by Erica Ridley
Although she had doubled the population with a single gift, a two-bird aviary did not attract many guests. In fact, after the opening celebration, Virginia was the only resident who bothered to return. She was here so often it almost functioned like her private nook.
Virginia had been using a pair of abandoned outbuildings near the castle as temporary shelters for the various strays she had helped over the years. One was for birds, the other for any animal she dared not leave alone in an enclosed structure full of wounded birds.
Last month, she had decided it was silly to tend both to overcrowded outbuildings and an underpopulated aviary. One by one, she smuggled each of her rescued birds from her secret sanatorium into the castle aviary.
No one had noticed.
Virginia didn’t care. She wasn’t tending strays for tourists’ sakes. She was saving tiny lives.
“Dasher,” she called softly as she wound her way through the aviary’s greenery. Aha. There he was.
The chaffinch had hurt its wing when it had crashed into her friend Penelope’s chimney. In the weeks since Virginia had rescued him, his wing had healed, and he could once again fly. The latest in a long line of successes.
She hugged herself as she gazed about the aviary. It was now her second home, but it hadn’t begun that way. When Virginia had first arrived in Christmas, she had been skittish around animals of all kinds. The loud squawks and sudden flaps of wings startled her.
Learning not to flinch had been the first project she had given herself. Little by little, she lost her fear and learned to love animals instead. Now they were her family.
With a creak, the door to the aviary swung open.
Virginia looked over in surprise. Occasionally one of her friends would seek her out, but the man who had just entered was the solicitor handling Mr. Marlowe’s estate.
She glanced away.
“Good morning, Miss Underwood.” He stepped further into the aviary and scribbled something in a small notebook. “I didn’t expect anyone to be here.”
“One need not expect the sun for it to rise every morn,” she mumbled.
“You will be pleased to know that we are almost ready to move forward with Mr. Marlowe’s final plans for the aviary.”
Virginia was not pleased to know. The plans did not include Virginia at all.
“When?” she asked.
The solicitor smiled at her. “I’ll let you know.”
She did not understand his smile. The loss of her sanctuary was not good news, but a disaster for her and her rescues. They were used to the aviary now. She did not want to return to using a tiny outbuilding.
“May I keep the aviary?” she asked hesitantly.
“I’m afraid not.” Now the solicitor was frowning. “It is not meant for your personal use, but to realize the dreams of our town’s founder.”
Virginia nodded her understanding. A frown was appropriate. Her stomach felt as though it were tumbling over a cliff.
It was happening again. As soon as she found something she liked, somewhere she felt loved, she was pushed out. Virginia’s presence could be tolerated in short bursts, but not for long. She should know by now.
Her own parents had barred her from the schoolroom. Then polite company. Then their home. They had driven her to an asylum for problematic young ladies and never returned.
“Are you all right?” the solicitor asked, stepping closer.
She jerked away before he could touch her. Even though it was not his fault, he was ruining one of the few things she had come to think of as her own. A place she belonged. Somewhere she could be useful. She adopted her strays because she knew what it was like not to be wanted.
Virginia quit the aviary without asking further questions. Soon it would no longer be available to her. What more did she need to know?
She would not focus on the loss. The birds were not the only ones who needed her. For the first time, she had an opportunity to be useful to another person.
Duke meowed as she stepped out of the aviary.
“You’re right. We still have each other.” She scooped him into her arms and fetched a basket to transport him in. “We’ll visit Mr. T together.”
When Swinton answered the door, Virginia presented her calling card and remembered to inquire about the Duke of Azureford before asking to see her patient.
Swinton personally escorted her down the corridor to the guest parlor and ushered her inside.
Even before Mr. T wheeled his chair around to face her, Virginia’s tight shoulders had already relaxed. She loved these dark, silent rooms. No loud noises, no strange smells, no hustle and bustle. Walking in here was like stepping into her private chamber at the castle. Quiet, cozy, and peaceful.
“You forgot to give your coat to Swinton,” her patient growled. He was wearing the bandages again.
She stepped forward to remove the strips of cloth. “I didn’t forget. I never take off my coat in other people’s houses.”
He scowled up at her. “Why not?”
“It’s easier.” She deposited the bandages in a linen basket. “I never know if they’ll want me to stay long enough to bother.”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “Take it off when you’re here.”
She hesitated before removing her pelisse. Mr. T might feel that way now, but she had arrived only a few moments earlier. She would keep her coat on hand just in case.
“What do you do when you’re not here?” he asked. “Pianoforte?”
She shook her head. Her sisters had been the ones who enjoyed banging at the keys at all hours of the day or night. “I’ve just come from the aviary.”
His dark brows rose. “There’s an aviary?”
She nodded. “At the castle. It’s beautiful. You should see it before they change everything.”
His mouth twisted, and he made a gesture toward his legs. “I’m not leaving these rooms until I am as fit as I was before I went to war.”
War.
A battle would certainly explain the injuries.
She couldn’t imagine anything noisier, riskier, further from home, more crowded, more terrifying… And he had done it anyway.
Virginia had been desperate to know what had happened but liked Mr. T too much to ask who had hurt him. It was easier to keep some things in the past where they belonged.
