The Last Chance Christmas Ball

by Mary Jo Putney

  “You could marry him,” Mary said pragmatically. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about funding the orphanage.”

  “Most certainly not,” Sarah said, horrified. She had made peace with her lot in life. She did not need her adolescent hero disordering her hard-won serenity. Ivo had no interest in orphans—or her, as he had so eminently made clear.

  “I don’t think he’s eaten.” Sarah returned the conversation to more immediate matters. “If I dash back to the market, I could return the lace and buy meat pies.”

  “Stop that,” Mary admonished. “If he wants pies, he can buy them. He’s not one of your charity cases.”

  But despite her cross words, Mary rummaged in her apple basket. She frowned and tilted the contents toward the light. “I know we bought a dozen,” she muttered.

  Uneasily recalling a whispered conversation she’d hoped she’d imagined, Sarah checked the basket, too. “The three freshest apples are gone. I specifically remember you saying they would be good for eating if the pie didn’t need them.”

  Sarah glanced back up the stairs. “Perhaps we should search the house now.”

  “Wait until Dr. Jones comes down.” Mary resisted the suggestion. “We can ask him to send one of the butcher’s boys to look.”

  Restlessly, Sarah paced into the parlor to draw back the draperies. The winter light revealed a coating of dust and cobwebs on a pair of old horsehair chairs.

  “The paper is too pretty for children. Will you leave this a sitting room?” Mary asked.

  “I don’t know.” Sarah gazed up at another of Ivo’s oil paintings. This one was a domestic scene of his mother and an elderly spaniel. They’d both been dead at the time he’d undertaken it, but he’d painted them out of vivid memory and love.

  The executor hadn’t thought this painting or the one in the foyer worth storing. Ivo would be horribly insulted. She hoped he would allow them to stay.

  “I’ll have to ask him which things he’d like to take away,” she admitted. “For all I know, he might want these old chairs. His father’s will left the house, but made no mention of the furnishings. I can’t deny him his mother’s possessions.”

  “You’ll need beds and desks and such anyway,” the maid agreed with fatalism.

  So many orphans, so little money, Sarah reflected. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have bitten off so much, but after seeing the overcrowded state of the orphanage in Newcastle . . . What else could I do?”

  “Too many soldiers dying,” Mary agreed. “Poor tots hardly knew their dads, and to lose their mamas, too . . . It’s a hard life, that it is.”

  They heard the physician on the stairs and hurried back to the foyer. Dr. Jones shoved his spectacles up his nose and regarded them gravely.

  “The baron has suffered a severe blow to the skull in an area that was not properly healed from an earlier injury. He’s in so much pain, I fear internal swelling. He could recover in a day or two, or he could lose his eyesight, or die.”

  Sarah cried out her despair, then bit back further reaction. Her heart ached for the reckless, talented boy she’d loved, but she didn’t know this man who could ignore his home and family for years.

  “These types of injuries are exceedingly dangerous,” the doctor continued. “He said Henry Seton, the physician who treated his earlier head wound, is lecturing at Edinburgh University these days. The baron claims Seton will be attending the countess’s ball, so perhaps he can have a look at him when he arrives.”

  The ball was a week away!

  “Should we arrange transport to his lordship’s estate?” she asked, trying to sort out this disaster. “It’s nearly ten miles, but he will have the comforts of home and people to care for him. I could ask Lady Holly for her carriage.”

  The doctor shook his head. “He shouldn’t be moved. I don’t know how he arrived here, but the damage is already done. He must keep his head elevated to reduce the swelling. He needs to be kept warm, and knowing the lad, he needs to be kept occupied. I fear he is dwelling on the past and is more agitated than he reveals. I would recommend laudanum, but then we’d have no idea if the internal injuries are repairing. He must be undisturbed until we see evidence that the swelling is reduced.”

  Sarah swallowed and let her pulse steady before asking, “Could we at least move him to warmer accommodations? There’s the Abbey. Lady Holly always liked him. . . .”

