His For Christmas Read online

  Timothy peered into the girl’s wan face. “She looks like she’s sleeping, Mr. Whitley.”

  Elliot nodded, hoping that was all it was. Good god, he’d dropped an entire bushel of potatoes on her head. If that had caused her lasting harm…he swallowed a thin stream of fear and let out a small breath. “I’m going to take her home. Will you go and find Doctor Warner? She might be more hurt than we know.”

  The little boy nodded once and disappeared into the crowd beginning to surround the still yelling Mrs. Graham and the now weeping Lucy Blakely.

  He ignored the brief pang of guilt at causing such a scene at Lucy’s expense and hurried through the crowd that had found something far more interesting than the quiet solicitor who clearly had a soft heart for orphans and waifs.

  ***

  Warmth.

  Heavens, how long had it been since she’d been warm?

  Ivy stirred, still half asleep, and her hands clenched not into the sticky, perpetually damp fabric of the heavy coat she found lying outside the stables, but into something soft, warm, comforting…it was such a change that she was convinced this was just a dream.

  And if that was the case, then she didn’t want to open her eyes.

  “You don’t say? Lucy did that? To her?” she heard an older woman’s voice close, somewhere over her head. “Of course she would. I declare, ever since her mother passed away, the girl turned into such a spiteful thing. No doubt due to her venomous father. Why, the day they bury the terrible old coot, I’ll dance on his grave, make no mistake.”

  “Mm.” A masculine voice, low in timbre, soft and slow. A pleasing tone. She couldn’t help but wonder how his voice would sound in melody. “You always did know how to make the most scandalous remarks, Mrs. Chang.”

  The older woman huffed. “Oh? And I suppose you think differently?”

  “No one likes him.” This was a higher voice, perhaps a boy. “Maybe that’s why he’s so mean to everyone.”

  “Ah, so it’s the cart before the horse riddle, then?” said the woman with a mischievous lilt to her voice.

  The boy laughed and Ivy smiled, settling deeper into the warm and, furthermore, clean covers.

  What a positively wonderful dream! If only she would never wake.

  “She smiled,” the boy said. “I just saw her smile!”

  Smile?

  Her?

  This…wasn’t a dream?

  There was only one way to find out.

  Slowly, she opened her eyes and found herself staring at a white silken canopy, much like the one she slept under back home, back in a place she was no longer welcome.

  An older woman, her graying wispy hair coming free from the bun at the nape of her neck, leaned forward into Ivy’s view. There seemed to be flour on her dark woolen shoulders, as well as a smudge of it on her high cheekbones that looked decidedly non--European. “Are you awake, then? How do you feel?”

  There was a soft pulsing of heat along her temple and Ivy raised a hand, encountering a thick bandage right on her hairline. “I…”

  She turned her head slowly and locked eyes with a small boy, freckles sprinkled liberally over his thin features. “You had a wicked lump on your head,” said the boy in a matter--of--fact voice. “That would be the sack of potatoes.”

  Potatoes? She remembered the tall, skinny bookseller who forced her from the relative warmth of the establishment’s doorstep. The woman pushed her down the three stairs onto the street…she ran into something hard, bounced off and then…

  Then?

  She shook her head and immediately regretted doing so, as a sudden wave of pain flashed across her eyes. With a small cry, she closed her eyes for a moment, hoping it would help.

  It did help, although not much.

  “Are you in pain?” asked the older woman, the one who smelled like flour and lemon verbena. The smell was so familiar, so reminiscent of Mrs. Brown, it brought a lump to her throat and she felt hotness at the corners of her eyes.

  The scent of lemons came closer. “Oh, my. Is it that bad, dear?”

  Ivy shook her head again, this time slower and more carefully. “Not at all. What…what…”

  The boy leaned against the bed, one elbow on the silken white sheets, and grinned, a gap where his two front teeth had once been. “Mr. Whitley dropped a bushel of potatoes on you.”

  “Among other things,” said the woman who leveled a steady glance at the man who standing slightly behind her. “He mentioned if the knock on your head wasn’t going to kill you, then it was the multitude of smaller objects he happened to drop upon you. But Elliot has assured me it was strictly by accident.”

  The man in question stepped forward, just into the candlelight. “How do you feel? Doc Warner assured me there should be no lasting harm except for some rather nasty bruising, but that’s the good thing about them, don’t you think?” His dusky red lips twitched. “They don’t last very long.”

  Ivy had opened her mouth to say something along the lines of an apology and gratitude, but the moment the man stepped into the light, everything coherent left her mind.

  Beautiful.

