She snuggled her back against him and wrapped his coat tight. She encountered his hands, doing the same. A coat for two. She put her hands over his and said, “You remembered I like to watch Christmas come.”
“I like it myself. I like it better when I’m with you,” he said.
Chill wisps of wind whispered past them, gathered together, and blew up the chimney in a long, low, deep column of sound. She said, “When I was a child, in Geneva, we used to dress up warm and walk to the Cathedral of Saint Pierre. We’d stand outside and listen to the bells at midnight. The most beautiful bells in the world, they say.”
“They say that in Geneva.”
“We are nearly always right.”
It was an entirely perfect moment. They were together, keeping each other company. Holding human warmth between them. The air around them was empty and waiting. The huge stone house around them, perfectly silent.
She said, “I’ve made decisions—”
“Not tonight,” he whispered. “Nothing here tonight but you and me and Christmas.”
Christmas came then, striking the first three deep notes at the great case clock in the marble entry hall, spilling from parlor to parlor to breakfast room to conservatory to ballroom, chiming and tinkling, filling the house. Voices, just at the edge of hearing, ceased. She and Nick weren’t the only ones listening for Christmas.
The last notes, small and sweet, sounded here in the Tapestry Room from the French ebony-and-gilt clock on the table under the window.
She stayed where she was for a long time, leaning into Nick’s arms. They said very little. At last, reluctantly, they moved apart. Nick walked her upstairs to her room in the attic and waited till she went inside.
CHAPTER NINE
She was going to be clever and vengeful today, Claire decided, and possibly criminal. Since it was Mary’s jewelry she’d be tossing into the snow with Mary’s tacit permission, this wasn’t technically illegal. Gower cheating her in Paris had not been technically illegal. It would be especially satisfying to deliver a backhanded blow to Gower and stay carefully within the law.
She’d awakened at dawn in the long attic room with the comfortable sound of three other maids snoring gently. Christmas Day splatted snow against the window. Not promising weather.
But a few hours later Holbourne Abbey could have been inhabiting a different country or a different month. The sky was a clear and transparent blue, the air, dry and crisp. Guests, family, and every servant who wasn’t absolutely needed in the kitchen would go to church in the village.
A perfect day for going to church or for an elopement or to enact a long-awaited revenge.
She went to the library to await events. Nick brought a roll up from breakfast and offered it to her. When she shook her head, he ate the roll slowly, tearing it apart and consuming it bite by bite as he strolled about, looking at the titles of books. He had the air of a man prepared to be entertained by a difficult day, rather like a lion tamer at the Roman coliseum getting ready for the fights.
Eventually Mary arrived, leading a sturdy, brown-haired young man—Charlie—by the hand, being surreptitious. They darted into the library, closed the door behind them, established themselves in a sheltered nook, and started kissing.
Not yet. Not yet. Nothing could be done till the house emptied. Claire stayed at the library window. It was cold enough and the wind was strong enough that heat was sucked out the windowpanes and all the spaces of the frame leaked cold. From time to time Nick came over to appreciate the view and went away without comment.
From here she could see the stables and the path to the village. Grooms had been out early, leading carriage horses back and forth to pack down the snow. Hearty souls began the tromp to the village, strong young men and women arm in arm with the older ones. Three sleighs, piled with furs and blankets, came last, carrying the ladies of the family and the guests. Gower rode in the third sleigh.
Nick rubbed the fog of their breath off the windowpane. “It’s time.”
“We have a lot to do before Gower gets back,” she said. “Keep an eye on those two.”
She hiked up her skirts and took the main staircase two steps at a time. Nobody to complain about it. For all practical purposes she had the house to herself.
The jewelry box was where she’d left it in the wardrobe, still sliding and clattering when she picked it up. She lifted the lid, found everything in place. The leather case that held the Coeur de Flamme—yes. All present and accounted for.
She opened the casement window before she left. Wooden box hugged to her chest, rattling slightly, she ran through the empty house, down the stairs, into the library.