  The physician shook his head. “Have her send servants and coal, but do not move the boy one foot more.” He took her hand and patted it. “I’ll tell the vicar. Perhaps he knows someone who will help. It’s a shame this new vicar has no wife.” He shook his head in disapproval at the lack. “The baron certainly can’t expect an unmarried lady to wait on him. We’ll find someone.”

  “Bess and James Merriweather,” Mary said decisively. “The baron can pay them to return.”

  The doctor nodded agreement. “Excellent thought.”

  Sarah couldn’t quibble, even if the church was turning the house over to orphans in a few short weeks. Perhaps Ivo would have recovered by then, and he could take the Merriweathers with him to his estate. That would be perfect for all.

  “Can you manage until they arrive?” Dr. Jones asked with concern. “I know it’s not proper, but Holbourne Abbey is filling with visitors. I don’t know if they can spare anyone.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Sarah said with more confidence than she felt. “Mary is here for propriety. The Merriweathers aren’t far out of town. I’m sure they will be here before dark. If you would send word to the baron’s estate, they might arrange for someone to arrive in a day or two, providing the weather holds.”

  In truth, she’d seldom been to the baron’s country seat and had no idea if the servants had stayed on after Ivo’s father died. The late baron’s solicitor, Mr. Armstrong, had handled Ivo’s affairs in recent months. Which reminded her . . .

  “Mr. Armstrong has gone to Bath until after the New Year. Do we need to let him know that the baron has returned?”

  “The vicar and I will see to that. I’ll send a cart for the Merriweathers. If you’ll just engage the ladies of the parish to help out, the lad will be well tended. We can hope to see you at the ball,” the physician said cheerfully, tipping his hat, before letting himself out.

  “Well, and if this isn’t a fine kettle of fish,” Mary muttered. “I’ll set the kitchen to rights and start the soup. You’d best round up a few ladies to sit with him until the Merriweathers arrive.”

  It didn’t take a second’s thought for Sarah to reject that notion. “You saw him. He’s not in any state to be seen by gossips. He’s used to me nursing him when he’s ill. I’ll stay until Mrs. Merriweather arrives.”

  Ignoring Mary’s unhappiness with this decision, Sarah chose an apple from the basket and carried it up to the sickroom. She found Ivo slashing red paint across canvas—a sight so familiar from her childhood that she smiled.

  Until she saw the nightmare he was painting—and a half-eaten apple on the tea tray. The charming, easygoing Ivo she knew didn’t paint nightmares—and apples did not transport themselves upstairs.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ivo became aware that his angel hovered in the corner of the room. He’d lived with the ghosts of his lost comrades for so long that an angel or two didn’t disturb him. He hoped it didn’t mean that Sarah was actually dead, and her ghost peered over his shoulder. That really would be too much for his shattered soul to bear. So he continued pouring gore onto his canvas in silence.

  “The doctor says you must rest,” she said.

  Ah, that was his Sarah. He perked up, despite the pounding headache. She’d start nagging soon enough, but he knew how to get around her. He grabbed a smaller brush, dabbing a new element in a corner of the canvas. His head hurt less when his hand moved.

  When he did not reply, she eased closer. He’d always let her see his work. She never offered criticism, only excitement when she recognized his subject.

  She wouldn’t recognize hi
s nightmare. Ivo winced and finished up the quick sketch in the corner—giving her something fun to see.

  “The four horses of the Apocalypse?” she guessed. “I never liked Revelations.”

  Well, of course, she’d see the main theme first. Stupid of him to think his nightmare was invisible. “Neither do I,” he surprised himself by saying. He narrowed his eyes and examined the half-painted canvas critically. She was right. Fire-breathing horses belonged in Revelations, not in his damned head. “I’ll have to read it again, but I rather think this is a more contemporary representation.”

  “Oh.”

  He heard her understanding in that single syllable. Guilt for tainting her with the horror of war plunged like a dagger to his gut. Dropping his brushes into the turpentine, he fell back against his pillows, exhausted.

  “War haunts you, as it should,” she interpreted. She poured tea from the cooling pot and handed it to him. “Close your eyes and rest them for a while. Your paintings are too marvelous to be lost for all time if you blind yourself.”

