nothing but the steps, called softly to her by Lady St. Ives. She made several stumbling mistakes, but somehow it wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. Brockenhurst might look down his aristocratic nose at her, but the encouragement of the other two carried her through. James and his thoughtfulness filled her heart.

When the music ended, it was James and not Brockenhurst who claimed her. He raised her fingers and brushed them with his lips, and she caught her breath.

“You will now partner me,” he said.

The possessiveness of his tone set her pulse racing. She looked up into his dark eyes, and longing swept through her. She shouldn’t, her rational mind warned—but what chance did logic have when he was here, at her side, gazing at her like this?

With an effort, she looked away. “You’ve just seen a sample of my lack of ability,” she warned. “I’ll be quite a letdown after your other partners. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Very sure. You’ll begin with a curtsy, then take my hands for a full poussette.” Quickly, he ran through the steps in order while the other dancers took their positions. “And remember,” he finished softly. “You are supposed to look into my eyes.”

The music began, she looked up at him, and found she couldn’t drag her gaze away. He took her hands, and she remained mesmerized, moving at his guidance, aware of little beyond him. Why hadn’t she realized how sensuous and just plain
romantic
this kind of dancing could be? No wonder society’s rules wouldn’t let a man stand up with a woman more than twice in one evening.

At last he stopped and stepped back, a smile touching his lips that left her breathless. Several seconds passed while she gazed at him, caught up in a spell solely of his weaving, before she realized the other couples were leaving the floor. Warm color crept into her cheeks.

“Welcome to my world.” He carried her hand once more to his lips, then tucked it within his arm. “You see, it is not as difficult to fit in as you feared.”

To fit in—with his society, with his life. Perhaps it could work—perhaps she could
make
it work. It would be worth anything to remain with him, to share their love again—and again. She could adapt, learn the rules and play the game. At least she’d be with James...

With James, as regent? With a rush of horror, she realized she had come to accept that possibility. And where did that leave
her
world?

Blindly, she broke from him. She heard his surprised exclamation as he called her name, but she ignored it. She needed time to think...

She made it to the door, and slipped out into the Great Hall. At the far end, the Green Salon stood closed. That should provide temporary asylum. As she darted inside, darkness greeted her, broken only by the glowing embers of the fire which had burned so merrily before.

She couldn’t be so crazy as to forget what lay at stake. She didn’t belong in this time, she was a product of the future, and she had to protect it for the sake of all those whose lives might be drastically changed. James could not become regent, she couldn’t let him be seduced by Sir Dominic’s conspiracy. He had to disappear into anonymity, so that no one in the future ever learned of the existence of Prince James Edward Stuart.

Yet what could she say to convince him? He saw only the good he could do for the present; she—in her sane moments when not gazing into his eyes—saw only the harm he would cause to the future. A shaky sob escaped her. An irreconcilable dichotomy. And every one of those luring words he heard from this damnable conspiracy deafened him to her own pleas, her fears for the history she knew. Inch by inch, he chose the destiny that would tear England apart.

She drew a steadying breath. Now wasn’t the time to try to drum some sense into his head. She’d wait until tomorrow. She’d do best to slip up to bed without risking seeing him again.

As she opened the door, the one into the ballroom swung wide and Lord Brockenhurst emerged into the Great Hall. Instinctively, Christy eased hers closed. The viscount cast a surreptitious glance about, then set off toward the corridor which led to the library—and the door he had previously taken outside.

Perhaps if she learned something, James might listen. That thought gave her new hope. The guests’ wraps had been placed in the next salon; she remembered seeing the footmen going in and out, earlier. She ducked into the room, selected a warm cloak at random, and set off in pursuit of Brockenhurst.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

As Christy eased her way closer to the library, the sounds of rustling fabric and of something knocking against a table sounded within. The door stood an inch ajar, and she peered through the narrow crack. Lord Brockenhurst dragged a greatcoat and boots from their hiding place behind a chair in the corner and put them on.

Christy waited, barely breathing. Did he need to report his attempt on James’s life earlier had been a failure? He opened the French window, and, heart pounding, Christy set off after him.

What had James said, something about these not being the nights to go out, because the spirits wandered abroad between St. Thomas’s and Christmas Eve? Great, one more night and she’d have been fine. It amazed her how the most innocent of shrubs took on a ghostly demeanor in the depths of the night.

She huddled into her borrowed cloak and tried to walk as silently as possible. The snow gave off the faintest crunch as she trod on it, barely audible, nothing like the crack of twigs might have been. She should be glad. Freezing air filled her lungs as she crept along the path behind the great Georgian mansion.

Pale moonlight reflected off the clouds, bathing the white landscape in a soft glow. She could just make out Brockenhurst’s figure heading by the straightest possible route to a small summerhouse at the end of the rose garden. The ideal place for a meeting. He went inside, and Christy kept low, hugging the hedges. That little building had far too many windows for her comfort. Just to be safe, she would circle around to the side...

Someone was there before her. Christy froze. A diminutive-cloaked figure stood on tiptoe and peered through one of the glass panes.