She detached Mary from her frantic hold on Charlie and showed her the box.
“These are mine. They were my mother’s.” Mary pressed fingertips to one leather case and then another. “Papa sold most of her jewels. These are the only ones left. I won’t let Papa have them.”
“We won’t.” They packed the cases, one by one, into the top of Mary’s satchel. Claire took out the Heart of Fire. This was the last time she’d touch it, probably. The currents of fate were unlikely to bring it back in her direction. She laid it across Mary’s palm.
“I was going to wear it at the ball,” Mary said. “I had a dress made to match it. Pink.”
“Pink?”
“Pink silk with little embroidered flowers. And a double flounce at the hem.” Mary pressed her lips together. “I like the new setting. I didn’t at first, but it’s kind of pretty.”
Kind of pretty. “Thank you. The Coeur is very old. Nine hundred years old. From India. Stories say it gives courage to anyone who wears it.”
Mary closed her fingers around it and she gave a shaky laugh. “I could use some courage.”
“Put it on, then. Under your clothes.” Quickly, she fastened it around Mary’s neck. “Wear the Heart of Fire on your way north. Wear it at your wedding. For luck. For courage.” It occurred to her that Mary had lived with Gower her whole life and not been cowed. The fragile-looking blond girl had her own kind of courage.
They’d come to the tangled magpie nest of jewelry in the bottom of the box. “What about these?”
Mary had already turned away. “Papa bought those. He can keep them.”
Claire trudged up the little hill at the far reaches of the garden, clutching Gower’s ugly jewelry box to her chest. Down there was the ornamental pond where the guests had skated yesterday. Behind her were clumps of rhododendron and holly. Nick waited beside her with his usual catlike patience.
“It’s not that far to Scotland,” she said. “There’re carts and carriages on the road. Lots of help if they get into trouble.”
“They’ll be fine. They aren’t wandering in some howling wilderness.”
Mary Gower and her Charlie, riding Nick’s borrowed horses, would be through the village by now and out on the main road north. “There are farms and houses. It’s not deserted,” she said.
“Charlie Pearson was in the retreat from Corunna. A little run up to Scotland is a stroll in the park for him. And you’ll give them a good head start. That”—he gestured to the box she held—“should distract Gower.”
“Such is mine intention.”
“You’ll doubtless explain what we’re doing here. In your own good time.” Nick was warmly dressed, but he hadn’t stopped to fetch a hat. When the wind blew, snow sifted down from tree branches and fell into his hair, sparkling against the black. “I think I know, but tell me. I like to see how your mind works.”
Of course he knew. “This is where the thieves stopped to divide their loot. Right here.”
“That would be the thieves who went out the window in Gower’s room. Their ladder broke and they fell into the shrubbery. That’s why there’s rope among the bushes.”
“Those thieves,” she agreed.
“After they fell, they limped all the way through the snow to where they’d tied their horses.”
“They are hearty and
determined thieves.”
“Oh, naturally. The horses were tied . . . here.” Nick knocked snow off a couple of the lower boughs. “Oh look. Somebody’s been by with horses. How convenient.”
“There’s a pair of hardy souls that gets up early to ride. A man and a woman. I see them out of the window on the top floor. They generally stop here for a while.”
“Verisimilitude scattered all over the ground.” Nick kicked at it.
“Thank you. One uses the materials at hand. So . . . my thieves quarreled in this picturesque spot. A fistfight at the least. Maybe knives.”
“They’re desperate men,” Nick agreed, “as well as robust and determined.” He was always ready to get into the spirit of these imaginings. They’d laid many plots and contrivances together in the last years. For some reason the memory of that didn’t hurt anymore. She didn’t stop to explore why this should be so.
She opened the wooden box. “I was going to take my revenge today. I’d waited a long time. But this is for Mary Gower.” The gold was cold between her fingers when she scooped out a fistful of necklaces, bracelets, rings, and threw them in a wide arc across the snow.
