by Jill Barnett
She wished she could give him what he wanted. "You have cat hair all over you."
He laughed. "I do." Pirate jumped down, clearly bored by the sudden lack of attention and ear-rubbing. They watched him saunter off toward the kitchen.
"I have no more heads, Mr. Lowell. It's impossible to get one from Germany before Christmas."
He stood, hat in hand covered in orange cat hair. "I understand, Miss Everdeane."
"Idalie," she said extending her hand.
"Edward," he said taking her hand in his and holding it moment longer than necessary.
"Please know," she said. "If I had a doll head, I would move Heaven and Earth to make a doll for your niece.
"Thank you." He moved toward the door, a man who had failed and wore that failure like a cloak over his whole body. She had truly judged him unfairly.
"I'm sorry, Edward."
He looked back at her.
"I'm sorry I accused you of following me."
"I was," he said with a soft laugh. "I just didn't know it. I didn't know the man I hired to find the doll would track down the dollmaker. I apologize. I hope he didn't cause you too much trouble, or frighten you. I honestly had no idea."
"That was clear by the expression on your face when I answered the door. I'm also sorry for what passed between us in your office. I was quite wound up--a bit of a storming virago accusing you of the heartlessness of trying to buy everything. Because of the past, because of what happened over this house, the property battles, I am overly suspicious, and I was unfair to you."
"I think perhaps you were right."
No," she said, shaking her head and laughing. "You were sitting at a child's tea table."
"I was," he admitted.
" Because you are man who loves his family. I couldn't have been more wrong, could I? You are going to have tea with your niece."
"Tomorrow at 3 o'clock," he said. "I've been told we have 'an en-cage-ment.' " He laughed. "It's such a joy to hear words from her."
"I think you are going to make it a habit of sitting at that table, knees under your chin, drinking tea and eating iced cakes."
"Cinnamon buns, I've been informed. Aunt Martha's cinnamon buns--a famous family recipe. Although I have to find the actual recipe somewhere in the kitchen. I have ordered blueberry crumpets, just in case." He placed his hat on his head, pulled on his gloves and opened the door. He gave her a smile she felt to her very toes. Edward Lowell was dangerous to know. "Thank you for your time, Idalie."
"Goodbye, Edward." she stood with her hand on the edge of the door and watched him jump into his carriage. "Have a Merry Christmas."
Edward was not a cook. He could scramble an egg if forced to. He could brew a mean cup of coffee, and he had learned lately how to make tea in a miniature teapot. He could ride a horse, jump any fence, could hit a home run with baseball bat, and draw schematics to perfection, plans down the merest centimeter, and Edward Lowell could build buildings that looked so tall they 'scraped the sky.' But apparently he could not follow a simple recipe for cinnamon buns.
He held the hot bun pan out for Penny to see and said, "They look like pancakes."
"That's wrong, Uncle Eddie...very, very wrong," Penny said seriously, eyeing the flat buns with the too dark edges as if they were insects.
Edward tossed them in the kitchen bin and surveyed the kitchen. There appeared to be more flour on the floor and counters, on his knitted vest and shirt sleeves--even though they were rolled up--and in Penny's hair than was left in the flour sack. "Here." He shoved a plate of cookies down the dusty wooden counter. "Have a cookie."
"You bought these."
"Yes, I did, so they're safe to eat."
Penny laughed and bit the head off a gingerbread man.
He glanced out through the angled conservatory glass across the kitchen to the weather outside. Snow covered everything in thick white fluffs. It was dry snow. The best snow to play in."
"Let's get you cleaned up and we'll go to the park. I think I have a sled just waiting for a rider.
Penny looked at him with a scrunched up face. "I think you are the one who needs cleaning, Uncle Eddie. You're a mess!"
Out of the mouths of babes, he thought.
Half an hour later they were in the park, moving toward a section of various sized sledding hills covered with very few trees and enough hoopdee-dos to make for a great downhill ride.
