31
It does not matter much whom we live with in this world, but it matters a great deal whom we dream of.
WILLA CATHER
Malachi entered New Hope’s parlor, unsure whether to be amazed or amused. In a far corner stood an evergreen, its fragrant tip spiraling to the ceiling, myriad branches adorned with strings of beads and candles. Tissue snowflakes hung here and there, and a wax angel with spun-glass wings crowned the top. He’d seen cut trees for sale in the city square but had given them little thought.
Rowena appeared just ahead of the sated revelers in the dining room, surprising him. Delighting him. He gestured to the tree. “Is this a Kentucky custom?”
She smiled. “A German one, so Granny says. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert have brought it into fashion.”
“I’m only familiar with mistletoe . . . and you’re standing right under it.”
She looked up, pink touching her cheeks. He took a step nearer, thinking it still not close enough. Although she’d sat beside him at supper, he’d been distracted by the large gathering, wishing for more privacy. At last he’d gotten his wish. For the moment they were alone. Rowena was standing in an almost providential position. The heirloom ring hidden in his breast pocket prompted him to make a bold move. He’d thought of little else through course after course of Christmas dinner, the certainty that John King Ewing and Aaron French were equally enamored of her spurring him on.
And then there was Silas, God rest him. He’d appeared at Christmas dinner and half the man he’d been, leaving little doubt the ailing patriarch was on borrowed time. When he died, Rowena would move beyond his reach for a year or better . . .
He took her hand, so small it was nearly lost in his. She looked down, seeming a bit startled, and then Mina’s voice sounded in the foyer, stealing the moment. On her heels were the Turlock brothers, all ten of them, followed by Izannah, her baby sister in arm.
Rowena welcomed them in while he stood silently by, more out of sorts by the minute. If Ansel was here, he’d ask him for her hand. Putting the question to Silas had crossed his mind, but he and Silas usually only talked business, nothing as personal as matrimony.
“So, Malachi, what’s this I’m hearing about the takeover of the Central in the East?” Bennett sidled up to him, offering a cigar.
He declined with a wave of his hand, preferring his pipe. “It’s hardly worth mentioning. I simply needed to merge two subsidiary lines.”
“Word is you’re ready to break ground for a railroad station within Pittsburgh’s city limits. A bit ambitious, wouldn’t you say, given there’s no track laid past Lancaster Turnpike?”
“There will be by next year, terminating on the north side of the Allegheny River,” he replied easily. “We’ll have shortened the trip between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia to a mere fifteen hours as well.”
“Fifteen? An admirable feat . . .”
Malachi watched Rowena discreetly as Bennett rambled on, intent on business when it was, for once, the farthest thing from Malachi’s mind.
James had been right. He needed a woman who made him forget about work. He’d finally found her. The next merger he wanted to make was a matrimonial one, and as quickly as possible, or the Pennsylvania might suffer from his preoccupation. A shipboard honeymoon while en route to Scotland was what he had in mind. He couldn’t be away from European interests and investors any longer.
Rowena was talking with Izannah now, and he couldn’t help but notice their differences. While Rowena barely reached his shoulder, Izannah was nearly his equal in height, as willowy and curvaceous as a marble sculpture he’d once seen in Italy. Since the schoolroom her hair had always reminded him of butterscotch, only darkening slightly over time. He couldn’t recall the color of her eyes. She smiled and spoke in that poised, charming way she had as she passed Rowena the baby.
Though he had little experience with children, he could see Rowena would make a good mother. Being so natural and unaffected herself, she was kissing the babe and making over her as if the child were her own. As he looked on, the cavern that grief had carved deep inside him began to fill. A wife would love him to wholeness again, he was certain, chase every dark shadow of sorrow and regret away.
In a few moments Rowena left the room, no doubt looking for Ellie, as the baby was starting to fuss. Izannah stood alone by the Christmas tree, fingering a glass ornament. The gifts at her feet, wrapped with colorful paper and string, reminded him of the little package she’d given him long ago at their chance meeting on the levee. He still had the finely made Taber pipe and pipe case, though the costly maccaboy tobacco was long gone.
Did she even remember?
Curious, he started across the parlor, intent on finding out.
