Lyn Stone - Gifts of the Season - A Gift Most Rare / Christmas Charade / The Virtuous Widow

“Thank you, my lady,” said Sara faintly, taking the plain black mask that her ladyship handed her. “You are too kind.”

“Not at all, my dear.” But her ladyship’s habitually cheerful demeanor faded, and restlessly she tapped her fingers together. “That, you see, was the more agreeable message for me to deliver. The other is…is more vexing.”

She twisted her mouth to one side, searching for the right words in a way that only made Sara more uneasy.

“You know, Miss Blake, that I have always tried to run this household in a fair and agreeable manner, for the good of everyone beneath this roof,” she finally began, “and I am perfectly aware that a rogue is a rogue, no matter what his station. But whereas I can dismiss the footman for taking freedoms with the dairymaid, it is an entirely different when a gentleman, a peer, a guest at Ladysmith, is involved.”

Sara felt her cheeks growing warm and her palms turn damp as she realized exactly where her ladyship’s conversation was heading.

“Oh, my lady, please don’t—”

“No, no, this is my responsibility, not yours,” said Lady Fordyce firmly. “You should not be put in the position of having to defend yourself against the unwanted attentions of Lord Revell. No, don’t deny that it has happened. The entire house whispers of nothing else.”

Sara gasped, mortified. Why couldn’t this have stayed between her and Revell alone, without involving everyone else at Ladysmith? Why had she once again become the miserable target of talk and gossip? How long before someone learned her real name, and the shameful truth behind her father’s death?

And oh, what would Revell say in return?

“You will not—not address Lord Revell about me, will you, Lady Fordyce?” she begged.

“I would never do such a thing, Miss Blake.” Her ladyship pressed her lips tightly together. “He is a gentleman. I could hardly scold him, could I? But I believe I have found an, ah, another solution. I cannot explain further, not yet, but I believe you shall find Lord Revell soon ceases his unwelcome attentions.”

But it wasn’t as simple as that, not by half, and Sara knew it. For what if she didn’t wish Revell to avoid her? What if, in the last two days, his attentions had come to seem not troublesome, but desirable?

Unhappily, Sara stared down at the floor, praying her confusion didn’t show on her face for her ladyship to read. She’d told herself that these two weeks until Twelfth Night would be something to endure, and now that same time with him had become something to treasure. That was the truth, if only she’d be honest with herself. She wanted to see him, and wanted to be with him, however brief that time together would be.

And it would be brief. As giddy as her heart might be, her cold reason hadn’t entirely abandoned her. Once Revell learned the truth about why she’d left Calcutta, he’d scorn her, and she in turn had no assurance that in the end he’d treat her with any more loyalty or honor than he had before. Miracles made for pretty talk, but they weren’t guarantees of anything.

Yet still Sara felt the pull of the old connection between them, as if they were once again young and blissfully in love, as if nothing in the world were more complicated than that miracle they’d both never forgotten. That was what she wanted, to feel like that again, even if it were only for a handful of days. She wanted that, and she wanted it with Revell, and unconsciously she touched her fingers to her lips, remembering his kiss. He had promised to join them in the ballroom, to help arrange the holly and the elephants. Likely he was already waiting for them—for her—now.

“I shall expect you and Clarissa downstairs to join me as soon as she can be shifted into dry clothing,” continued Lady Fordyce. “I have already called for the sleigh to take us across to Peterborough Hall.”

Sara looked up swiftly, jerked back to the present. “Peterborough, your ladyship? Clarissa and I were planning to spend the rest of the day decorating the ballroom.”

“Tomorrow will be time enough for that, Miss Blake.” Lady Fordyce’s smile was serene, satisfied that she’d solved and dispatched yet another thorny problem in her household. “Until the rest of my little plan comes to pass, I intend to remove you as completely as possible from Lord Revell’s temptation, even if that means I must take tea with that odious Lucy Peterborough whilst Clary plays with her daughter.”

“But Lady Fordyce!” cried Sara with disappointment and dismay. “With all your other guests here, with all you must do for them—this is hardly necessary, not necessary at all!”

“And I say it is.” Lady Fordyce took Sara’s hand and patted it gently. “You have always been a most virtuous young woman, Miss Blake, and I’ve no wish to see you changed.”

But Sara realized she already had.

“There, Miss Blake,” said Clarissa, stepping back to admire their work, her arms crossed over her chest. “I think that looks most fine!”

“It certainly does,” agreed Sara, gazing around the ballroom. “I cannot wait for your mother to see it.”

They had spent the entire morning working to transform the ballroom, relying on three footmen to help put holly boughs along the crowns of the tall pier glasses. More holly and glossy-green clippings from the boxwood had been arranged along the sideboards and draped from the mantelpieces of the four facing fireplaces, while red and white ribbons had been tied in bows from the polished brass chandeliers overhead and woven into the rails of the small musician’s gallery.

Revell’s paper chains were draped across the front of the pianoforte, brought up from the music room in the event any lady wished to play and spell the hired musicians. Tucked into all the greenery were the pasteboard animals that they’d made, a miniature Noah’s ark in an English forest, and once the scores of beeswax candles were lit tonight, the effect would be truly magical. She and Clarissa had every right to be proud, and so would Lady Fordyce, for such a spectacle would keep her guests—as well as everyone who hadn’t been invited—talking all through the winter.

Once again her glance wandered to the doorway, just as it had done over and over and over again all morning long, and still Revell didn’t come. He wouldn’t, either; she knew that now, after overhearing one of the footmen telling another that all the gentlemen had gone shooting soon after dawn, even that lord from India.

She sighed, and shook her head ruefully at her own foolish hopes. She missed him. That was the heart of it, wasn’t it? She missed him, and these last twenty-four hours seemed to stretch longer than the six years before. Thanks to the visit to Peterborough Hall yesterday, she hadn’t seen Revell since they’d cut the ivy together, exactly the way her ladyship intended. Surely she’d served at Ladysmith long enough to know that when Lady Fordyce determined upon an order, there’d be no countering her, and now that she’d deemed it necessary to keep Sara from Revell’s path, her ladyship would have boosted him into his saddle this morning with her own white hands.

“Can we go hunt for your costume now, Miss Blake?” asked Clarissa, hopping up and down in anticipation, the only acceptable mood on this, the day before Christmas. “You can’t come tonight in your regular old gowns. You’re not allowed to dress plain, Miss Blake, not tonight. No one is. You must look special, like the queen of hearts, or a fairy princess, or—or anyone else grand and rare!”

Sara made an exaggerated frown, wrinkling her nose at her reflection in the tall pier glass before her. “You’ll need far more than antique finery to transform me into a fairy princess, Clarissa.”