An Enchanted Christmas

by Barbara Metzger

  Instead of the polite salute she expected, a handshake or a sham kiss inches above her fingers, Sir Adam took her hand—and held it. “The debt is mine, ma’am, for not acting sooner, for allowing that muckworm to upset you.”

  “Gammon, it is not your duty to protect every woman you encounter.”

  He still held her hand warmly in his bigger one, looking into her eyes. “I would make it my duty. That is, a gentleman always looks after those weaker than he is.”

  “How chivalrous, but what could you have done? Attack the miscreant in the store while he still held a knife? Then you might have been injured worse, and all for a silly reticule.”

  “It is yours. He had no right to take it.”

  “Of course not. But no one should die for my paltry possessions. Bad enough you were hurt in my defense.”

  “I do not feel the pain.” That was not a total lie. All he was feeling right now was the slight pressure of her hand in his—and a loathing for ladies’ gloves. Even through the leather, her hand was soft and small, yet strong enough to get a grip on his heartstrings.

  “No matter,” she said. “I do wish to thank you for your efforts. I would not like to have lost the coins my late father sent back from his travels. I might have sold them if they proved to have any value, but I did not wish to see them stolen.”

  “I have one, you know.”

  Jenna took her hand back, needing more self-discipline than force to retrieve it “No, I counted. I had ten to show to Mr. Schott and I had ten when I picked them up from the ground.”

  Adam reached into his pocket, where the peculiar penny still remained, despite his tripping and travails. He held it out.

  “Why, it is exactly like my coins! Where did you get it, and what is its history and its worth?’

  “As to its original denomination or its present value, I have no idea. That is why I was going to consult with the antiquarian.” Adam did not wish to admit he was going to sell the coin for whatever he could get, even if he had to melt it down for its metals. He had no reason to advertise his poverty beyond the condition of his clothes.

  “But where did it come from?”

  So he told her about the little old man in the coach, and his claim that the penny might bring Adam good luck. He laughed at the nonsense, but there he was, inches away from the loveliest woman in his experience. He took the coin back with far more respect than he had shown it before.

  “Do you think he was Irish? They are a superstitious lot, I understand. Or perhaps a mystic from the East? A well-traveled Gypsy?’

  Adam shook his head. “He might have been a leprechaun himself, for all I know, or a heathen witch doctor. He did appear to be a proper Englishman, although an ancient one. Perhaps he was Merlin, come back from his cave to grant a boon.”

  Jenna smiled at that. “But isn’t it amazing, do you not think, that we each possess the same oddity?’

  “Amazing,” he agreed, staring into the dancing brilliance of her green eyes.

  Jenna blushed, and her maid coughed again.

  Brought back to the matter at hand—and how did Sir Adam come to possess her hand again?—Jenna said, “Yes, well, I am afraid we shall have to wait to ask Mr. Schott. The physician recommended bed rest for at least a week. Oh, and that reminds me. He bade me offer you this.” She claimed her hand again and reached across a scarred desk for an ermine muff that matched her mantle’s lining. From the inside she pulled another leather pouch, which jingled pleasantly, to Adam’s ears.

  More money! Adam felt almost rich, but he did not want Miss Relaford to think that the coins might make the least difference in his life. Certainly not that it affected how many meals he ate a day! Why, her bonnet likely cost more than his new funds added together. So he told her, “I cannot accept Mr. Schott’s largesse. I did nothing, truly.”

  “You definitely kept the scoundrel from making off with a fortune in snuffboxes, and who knows what he might have done without your presence, with just an old man and two women in the shop? You deserve the reward. Furthermore, you must accept it or Mr. Schott’s feelings will be hurt. You can always give it to charity.”

  Adam gave a rueful laugh. “Oh, I think I can find a worthy use for his coins, never fear.”

  Despite not understanding the joke, Jenna smiled back. “Yes, well, then I had better be going, and let you proceed about your business.”

  “You had not ought to have come to such a place at all. But thank you.” There was nothing more he could say, no reason to keep her here, the devil take it. Adam tucked the money away while Miss Relaford pulled up the hood of her cape. She would be leaving, out of his life as quickly as she’d entered it, but not out of his thoughts, he feared, forever. “I wish…”

  “Yes?”