Izannah had dreamed of this moment for years. Somehow meeting up with Malachi at Christmas made it all the more magical. At his approach she felt a bit light-headed, breathing in the bracing scent of pine and bayberry candle wax as if it could steady her. A jumble of their childhood encounters came rushing back, causing her to wonder what he remembered and what he didn’t. He’d always been larger than life to her back then. Even now he was taller than she recalled and fuller in the face and chest, hardly the lanky boy of old.
Bennett had monopolized him most of the evening, but now, with a noisy game going on in the adjoining parlor, they found themselves alone. Suddenly bereft of words, she was glad when he spoke first.
“Did you get everything you hoped for this Christmas, Miss Turlock?”
She turned from the sparkling tree and met his steady gaze. “Come, Malachi, you’re not in Mrs. Mellon’s ballroom,” she chided gently. “I’m merely Izannah of old. And no, I didn’t get everything I wanted.”
“A pity.” He eyed her pensively and reached out to finger a fragrant branch. “I didn’t either.”
“There’s always next year, I suppose.”
“Next year I’ll likely be in Edinburgh.”
“Oh?” she replied, unsurprised. “Do the Scots celebrate Christmas better than we Americans, then?”
“Not necessarily.” With a wink, he bent and picked up an ornament that had fallen to the carpet. “They’ve simply been doing it longer.” Handing it to her, he watched as she returned it to a near branch. “Though they do have some charming customs.”
“Let me guess . . .” She kept her voice light, belying the jitters inside her. “Yule logs, tartans, bagpipes, and the like.”
“Don’t forget the black bun and haggis.”
She smiled. “The Turlocks, being Irish, prefer holly wreaths, candles in every window, and plum pudding with brandy butter. Nothing quite as frightening as your haggis.”
He chuckled. “I must confess to liking haggis. That’s reason enough to return to Edinburgh. You have plans of your own after the holidays, I suppose.”
“Nothing so grand as Scotland, truly.” She tried to push the wistfulness from her tone. “I have my hands full at home with my brothers and baby sister.”
“A lively, happy household from what I’m told.”
Her eyes rose from the sprig of holly pinned to his coat to his thoughtful gaze. Now he was the one sounding wistful. “It is, and I’m thankful for it.”
He hesitated. “Do you ever want to . . . venture beyond Pittsburgh?”
“Yes.” She felt a tad breathless saying it. Could he read her discontent, her dreams for something more? “Till then I read voraciously, live vicariously.”
“A poor substitute for personal experience, Izannah.”
“Perhaps,” she countered, unsure of where the conversation was leading. “But women haven’t the freedom you men do. Unmarried women, anyway.”
“You said something similar when we met up at the levee long ago. Do you remember?”
She heated, glad he didn’t know just how close she’d kept the memory. “I do remember. But I cannot recall the little package I gave you.”
With a smile he reached into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a pipe. Surprising her. Making her melt.
Her lips parted. “You . . . kept it. All these years?”
“Finest pipe I’ve ever had. Though I think that has more to do with the giver than the gift.” He looked down to the patterned carpet at their feet. “To be honest, I came back here expecting you to be wed. Are you being courted? Is your heart not engaged?”
She gave a shake of her head, caught between embarrassment and excuses. “I have no suitor . . . none at all.”
There was a clumsy pause. He swallowed and looked like he’d stepped far beyond his ken. “I ask because . . . there was a time when I—we—”
At his odd stammering, she felt a desperate need to say something, soothe the sudden awkwardness, when a voice broke over them.
“Come along, you two. We’re in need of another pair for charades.” Mina stood in the doorway, luring them to follow with a wave of her fan. “Izannah’s brothers are stealing the show with their antics and simply must have some competition.”
“Very well.” Malachi took Izannah by the elbow in a manner that seemed all too reluctant and ushered her into the parlor.
At nearly midnight, Mim helped Wren undress in the shadows of the candlelit bedroom, always an onerous task so late. Her heavy velvet gown was finally shed and brushed and returned to the wardrobe, a great many pins pulled from her hair. Once the French corset was dealt with, the rest of her underpinnings were more easily managed and she could breathe again.
“I’ll finish up,” Wren said, sitting down at the dressing table in her chemise. “You look in need of bed.”
Mim stifled a yawn. “Dinna be fooled. With Boxing Day tomorrow and the servants’ ball at River Hill, I’m in fine fettle.” She unclasped the pearls about Wren’s neck and placed them in their silken case. “Yer looking a bit weary yerself.”