  Eyes the color of a dark starless night, hair the same shade tied back in a loose queue at the nape of the strong column of his neck, he wore a simple white shirt underneath a pale blue vest and a plain black cravat. He seemed a complete gentleman, but instinctively, she knew there was something powerful hidden underneath that thin veneer of civility.

  Perhaps it was in the way he held his shoulders.

  Or the way his eyes never seemed to leave her face, making her feel very much the prey and he the hunter.

  A perfectly fanciful thought, but then again, Ivy had always been somewhat fanciful. Most likely, it was that particular undesirable trait that got her into this mess in the first place.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, a furrow between his elegantly winged eyebrows. “Timothy, perhaps you ought to run back for Doc Warner. With luck, he’ll not have the office.”

  The boy nodded and made as if to get up.

  “No!” said Ivy and then instantly regretted it as another wave of sudden pain flashed across the inside of her head. She took a deep breath and tried again, this time slower and quieter. “No, don’t worry. It’s just a very bad headache, I’m afraid.” She bit her lip, thinking of the paralyzing cold outside. “I won’t be here long. I am so sorry to intrude.”

  Mrs. Chang leveled a glance at the man. “Elliot?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t say such a thing. It’s my fault you’ve been injured. At the very least, won’t you stay until you’ve recovered?” he said and then paused, a strange expression on his face, almost as if he was ashamed. But for what? “After which, I feel as though I must offer you some sort of succor.”

  She blinked at him, again lost for words.

  Was he…blushing? “That is to say…I couldn’t help but notice…” his voice trailed away and yes, he truly was blushing.

  The boy, Timothy, looked at her intently, so intently, it fair made her squirm in discomfort. “Mr. Whitley means he’ll help you.”

  Again the sense of complete incomprehension. Had her brain gotten addled as well? “I beg your pardon?”

  He leaned his elbow against the bed, an expression on his face that seemed far too old and mature for someone of his age. Surely, this small individual had seen far more than anyone in her social circle. They knew nothing of hunger, cold, fear, poverty…but then again, up until a month ago, neither did she. And that very knowledge humbled her.

  “I was like you.”

  Elliot put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Timothy.”

  Timothy shook his hand off, not angry, but merely as if he were dislodging a leaf from his shoulder. “Mr. Whitley, do you know what it’s like to be hungry and cold? I know. She knows what it’s like. Don’t you?”

  This little boy knew hunger, pain, fear, cold? The very idea was enough to bring warmth to her eyes. “Oh God,” she said, for the lack of anything els
e to say. “I’m sorry.”

  The boy smiled again. “It’s in the past now. But if you need help, Mr. Whitley will help you.” And then he bent near to her ear, whispering loudly, “I think he’s an angel in disguise.”

  He certainly looked like one, with a look of peace about his fine features. “I would find it hard to disagree with you there, Timothy.”

  He tilted his head to one side. “What is your name?”

  For a few brief moments, Ivy wrestled with her conscience and realized there was no one looking for her. Bertrand certainly wouldn’t. After all, all he wanted was Redmayne Hall. He was probably taking a bath in fine champagne in celebration.

  “Ivy,” she said, voice gone quiet. There was little harm in giving her name to a stranger. He couldn’t possibly connect her to the spoiled heiress who once had the world on a golden platter. “Ivy Stevens.”

  Elliot’s eyes narrowed. “Stevens?”

  Her heart jumped up to her throat. “Ye…yes…?”

  Once again, that strange feeling of being observed by a creature that could, conceivably, swallow her alive. “Of the Stevens in Geneva?”

  How could he have known? “N..no. No, of course not.”

  “No?”

  She sank lower under the sheets as she tried to dispel the memories threatening to pull her under. “No. The Stevens in…Fisher County,” she replied, thinking back on a town she passed on her way here.

  The man was silent for a moment. “I beg your pardon. I mistook you for someone else.”

  She smiled weakly. “Not at all. Stevens is a fairly common surname.”

  Oh, if he could stop looking at her in such a manner! “That is certainly true.”

  Mrs. Chang straightened up to her full height. “You ought to rest. Just you call if you feel unwell. While you’re here, you are a guest, you understand?”

  A guest.

  She was a guest.

  Ivy blinked rapidly as tears threatened to seep from her eyes. She was terribly sick of crying, and she felt as though she’d certainly done enough to last a lifetime, and then some. She did not want to cry, not anymore. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Chang.”

  Elliot turned to follow the woman out of the small, but elegant room with the prim sky--blue wallpaper and then paused at the threshold. He unsettled her, with his dark, piercing eyes that seemed to see far too much for her liking.

  “You are welcome here for as long as you need,” he said quietly. “When you are ready to leave, I can arrange for travel to wherever you wish to go.”

  Was this man forever going to render her wordless? He must think her a complete twit. “That’s very generous, sir.”