"Let's go, my lucky Penny." He waved a hand. "There are hills awaiting you. He grabbed her hand and they trudged up the hill, until finally he just picked her up and pulled the red sled along with his free hand. The higher they got the tighter she held onto his neck. "You mother and I spent many winters sliding down hills like this.
She eyed the hills skeptically.
"I taught her to sled when she was about your age, and before long she would beat me down to the bottom every time. I won't let anything happen to you, and if you don't like it, we will do something else, okay?"
She nodded and then settled in front of him, sitting between his legs and gripping his pants in her small, mittened fists. He slid his arm around her, bringing her close and against his chest. "Are you ready?"
She nodded, but moved her hands from his legs and covered her eyes with them instead. "Go Uncle Eddie!"
And he pushed off.
9
It was Thursday, her light day, but Christmas was less than a week away, so there was no such thing as light. The store was crowded and busy and ultimately exhausting. Idalie had voluntarily come in early to help with the other sales people, but they all felt as if they needed two sets of hands and feet with all the rush.
Now her day was done and she thought she would leave the crowds of shoppers behind her. Except the sidewalks were thick with people, and snowdrifts, and the street was crowded with vehicles. But the winter market was close by, so she stopped to get a pineapple and some oranges, a few yams and a small ham, and was now cutting through the park where the snow promised less crowds and she might not have to wait too long catch a trolley to the El, then home, where she would put her feet into the softest slippers, rest them on a footrest sip a cup of tea.
All the doll clothes had sold, so her bank account was nicely funded. She still hadn't cashed the settlement bank draft. She didn't want the money. Somehow, if she cashed the check, she felt as if she would break all ties with Edward Lowell, and some part of her didn't want that. This year, she felt her aloneness, her loneliness more acutely than ever before. She was twenty five years old and alone here in the city, especially for the holiday. She wouldn't take time from work, because she had given her days to the women with children, and thereby sacrificed going home to LaFayette to be with her family.
There was a sense of peace in the quiet of that side of the park, and as she walked the paths and took in her surroundings--the bright white of the snow, the thick trees, a frozen fountain with icicles dripping around it edges--she relaxed. Soon she could hear the whoops and hollers of sledders on the hills around the bend.
But before she got there was a shout and a red sled with two bundled people came flying over the hill, far off the sled trails, traveling so fast they were airborne.
She heard at curse and a shout, "Look out!"
When she stopped tumbling in the soft snow she was sprawled on top of a man with a woolen scarf tied tightly around the lower half of his face and oranges scattered around the. But she knew those eyes.
Edward Lowell looked at her and said, "We have to stop meeting like this."
She burst out laughing.
"Penny," he shouted. "Are you okay?" A child dressed in a warm blue coat, matching mittens and a knitted scarf plopped down on her knees next to them and said, brightly, "Let's do it again, Uncle Eddie."
"I think we should access the damage first. Penny, this is Miss Everdeane...a friend. Idalie, this is Miss Penelope Courtland, my niece and sledder extraordinaire. Are you okay," he asked quietly.
"I'm fine, I think. Just surprised. How
very nice to meet you Miss Courtland, Idalie said, formally, and held out her hand, which brought a series of giggles from the little girl. She, however, was aware of on whom she lay, and how she lay. "I need to get up." She pushed off of him but he was faster and rolled out from under her and was helping her up, lifting her actually, hands on her waist, as she weighed nothing. It was an electric moment. She looked up at him and something warm and slightly uncomfortable passed between them.
"Your hat's crooked," he said.
"Everything is crooked." She twisted her coat back around, shook out her woolen skirt, and adjusted her hat with its pin. He began to dust the snow off of her and seemed to be concentrating on her backside. "Thank you, Edward," she removed his hand, "but I can handle this." The look she gave him said she wasn't fooled for one minute.
Penny was jumping up and down. "Let's go again. Please."
"First we need to help Miss Everdeane pick up her groceries." He retrieved her bag and began to fill it with oranges, the pineapple.