  No. It was impossible. How could he see her again when he was due back in Suffolk or when he was as out of place in her world as she would be milking his dairy cows? But how could he stop himself from wishing?

  He might have said it aloud if she had not spoken first: “Perhaps, if your business is not too pressing, you would come to tea this afternoon? I am certain my uncle would also like to thank you for your efforts on my behalf. Three of the clock, at Half Moon Street?”

  Adam decided he would walk to the full moon itself for the chance to spend more time in the company of Miss Jenna Relaford. He nodded. The pounding in his head turned to chimes of joy.

  Chapter Four

  How peculiar, Adam thought, once he had left Bow Street. Ever since he had been given the odd little coin, strange things had occurred, illogical, improbable, and incomprehensible things. Like now, when he had wished for another opportunity to see Miss Relaford, and an opportunity instantly arose. Adam had never truly believed in the efficacy of prayer, although he never mentioned such to the vicar, attending services nearly every Sunday. He had never believed in the magic of wishes come true, either, whether wishes on stars, in wishing wells, or in Christmas puddings. For that matter, he had never believed much in luck, although he had cursed the Fates for his misfortunes often enough. Was that the same?

  Adam pondered as he walked, not paying much attention to his surroundings. He was an ordinary chap, with his feet firmly on the ground, he told himself, not any mystical, poetical, portent-seeking fellow: All of the recent events must simply have been coincidences, having nothing whatsoever to do with his wants or wishes. On the other hand, the one clutching Miss Relaford’s card as though it were his ticket to Paradise, he had never believed in love at first sight before, either.

  What else could this feeling be? His innards were tied in knots, his tongue was as thick as a sheep hide, and the thought of taking tea with the young woman almost made him drool. He was thirsty and hungry, that was all, he told himself. And did not believe himself for an instant

  Could it be mere infatuation with her looks? No, for Miss Relaford was as charming as she was beautiful, sweet and intelligent, too.

  Lust? Adam shook his head and muttered a denial to himself. A woman with a small child in hand anxiously crossed to the other side of the street.

  Oh, at the thought of Miss Relaford’s soft hand, soft lips, soft skin, he grew hard enough, but the feelings Adam felt for her after such a brief acquaintance went much further. He had never had so burning a need to make a woman happy before, to cherish her and protect her. Why, he’d just made a fool of himself again, insisting he see her to her waiting carriage as if a whole building full of Bow Street officers could not keep Miss Relaford safe. And he was counting the hours, multiplying out the minutes, until he could see her again. If that was not love, what was? Perhaps he’d ought to consult one of those poets after all. They were always going on about the tender emotion.

  Tender, hell. His head was tender, his ribs were tender. His heart was a maelstrom of confusion, and the whole mess was too much for his aching head to contemplate. He needed a meal and a room and a bath. Then, maybe, he could begin to understand what was happening to him.

  Just in c
ase, though, Adam tucked Miss Relaford’s card in his fob pocket, next to the lucky coin, closed his eyes, and made a wish. “I wish I were worthy of her love,” he said. Nothing was different when he opened his eyes, of course, and nothing happened except that a woman with rouged cheeks passed him on the walkway, winked, and said, “You’re worthy of mine any day, dearie.”

  Adam took a room for one night at the coaching inn, intending to catch the next day’s stage to Suffolk. He paid extra to have the inn’s staff do the best they could with his stained coat and scuffed boots, while he did the best he could with his injured ribs. After a hearty breakfast and a long hot soak, Adam tied his new neckcloth—of finer linen than any he owned—higher than usual, to try to hide his discolored chin. He brushed his damp curls back, over the gash in his head, and brushed his teeth, twice.

  Then he went shopping for a bouquet of flowers to bring to Miss Relaford.

