The Last Chance Christmas Ball

by Mary Jo Putney

“Quite.” Henry picked up the teapot.

  “Do let me pour,” she said, beginning to rise.

  “No matter, we often did things for ourselves in the regiment.” He poured the tea, steam rising, and Clary sank back. “Milk? Though a lady fainting away might be the talk of the ball. Sugar?” He lifted the little tongs.

  “A dash of milk. But the ball is not for days. I will be quite well,” Clary said. “Besides, they will have much to talk about at this ball. My cousin wrote that some are calling it the ‘last chance ball.’ ” She accepted the cup he handed her along with a small seed cake. Henry poured himself a cup, stirred milk and sugar, sipped it while standing. He frowned, perplexed.

  “Last chance?” he asked. “Why so?”

  “Some may hope to find a match there, or see an old . . . love.” Quickly, she crumbled a bit of cake and nibbled it, her cheeks blushing rosily.

  “There’s a bit of matchmaking at any ball.”

  “True. Though I wonder—” She glanced at him, and then away.

  “Fiona bringing us together there—or here?” Realizing it was possible, he frowned. “My sister ought to know better.”

  The flames in the grate snapped and a log broke, sending sparks. Clary jumped, nearly spilling her tea. “It will be a lovely Christmas ball, and I was so looking forward to it. Am looking forward to it,” she added, and sent him a quick smile.

  He had missed that smile. So genuine, fairylike, the bow curve of her lips held brightness, sensuousness, and was utterly Clary, all he knew of her and loved in her, or had once. She beamed hope, forgiveness. Uncertainty, too.

  He turned toward the window. Sleet tapped the panes and daylight was rapidly fading. The weather was increasingly poor, and Clary was hurt, though she might deny it, and should not travel, regardless of weather. She would have to stay here, alone with him. A hot surge of need sank through him, deeper than physical, ardent and disquieting all at once.

  “I’ll fetch that snow,” he said abruptly, taking his empty teacup as he left the room with Max at his heels. Outside, he scooped snow into the cup and found Clary’s cane. While the dog nosed through snow, he looked about.

  The snow was no longer airy, pretty stuff. Now it slanted wild and sleety, shawling the trees, burying the ground, obscuring the distance. His boots were inches into the stuff, and ice pelleted his hair, his coat. No wonder Clary had fallen. Certainly they would not travel tonight.

  Noticing her trunk and packages, he stuck the dish of snow in his pocket, grabbed the smaller things under his arm, and carried them, trunk and all, inside. Whistling for Max, he kicked the door shut behind him.

  Clary sat up slowly, head spinning, shoulder aching, and stood, unwilling to submit to weakness. She bounced on one foot, hoping Henry remembered her cane. She would show him that she was ready to travel. Staying here was madness.

  “Not yet, please.” Henry entered the room and set the packages and cane aside. He took her arm, his hands so warm and strong, sure and wonderful, that Clary sat without protest. Then he dumped snow from the teacup into his handkerchief to make an icy compress. As she pressed it to her head, he lifted a shawl from a chair. “Fiona keeps this here. Says the place is drafty.”

  She touched the fringed paisley wrap patterned in red and gold. “It’s beautiful. But I would spoil it—my skirt is damp.”

  He spread the shawl over her. “Wet, more like. You may have to change.”

  “My trunk is outside. Truly, I cannot inconvenience you further.”

  “I brought your things inside.” He stood regarding her, all easy elegance and contained power, the firelight pouring golden over his long, fit form, over dark curls and blue eyes. Then he pointed toward the window. “The storm is building—soon it will be unsafe to travel.”

  “Oh!” She glanced there, surprised. “It’s snowing quite heavily now.”

  “It is, and the roads may become impassable. We are at the head of a glen here, and the drifts can pile quite high. A local trip might still be possible, but your driver will not want to risk a long journey. And I do not think you should leave yet, with that injury.”

  She raised her chin, head aching, and managed a smile. “I’ve had far worse.”