Nick cocked his head. “Are you being a bit too enthusiastic?”
“I’m making Gower grub about in the snow. He’ll keep looking and looking for the valuable pieces—the ones Mary has. He’ll only find this trash.” She upended the box. Brilliant red, green, purple, and gold fell into the snow at her feet.
It went against the grain to misuse even these badly cut, badly set gems. She was a dealer in gems, accustomed to trading pieces of great value, but she was also an artist and craftsman in love with their beauty.
Last of all, sudden and hard and brutal, she threw down the box. It broke facedown, wood shattering, hinges sprawling.
She stood for a while, looking down. Nick came crunching across the last two feet that separated them. Maybe he’d seen that last instant of regret. He always knew what she was feeling.
He started unbuttoning his overcoat.
She said, “If you even think of taking that off and wrapping it around me, I will strip you naked and leave you to die in a snowdrift.”
“Is that a promise?” He used his warm, sensual voice, teasing her with it.
“I hate it when you’re gallant.”
“That’s what makes it so much fun. You put me in my place. Everyone else takes me seriously.” He looked around the countryside and back toward the house. “We’re standing here in the open. Is there something unpleasant that needs doing? You can hand it over to me.”
“You’re being gallant again.” She shook herself. The sun dazzling on this vast expanse of snow made her eyes water. “Nick, have you ever been a coward?”
“Frequently.”
“Now you’re lying.”
“It’s the simple and sad truth. I am not cast in the heroic mold. I’ve walked away from more battles than you can imagine.”
As you walked away from Mary Gower. And the miserable old woman in Leipzig. The shopkeeper in Prague. That fool of a second secretary in Vienna. She shrugged. “Maybe.”
He said, “I do not spend my life wandering the far corners of Europe because I’m fond of bratwurst and borsch. Are you taking your clothes off? I’m delighted, but this seems a chilly spot.”
She ignored that.
The whole time she’d been at Holbourne Abbey she’d carried the copy under her dress, above her own heart. There was no need for modesty in front of Nick. She wriggled her hand under her cloak in back and loosened the tie at the nape of her neck, lowered the bodice of her dress, and unpinned her counterfeit jewel.
He looked at what she held in her hand. “And yet another of them. If that’s a copy, it’s a very good one. So good it’s making me nervous.”
“It’s glass, but the color match is almost perfect. I did it from memory.”
“Another skill I did not know you possessed. Useful in your work, I should think.”
“It’s one of the great, unteachable arts, seeing color. If I hadn’t possessed it, my grandfather would have patted me on the head and sent me off to make tarts instead of taking me into the workshop.”
She did up her back. It was an excuse for not looking at him. “When I sent you away, it was because I was afraid.”
“Of what? Me?”
She shook her heard fiercely. “Not you.”
“How gratifying. You’re afraid of what, exactly?” And he waited.
She’d avoiding talking to him for two months, three weeks, and—what was it?—four days. She could put off the discussion for a few more minutes.
She pulled her cloak around her and knelt down in the snow beside the welter of jewels. She knew this spot. She’d walked this little hill a dozen times, picking the exact place to drop the jewels. The rocks she wanted . . .
Snow had fallen since she’d last been here, but she found the rocks she was looking for.
Nick went down on his haunches beside her, warming her face with his breath, shielding her a little from the wind, watching what she was doing. “Cowardly and afraid of what?” he asked softly.
She brushed snow away lightly. She said, “Your family. My family. The rest of the world.”
One rock was flat granite, part of the ground, an ordinary inhabitant of this soil, here since the beginning of time. The other, next to it, was a heavy, smooth, oval-shaped lump the size of two fists. She’d found it in the garden and brought it here.
“That’s inclusive. Where shall we start?”
“I’m afraid you want to marry me to spite your family.” She set her copy of the Coeur de Flamme on the flat stone.
An almost imperceptible pause. “It’s the sort of thing I might do,” he conceded amiably. “But it happens I want to marry you because I love you.”
