Gifts of the Season. Anne Gracie

“Especially not when they eat you alive.”

      Miss Talbot’s smile soured over the arc of her fan. “Goodness, Mr. Fordyce. What an ill-tempered little creature your sister is! If I were your dear mother, I should address the quality of her education directly.”

      “Rather she should thank Miss Blake,” said Revell, “for giving Clarissa the best education imaginable, a model of wisdom and beauty.”

      “Yes, she has,” echoed Clarissa loyally, but there was already question clouding her eyes, a suspicion that things among these grown-ups were not quite all they appeared.

      She was right. Revell bowed toward Sara with his hand over his heart and a heavy lock of his hair falling forward across his brow, and making every other person in the ballroom an eager witness to exactly how violently the governess flushed at his lordship’s compliment. In return all Sara could do was remember what Lady Fordyce had said, how everyone at Ladysmith was whispering of nothing else than her and Revell, and here, alas, was all the proof anyone needed.

      But as delicious as such scandal might be for the other guests, Sara could also feel a new, uncomfortable tension rippling through the room, marked with nervous coughs and titters. This time, clearly, there was a sense that Lord Revell had at last made his attention too public.

      Uneasily, Albert cleared his throat. “I say, Claremont. Mind my little sister, eh?”

      Revell’s smile didn’t change, but the edge in his voice was unmistakable. “What is there to mind, Fordyce? What is it that’s not fit for Clarissa to hear? Do you deny that Miss Blake is either wise, or beautiful? Or is it perhaps my own judgment you are doubting?”

      “Neither, Claremont, neither at all,” blustered Albert miserably, blotting at his face with his handkerchief. “But I only ask that you, ah, that you not be quite so…quite so, ah—”

      “Shall I play for us, Mr. Fordyce?” asked Sara quickly, hurrying to the pianoforte in the corner. As bad as it was to be the centerpiece of gossip, this was infinitely worse, having Revell jump to defend her honor like this. “Now that we are all gathered here in a room meant for music, on the very morning of Christmas Eve, wouldn’t a dance be a pleasant amusement?”

      “A splendid idea, Miss Blake!” cried Albert with all the hearty desperation of a drowning man. He seized Clarissa’s hand, practically swinging her into the center of the ballroom. “You won’t mind playing for us, will you? Something gay and jolly, fit for the season, eh?”

      “As you wish, Mr. Fordyce,” murmured Sara as she opened the lid covering the keyboard, trying to sound like the old, usual Sara instead of this new one that interceded so boldly between gentlemen. “It is my pleasure to play, Mr. Fordyce.”

      “You’ll have to grant me more room than this, memsahib,” said Revell, suddenly sitting on the bench beside her so closely that his leg pressed against hers. “As Clarissa observed, I am far too large to overlook.”

      Instantly, Sara scuttled away from him, more to break the contact than to grant him the room he’d asked for.

      “Whatever are you doing, Rev?” she whispered urgently. “You can’t sit here, and you can’t call me memsahib! You’re supposed to be dancing with the others!”

      “And I say I’m supposed to be here,” he said easily, sliding along the bench after her. The freshness of the outdoor air still clung to him, sharp and clean and reminding her again of standing among the holly bushes, and of all that holly sprig stood for. “Aren’t those my inept paper chains hanging there on the front to mark my place?”

      “But, Rev, you can’t do this!” she protested in a frantic squeak. “You’ve already upset Mr. Fordyce and everyone else, and—”

      “Did I upset you?” he asked gravely. “That’s all I care about.”

      Oh, heaven help her, she was blushing again. “Not the same way, no,” she hedged. “But I am not such a public person as you are, and what you did is not—not proper, especially not when it’s nearly Christmas like this!”

      “And I ask you, whatever happened to Christmas miracles?” Tentatively he curled his fingers over the keys, the sunlight glancing off the sapphire in his ring. “There was a piece for four hands we used to play together, a kind of jig that you’d taught me like a trained dog. I can’t promise that I won’t make a wretched muddle of it now after so long, but I am willing to try if you will.”

      His smile was lopsided and surprisingly uncertain, and with a jolt she realized he was asking her for far more than to recall a simple tune. Was she willing to risk that wretched muddle to try to recapture what they’d once done together with such wonderful ease?

      “Oh, Rev,” she said softly, reminding herself of all that was still so unsettled and unspoken between them, and how much more likely that muddle would be than anything else. But if he was willing to try, then how could she not? How could she refuse him, or herself, either?

      “If you haven’t forgotten,” she said, choosing her words with the same care as had he, “then I haven’t, either, nor do I intend to shame myself and make a muddle.”

      He grinned, and she plunged into the piece, making him swear as he hurried to catch her. Yet still they played better together than they’d any right to, the awkward notes and missteps forgiven by their enthusiasm. Over and over their arms touched and their fingers bumped into one other’s with exactly the intimacy that the long-ago composer had intended, and by the time the fast-paced jig had come to its close both she and Revell were laughing and breathless and completely unaware if anyone had danced to their music or not.

      But the sound of one person applauding—only one—broke the spell. Still smiling, Sara turned, then quickly stood, just as Revell also rose to his feet.

      The gentleman clapping was newly arrived, his traveling cloak still over his shoulders and his elegant dark clothes creased from his carriage, and from his world-weary, almost arrogant disdain, Sara would have known he was high-born and wealthy even if Lady Fordyce weren’t fluttering so anxiously around him, as if he were the greatest prize she’d ever captured.

      And in a way he was. Sara had never seen the gentleman before, let alone met him. Yet she recognized him at once: he was older than Revell, an inch or two shorter, and his hair was lighter, but the shape of his face and smile, the ease with which he moved, were so much the same that there could be little doubt.

      “Why, Revell, look at you,” said Brant, His Grace the Duke of Strachen, his voice deceptively languid as he looked not at his brother, but at Sara. “Such a…a diversion! It would seem that I’ve accepted Lady Fordyce’s invitation in the nick of time for a happy Christmas, doesn’t it? The very nick, I would venture, for us all.”