Gifts of the Season: A Gift Most Rare / Christmas Charade / The Virtuous Widow. Lyn Stone
floor, praying her confusion didn’t show on her face for her ladyship to read. She’d told herself that these two weeks until Twelfth Night would be something to endure, and now that same time with him had become something to treasure. That was the truth, if only she’d be honest with herself. She wanted to see him, and wanted to be with him, however brief that time together would be.
And it would be brief. As giddy as her heart might be, her cold reason hadn’t entirely abandoned her. Once Revell learned the truth about why she’d left Calcutta, he’d scorn her, and she in turn had no assurance that in the end he’d treat her with any more loyalty or honor than he had before. Miracles made for pretty talk, but they weren’t guarantees of anything.
Yet still Sara felt the pull of the old connection between them, as if they were once again young and blissfully in love, as if nothing in the world were more complicated than that miracle they’d both never forgotten. That was what she wanted, to feel like that again, even if it were only for a handful of days. She wanted that, and she wanted it with Revell, and unconsciously she touched her fingers to her lips, remembering his kiss. He had promised to join them in the ballroom, to help arrange the holly and the elephants. Likely he was already waiting for them—for her—now.
“I shall expect you and Clarissa downstairs to join me as soon as she can be shifted into dry clothing,” continued Lady Fordyce. “I have already called for the sleigh to take us across to Peterborough Hall.”
Sara looked up swiftly, jerked back to the present. “Peterborough, your ladyship? Clarissa and I were planning to spend the rest of the day decorating the ballroom.”
“Tomorrow will be time enough for that, Miss Blake.” Lady Fordyce’s smile was serene, satisfied that she’d solved and dispatched yet another thorny problem in her household. “Until the rest of my little plan comes to pass, I intend to remove you as completely as possible from Lord Revell’s temptation, even if that means I must take tea with that odious Lucy Peterborough whilst Clary plays with her daughter.”
“But Lady Fordyce!” cried Sara with disappointment and dismay. “With all your other guests here, with all you must do for them—this is hardly necessary, not necessary at all!”
“And I say it is.” Lady Fordyce took Sara’s hand and patted it gently. “You have always been a most virtuous young woman, Miss Blake, and I’ve no wish to see you changed.”
But Sara realized she already had.
“There, Miss Blake,” said Clarissa, stepping back to admire their work, her arms crossed over her chest. “I think that looks most fine!”
“It certainly does,” agreed Sara, gazing around the ballroom. “I cannot wait for your mother to see it.”
They had spent the entire morning working to transform the ballroom, relying on three footmen to help put holly boughs along the crowns of the tall pier glasses. More holly and glossy-green clippings from the boxwood had been arranged along the sideboards and draped from the mantelpieces of the four facing fireplaces, while red and white ribbons had been tied in bows from the polished brass chandeliers overhead and woven into the rails of the small musician’s gallery.
Revell’s paper chains were draped across the front of the pianoforte, brought up from the music room in the event any lady wished to play and spell the hired musicians. Tucked into all the greenery were the pasteboard animals that they’d made, a miniature Noah’s ark in an English forest, and once the scores of beeswax candles were lit tonight, the effect would be truly magical. She and Clarissa had every right to be proud, and so would Lady Fordyce, for such a spectacle would keep her guests—as well as everyone who hadn’t been invited—talking all through the winter.
Once again her glance wandered to the doorway, just as it had done over and over and over again all morning long, and still Revell didn’t come. He wouldn’t, either; she knew that now, after overhearing one of the footmen telling another that all the gentlemen had gone shooting soon after dawn, even that lord from India.
She sighed, and shook her head ruefully at her own foolish hopes. She missed him. That was the heart of it, wasn’t it? She missed him, and these last twenty-four hours seemed to stretch longer than the six years before. Thanks to the visit to Peterborough Hall yesterday, she hadn’t seen Revell since they’d cut the ivy together, exactly the way her ladyship intended. Surely she’d served at Ladysmith long enough to know that when Lady Fordyce determined upon an order, there’d be no countering her, and now that she’d deemed it necessary to keep Sara from Revell’s path, her ladyship would have boosted him into his saddle this morning with her own white hands.
“Can we go hunt for your costume now, Miss Blake?” asked Clarissa, hopping up and down in anticipation, the only acceptable mood on this, the day before Christmas. “You can’t come tonight in your regular old gowns. You’re not allowed to dress plain, Miss Blake, not tonight. No one is. You must look special, like the queen of hearts, or a fairy princess, or—or anyone else grand and rare!”
Sara made an exaggerated frown, wrinkling her nose at her reflection in the tall pier glass before her. “You’ll need far more than antique finery to transform me into a fairy princess, Clarissa.”
“But that is what a masquerade is for,” said Clarissa sternly. She took Sara’s hand, tugging her toward the door. “Come, Miss Blake! The lumber room is the best place in the whole house, and I—Albert, no!”
With a shriek of anguish, Clarissa raced across the ballroom to where her brother stood in the doorway, a cluster of curious guests peering around him. The men were still dressed for riding in frock coats and light-colored breeches, their boots wet with melting snow and their faces ruddy from the cold.
“No, no, no, Albert!” she wailed, jumping and flailing her arms toward his face. “You can’t come in here, not yet! You know no one can see until tonight! It’s supposed to be a surprise, Albert, a surprise!”
“Just a peek, Clary, eh?” he said, easily catching her windmilling hands as the others began entering around him. “I was telling everyone how grand the ballroom looks for Mother’s masquerade, and they wanted to see it, that’s all.”
“But now you’ve spoiled the surprise, Albert,” said Clarissa, her voice quivering with angry tears as she finally pulled free. “You’ve spoiled everything.”
Sara hurried forward, circling her arms around Clarissa’s shaking shoulders. “It’s all right, Clarissa,” she said softly, wishing she could personally throttle Albert by his thick neck. “Everything will look much better tonight when it’s dark and the candles are lit. You’ll see. They’ll still be surprised.”
A blond young woman in pink muslin pushed past them and into the center of the ballroom, and as she twirled flirtatiously on her toes Sara realized it was the same lady with the uncertain voice that she’d had to accompany in the music room: Miss Talbot.
“Why, dear Mr. Fordyce,” she cooed, making sure her skirts flicked above her ankles, “how charmingly childish this all is! Wouldn’t you agree, my lord?”
“I most assuredly would not,” said Revell, suddenly there, as well, the sprig of holly once again in his buttonhole. “There is nothing whatsoever childish about tigers and elephants, is there, Miss Clarissa?”
“No, my lord.” Vindicated, Clarissa sniffed back her tears, and narrowed her eyes at Miss Talbot. “Especially not when they eat you alive.”
Miss Talbot’s smile soured over the arc of her fan. “Goodness, Mr. Fordyce. What an ill-tempered little creature your sister is! If I were your dear mother, I should address the quality of her education directly.”
“Rather she should thank Miss Blake,” said Revell, “for giving Clarissa the best education imaginable, a model of wisdom and beauty.”
“Yes, she has,” echoed Clarissa loyally, but there was already question clouding her eyes, a suspicion that things among these grown-ups were not quite all they appeared.
She was right. Revell bowed toward