“I’m just sorry James is by his lonesome tonight.”
Their eyes met in the glass. “Keeping upstairs the whole time while everyone made merry below?” Mim grimaced as she removed Wren’s pearl earrings. “Dr. Moss forbade him any festivities or any company save his nurse.”
“I was hoping Izannah would be let upstairs.”
Mim’s hands stilled. “Why would ye be worrying about Miss Izannah?”
“Well, seems like James could have a caller, some cheer from those who mean the most.”
“Miss Izannah . . . and Mr. James?” Mim let out a throaty chuckle. “Ye ken the two of them are more than kin?”
Wren stared back at her in the mirror’s reflection. “Kin?”
“Aye, cousins. They’re close as two shoes, having grown up together, but they’re nae more than that, truly.” She gave a backward glance at the closed door, her Gaelic falling to a whisper. “Wade Turlock is said to be James’s father just as the judge is Izannah’s. But ye didna hear that from me. The family likes their secrets, all told.”
Secrets. Wren went numb.
“Word is Miss Izannah has her heart set on someone else. Just who, I dinna ken. She isna one to wear her feelings on her sleeve like some.”
The gentle rebuke was not lost on Wren. Did Mim suspect her heart? The feelings she’d tried so hard to hide? Unable to meet her eyes, Wren focused on a spent, smoking candle. Her mind began whirling, scrambling for similarities between Wade Turlock and James, some likeness in looks or nature. But all this paled next to Mim’s other revelation. Izannah and James were naught but first cousins? She’d never suspected. Not once.
She barely heard Mim’s quiet good night or the gentle closing of the door. She raised cold hands to her flushed face, her gaze traveling to the basket she’d prepared for James. Just a few humble gifts meant to wish him a merry Christmas, which Mim had promised to leave at his door before she went to bed. But Mim had forgotten. The lapse was odd. Mim, bless her, never forgot anything . . .
She sat for a long time, trying to settle herself, to come to terms with the truth. Izannah didn’t love James. She loved someone else. And James? He belonged to no one. He was unfettered. Free. Free to love. Be loved.
If he was willing.
Facing the hearth, James stared at the glowing remains of the charred logs, the chill of his bedchamber biting his bare flesh. Bored and bedsore, he gritted his teeth against an avalanche of pain and pulled himself to his feet. The few steps to the adjoining sitting room seemed like a mile, but he made it, the last of the laudanum leaving his head.
Did he have the grit to go farther?
Emboldened, he progressed at a snail’s pace to the landing, then the second floor and foyer. Finally reaching the parlor where a Christmas tree held court, he resigned himself to spending the night in a chair, doubting he could make it back to his bedchamber.
At nearly midnight, the old house had finally settled. He’d heard the merriment for hours on end, smelled roast goose and plum pudding as the scent wafted to the rafters, savored the joy of Wren’s fiddle, realized Malachi and Bennett were below by the steady cadence of their voices. Now all was empty of even the servants, though the spicy smell of wassail lingered to the far corners, as did Silas’s pipe smoke, rich and thick. A scrap of ribbon from an opened package lay curled on the rug, a reminder of all he’d missed.
Pondering it, he gave in to the uncertainty of what might have happened while he lay upstairs. Deep in his being he felt Malachi might have proposed to Wren. The enchantment of Christmas seemed to call for it. As the hours unwound and all the possibilities played out before him, he’d been unable to do anything but pray.
A Christmas proposal was something he’d dreamed of, if he and Wren had been in a different time and place. But she had never been his, would never be. When she’d first come to him in the privacy of his rooms and he’d nearly been out of his head with fever, he’d almost forgotten that. The feel of her fingers on his face, the way she’d sat by his side like she never wanted to leave, would never leave him.
Exhausted from the effort of navigating three floors, he settled back in a wing chair, unaware he’d nodded off till he jerked awake at the creaking of a door. It swung wide, ushering in a burst of icy air. Wren stood on the threshold, the candle she held casting her in a halo of light. She clutched a basket, and her gaze swept from him to the dark hearth. He read her thoughts as plain as if she’d spoken them.
You made it downstairs with your injuries only to freeze to death?