  “Stubborn girl,” he said quietly, so naturally that her breath caught. “You let nothing hold you back, God knows. But this is no simple snowstorm, and a cranial injury can be serious. Nor will a charming smile seduce me into saying otherwise,” he added with a tilt of his head.

  His gentle intonation, that hint of affection was so like the old Henry she remembered that Clary felt a swirl within of unexpected hope. “But we cannot stay here.”

  “There are rooms aplenty, as far apart as you like, though your safety is assured. And my housekeeper left food enough for a medieval siege.”

  “I meant that we are alone. It is not proper.”

  “We are hardly strangers.” He gazed at her evenly. “I am acting as your physician, which provides a certain exemption. Compress to head, please, madam.”

  She obliged. “Intractable man.”

  “Exactly.” He pressed his lips together as if to suppress a smile.

  “Tomorrow, first thing, we must go to the Kendricks’,” she said. “I believe my driver was planning to stay the night, so he will be there with my vehicle to take me into England.”

  “Perhaps. This sort of weather can prevail for a day or more. But I could fetch the forester’s wife up to the house if she will come. Her joints ache miserably in the cold.”

  Outside, Clary could hear sleet and wind thrashing against the windows. “My Northumbrian cousins expect me for Christmas. What of the holiday?”

  “They may have bad weather, too, or will hear of the storms in Scotland, and in either case understand your delay. The holiday means little to me, my dear,” he finished.

  Was that casual endearment politeness or habit—or intentional? “I must send word to my cousins soon,” she said quickly.

  “You may arrive on their doorstep sooner. This is Sunday. The ball is Thursday. If the weather improves and workers can clear the roads to the south, carriages should be traveling in a day or two. If our sled was in good repair,” he added, “I would consider it, since you seem quite eager to be gone despite the conditions. Please understand, Lady Hay, that I am more concerned about your wee cranium than your timely transportation.”

  “I know.” She appreciated his calm wisdom in what seemed an untenable situation. “When the roads are clear, will you attend the ball?”

  “I have already sent my regrets. It would be rude to appear when a dinner plate is not counted for me. I sent a token of my remorse—a couple of bottles of an excellent Highland whisky that some cousins of mine make in their, er, distillery. I never ask whence it comes. But,” he went on, “if you require an escort to the ball, I could risk discourtesy.”

  “Lady Holly and her son and his countess would no doubt be happy to see you, and you could easily explain, if you wanted to go. You have friends there, your sister said. A Lord Harris, I believe? And one of Lady Holly’s sons?”

  “Her grandson, actually. Captain Stretton’s father is the current earl. Lady Holbourne kindly invited me with a note of thanks for her grandson’s survival, but sheer luck saved Kim and Ivo, not me. There was an explosion—their actions were brave, but their wounds were grievous. One sustained a terrific blow to the head, the other—well, several injuries.” He frowned.

  “Angels watched over them,” Clary supplied softly. “A doctor appearing at the right time can be a miracle in itself. How fortunate you were there.”

  “I was a member of the Scots Greys,” he said, staring out the window. “Hardly an angel—did little enough for a couple of years, acting as a regiment physician in Ireland until we were sent over to the Low Countries. We narrowly missed Quatre Bras—perhaps you’ve heard of it—but we were at Waterloo. I needed more than my physician’s skills that day. Thank God, my father had been a surgeon and made sure I knew his craft as well
as my own. He was tougher than any officer, I vow.” He glanced at a portrait hanging over a mahogany writing desk. “I was able to step in when one of the surgeons was killed.”

  “I am sorry that you had to be there, at Waterloo.”

  “Don’t be,” he said brusquely. “I was glad to be of some use.”

  He glanced away, hands in pockets, and Clary sensed that those battlefield patients, and the experiences there, meant far more to him than he would reveal. She had heard that Henry had saved lives there while injured himself. That long scar on his forehead had not been there last she had seen him, before the war. He must have taken a bad blow to the head, she thought, frowning.

  “At any rate, I had planned to stay here at Cranshaw and attend to my work. You are welcome to share my solitude.”

  She smiled. “Any port in a storm?”

