Regency Christmas Gifts: Scarlet Ribbons / Christmas Promise / A Little Christmas
“We’ll see.” He helped Alex to stand and shed his pantaloons, then assisted him to the bed.
“Hmm,” Raine said as he examined the scar, then moved the leg about as he expertly palpated tendons and ligaments. He wasn’t quite so loquacious now, limiting his remarks to that same wordless sound all doctors make. Alex recalled making it himself more times than he could count. Usually when he didn’t want to say what he was thinking.
After a few pertinent questions regarding the treatment, both by the doctors and what Alex had attempted since, Raine stood away. “Well, that’s that.”
“That’s what?” He made himself ask, knowing the answer.
The doctor ran a hand over his balding pate and shook his head. “You have read all the ancient texts, I’ll wager. And while some insist positive thoughts can affect the outcome of infirmities, no amount of wishful thinking will let you flex that knee at will. It’ll buckle on you every time you put weight on it. I don’t need to tell you that.”
“I will walk,” Alex said mulishly as he grabbed his pants to dress.
“Never said you wouldn’t do that,” Raine argued. “Only that the knee won’t work. It is fair wrecked and nothing can fix it.”
Alex managed to push himself to a standing position and held on to the metal footboard. “Thank you for the opinion,” he said with no sincerity and held out his hand.
Raine shook it firmly. “Good luck to you, son.” He hesitated a second, then asked, “Where were you trained?”
“Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh.”
“Excellent training then. War is hell, eh? May I ask why you went and why, when there is so much to be learned from battle wounds, you did not practice your art there?”
“Personal reasons.”
“You Scots are a dour lot and that’s a fact. You be good to that girl,” he said, and waited for Alex to nod. Then he was gone.
Alex glared down at his leg. He supposed he had accepted the truth somewhere inside him long before now.
He spent the better part of half an hour struggling to get his boots back on. One success at a time, he decided. He sat there on the bed in sartorial splendor until Michael came to fetch him.
Alex refused to get in the chair. “Find me two forked tree limbs, anything to serve, will you? I have got to be on my feet.” The compulsion was so great it wouldn’t be denied.
Michael rushed out, so eager to please it made Alex dizzy. He was gone for quite a while and was running when he returned. “Look!” he exclaimed, holding out a pair of crutches. “Amalie’s idea! I went to get her unused ones to make a pattern, but I think we can use these. See what she suggested? Won’t they work for now?”
Alex considered the odd-looking things. They obviously were made for a woman. The fittings for the armpits were quite small and very heavily padded with soft pink fabric. On the bottom tip of each, Michael had extended the length at least a foot by forcing on two long metal pipes.
“I dismantled the waterflow from the roof cistern,” Michael proudly informed him with a thump to one of the cylinders.
“I’m sure your father will thank you for that,” Alex said with a wry frown.
“C’mon, try ‘em out!”
Tentatively, Alex took them and placed them just so. After a few awkward attempts at balancing, he got the hang of it. The pads were too small, the handholds too narrow and his left leg swung uselessly, slightly bent at the knee. But as he took his first real steps around that small chamber without hopping and grabbing on to the furniture, Alex felt freer than he had for months. “I must see that sister of yours and thank her,” he said with a huge grin.
“Aye, Cap’n!” Michael crowed. “Follow me!”
She was waiting in the hall beside the large curved staircase and was seated in a chair almost identical, save for size, to the one he had just abandoned, hopefully forever.
“You look patently ridiculous lunging about on those pipe-rigged contraptions, Napier,” she said before he could even greet her.
“And you look entirely too comfortable riding around in that thing,” he replied, frowning at her chair. “But not for long.”
He swung the crutches forward and heaved himself closer. Then again, and once more until he reached her side.
“From my heart, I thank you.” Bracing himself carefully, Alex leaned down, reached for her hand to kiss it. But she raised her face as he did it and kissed him soundly on the mouth. Such a sweet mouth it was, too. Eager and soft, tasting of berries and cream and…
Her chair rolled backward under his weight. Alex tumbled back and landed flat on the floor, spread-eagled and helpless as an upturned tortoise. The clang of metal pipe bouncing on marble echoed through the cavernous hall.
“Napier! Sir, are you hurt?” she cried, leaning sideways in an attempt to touch him.
He turned his head and groaned. “Ow, run fetch me a compress, quick!”
To his great surprise, she very nearly did. Elbows up and hands gripping the arms of her chair, she rose several inches from the seat before she remembered and dropped back with a groan.
Arms outstretched and flat on the floor, Alex laughed with delight. “You nearly did it!”
“Wretch!” she shouted down at him. And rolled right over his fingers.
“Ow!” he cried, this time for real, clutching his hand and curling up to a sitting position.
Michael and the doctor rushed to him and helped him up. But Amalie did nothing save sit there frozen, both hands covering her mouth, her bright eyes wide.
