The Last Chance Christmas Ball

by Mary Jo Putney

  “Your mice, my lady,” Ivo said formally, with a bow, as if he’d conquered an army.

  She flashed him a grin in memory of their childhood war games when he’d played knight to her rescued princess. Then she turned to the frightened children.

  “We won’t hurt you, we promise.” She sat on the bottom step so as not to scare them. “Although, we might give you a bath before we feed you. I daresay your mother would be horrified to see you in such a state. Do you have names?”

  “Evangeline, miss,” the older of the two whispered, pushing her grubby blond hair out of her eyes. “And this is Caleb. He’s only five and doesn’t know much.”

  Ivo snorted, leaned against the door, and crossed his arms. “Boys just play at being dumb so others will do their work for them.”

  Caleb beamed. “I’se very good at finding apples.”

  Sarah felt tears well. She feared that the two lost, brave children who were taking care of each other might rip her soft heart in two. “Well, then, come out from under there and let us see about finding more apples. Although, I think they’re in a pie now, aren’t they, Mary?”

  The maid didn’t leave her position against the back door. “Aye, that they are, fresh baked.”

  “We’re orphans,” Evangeline said tentatively. “Ma’am said we could live here. But there weren’t no one in the place when we came.”

  “Until he came,” Caleb said, crawling out from under the table and nodding at Ivo. “And he didn’t eat nuffing. We was hungry.”

  Ivo looked puzzled. Before he could start questioning again why the house had been left empty, Sarah turned to the pantry, hoping to distract him. “The baroness always loved feeding orphaned larks at Christmas!”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Frowning, Ivo settled on the kitchen bench and watched Sarah and Mary prepare a proper luncheon for two grubby urchins. He remembered his mother giddily helping with pies to take to the church poor. He didn’t remember actual orphans in the house.

  He still didn’t understand why the house had no servants. His father’s executor should have been handling estate affairs until he returned. Ivo had left the satchel of official correspondence in his trunk, thinking he’d be home before he had time to read it—

  —Or avoiding any more bad news after realizing that it was too late to earn his father’s approval. His heart hurt as much as his head, knowing he’d left his father to die alone.

  “Where’s your mother now?” he asked the children, helping himself to a large bite of the pie Sarah set in front of him.

  “She’s sick,” Caleb said. “She said we’s be orphans soon, and she wants us to have a new mommy.” He puckered up a little, but the little girl squeezed his hand.

  “Just for a little while,” the girl explained. Ivo didn’t think she could be more than a few years older than the boy, but she had the practical approach of someone who has been looking after herself for a while. “Just until our real mama gets better,” she said reassuringly.

  She was lying. Ivo recognized the way she shifted her eyes from him to the boy and back again, as if ordering him to shut up. Damn, but she was a heartbreaker with those big brown eyes and that tiny, trembling chin.

  Sarah looked as if she might weep. Ivo didn’t want Sarah to weep. He should have been here to give Sarah a shoulder to cry on when her parents died, to tell her she wasn’t to worry, just as this tiny little girl was telling her brother.

  Only—he hadn’t thought of Sarah as a sister since that last ball, and especially not after last night. Damn his ignoble self.

  “Can you give us your mommy’s name so we can see how she’s doing?” Ivo asked when it became obvious the women were too tongue-tied to do so—or hiding too many secrets. Such as, why had the orphans thought they could come to his house? That hadn’t seemed to surprise Sarah at all.

  “Betty,” the little girl piped up. “Our daddy was Silas Greene, but he went to war and didn’t come home.” This time, her lip trembled, and she hastily drank the milk that Mary set in front of her.

  “Betty Greene,” Mary murmured. “She used to work here in the kitchen.”

  “The Merriweathers were looking for two children,” Sarah whispered back, although if Ivo could hear her, the children could, too. “Go tell Dr. Jones. I’ll be fine here.”