"There's a ham and some yams around here somewhere." She looked on the path and the drifts round them, where their tumbling bodies had made wide swaths in the dry snow. The ham was wrapped in white butcher paper and blended in, but she found it wedged against a tree root.
Edward joined her. He was balancing four yams in his hands and he began to juggle, making his niece giggle even harder. He snatched the last one out of the air and said, "Are there more?"
Idalie held open the bag for him to drop the inside. "No, that's all of them. It's just me."
He studied her for a second as if he wanted to say something but thought better of it. He picked up her purse and frowned, then handed it to her, “This weighs more than your groceries.”
She nodded, choosing not to explain she had a hammer in her purse because then there would just be more explanations.
He shoved his hands in his coat pockets and said, "I'm sorry. I haven't been sledding in a long time. I might have shoved off the hill a little harder than necessary." He laughed. "I'm not sure how long we were even on the snow, let alone the trail."
Penny grabbed her hand. "Come with us, Miss Everdeane." and she pulled at Idalie to go.
Penny...." he warned.
Idalie shoved her groceries in his arms. "I would love to, Miss Penny." And before he could say a word they were trudging up the hill toward the sled runs.
At the top of the run Idalie settled in front of Edward, aware of where she was sitting and the close warm of his chest to her back. His arms were loosely around her as Penny sat down in front of her. It was tight quarters with three of them. Idalie took the sled ropes in her hands. "I'll steer."
"Are you always this bossy?"
"If you asked my cousins they would say yes. Push off, Edward. You're stalling."
The challenge was made.
A second later they were sailing down the run in a perfectly straight line, over the hoopdee-dos, down, down, and down, their laughter in the air, until they came to a perfect stop at the flat bottom of the run. Penny leapt out and was jumping up and down laughing. Idalie, stood, made a smart curtsey and said, "And that Edward, is how it's done. The rope is for steering not hanging on for dear life."
He hit her with a snowball.
She looked down at her chest and then at him. "You sir, are not a gentleman."
He hit her again, and the snowball war started. She aimed for his face. He aimed for other parts. She ran with Penny behind a tree and flung snow at him as fast as she could. Then he came at her, his arms full of snow and she ran. "No Edward! No! That's not fair."
He dropped the snow and lunged at her, lifting her with him, face to face, and he fell down into a snow drift, his arm around her and snow flying up everywhere. When the snow settled, his hands were on her backside. He looked at her and said quietly, "I could get used to this." And if Penny weren't beside them, she knew he would kiss her.
"I'm soaked," she said quietly.
"We all are. Come home with us, Idalie. My house is only a few blocks away. We'll make hot chocolate, well, I will try to make hot chocolate, and we can get warm and dry."
"I really should go home," she said, but she didn't want to go home, at least not to her home, where she would be poor company for a one-eyed cat, where she would cook for herself and eat alone and read a book, like she had every other night.
"Chicken," he said under his breath.
She looked back at him.
"Yes, Miss Everdeane," Penny said. "Come home with us."
She took Penny's hand in hers and said, "Thank you, Miss Penny, I would love to.
Edward escorted Idalie up the large staircase to the upper rooms and opened a guest room door. "Everything you need should be in here. Towels are in the dressing room and there's a WC attached. I can have Baxter start a fire, but there's radiant heat. You can turn on the radiator. He gestured across the room.
"And I'm right there," Penny told her, pointing to a room across the hall. "Do you want to see my room?"
"Let Miss Everdeane catch a breath, my lucky Penny."
"I'd love to see your room and he watched as Penny led her inside. He had not seen his niece so animated, so full of laughter and chatter. He felt a huge sense of relief, as he looked in the mirror in his dressing room and combed his hair.
Idalie Everdeane had changed his life.
He went downstairs whistling a Christmas song. Edward had forgotten about the mess in the kitchen. He stood there, not know where to start when Penny dragged Idalie in.
"What happened here? A flour bomb?"
"Uncle Eddie tried to make cinnamon buns. Look." Penny pointed to the trash bin. "He said they were pancakes."