  He sipped the tepid tea. “When I was twelve and had the measles, you said much the same thing, although I believe the tirade at the time included phrases like ‘you horrid boy,’ and ‘it’s all your fault there will be no picnic.’ ”

  To his ear, her soft laughter was sweeter than the symphonies he’d heard during the Congress of Vienna. Ivo relaxed and finished his tea.

  “I apologize,” she said, unapologetically. “It was probably not entirely your fault that half the village took measles after you came home from school that year.”

  “Thank you.” He opened his eyes again to catch her bending over the canvas. An apple rested in the hand behind her back. “Does the larder contain only apples?”

  She jerked upright guiltily and offered the fruit to him, like Eve handing over temptation. “There has been no one to cook for. Mary is starting some soup. Did she bring you the other apple?” She indicated the half-eaten one on his tray.

  He frowned. “It arrived while I was dozing, I believe. No idea how it came to be there, but I was hungry enough to eat until the physician arrived.”

  A small crease crossed the bridge above her nose, but she spoke politely, as if they must be formal. “I can send for meat pies at the market if you’re hungry, but Mary reminds me that it is nearly the end of the month, and I have spent the last of my coins. How good is your credit?”

  He rubbed his newly bandaged nose in thought. “If I still have my valise, I should have coins. Does old Mr. Blenheim not sell pies anymore? He knows I’m good for them.”

  “The influenza was very bad last winter. The town lost many of our older citizens, including Mr. Blenheim. There have been quite a few changes since you left,” she added sadly.

  In less than a minute, she had gone from laughter to mourning. What an amazement she was! After years of listening to men gripe and grunt, get drunk and kill, Ivo noticed that her softer emotions pacified rather than rousing his sleeping tiger.

  If only she could lessen the shrieks in his dreams . . .

  He rummaged in his valise and produced the shabby vest where he’d hidden his loose cash. “I still don’t understand where all the servants have gone. The house used to have a raft of them.” He looked up in alarm. “Surely, they did not all die?”

  Her fleeting smile of approval at his hiding place disappeared behind a wary expression. “No, of course not. We’ve sent for the Merriweathers. How did you save your valise from marauding highwaymen?”

  Easily distracted, he tried to remember the details. “I vaguely recall playing gladiator, ordering the post-chaise driver to race at a ruffian holding an ancient blunderbuss so I could disarm him with my sword.” He snorted at another memory. “I’m fairly certain I fought two-handed, using the valise as a bludgeon to catch the second rogue coming up on our other side. I suspect the horse bolted and my bad knee gave out. That’s probably how I cracked my head. It would have been simpler to give them the coins.”

  “You are accustomed to fighting,” she said. “I cannot begin to imagine what you’ve seen and done these last years.”

  “Nothing to write home about,” he grumbled in discomfort.

  “So you didn’t,” she retorted, then softened her sharpness to add, “Rest your head. I’ll run down and see what we can do about meat pies.”

  After she departed, Ivo glared at his apocalyptic horse. She hadn’t even noticed the French mouse he’d added to the corner. Maybe he should add a few more.

  He rubbed his jaw and realized he hadn’t shaved in days. Perhaps he ought to at least pretend he was human—for Sarah’s sake—before he figured out what the devil was happening under his own roof.

  Carrying a basket of meat pies, Sarah stopped in the foyer to remove her pelisse and bonnet. She halted when she realized she was being watched. Glancing up the stairs, she saw Ivo wrapped in his greatcoat and muffler sitting on the landing. His clean bandage was stark white against his bronzed face and dark curls, and he’d shaved.

  She remembered a day when she’d seen him standing on that same landing wearing an elegant navy frock coat, starched white linen, and knit pantaloons, his curls tumbling over his forehead, looking for all the world like a sophisticated London gentleman and not the dirty urchin of her childhood.

  She’d lost her heart that day, but he’d not noticed.

  She was no longer so naïve as to fall for a pretty gentleman.

  “You are supposed to be in bed!” she protested. “What are you doing in a coat?”