Now what? Find out who else watched Brockenhurst, she supposed. Possibly James had another friend—or enemy. Christy crept closer, keeping behind anything that hid her from view, until she reached the other side of the mysterious figure.

She took another step, her foot slipped on an icy patch, and she clutched a dead branch to keep from falling. It snapped in her hand, and the person at the window spun about.

“Miss!” Nancy breathed after a moment’s stunned silence. “Well, I never!”

“Me neither.” Christy steadied herself and joined the girl at the window. “What’s going on?” she whispered.

“Meetin’ ’er, ’e is. Just as I suspicioned. She kept pretendin’ to be all tired—like while we was dancin’, but I knew she was up to somethin’, I did, the brazen cat. So when she slipped out, so did I.”

“Who?” Christy craned her neck to see inside, but lacked the necessary inches.

“Daisy.” Nancy said the name with scorn. “Miss Nuttall, I should say. No better than she should be, the way she’s all over ’im. I—” She broke off and turned away with a flounce. “Well, if
she
wants to get all cold with that sort of goin’s on out ’ere, that’s ’er lookout. Miss ’Igh-and-Mighty. But what ’e sees in as tricksy a bit o’game as I never did set eyes on, with nothin’ in ’er cockloft and the looks of a three-day-old trout, I don’t know. Just because she talks flash and I don’t.” She stormed away from the window.

Christy blinked. Was that all Brockenhurst was up to? Meeting some maid? Christy hurried after her. “Why doesn’t he just have her in his room instead of going through all the cold and discomfort? Sneaking out on a freezing night isn’t
my
idea of a romantic interlude.”

Nancy sniffed. “And risk bein’ seen with someone so far beneath ’im? ’E’s too ’igh in the instep, is my great viscount.”

As they neared the back of the house, the merry tune of a fiddle and the laughter from the servants’ hall drowned out the more refined strains of the chamber orchestra from the ballroom. On the whole, it sounded like a much more fun party. More like home.

On impulse, Christy asked: “Would it bother anyone if I join you?”

Nancy’s eyes widened. “You, miss? Whatever would the major say?”

“What he doesn’t know—” She broke off as a dark figure separated itself from the shadows of the house and stepped into their path. Christy caught her breath and drew back.

Nancy kept going. “ ’Ere, what’re you doin’ out in the snow?” she demanded.

“You were not the only one in need of a breath of fresh air.” Wickes’s deep, disapproving tones sounded, familiar and reassuring.

Christy heaved a sigh of relief. She was getting too jumpy. Must be all the coffee she’d been drinking. Too bad decaf hadn’t been invented yet.

“Miss Campbell?” Wickes, incredulous, saw her. “Come in, miss. It’s a cold night.”

“Thank you. If it’s all right? I—I didn’t feel comfortable at the ball.”

A frown settled on the man’s features as he ushered them into the warmth of the kitchens. He had a nice face, Christy realized—squared and dominated by a broad nose, perhaps, but kindness lurked in his pale blue eyes. She doubted he’d gone out for the air. His manner might remain stiff and vastly superior, but he gave all the impression of a worried watchdog hovering over Nancy.

He took the girl’s cloak from her. “It will be best if you warm yourself by the fire.” For a moment his gaze rested on her.

Nancy glanced at him, caught that troubled expression that flickered across his face, and her whole countenance brightened. Abruptly, Wickes backed away and made a show of ushering Christy through the doorway into the servants’ hall.

Far more people than Christy would have expected crammed this spacious apartment. Each of the visitors must have brought a coachman, a groom, perhaps even a footman. Holly and ivy garlands hung everywhere, interspersed with laurel wreaths and huge red bows and clusters of berries. On every face the festive spirit prevailed.

Several couples danced a lively reel while an elderly man played his fiddle with verve. On the other side of the room, several grooms, footmen, maids, and visiting coachmen engaged in a rousing game of blind-man’s buff, accompanied by much shrieking and laughter.

The long table, along with its candles and garlands, boasted almost as many plates heaped with tarts, cookies, cakes, and meats as had the supper table upstairs. The delicious odors of cinnamon and ginger mingled in the air with that of spiced wine and ale. Feeling much more at home in these less formal surroundings, Christy retired to a corner to enjoy herself.

Nancy, a mischievous twinkle in her eye, caught Wickes’s hand and led him, protesting, to join the dancers. By the time the fiddler stopped for a rest, a smile stretched across the valet’s normally wooden face. As they headed to the table for refreshment, Wickes looked down into Nancy’s laughing face with a mixture of dawning awareness and horror.

Christy grinned. Poor man, to fall for so lively and undisciplined a girl. She would add much needed enjoyment to his life. If he’d let her, at least. Even as she watched, Wickes handed Nancy a glass of the steaming wine and left her. He took refuge at a small table in the corner, where the butler and Sir Dominic’s valet played cards. The girl’s gaze followed him, her expression woebegone once more.

A shriek of delight drew Christy’s attention to a huge cauldron where a maid bobbed unsuccessfully for an apple. Behind her, a visiting footman, his livery impeccable, maneuvered a very pretty girl beneath the mistletoe. The fiddler, his tankard of home-brewed drained, struck up another tune, and this time most of the revelers broke into song, some even on-key.