  Roses, of course, pink like the blush on her cheek. Or sweet-smelling violets. A rare orchid, perhaps. A bouquet of wildflowers would be more in keeping with his countryman’s taste, and purse, but this was London, not the country. And it was December, not June. The street-corner flower sellers offered red-berried holly, mistletoe, and ribbon-tied boughs of fragrant evergreens for decorating, dried lavender and clove-studded apples, not posies for a lady.

  The shop he found had ferns and ivies and orange trees, and a small selection of flowers from forcing houses—at prices that would have forced him to part with far too much of his recent windfall. He might give his soul to the lady, but not food out of his dependents’ mouths.

  “I still have a bouquet of roses what weren’t fetched yesterday,” the florist told him when the man saw Adam turning away. “You can have ’em cheap. They ain’t too droopy yet, and the red’s so dark, your gal won’t notice the brown edges on the petals.”

  A few petals fell off when Adam carried the roses out, so he held them close to protect the bouquet from the blustery winter wind as he walked to Half Moon Street.

  He checked Miss Relaford’s card again, as if the thing were not etched in his brain, and then stood outside the house in despair. It was worse than he’d thought; she was wealthier than he suspected. The place was immense and immaculate, with nary a speck of soot on any of the myriad windows. Why, some of his windows at Standings did not even have glass!

  Lud, what was he doing here? He might have turned and gone back to the inn, but he was no quitter, else he’d have given up on Standings ages ago. What he was doing here, Adam told himself as he tried to straighten his hair that the wind had disarranged, was taking tea with a lovely lady, so he might have another pleasant memory to take home with him, nothing more. Still, he could not help wishing he made a better, more dashing appearance. Miss Relaford was so beautiful while he was so blasted ordinary, if one ignored the garish colors of his chin. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown coat, and brown breeches—how boring. He sighed and raised his hand to the gleaming door knocker.

  Just as he let the knocker fall, a gust of wind, stronger than before, blew up. It would have carried a hat away, if he’d been wearing one, but it played havoc with his hair instead—and with the roses. Adam did not have time to smooth his hair again for the door immediately opened to reveal a butler so niffy-naffy he could have served in a duke’s residence. Hell, Adam thought, the fellow could have been a duke. At his side was Miss Relaford herself, her mouth open in an O of astonishment. Even the superior servant seemed taken aback.

  Adam bowed, and handfuls of rose petals fluttered off his head and his shoulders, swept by the wind onto the tiled hall. A few were lodged in his neckcloth and lapels and the top of his waistcoat.

  Dashing? He felt like dashing for a hackney to carry him away! Well, that tiled floor was not going to swallow him up, and a fellow seldom died of mortification, unfortunately, so Adam did the only thing possible: he held his collection of now bare stems out to Miss Relaford and said, “For you.”

  Her lips twitched. The butler’s lips twitched. Adam’s lips twitched, and then they all burst out laughing. The butler recovered first, recalling his position and his dignity, even if his mistress and her unconventional guest had forgotten theirs. He cleared his throat, announced that he would see about a broom, and made a decorous exit, although they could hear one last chuckle as he headed down the hall.

  “That’s what comes of a poor country clodpole trying to impress a princess, I suppose,” Adam said, still grinning.

  “Are you?”

  He laughed again. “Poor? Countrified? A clumsy fool? All of them, my lady, I assure you.”

  Jenna brushed a rose petal off his shoulder. “Trying to impress me?” It was little more than a whisper.

  Adam could only sigh, take up her hand, and bring it to his lips. “With all my heart, if only I could.”

  The butler returned and cleared his throat again.

  “Are you coming down with something, Hobart? You would not wish to be ill at Yuletide,” Jenna said. She did, however, take her hand out of Sir Adam’s and invite him to follow her to the library where some of her father’s other curios were displayed, until her uncle returned for tea.

  They admired carved jade horses and purple beads made of clamshells, examined a case of dead butterflies and another of oddly shaped pearls of different colors, for her maid’s sake.

  The maid was mending in the corner, for propriety’s sake.

  What they were actually doing was admiring each other, examining their startling new feelings. They let their hands touch over each ebony figurine and their shoulders brush in front of the paintings. They compared their tastes, learning about each other in the process and liking what they learned, very much indeed.