  Timothy walked to him, and leveled a small grin in her direction. “Just sleep. Tomorrow, everything will be better.”

  Such words of wisdom from one so young.

  The door closed behind the pair of them, leaving the once--heiress and toast of Seneca, New York, in silence and the memories she did not want.

  “I fear you’re wrong, Timothy,” she whispered to herself in the semi--darkness. “Tomorrow will not be better.”

  Chapter Two

  The girl was kneeling on the floor.

  Elliot stopped at the threshold of the kitchen, initially drawn to the tantalizing smell of Mrs. Chang's special beef stew and dumplings.

  But this was not something he'd expected.

  “Er, Mrs. Chang?”

  The housekeeper turned around from the pot with something very akin to disconcertion. “Yes, Elliot?”

  He cleared his throat as he watched the girl industriously scrub the spotless floor on her hands and knees, hair tied back with a length of leather. “What...exactly is Miss Stevens doing, might I ask?”

  The person in question apparently didn't even notice he was there, so intent she was on getting a tar spot off the floor by the oven. It was not going to come off, not if Mrs. Chang had given up on it, but the girl did not stop scrubbing. At this point, Elliot was mostly worried he’d have a hole in his kitchen floor, and that would not do.

  Mrs. Chang sighed and crossed her arms. “There’s no stopping her, I'm afraid. The moment she rose from bed, she found one of my aprons, marched herself right in front of me and asked me for a rag.”

  For some reason, Elliot couldn't tear his eyes away from the image of Ivy Stevens scrubbing the same two inches of the shining wooden floor. “And it didn't occur to you to ask why she needed it?”

  The housekeeper shrugged. “You know me. I ask questions at the end. And to be quite frank, I was curious to see what she would do.”

  “Didn't you try to stop her?”

  She pulled an expression of extreme annoyance. “Well, of course, I tried! Do you really think I’m capable of pulling someone from their sickbed just to scrub a kitchen floor, which I may add, was perfectly spotless to begin with?”

  Elliot sighed and sat down on his haunches. “Mm. Miss Stevens?”

  She either did not hear him, or preferred to ignore him, as she scrubbed at the floor that was starting to look a little thin by the oven. Her head was down, startling bright violet eyes fixed on that one black spot.

  Mrs. Chang let out a small laugh. “You see what I mean? She's a bit occupied at the moment. If I might offer a suggestion, Elliot?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Chang?”

  “Perhaps it would not be the worst thing to wait?” she said with a small smile. “I don't think Miss Stevens is who she appears to be.”

  Of course, she wasn't.

  The girl, well, woman, really, although it was hard to see her as anything vaguely resembling one when dressed the way she was, in one of Mrs. Chang's castoff gowns and an apron that threatened to trip her with every move she made.

  He leaned against the doorway, arms crossed. “How long until lunch, Mrs. Chang?”

  “Well, I think it is time,” she replied. “However, I'm not sure what I ought to do. I've tried calling her name to get her attention, but it’s as though she’s a million miles away. So I thought it would be best to wait until she tired.”

  “Which, at her state, shouldn't be too long,” he said thoughtfully.

  The housekeeper nodded. “Just so. I...I'm not sure if I ought to touch her. What with how Timothy had reacted...”

  Her voice trailed away and Elliot was well-aware of what she spoke of. For the first couple of weeks, the boy had jumped and cringed every time he, Doc Warner, or Mrs. Chang tried to touch him, and it took Timothy the better part of a year to get used to being around people who would not strike at him, given half the chance.

  Was the woman just like Timothy?

  He grinned. “We seem to have a habit of acquiring orphans, Mrs. Chang.”

  “I think Miss Stevens might be a bit old to be considered an orphan,” she said, brow quirked. “But I would not argue that very much with you.”

  It did feel quite strange to speak about someone while that someone was within earshot, and indeed hovering about their knees, belaboring at a spot that would not come out.

  His stomach growled loudly, but he knew there would be no lunch until Miss Ivy Stevens decided to give up.

  Which, judging from her look of intense concentration, did not seem to be any time soon.

  “Hopefully she won't try to head-butt me in the face,” he said and winced at the memory of just that happening the first time he tried to pat Timothy on the shoulder to get the boy's attention. The boy had given him a hell of a black eye and it’d been interesting to hear the rumors as to how he really acquired the shiner.

  He reached for her. “Miss Stevens?” he said quietly. “Miss Stevens, please. While I do appreciate the sentiment, such work is not necessary. You are welcome here as a guest. Guests are not obligated to do housework.”

  She said nothing, just continued to scrub at that spot and suddenly, for some bizarre reason, Elliot was reminded of Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth, the accursed lady who would forever try to scrub the blood and murder from her hands.