"Maybe your yeast was old," Idalie suggested. "Did you use warm water and a little sugar and let it set?"
Ed picked up the recipe his aunt had scrawled out in the chicken scratchings she called handwriting. "There's nothing here about warm water or sugar."
Idalie took the recipe. "I think this says activate the yeast. I can make out the A and the C.
Ed read it and shook his head. "Isn't a recipe supposed to be instructions on how to cook something?"
"Most cooks write recipes down only for themselves, not for others to follow. The dough has to rise from the activated yeast, or--"
"You get pancakes," Ed said.
"I'm hungry, " Penny said.
"Miss Clement had the night off. I was going to take Penny out to dinner. Please come with us."
"No," Idalie said and held up her hand. "I
"I'm really hungry, Uncle Eddie."
"I'll send for delivery then."
"I would be happy to cook, Edward. To share. There's plenty of ham. It's cooked so we only have to warm it up."
"I don't want to eat your food, Idalie."
"I do," Penny said and Idalie laughed, a sound that made Edward think about doing things other than cooking.
"Then it's settled. Make yourself useful, Edward and light the oven, while Penny and I clean off this counter.
"It's gas," Edward said, and he lit the stove with a long safety match.
"Oh, my," Idalie said, wiping half the flour on the counter into the trash bin with a damp kitchen towel. "I've heard about them but never cooked on one." She finished wiping things down, bustling back and forth and within minutes the counter was clean, the flour and sugar put away, and she handed him a knife and told him to cut the pineapple.
He held the knife in the air and stared down at the fruit.
Penny giggled. "Cut off the top."
So Edward followed his four-year old niece's instructions, step by step, until there were precise pineapple slices, on a platter next to sweet orange segments, that Penny kept sneaking. What kind of an uncle was he? He forgot to feed the child. He could smell the ham and so Ed asked Baxter to set the table in the breakfast room, a smaller, less formal arrangement where he would eat his meals with Penny most days.
Soon dinner was over and Edward thanked, Idalie, then poured h
er another glass of Bordeaux and they went into the large family parlor, where a fire roared in the huge marble fireplace and a box of puzzles and games was laid out on a table near the fire. This was his life now, he thought, feeling a peace, a comfort he hadn't felt in years. Ed had dated women, had almost married once, but in recent years, there was no connection to anyone he'd met, not until now. And this was much more than a connection. He watched at her as she walked over to the grand piano that took up one corner of the room, sipped her wine and ran her hand along the keys.
He was in love with Idalie Everdeane.
"What a lovely instrument," she said.
"Do you play?"
"My old piano instructor from would say no," she said laughing.
"Here." Edward pulled out the bench. "Sit. Play."
In only a few minutes the sounds coming from the piano were heavenly. She moved from one piece of music to another, seemingly lost as she played.
"Your piano instructor was an idiot," Ed said. Penny was slowing down and he picked her up and moved over to the piano. "Play some Christmas music." And she did, and they sang, their voices as well matched as his feelings for her. Penny was sound asleep on his shoulder as the last notes of Silent Night rang through the room.
Idalie looked up at him from the piano and he knew as sure as he breathed that this was the woman he wanted to marry. It all happened so quickly he would have denied it was possible a couple of months ago, before he had met Idalie Everdeane. Before fate had brought them together more than once, as if angels overhead were directing their lives.
He heard the front door and turned. Baxter and Miss Clement stood in the entry. "I'll take her up," Miss Clement said.
"I should go," Idalie said and she stood.
"Baxter, have the carriage bought around, please. I'll take you home," Ed told her.
"I--"
"No argument. I'm taking you home."
They packed up her ham and she insisted he keep the leftover pineapple and oranges. He made a mental note to send her a fruit basket tomorrow. He would pick it out himself. And maybe some carnations, if he could find carnations. But this was New York. And chocolate. He wanted to give her everything. He wanted to give her his heart, his life, everything he had.