  Mary glared at Ivo. He tried to look innocent, as if he hadn’t slept in Sarah’s arms last night—and wanted to again, preferably without orphans lurking.

  While Mary ran off to find Dr. Jones, and Sarah heated water for the children’s baths, Ivo limped upstairs, thinking he would start asking questions as soon as Sarah had a free minute. He arrived in the foyer in time to answer a knock at the door.

  He fumbled in his coat for a coin to reward the fellow unloading his trunk, and then stood over his luggage in trepidation. He still didn’t want to read his correspondence.

  By the time Sarah returned upstairs, Ivo was shaking with rage and despair. He crumpled a letter and flung the paper at the door. “Why?” he cried. “Why? He knew I loved this place. There’s nothing of my mother in that ugly stone hovel of his!”

  Sarah’s heart plummeted to her feet. Here it was, the moment she had dreaded, when all her stupid silly hopes were smashed again. “I think he simply wanted you to take up the reins of the estate that meant so much to him,” she said quietly.

  “You could have told me!” he shouted. He swung around to indicate the foyer she loved so much. “I remember my mother dancing in joy when the new French wallpaper was hung.” He gestured at the front parlor. “She used to play the pianoforte and sing in there. And what will it be now? A schoolroom for grubby urchins? Is that what you’ve planned—stealing my home from me?”

  Even hearing his hurt, knowing his pain, she was hit broadside by his accusations. Refusing to pander to this man who had so much to offer and who offered so little, she shut herself off as she had learned to do these last painful years.

  “It was either an orphanage or let the house fall to rack and ruin while you gallivanted about Europe,” she said icily. “We had no one to tell us how you would like your father’s will carried out. Don’t blame me for your own neglect! Just give me a moment to collect my things, and I will be gone. The Merriweathers should be here shortly. Explain to them that you don’t want an orphanage here. And Merry Christmas to you, too.”

  She didn’t even shed a tear as she gathered up her beautiful gown and ugly cloak and walked away from the only man she’d ever loved. She would fight for the children’s home in the coming days, but not . . . now, while her heart was splintering.

  Shattered, Ivo roamed from room to empty room, remembering the year his mother had thrown a holiday party, and he and Sarah had sampled the punch, not knowing it had been laced with rum. They’d literally giggled themselves sick.

  And the schoolroom! Her father used to grind Ivo’s brain with Latin declensions that had no relevance to his need to paint Sarah as she bent over her grammar. He was supposed to give up the schoolroom? And his sunny salon . . . the only place in all Bellsburn with sufficient light for him to paint in winter without freezing.

  He stopped at the forlorn bedchamber that had once been his. All the personal belongings had been stripped. He supposed Armstrong had shipped them out to the manor. There had once been a braided rug on the floor that Sarah had kneeled on when he’d been an invalid, and she’d soaked cold compresses for his fever.

  Sarah! He’d only just rediscovered what she meant to him and now . . .

  He faced a bleak and lonely future in a grandiose house he despised, running an estate he had no interest in, looking for old friends who’d married and moved on—as he hadn’t.

  He should never have come back. Like a wounded dog, he should have kept running.

  He returned to the salon and the nightmare painting he’d been working on. The image he’d started of Sarah in her red gown, staving off the wrath of war. . . .

  He picked up his bloody red brush again. When the Me
rriweathers came to find him, he didn’t even look up.

  Saturday, December 24, Christmas Eve

  Sarah slipped down the kitchen stairs of Whitney House carrying packages. Inside with the merrily flickering fire, she hugged Bess and James Merriweather and exclaimed happily over the children slurping porridge at the table. They eyed her packages with interest.

  Out for a lark, they were,” Bess said. “Their ma is still that ill, but these two aren’t orphans yet. Betty must have sent them here when she was fevered.”

  The Merriweathers had already set to work making lists, heating rooms, and seeing to the “master’s” chambers, even though they knew Lord Harris’s stay would be temporary. No one should be thrown from their home at Christmas, they’d all agreed.