Setting aside both candle and basket, she knelt by the grate and fed the cherry-red embers several chunks of oak. The dry wood caught and sparked as she coaxed the flames to life, the smell of woodsmoke mingling with her familiar cologne. He nearly chided her, certain she’d soil her dress, but the heat was so welcome he held his tongue.
“I went upstairs to leave the basket by your door.” Her voice was soft as she took the stool at his feet. “But it was open and you were gone.”
He came fully awake, taken with her enlivened manner, so at odds with the late hour. Clad in an unadorned blue dress, she wore no crinoline, and her braided hair was ensnared with a crimson ribbon. It wended over her shoulder to her uncorseted waist, drawing his eye and his admiration. She had on no jewelry, not even a single strand of pearls.
And she wore no Cameron ring on her finger.
Looking to the basket, she took out a linen napkin, uncovering a generous portion of fruitcake, some nuts, and an orange. “Merry Christmas, Jamie.”
Ignoring the sudden dampness in his eyes, he took the humble offering from her open hands, thinking it the best present he’d ever been given. “Merry Christmas, Wren.”
Next she eased something onto his lap wrapped in plain paper and tied with string. Her voice was low, but he didn’t miss the emotion beneath. “These were Papa’s, but he doesn’t have need of them now.”
He opened the gift slowly with his good hand, a sudden tightness scoring his chest and ribs. Firelight danced across half a dozen small carving tools. From their Cane Run workshop?
“I thought maybe you could use them instead.” She took the little wren he’d carved from her pocket and set it on the arm of his chair. “You bring the children so much pleasure . . . same as me.”
He nodded past the catch in his throat. It touched him that she’d kept the little bird close. He hadn’t been able to go to the orphanage of late due to his injuries, and a small circus of half-carved animals needed finishing. Thinking it, he examined a chisel, the wood handle slightly worn, the blade sharp.
His voice held regret. “I have nothing for you.” He wanted to tell her he’d sent her the roses, the chocolates, but felt a smothering awkwardness.
She looked up at him, wrapping her arms about her knees. “I have your company.”
Their eyes met—held. Would she always pull so hard at his heartstrings? He looked away from her, in need of a distraction, longing for his pipe. But it was high on the third-floor mantel, well beyond his painful reach.
Unable to erect so much as a wall of smoke between them, he said a bit brusquely, “Shouldn’t you be upstairs?”
“There are no shoulds and should nots at Christmastime, Jamie.”
Torn, he gathered up the tools with his good hand and set them aside. She’d turn the house upside down if found alone with him. But she didn’t seem to care, and what was worse, he didn’t either. Having her near, away from the hustle and fuss of society, seemed a strange sort of recompense for every injury he’d received.
“I thought I might read to you like Papa always did for me at Christmas.”
She was missing her father. How could he refuse her? His gaze returned to the basket. Two leather-bound books lay within, both well-worn, sparking a dozen memories. “Your grandmother used to come to the orphanage Christmas Eve and read to us. Your grandfather accompanied her. They always brought gifts, sweets.”
“Were you lonesome there?”
He hesitated, a bit wistful. “Not at Christmas.”
Moving the candle nearer, she ran a finger down the spine of a book. “I’ve been reading Grandfather A Christmas Carol. Or I can tell you the gospel story of Christ’s birth by heart.”
By heart. Everything she did was by heart. He glanced at the clock and willed its ceaseless ticking to still. He didn’t want to move beyond this pleasant moment, the gift of her presence. But Christmas Day was slipping away, just as she would.
“Your choice, Wren, though personally I’m more in need of Scripture than Dickens.”
The query in her eyes left him somewhat chagrined. “Yet you don’t go to church.”
“I stopped going years ago.” Being on the river, he’d had a handy excuse. Though the Ballantyne line didn’t operate on Sundays, he always found himself in a different port. “You probably expected to see me at First Presbyterian.”
She nodded. “In Kentucky we had no church building. We always kept church here.” She touched her heart. “It was in our music, the instruments we made, our everyday life.”
Her eyes clouded and she didn’t answer, making his own heart hitch. “Tell me the Christmas story, Wren. It’s been a long time since I listened.” The confession grieved him. That was the crux of the matter, surely. Somehow amid the pressures and protocol of business and society, he’d stopped listening, stopped responding, stopped taking the gospel to heart.
“Are you sleepy, Jamie?”
He smiled to ease her. “All I do is sleep. Some insomnia would be welcome.”