  As they went from object to object, Jenna told Adam about her merry papa, the second son of an earl, who had fallen in love with a merchant’s daughter and eloped with her aboard one of her father’s ships. She died in childbirth, but James Relaford stayed at sea, becoming wealthy in his own right, ignoring the scandal, ignoring his family, ignoring everything but the baby daughter left with his wife’s brother and sister-in-law. Now he was gone, as was Jenna’s dearest aunt, and the grandfather earl who had never acknowledged her birth.

  Adam in turn told her about his beloved Standings and his horse-mad father whose schemes had sent them into penury, if not yet bankruptcy.

  “We have both had great losses in our lives,” Jenna said. “And yet you have your lands and I have an uncle who cares for me as if I were his own daughter, so we are more fortunate than many others.”

  Adam agreed just as they heard the front door opening, then steps heading down the tiled hall in their direction.

  “Uncle,” Miss Relaford said, “may I present Sir Adam Standish. Sir Adam, my uncle, Mr. Ezekiel—”

  “Beasdale!”

  “Standish?”

  “This is your uncle?”

  “This is your hero?”

  “This is your niece?”

  “This is preposterous!” Beasdale looked about to suffer an apoplexy, his face was so red. “How dare you, you villain, dangle after my niece when I particularly warned you against such a course? Here I was thinking of relenting on that payment date, but now? Extend further credit to an encroaching, unethical parasite? You might consider yourself clever to scrape up an acquaintance with my niece on such short notice, but I consider you no better than a worm, a slime-slithering—”

  “I take it you two have met?” Jenna asked in a quavering voice.

  But Adam was not daunted, not at all. He raised his chin, bruises and all. “I do not consider myself the least clever, else I would have asked the name of Miss Relaford’s uncle before I leaped to her assistance. As it is, you impugn my honor, sir. If circumstances were otherwise, I would ask you to name your seconds. Instead, for Miss Relaford’s sake, I shall bid you good day.”

  “Wait!” Jenna called as Adam turned for the door. “Uncle, I do not know what you are concerned about, but I swear Sir Adam and I met b
y chance. He was bringing a coin to Mr. Schott’s to be appraised. The same type of coin I showed you at breakfast yesterday. Let him see, Sir Adam,” she added, with a silent plea for him to understand a loving uncle’s obsession.

  Adam took the coin out of his pocket. Then, for Miss Relaford’s sake, he relented. “I had no other reason for entering that shop yesterday, Mr. Beasdale. I swear it”

  Beasdale examined the coin. “Harumph. I suppose I owe you an apology, then. And my gratitude for keeping my poppet safe.” He mopped at his forehead with a monogrammed handkerchief. “And I guess I shall have to extend that deadline after all.”

  Adam had more pride than to take crumbs from a begrudging hand, especially in front of Miss Relaford. “No, sir. That is unnecessary. I have come into a bit of the ready, enough to tide me over until spring. I shall make do.”

  Beasdale harumphed again, but was pleased, they could see, pleased enough to sit to tea with his unwanted guest.

  “But do not mistake my gratitude or my hospitality,” he told Adam while Jenna was busy filling cups and plates. “I will not have a titled fortune hunter paying suit to my niece.”

  Adam almost wished the banker to the devil, but he was Miss Relaford’s uncle, and she seemed fond of the old curmudgeon. The tea could have been ditchwater and the cakes might have had bits of macadam instead of poppyseed in them, for Adam’s appetite, and his pleasure in the day, had fled. He made his farewells as quickly as politeness allowed.

  Miss Relaford walked him to the entryway. As the stiff-backed butler held the door open, she pressed a card of invitation into Adam’s hand. “I am having a small party on Friday evening in honor of a friend who is recently wed. I would be pleased if you could attend.”

  “I am sorry, ma’am, but I must be returning to the country. And your uncle…”

  “This is my party. And if you are concerned about the company, not everyone will be as disapproving of your circumstances as my uncle. My school friend married Lord Iverson, and some of his friends will be coming, as well as Uncle’s business associates and their families.”