“I’m sorry you cannot see the aviary,” she said. “It’s the best part of Christmas.”
His brows climbed higher. “What’s so wonderful about it?”
“Everything. It started with one bird and now there are fifteen.”
“Fifteen whole birds?”
Every one of them a tiny miracle. “It proves one need not look magnificent at first glance in order to end up magnificent in the end.”
“Can fifteen birds ever be magnificent?” he asked.
“Even a single bird can be.” She tilted her head. “Have you ever held a bird in your hands?”
“I have not. Eton and Oxford have failed me.”
She made a mental note to help with that, too.
A lock of dark hair fell across the unscarred side of his face.
She tried not to notice. He was distractingly handsome. The strong jaw, she suspected he shaved himself. Well-defined muscles from riding horses into battle and rolling his chair across thick carpets. He wore no cravat and one leg of his breeches had been sliced to the knee. The state of semi-undress made him seem at once more powerful and more vulnerable.
His eyes… Virginia risked a quick look. Brown. Her favorite color. Brown as the feathers of a grouse or a woodcock. Tea, chocolate, chestnuts, fresh-baked crusty bread. Nothing brown had ever hurt her.
She glanced up at his eyes again. They were still watching her. The back of her neck heated.
“Did you love it or hate it?” she asked. “The war, I mean.”
At first, she thought he wouldn’t answer.
But then he said, “Both.”
She nodded. That was how she had felt at all of her
battlegrounds. She hadn’t known other people felt the same.
“I want you to see the aviary,” she said. “It is a very peaceful place. No one ever enters.”
He shook his head. “I told you—”
“Not today,” she said. “When you can walk.”
“When I can walk,” Mr. T reminded her, “I am leaving this village.”
“After you visit the aviary,” she said firmly.
Before her patient could object, she knelt at his feet and began to remove his Hessians.
Mr. T tried to roll out of her reach.
When she grabbed for the wheel, her index finger crossed over his.
He froze, neither jerking his hand free nor pushing her away.
Virginia was frozen, too. She had not meant to cover his fingers with hers. It somehow felt a thousand times more intimate than redressing a wound or tugging off a boot. Possibly because it was bare skin against bare skin.
Her winter gloves were over in her coat pocket. Gentlemen’s gloves either interfered with Mr. T’s ability to manipulate the wheels of his chair, or he saw no point in cleaving to such formality in the private solitude of his guest quarters.
She had never realized how soft her hands were until she had his to compare them with. Hot and large and calloused, his were the sort of hand her fingertips itched to explore. Not just the finger trapped beneath hers, but all the other fingers. Virginia longed to feel the skin on the back of his hand, to trace the muscle of his arm. She jerked her fingers from his as if scalded.
He did not move away.
She forced her hands to steady so that she could remove each boot without disturbing his injured knee.
“What are you doing?”
His voice sounded as gravelly as her heart felt. As if something had kicked loose. She was not yet certain if the missing pin was the piece that held everything together.
“Stretches,” she managed to respond.
“I can’t put weight on it,” he reminded her.
“You don’t have to.” She gently lifted his foot onto her lap and began to massage the tight muscles.
“My knee is the problem.” He gripped the arms of his chair. “Why are you rubbing my foot?”
“Your knee will relax if the rest of you does.” She continued to massage in slow, firm patterns. “Do you like how it feels?”
Even without lifting her eyes, she could feel the heat of his gaze consuming her.
He waited until she glanced up before responding. “Yes.”
Her cheeks heated. She returned her focus to her task. “This is how I like to be touched. Slow and firm. Not so hard as to hurt, and not so soft as to make the flesh crawl.”
“I’ll be certain to remember that,” he muttered. “Probably for the rest of my life.”
Virginia clamped her teeth together before she could say anything else.
She could not help but feel they shared a similarity with wild birds. His plumage, bright and colorful and magnetic. Hers, dull and gray and forgettable.
He was the most beautiful stray she had ever seen. She needed to concentrate on his well-being, not the butterflies he put in her belly.
“How did you learn to do this?” Mr. T asked.
She slowly moved her massage from his foot to his calf. “I’ve seen muscles atrophy from disuse. Exercise is ideal, stretching is second-best, and massage will do in a pinch.” She worked her hands higher, toward the cut hem of his breeches. “Mr. T?”
“For the love of…” He let out a sigh. “Just call me Theodore.”
“Let me know if I hurt you. I don’t mean to.” She slid her fingertips beneath the gaping cut in the hem of his breeches. “Theodore.”
She was no longer massaging his muscles but mapping the terrain. His knee was swollen and tender, but not grossly misshapen. She suspected its current condition was due as much to its owner trying too hard as to lingering effects from the original injury.
“Are you done?” he asked through obviously clenched teeth.
She stilled her hands in alarm. “I said to tell me if I hurt you.”
“You’re not hurting me.” He gestured to her hand inside the leg of his breeches. “This might be worse.”
She lowered her hands back to his calf. “What is your favorite soup?”
He stared at her. “My favorite what?”