  He waved a hand. “Such as it is.”

  Clary settled back with the cold cloth against her brow. “This is a lovely house. I vow it has seen many wonderful Yuletide seasons.”

  “It has,” he agreed, sitting in a wing chair, crossing one booted leg over the opposite knee. “My mother was English and loved Christmas. She kept it here when my sister and I were young. But I am a Scotsman and keep a scant Yule. Besides, the past is done.”

  Setting aside the cloth, she smoothed the patterned shawl. “When I was a girl,” she said, “we sometimes visited my grandmother in the Highlands in December. She would sing beautiful songs and we would make cakes and bring in pine boughs and string dried rowanberries. We were not dour at Yuletide, even though we were Scots.”

  “Catholics,” he said, his lips twitching. “That accounts for it.”

  “Dreadful Papists,” she admitted, laughing. “And my father a Protestant.”

  “If you want to attend church tomorrow, we may not manage it in this weather.”

  “We kept a Scottish Yule at home in Edinburgh, so I am not accustomed to attend. You might remember,” she added. “Papa would see patients or lecture that day, though my mother would sing the old songs and bake cakes and have the cook make a fine feast. Sometimes she would take us to church. Papa tolerated it all rather amiably.” She smiled, remembering. “It is interesting that both our mothers celebrated Christmas, though Scots often do not think it an important day.”

  “Would you truly want to go out in this blizzard to drag in pine boughs, and then light candles and sing until midnight? I warn you, I have not the heart for it.”

  Clary felt her throat tighten. “Some Yuletide celebration, even a small token, is a lovely tradition to have.” She did not want to add how much she would miss it this year in particular.

  “I do not find it necessary,” he said.

  She tilted her head, studying him. “You have changed.”

  “I needed to,” he said. “So I did.”

  “The war?” she asked cautiously. “How awful it must be to endure such frightening, distressing things. I would flee. I could not face it.”

  “You?” he said. “You would easily summon the courage. I did what I could there,” he went on. “It was chaos—the cannon fire, the screams, the charges, and stray shots. We worked fast, tending men with terrible injuries, broken bones, wounds that needed surgery. Some were gravely injured. For others, infection set in fast.” He shook his head. “One detaches for sanity’s sake. That, along with other matters . . . made me realize the benefit of relying on the mind over sensibilities. Just let the heart pump, as it were.” He gazed at her.

  Clary tipped her head, listening. Did he truly mean that? As for other matters, she hoped she’d had no role in hurting him, but someone or something had. She felt a surge of empathy, of anger, and protectiveness sensing what he had endured and knowing she had not been there for him, even as a friend.

  “I am sorry,” she said. He shrugged. “Did you read my father’s book?” she asked then. “His treatise on the heart?”

  He tapped the cover of the book beside his chair. “Here. Medieval ideas, much as I respected your father. The heart is a strong and critical muscle. Emotions—are another matter entirely, and not to be confused with science. Feelings can be contained, controlled.”

  “Some can do that. I am not adept at it.”

  “Well.” He shifted, seeming keen to change the topic. “So we will have a workaday Scots Christmas, you and I, while it continues to snow. We can both attend to studies. Have you finished your assignment? Oh, and I believe you have something to tell me . . . Mr. Hay?”

  She nodded, gulped, knowing she must explain. “That large packet is for you. Open it.”

  “This?” He reached for the package, pulling away string and brown paper to reveal several slim manuscripts. “Ah. Not a Yule gift.” His gaze was piercing blue. “Thank you.”

  “Yes,” she managed.

  “Now,” he murmured, setting the papers down. “About Charles Hay.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Clary exhaled. Her head ached dully. “After my father died last spring, I missed him dreadfully. My family was gone. My husband as well.”

  “Sir William Hay. Was it sudden? Forgive me for asking.”

  “Yes. You were in Ireland then, I think. He was a Perthshire laird. A baronet.”

  “I know. A cousin of yours. A match arranged when you were a child. Go on.”