“Oh.” Her hand was clumsy, holding her pretty copy. Glass clicked on granite.
Nick said, “I don’t lie to you, Claire. To other people, maybe. Never to you.”
She picked up the carefully chosen hammer stone in her right hand. “When I was only your friend and lover, your family could ignore me. Marriage makes it a scandal and an outrage.”
“You’ve been talking to my sister, haven’t you? You really shouldn’t. I have a wide choice of family, all of them better company than Lavinia. They’d be delighted to see me marry a fortune. It’s what the younger sons of younger sons do.”
“You have a tidy pile of money.” She shifted the rock in her right hand. She’d made this copy with some care. It was a pity . . . .
“You have more. My great-aunt Edwina—you will have the terror and privilege of meeting her in London—says you are a provident and farsighted choice. She approves. And your grandfather approves.”
She’d lifted the hammer stone. She set it down again carefully.
“Grandpapa? You went to see Grandpapa?” There was nothing Nicholas Lafford wouldn’t do. Nothing.
“It’s customary and I have excellent manners. He said he’d been expecting me.”
“You went to Geneva?” She could not visualize a meeting between Nicholas and Grandpapa. What would they say to each other?
“On my way back from Florence a month ago. I spent a week with him in your family home. A revelatory week. What that old man doesn’t know about the skeletons in the closets of the great families of Europe is not worth knowing.”
Secrets. She’d never before noticed how much her grandfather had in common with Nick. “We buy and sell jewels. We know secrets.”
“He said you’d hold your own among any grand aristocrats. He’s right. In the salons, in the ballrooms, you shine like a star.”
“You stalk like a prowling wolf. They just don’t see it.”
“I am discreet and invisible and benign. Your grandfather approves of me.”
Grandpapa and Nick. They were both canny and cynical and a little ruthless. Of course Grandpapa liked him.
She took up her hammer stone and rapped it down sharply on this fak
e of hers. This false claimant. This imposter.
One tap. The heart shape cracked neatly and fell into a dozen pieces.
“That’s . . . thorough,” Nick said.
“I’m used to working with glass. It does what I tell it to.”
“Let me guess. This is where the thieves dropped a diamond and it unluckily hit a rock and broke.”
“Or a horse stepped on it.”
“Or lightning struck.” Nick’s mobile lips tucked in at one corner. Bright, appreciative eyes laughed at her. “A diamond is the hardest substance in the world, Claire-my-jeweler. You don’t crack it open on a rock.”
“Gower says a jeweler can chip a diamond just laying it in a setting of soft gold.” She smiled. “He’ll come. He’ll find his hoard scattered and the valuable pieces missing. His diamond, destroyed.” She stood and stretched and threw the hammer stone deep into the wood. “Or stolen and out of his reach forever. Come, Mr. Gower. Come and admire the ‘chipped diamond’ I’ve left for you.”
“A proper revenge.” Nick was enjoying this. She’d known he would. “Who were you going to give the Coeur to originally? Before you met Mary?”
“Talleyrand. Minister of France. Grand intriguer of Europe.”
“Good God, why?”
“Because a hundred years ago the Coeur was stolen from Louis XIV. It’s gone through a score of owners since, but one could argue it’s still property of the French throne. If Talleyrand got his hands on the Coeur, Gower could hold all the legal tantrums he liked. He’d never touch it again.”
“Remind me never to make you angry,” Nick said.
CHAPTER TEN
She would have gone back to the house, but Nick reached his hand out. He said, “Let me show you something.”
They followed footprints that led toward other footprints and then to the edge of the ornamental lake. It was empty of skaters now, a clouded, windswept mirror gray under the bright sky. Glittering white shaped the banks broken by the stark black of the thickets and branches.
“The bridge,” Nick said. “In all your time being useful in the house, you probably haven’t seen this.” And so she let him lead her to the stone bridge that arched over the frozen river that fed the lake. “Look,” he said simply.
The Last Chance Christmas Ball Page 6