“What would the doctors say?”
He gave a slight shrug and almost flinched from the effort. “There are no shoulds or should nots at Christmas, remember. Besides, I doubt you’ll be the death of me when the coach wasn’t.” He settled back, feet to the fire, mangled arm caught in a sling across his battered chest, feeling strangely content and at peace.
Almost able to forget the danger beyond New Hope’s doors.
“‘In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—flushed, but smiling proudly—with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball.’” Wren stopped reading, stifled a yawn, and stole a look at him.
Though the large Edinburgh clock in the foyer chimed three, James Sackett’s eyes were bright as daylight. She’d shared the Christmas story from the book of Luke before beginning A Christmas Carol at his request. Now she was the one who was fading, the warmth of the hearth as lulling as laudanum. The candle at her side was in need of replacing, sputtering and smoking as it waned. Stiff from sitting, she eyed him sleepily. It was now Boxing Day.
Soon the household would wake and the morning fires would be lit. The nurse would return, and routine with her. But tonight, for a little while, she’d been able to forget expectations and obligations and fears, overcome with the truth that Izannah Turlock was not in love with James Sackett. Wren Ballantyne was.
Alone with him, beyond society’s reach, it was all too easy to wish her world began and ended in this very parlor. She simply wanted to curl up on the lush sheepskin rug before the fire and go to sleep in his arms, awakened solely by his touch. Woozy, she returned the book to the basket, thinking she only imagined the flicker of dismay that crossed his face as she did so.
He pushed up from his chair as if he’d forgotten his injuries, and she saw him flinch. But he stood tall nevertheless, reaching out his good arm and helping her to her feet. Always gentlemanly, always gallant, her Jamie.
“I’ll help you upstairs,” she said, knowing how even a little laudanum could make a man weave like a loom.
He moved slowly, leaving her to worry he’d never be as agile as before. When he listed slightly to the left, she slipped an arm about his waist. The heft of him made her a bit unsteady, even breathless. They proceeded slowly up the staircase as if mired in molasses. When he clipped the leg of a chair in passing and nearly came off balance, she gave a startled cry. His near fall landed them both in the doorframe of his bedchamber, on their feet but in each other’s arms.
Leaning back, he looked down at her, his breathing ragged. “Are you all right, Wren?”
“No, Jamie . . .”
There was no mistaking her meaning. Overcome, she rested her cheek against his chest, the linen of his shirt soft against her heated skin. The tempo of his heart beat strong and spirited, like a complicated musical piece. Mindful of his injuries yet craving his nearness, she hovered between distance and desire. Raising her head, she touched his bearded jaw, savoring the rasp of it against her still-callused palm.
He made a sound, not of protest but of pleasure, and the tautness in his body gave way. At his touch to the small of her back, she was undone. Senses spinning, she wove her eager fingers through the wave and curl of his hair as she felt her way along his broad shoulders to the knot of his sling.
He leaned in, the touch of his mouth to hers silk-soft. She gave a little sigh of surrender as he buried his hands in her loose braid, dislodging the ribbon and sending it to the floor. More kisses followed, their warm breath mingling, till they drew apart in a sort of stunned agony.
In the semidarkness Wren read yearning and regret, confusion and tenderness in his gaze. Not once had she thought of Malachi. But the look on James’s face assured her he was thinking of little else.
James stayed motionless for long minutes, the taste and scent and feel of her lingering. He could hear her light tread on the stairs, the careful closing of a door. He thought he heard a sharp sob—and then silence. If he could go to her, he would. Beg her to forgive him. But the joy he’d just felt made any apology a lie. Faced with her a second time, he’d simply gather her in his arms again. Kiss her till he had no strength left or she begged him to stop.
He sagged against the doorframe and shut his eyes, trying to recall the moment it went wrong. There was no denying the pull between them, at first a simple spark upon meeting in the pilothouse, then flaring into something warm and enduring over time before blazing irreparably tonight.
Tunneling a hand through his hair in agitation only reminded him of the gentle whisper of her touch, and he nearly groaned. He’d broken faith with the Ballantynes. He’d broken faith with Malachi, knowing how he felt about her. He’d broken faith with Wren herself. Though she’d come to him willingly, he’d been wrong to act upon it and let his heart rule.
How to undo the deep water they’d waded into was beyond him.