  “I wish I had more to offer,” Sarah said, handing over her basket of packages containing warm stockings and caps for the children, who tore into them with delight. They popped the gifts on their heads and hands and held them up for admiration.

  She kissed their cheeks, and then glanced upstairs as if Ivo would magically appear. “He’s all right?” she asked anxiously.

  “He won’t come out of the salon,” Bess said, shaking her head. “He paints all night and day. It ain’t healthy.”

  She would not care. She would not. She would simply wait for Mr. Armstrong to return and settle matters. “There are other orphans who need a home,” Sarah warned the Merriweathers. “We can’t abandon them.”

  They nodded in understanding. “It takes the boy time to think things out,” Mr. Merry reminded her. “He’ll come around.”

  But Ivo would hate her forever, Sarah knew, just as he hated his father’s house.

  Sunday, December 25, Christmas Day

  Listening to the church bells ringing, Ivo packaged up the dry canvas—and all his hopes and fears—in brown paper. He shrugged on his greatcoat, found his hat under the desk, and with more fortitude than he’d marched off to war with, he set out in the wintry air.

  His head no longer hurt, but the rest of him felt as if he’d tumbled off the Cliffs of Dover. He thought he was thinking clearly again, but he wouldn’t know for certain until he challenged his demons. He had spent years of war not speaking his feelings. Somehow, that had to change.

  He pounded on the door of Sarah’s cottage. She’d had to move from the cozy vicarage after her father’s death, he’d been told, and was staying in the church guesthouse until she could find better accommodations. He wanted to be bitter that she would be moving to his house, but that was part of his head clearing. If anyone should have his house, it should be Sarah.

  When she answered the door wearing her ball gown, Ivo’s jaw dropped to his chest. Unfinished lace trailed off a bodice that revealed far more bosom than he’d ever seen her expose. He almost swallowed his tongue—as he had the last time he’d seen her in that gown, looking like sin and heaven in the same magnificent package.

  “My gift fades in the shade of your beauty,” he said in awe. “I couldn’t wish for a better Christmas gift than to see you wrapped in glory. Merry Christmas, my Sarah.”

  She looked shocked. Perhaps he’d been a trifle bold, but he’d never minced words with Sarah. Ivo didn’t give her time to slam the door in his face. He shouldered his way in, found the sunniest window, set down his present, and ripped at the paper. “This is for you. I’m rotten at saying what I think or feel, so I’m hoping you’ll help me.” As she often had, he’d realized these past days. Sarah had been his spokesman to the world, interpreting his emotions when he couldn’t find the words.

  The room smelled of greenery and bayberry candles, just as his mother’s home once had. Ivo politely admired the mantel decorations as Sarah tucked lace into her bodice. She grabbed a shawl to cover herself, but she still said nothing.

  When he sensed she was ready, he finished ripping off the paper. Behind him, she gasped at the canvas he uncovered.

  Ivo stood diffidently, holding his latest work for her approval. The completed painting revealed a confident goddess in scarlet and gold, holding her hand up as if to halt his prancing, fire-breathing nightmare stallions. Ivo gritted his molars and waited as she studied it. Her eyes widened as she held up her lacy sleeve to compare it to the one on the canvas. He’d done a pretty damned good job of remembering every elegant curve of that gown on her form.

  “You think I can stop nightmares? That’s a pretty conceit,” she finally said.

  He’d hoped for more than her usual pragmatism, but she was repaying him for leaving her dangling too long. He deserved her coldness.

  “Not a conceit,” he assured her. “It’s how any right-thinking man would see you.”

  He waited as she crouched down to examine his signature. In the dark corner beneath a horse’s rear hoof was a single mouse wearing a French uniform and a silly grin. She traced this symbol with a finger, and Ivo held his breath as her lips finally tilted upward.

  But when she stood, she was rubbing tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “I like the red,” she said, giving him no other hint of her feelings.