  She wanted to explain—the longstanding debts eased by the match, by promises made by others that wrenched her life in an unwanted direction. But it would not matter to him now. “William had a bad fall while riding,” she said. “He was reckless, hotheaded, had to prove that day that he was a better rider than his friends. He died instantly. We were married six months.”

  He murmured a wordless sympathy. Clary could not seem to look at him.

  “I went back to live with Papa,” she said. “But since his death, it has been very hard. I’ve been lonely despite good friends, but what has been most hard was having so little to do.”

  “You often helped your father with his medical writing.”

  “And nothing else interested me quite so much. I’m not very good at needlework.” She tried to smile. “Friends tried. Your sister insisted on taking me to concerts and soirees and such. I never saw you,” she added quickly.

  “I stayed at Cranshaw after my return, until I accepted the lecture post. So you decided to try a university education? I wish you had come to me.” His words were clipped, low. If he was displeased, she could not blame him—but she sensed a frisson of hurt. “There might have been a way—an exception, based on your need to finish your father’s writing, or some such.”

  “I wanted to tell you—but I could not bring myself to try.” She paused. “But when I heard that you would lecture in the same hall Papa had used, I needed to be there.” She was uncertain how to say it. “I wanted to hear you.”

  “Me.” The inflection revealed caution, not pride.

  She closed her eyes, remembering how she had longed to see him, hear his calm voice, even run to him and be welcomed in his arms again. But that was the yearning of her starved heart.

  “I wanted to hear about medicine, science, things Papa and I discussed.”

  “How on earth did you manage to act as Mr. Hay without discovery?”

  “I knew the university well from Papa’s days there. So I put on my husband’s old clothing, went to your lecture hall at the proper time, took a seat and always left just before the end of the hour. I gave my name to you that first day, do you recall? I dared not use Douglas, so I took Hay. You never noticed. It was a risk, I know.”

  “I noticed you,” he said gruffly. “As the best student in the class. I did not recognize you, I admit. Should have.” He shook his head. “But I understand.”

  She blinked. “You do?”

  “You felt closer to your father there, took comfort from familiar surroundings. But you could have come to me,” he added.

  Relief washed through her—he did not condemn her. “Women are not permitted in lectures.” Not the wh
ole reason, but it would do. “We are frail, weak, might faint away if exposed to topics unsuitable for young ladies.”

  “Not you.”

  “Or Charles Hay,” she added brightly.

  He smiled a little. “Very well. I’ll speak to the provost to arrange for you to attend my lectures.”

  “Do you think it is possible? I would like that so much.”

  He nodded. “You must have missed your father very much to do what you did.”

  “Still do, especially at this time of year. Thank you. It is kind of you to help.”

  He frowned then, reaching for the stack of papers. “Thank you for bringing these. I should get started. There’s quite a bit of reading here.”

  A dismissal? But she wanted to talk more about Yule with him, share good memories. She wanted to know what the holidays had been like at Cranshaw, and tell him what her family did in that season. She wanted to sit close beside him in warmth and peace and safety, with the fire crackling in the grate, the dog asleep by the hearth, the wind and snow fierce against the windows while all was golden and secure within. Yet he did not look at her, turning pages.

  Tears stung her eyes. Something in him was lost, and she did not know how to reach it. She had to know why he had changed so. Was it to do with her? She hoped not, but—

  “Henry,” she said impulsively, desperate to ask.

  His hands stopped, but he did not look up. He waited.

  She opened her mouth, but a yawn took her over so suddenly, so loudly, that the dog awoke.

  “You should rest, Lady Hay,” Henry drawled.

  She sat up, head suddenly woozy. “Oh!” She touched her bruised head. “Wait, I must ask.” A fog of pain and fatigue swamped her. “Why did you—leave so abruptly that day, years ago? I never—oh!” She put a hand to her head.

  “Come upstairs.” Henry moved toward her. “I’ll take you up to bed.”

  “To bed?” She stood, dizzy, setting her hand on his chest, all sturdy wool, soft linen, solid warmth beneath. She rested her brow on the pouf of his cravat. “You’ll take me with you?”