  “Freezing,” he said. “Waiting for meat pies. I’m starved. You have yet to tell me where the Merriweathers are. And the maids. I need more coal for the fire.”

  The doctor had said he was not to be upset. How could she tell him that his father had given away the only home Ivo loved, and that the servants who were like family to him were all gone? She couldn’t hurt him that way, but lying was so awkward....

  “Everyone’s on holiday.” She removed a pie from the basket. “Now go back to bed or I’ll eat this myself.”

  “You should have bought one for yourself! Find plates and I’ll share.” Ivo stood and started down the stairs, but grabbed the bannister as if still dizzy.

  Worried that he’d kill himself, she hurried up with the still steaming pie. “I’ve eaten. You haven’t. Back to bed, right now. I’ll have Mary bring up some coal. We’ve called for the Merriweathers, but the weather is worsening. I can’t promise they’ll be here soon.”

  She couldn’t promise they’d be back at all. She only knew that they’d retired to live with one of their daughters in the country.

  “I’d not thought about taking them from their family on a holiday,” he said in regret, heading back up the stairs. “I’ve upset everyone by coming home.”

  Oh, Lord in Heaven, help her. She hated letting him think he was unwanted. What a horrible way to spend his first holiday back from war—injured and alone!

  “You are the best Christmas gift we could all hope for,” she assured him, almost truthfully. “It’s just everyone is at sixes and sevens with the Holbourne Abbey ball next week. If your head is better, you could attend, and we’ll all have reason to celebrate.”

  He slumped onto the sofa bed and frowned. “Lady Holly is not still trying to match make, is she? She’s incredibly bad at it.”

  “She matched you with Lily Comfrey, did she not? You didn’t seem to object when you announced your betrothal.” Sarah remembered in considerable detail her own shock and pain at the news.

  “Her father had a prime art collection,” he said through a bite of pie. “We got on famously. But Lily wasn’t much on waiting. I heard she married Geoffrey Thomas several years back.”

  He didn’t seem heartbroken.

  “You got betrothed because you liked her father’s art collection?” she asked, not bothering to hide her exasperation. “Then it’s a good thing she ran off with Mr. Thomas. You deserved that.”

  He laughed at her through wicked
whisky-brown eyes. Even the bruises and bandaged nose didn’t detract from his charm. “You expected me to fall cap-over-heels for a pretty face just as in your silly novels? I didn’t think practical Sarah so romantic. No wonder the countess failed to match you up.”

  “I don’t need a man to complete my life. I’ll have Mary bring up some coal.” She flounced out to the sound of his laughter.

  She supposed it was better that he was laughing and not painting fire-breathing horses. The nightmare painting worried her more than she cared to admit.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Friday, December 23

  Unhorsed by cannon fire, Ivo loaded powder into his musket as the French cavalry galloped toward Kim and his men. He aimed at the nearest soldier, but the overheated weapon jammed. Neither bayonet nor sword could halt the approach of the black fire-breathing monster emerging from the smoke....

  He screamed a warning as the horse flew over him.

  “It’s all right, you’re home now,” a soft voice whispered over the screams of the dying. “It’s just a dream. Sleep, it will be all right.”

  The shock of soothing murmurs in his ear instead of curses yanked Ivo awake. Still tense, groping for his weapons, he hesitated long enough to smell apples. No smoke suffocated him. No horse crushed him into the blood and mud.

  Gentle hands stroked his hair.

  He rested against ripe curves wearing little more than thin linen.

  Clinging to this lifeline of tranquility, he pulled her into his arms so he might feel a lighter weight than a horse against him. She resisted, but he murmured what he hoped were reassurances.

  With human warmth snuggled against his side, he slept more soundly than he had in months, maybe years.

  She was gone when he woke.

  Ivo lay still, wondering if his nightmare had taken an odd turn or if his dream angel had been real. He could still smell apple blossoms on his pillow. A soft blanket and crisp sheet covered him. He recalled Sarah bringing them the night before, when he’d refused to leave the salon and his easel.