  She was killing him as surely as his nightmares. But he had not come this far only to give up because of his damnable inability to express himself.

  “I love the red. It looks splendid on you.” He swallowed, lifted his gaze from the red fabric barely covering her bosom, and tried to say what the painting apparently hadn’t. “I have raged and cursed the fates and my father, but I cannot curse you, my Sarah. Even I must admit that it is not the house that I will miss, but the memory of you in it.”

  He’d had his head stove in several times over the past year. Maybe his brains had been scrambled. Or his priorities rearranged, but Ivo couldn’t think of Sarah as a sister anymore. She was no longer a child. And he was a man with needs that included the need to be loved as he was—not as a soldier or a baron or even a farmer. He was none of those things. Sarah knew that. But could she accept it? This was the demon he feared. Sarah belonged here in town, nurturing orphans, not sheep. He only knew war . . . and art. Could she accept him as the worthless creature that he was?

  Tears coursed down her cheeks, and he longed to swipe them away, but didn’t dare touch her without her permission.

  “I would give the house back to you if I could,” she whispered.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” he said with some return of his notorious humor. “You would tell me I have a perfectly good house in the country and can buy or build another in town should I feel so inclined. Your larks need you and a roof over their heads more than I do. I can hear your sermon without your needing to say a word.”

  She glanced up with such hope in her eyes that his head disconnected from his heart, and he floundered.

  “You hate your country seat,” she murmured. “If there were any way to trade, I would.”

  With just that simple statement, she carved to the heart of the matter. And finally—finally—Ivo understood it didn’t matter where he lived. It was who he lived with that counted most.

  He gathered her in his arms, kissing her as he should have done the moment he’d crossed her portal. “I love you, dear heart,” he murmured when he came up for breath. “I will live in your orphanage with you, if you’d let me. Or build you a palace.” Refusing to let her reply, he kissed her again, because he knew her heart, had always known her kind, giving, loving heart—and that it had always included him.

  Lost in the wonder of Ivo’s kisses, Sarah clung to his strong shoulders, letting him feed every dream she’d ever had—because Ivo wouldn’t lie to her. She might lie to herself, but Ivo wouldn’t lie to her, and she could not hide what had been in her heart for so long.

  “Marry me, Sarah Jane. If you do not say yes before the ball, I will tell Lady Holly on you. I shall be ruthless in my pursuit. I will scare away all your other suitors and paint your beauty on every wall in Bellsburn.”

  She laughed and leaned against his solid chest. “It is too much, too fast,” she insisted. “I have just spent the
se last days trying to eradicate you from my thoughts. You cannot mean what you say.”

  “Have I ever said what I didn’t mean? I take that back,” he said quickly. “I lie about little things, I confess. So if you insist, I’ll let you wait to answer until the ball. But I am not lying about how I feel about you. That’s why you’re on that canvas. You’re my hero.”

  She laughed at the thought of being anyone’s hero and tried to push away, but she had dreamed of this for so long.... “I know you lie about little things. And you wouldn’t lie now. But you need to be certain. I’ve been certain for many years, but for you . . . it’s new.”

  She cast away all her pride to admit that. She’d loved him as a boy. She loved the maddening, charming, conscientious man even more—the kind of man who made the sun rise on a dreary day and made the larks sing at midnight. Ivo brought that kind of light to the world.

  “No, my love isn’t new,” he argued. “It just took a blow to the head to wake me up to what love is. And a blow to my pride, I suppose. I wanted to tempt you with a beautiful house, to offer you something you couldn’t have otherwise. Now, you already have what I thought you might want, and I only have a cold and drafty farmhouse to offer.”

  She sank into his arms again. “Houses don’t matter. It’s us—we belong together. I’ve always felt that way. We can live in your mother’s home where I can teach the orphans their letters, and you can teach them to paint. We can take them to the farm and teach them to love sheep. You can hire the world’s best steward and spend all your time painting. Anything is possible—as long as we have each other.”