In another corner, three giggling maids and four footmen in various liveries sat about a wooden table, with a pewter bowl filled with mounded flour before them. On the top rested what looked like a bullet. By turns, each cut a slice until the bullet fell, and the girl who had been cutting at the time cried out in mock dismay. Holding her arms behind her, she stuck her face into the flour, burrowing about. With a cry of triumph, she straightened, her face covered in white but the bullet in her teeth. One of the footmen handed her a towel, then drew her under the mistletoe. Giggling, she pushed him away and broke into the round dance that encircled the fiddler.

Christy hugged herself. This was a far cry from the stuffy formality that took place upstairs. She much preferred it—except it made her miss her own family all the more.

The set ended, and James escorted his partner from the floor. With her once more ensconced beside her starched-faced mamma, he bowed and took himself off in relief. It wasn’t any simpering young miss awaiting his hand for the next dance he unconsciously sought, though, but a very different female. He scanned the ballroom and frowned. Christy still hadn’t returned. Now where the devil...

He slipped out the door and glanced about the Great Hall, but could gain no clue as to where she might have gone. He should have followed her at once, instead of giving her time to be alone. She was confused, and no wonder. To accept him and the life he offered meant she must deny her own world as she knew it.

A longing came over him for her, to feel her in his arms, even just to see her. Perhaps the card room...

Only St. Ives and an elderly gentleman played piquet, no sign of Christy. She must have gone to her room. He hesitated, but a need too strong to deny drove him up the stairs in search of her.

He knocked on her door, but she didn’t respond. He tried the handle, found it unlocked, and looked inside. Empty. As empty as he felt himself, without her.

Slowly, he descended the stairs. Where could she have gotten to? Another room? A quiet one? He began a systematic search, but each chamber he glanced into was dark, cold, closed. Their bits of Christmas finery failed to cheer him.

The laughter from the servants’ hall caught his attention as he left the library, the only other room where a fire had burned that night.
Would
she?

Certainty filled him, followed by a rush of irritation. Here he’d been looking all over for her, worrying she’d sought solitude to ease her aching heart, and all the time she’d been enjoying herself in the one place she had no business to be. That was exactly the sort of thing his Christy would do.

He threw open the door, traversed the short corridor, and entered the long, festive chamber. A scene of carefree merriment met his gaze, as most of the occupants cavorted in a round dance about a lively fiddler. In a corner near the door sat his quarry, her contemplative regard resting on the revelers.

His first thought, to ring her neck, appealed to him. He took an unsteady step toward her. “What the devil brought you in here?” he demanded.

She started, then looked up into his face. “Oh, hello, James.”

“ ‘Oh, hello, James,’ yourself!” he snapped. “Why did you run out of the ballroom like that?”

Her animated expression closed over. “You didn’t need me in there.”

The devil, he didn’t. He bit back the words before he spoke them aloud.

“Come, we’d better go,” she said suddenly. “I think you’re putting a damper on things.”

He glanced up. Two grooms in a corner watched him, their expressions uncertain. Wickes laid his cards on the table, his features their customary blank mask. Nancy bumped into James’s groom, with whom she danced. Laughing, she pulled him on. Kepp stumbled, then continued, studiously ignoring James’s presence.

A small hand grasped James’s arm, and Christy dragged him from the room. “You don’t want to interrupt them,” she said.

“
You
were.”

She shook her head. “I’m different. Hadn’t you noticed?”

He had, all too much so. She broke every rule he knew, yet he shied at contemplating life without her.

“There’s something I want to tell you, anyway.” She led him to the library. “I thought I had your attacker, but I was wrong.”

“You certainly seem cheerful about that fact. Whom did you suspect?”

“Brockenhurst. Remember I told you how he snuck out last night?”

He nodded, but what he remembered more was that argument they’d had, then retiring to his lonely bed that night aching for her.

“He snuck out of the ballroom, so I followed him,” she said. Dear God, what would she do next? He clenched his jaw. “There’s a small summer house behind this place,” she continued, “and he went out there. He was having a highly improper meeting with some maid here by the name of Nuttall. I couldn’t see in the window, but Nancy told me. She’s caught onto the fact Brockenhurst is nothing but a king-sized rat, at least.”

“The damned loose screw,” he muttered.

“What a delightful way of putting it.” Christy’s infectious grin flashed, only to fade the next moment. “Poor girl. I don’t think she ever really wanted to be his mistress, though. But with Wickes being so snobbish about her pickpocket days, you can’t blame her for falling for Brockenhurst’s rush job.”

James stiffened. “It is not considered proper to gossip with the servants, particularly about their amorous indiscretions.”

“Oh, come off it, James. Quit being so stuffy. The poor girl had to talk to
someone
.”

“Either you have no sensibilities—” he began.

“Oh, to hell with your sensibilities. Do you have to be such an upper-class
snob?
What do you do, advocate the rights of the poor and underprivileged—as long as they stay in their place and remember to bow to you?”

“That is quite enough—”

“Obviously it isn’t! They’re people, James, not just servants. Have you even noticed what Mr. Wickes is going through right now?”