“Fat lot of good those sticks will do me one-handed!” he snapped.
She had the grace to look sorry even if she wouldn’t speak. He let Michael and Dr. Raine help him back to the small room off the hall and sit him down again on the bed. He tried to flex his fingers, but they were already swelling.
Raine examined them carefully, bending them anyway. “Not broken, just bruised. Good thing the girl’s not hefty!”
She was a small mite, thank goodness. He could only imagine the damage if she were of any greater size.
“Amie didn’t mean to do it,” Michael assured him.
“Mmm-hmm, the gentlest of souls, I know,” Alex cracked. “Go and tell her I’ll survive. Can’t have her grieving over a minor injury.”
Raine chuckled. “That chit will lead you a merry chase, on wheels or no, I’ll wager. Better put your good foot down at the outset, m’boy.”
“On her neck,” Alex muttered, nodding.
Now he was back to the chair again, the makeshift crutches broken and useless, the fingers of one hand nearly so. “Go on. See about her,” he told Raine. “I’ll be fine.”
Two hours later, he and Amalie found themselves alone again, trapped in their chairs within the library, staring at the fire.
“I hate this place,” Amalie said finally. “Read every volume in here at least three times.”
“Anything I despise, it’s an overeducated woman,” Alex said.
She glared at him. “You don’t say!”
He smiled. “I did say, but I didn’t really mean it. You should be happy your family’s wealthy enough to afford books. What if this had happened to you and you were mired in some drafty cottage, knitting for pennies, wondering whether your next meal would be more than porridge?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I am an ingrate, I know. And I had vowed to be more pleasant today. Now here I have damaged your fingers, given poor old Raine the back of my head and bemoaned my fate.” Her sigh was forlorn. “Not a good beginning.”
“Start again,” Alex suggested.
She offered him a sweet smile that appeared sincere. “All right. Tell me about your life. No, about your son. Is he very bright?”
“I don’t know,” Alex admitted. “I only saw him as a babe. He won’t know me, of course.”
“He’ll probably adore you right away,” she told him. “Boys admire soldiers. He won’t understand anything other than the romance of war, not the reality.”
“And I suppose you think you do?”
She cocked her head and studied him. “Somewhat. War hardens men. It sorely troubles boys like Michael. Then there is the useless loss of life on both sides of the conflict. None of that is good.”
Alex thought she had a pretty good grasp on it. “Ideals aside, war is hell on everybody, even the side that wins.”
“That’s as may be, but he will admire you all the same. We should bring your son here,” she suggested. “There is much to entertain him. I would like to know him and I expect you would, as well.”
“I doubt that would be possible. His grandmother blames me for his mother’s death so he’s most likely set against me, too. It’s true. I couldn’t save my wife.”
Sympathy shone from her remarkable eyes. “I’m certain you did all you could for her.”
Alex nodded slowly. “But it was not enough, and at the time, my guilt and grief were so great, I could think of nothing else.”
“So you went to war. Tell me, did you have a thought of dying to punish yourself?”
“Something of that sort, in the beginning, I suppose. Olivia was so dear to me. We grew up neighbors, shared so much, our parents were the best of friends. When mine passed during the influenza outbreak, I was only seventeen. The MacTavishes were a great consolation to me. It was always assumed that Olivia and I would marry, so as soon as I finished my studies, we did.”
“You loved her,” Amalie said softly.
“Of course. She died in childbirth. Her mother took the babe. Said I owed her the child because I let hers die. Her demand seemed justified to my muddled mind, but in the six years since, I’ve realized how wrongheaded we both were.”
He cleared his throat and stared out the window. “Now it would be cruel to him, as well as her, to take him back and perhaps not a wise thing in any event. I want my son, but ask myself if I would ever be able to do him justice as a father.”
He looked up at her then. “Raine agrees with the other doctors. I will have no use of the leg.”
“So you believe it now?” she asked. “Then I’m sorry you saw him. The death of hope hurts as much as the injury, doesn’t it?”
“Not quite. At least not in my case. Maybe in the back of my mind I had already accepted it to some degree. But crutches gave me a feeling of more control. In time, a cane should do. I can live with that.”
“You believe me a slacker,” she accused. “I have tried, Napier. Truly tried. I wish to walk.”
“But for some reason you have convinced yourself you cannot. You almost did it, though,” he reminded her. “You almost came out of that chair.”
She didn’t show anger as he expected. Instead, she offered him a steady look of warning. “Take me as I am or I won’t have you. So there’s your way out of this.”
So she thought. Alex knew nothing short of his immediate death would cancel his obligation. It was highly probable that no one other than her brother and parents would ever hear of their inadvertent indiscretion, but servants gossiped. Word, especially scandal, spread like a case of plague. She could be ruined for life if the tale got out.
Like it or not, they would have to marry.