“Steaming bowls of soup are lovely on cold days.” As she massaged, she lifted his foot an inch higher and then lowered it back down. “Mine is white soup with poached eggs.”
“Mine is chestnut soup.” He narrowed his eyes. “What does that have to do with—”
“Tea with milk or sugar?” This time as she massaged, she lifted his foot a tiny bit higher before lowering it again.
“Neither,” he said. “But I’ll take a pupton of apples if you have it.”
Excellent choice. Who didn’t love any dessert made with spices and baked apples?
“French sauces,” she said. “Which is your favorite?”
“I’ve always been partial to—Aargh.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “What are you doing?”
She lowered his foot a fraction. “Right there. Do you feel that?”
“In my bones,” he answered. “I thought you were trying to relax my muscles, not rip them apart.”
“Relaxing was step one. Step two is to stretch. Do ten a day, ten times a day. Just this high. Enough to ache, but not hurt.”
“Should I do a hundred in a row if I can stand it?”
“No,” she said sharply. “If you push too hard, you’ll do more damage than good. Never more than ten in an hour. Never more than ten sets a day. Do you understand the rules?”
He arched a brow. “Are you sure you’ve never been a military officer?”
“Never once,” she said. “But you’re not my first rescue.”
His eyes narrowed. “How many gentlemen have you done this with?”
“Just you.” She collected his boot and pushed to her feet. “Stop wearing these. You’re giving an unnecessary shock to your knee every time you put it on or take it off.”
His dark eyes flashed. “Should I take off anything else, commander?”
She rather wished he would. He could only get more attractive.
Virginia turned away before he could spy the heat on her cheeks, only to color further when she caught sight of the covered basket left abandoned just inside the door.
Poor Duke. She had forgotten all about him! She hurried over to the basket and flung open the lid.
He bared his teeth. Apparently, disturbing him had ruined his nap.
“The cat?” she heard Theodore mutter. “I was hoping for more ice cream.”
Virginia reached for Duke.
He circumvented her arms and dashed instead toward the wheels of Theodore’s chair. She hurried over and held out her hands.
Duke slid beneath the wheeled chair and rubbed his tail against the leather underside. When she knelt to reach for him, Duke hissed in displeasure. Rather than come to her as he had every other day since she’d rescued him, Duke curled between Theodore’s feet and closed his eyes.
Virginia’s confusion and hurt was quickly replaced by understanding and admiration. Duke had not rejected her. He was conspiring with her. After years of watching her work, Duke had decided to go where he was needed, too. This was their patient. They were a team.
“Duke’s right,” she said as she pushed to her feet.
Theodore’s brows shot up. “You speak ‘meow?’”
“He speaks my language.” Neither of them could resist a stray.
Virginia’s heart pounded at what she was about to do. Duke was her oldest, most faithful companion. When she had had no one, he stayed with her. He had changed her life. Gave her a reason to look forward to each day.
She forced herself to meet Theodore’s eyes. Right now, he needed a friend even more than she did. And Duke had made his choice.
She took a deep breath. “I’ll loan you my cat.”
“Do not loan me your cat.” He rolled backward. “I unconditionally reject your kind offer.”
“He’s loyal and diverting.” She gazed down at Duke with affection. “He thinks he’s a dog.”
“He’s a cat.”
“I never told him.” She would miss him like mad. “He loves to take afternoon constitutionals.”
“I can’t walk,” Theodore reminded her.
“Duke also enjoys sleeping. And hiding.”
“Now I have to hunt for him?”
“Not really. He comes when he is called.”
“I doubt it,” her patient scoffed.
She cracked open the door.
Duke immediately streaked from the parlor and down the corridor.
“Go ahead,” Theodore said. “Call him. Impress me with Duke’s dog-like grasp of proper behavior.”
Virginia lowered herself to the floor and cupped her hand to her mouth. “Duke… Duke…”
After a short moment, he slunk around the corner, claws out, fur up, teeth bared in a hiss.
“See?” She pulled Duke into her arms and scratched behind his ears until he purred. “Model of decorum.”
Theodore stared at her. “Your cat literally comes when you call, solely for the opportunity to hiss his displeasure?”
“He knows his name.” She pressed a kiss between Duke’s furry ears. “Makes him easy to find.”
“He does not know his name. He thinks ‘duke’ means ‘ruffle my fur and hiss.’”
Virginia felt her lips curve. “That’s what you did when I first met you. Perhaps you’re a duke, too.”
“I am not,” Theodore said quickly. “But now that I am back from war, I suppose I’m likely to spend Seasons in London.”
Virginia patted her patient’s shoulder without putting Duke down. “That sounds horrible.”
London was a den of vipers. She had nothing but sympathy for anyone forced to survive in its midst for longer than an hour. Her pulse raced at the memory. Loud, smelly, noisy, scary, bumpy, judgmental, horrid. She would not wish such hell on anyone.
“I’ll manage,” Theodore said dryly. “My friends and family are there. They look forward to seeing me.” He paused. “My friends, anyway.”
Interesting. Another point they shared in common.
Virginia loved her friends. She had three very good ones: Noelle, Penelope, and Gloria. They were a large part of what made Christmas feel so much like home.