Chapter Four
Michael left the next day for London and had stayed away for a week. Alex tried to be patient, but all day, every day, he kept an ear tuned for the sound of the coach returning. After carefully measuring Alex’s height and hands, the lad had set off, determined to acquire the best pair of crutches he could have made. Perhaps Michael felt that Alex’s saving his life outweighed the fact that his sister had been compromised. In any event, Michael still seemed to feel obliged to help and Alex was grateful for that.
The weather had proved foul, cold and damp, keeping Alex and the rest of the family near the fire. The old manse looked grand indeed, but boasted numerous drafts round the windows and doors. Heat immediately sought the high ceilings and left the occupants hovering near the fire.
Amalie’s parents sat with them in the front parlor this afternoon. Her mother sighed and put down her knitting. “Why not play for us, dear?” she asked Amalie.
“Reading,” Amalie replied, lifting her novel a few inches off her lap for emphasis.
“Come now,” the baron insisted. “Put that book away and show your intended how accomplished you are.”
She gave an inelegant little snort and turned a page.
“Can you not play well?” Alex asked with mock sympathy, daring her to take up the challenge. “Tuneless, are you? Well, I suppose that makes no difference.”
She rolled her eyes, sighed and tossed the book on a side table, not even bothering to mark her place. “Oh, very well. Give me a push,” she said to her da.
The baron laughed as he hopped up and wheeled her to the pianoforte. She shot Alex a haughty look and put her fingers to the keys. After an ostentatious prelude and an operatic trill, she changed tempo, holding his gaze as she dropped her voice to a sultry contralto and sang.
“Young Cock Robin rode to Town,
His one intent to marry.
When he got there, his friend did swear
The ladies turned up wary.
He then commenced to jump a fence
And seek out one less scary,
Who gave him drink and with a winnnnkk…
Invited him to tarry!”
Alex tried to stifle his laughter as the baron leaped to yank her away from the pianoforte and her mother collapsed in her chair, fanning herself with a handkerchief.
Amidst their apologies to him and fervent remonstrances to their wayward offspring, Alex heard loudest of all Amalie’s deep frustration and anger.
He believed her. She had tried. It was not stubbornness that prevented her recovery. It was not her parents’ over-indulgence. Her only weapons against her helpless situation were contrariness and dark humor. He knew, because he used those very weapons himself.
He wanted to…what? Commiserate with her? But how, so that she wouldn’t see it as sympathy? That was worse than taunting her, wasn’t it? It would be to him. He started to applaud, but the sound of a carriage outside in the dooryard interrupted him.
The baron ran to the window. “Michael’s back. Everyone stay where it’s warm. I’ll go out to meet him.”
The wait seemed interminable. Alex kept exchanging looks with Amalie, both ignoring her mother who rattled on endlessly about her daughter’s inappropriate behavior.
The door to the parlor opened, commanding immediate attention. Michael stood there holding out the new crutches, smiling like a cream-fed cat. And then he stepped aside.
“Father?” squeaked a small voice.
Alex’s heart leaped to his throat, choking off any words that might have erupted. The lad who stood there could have been himself at six. Sturdy, auburn haired and round faced with a stubborn chin and large green eyes that widened as they took in the wheeled chair and the one who sat in it.
Alex cleared his throat and nodded. “Davie?”
“David, sir,” the boy replied. “Now I’m not a baby, I’m David.”
“Of course you are.” Alex found himself grinning ear to ear. “Come here then, David. Let me see you better.” He held out a hand, eager as anything to touch the child he hadn’t seen since infancy.
“Go on, David. Greet your father properly,” a stern voice commanded.
Alex looked up to see his mother-in-law. “Hello, Mother MacTavish.” He had never called her else since his marriage to Olivia and didn’t think to change it before the words were out.
“Alexander,” she replied, her lips tightening after the greeting.
He looked back to the boy who had drawn near and was executing a formal bow. “You’ve become a man since last we met,” Alex said proudly. “Look at you! Your mother would be so—”
“My mother’s dead,” the lad stated baldly, without inflection.
“I know.” Alex felt tears welling, but blinked them back, his voice hardly more than a whisper.
“Are you truly a soldier?”
He managed a smile and reached out a hand, feeling the lad’s reluctance when he took it. “I was. No more, though.”
“Did you race into battle, kilt flying and swinging your sword at the enemy?”
Michael piped in. “He did that, David. Bravest soldier on the field, I swear. Saw him myself!”
He had done no such thing, Alex thought. They had not even met until both were in hospital trying to survive their wounds. But he didn’t call the lie. David’s first smile was worth saving at any cost.
Michael was making introductions then and Alex reluctantly took his eyes off the boy to see how they were going. Hilda MacTavish and the baroness were exchanging greetings. He noted for the first time how much older his mother-in-law seemed. She had lost at least a stone in weight and her face was pinched and pale.
She smiled at Amalie’s mother as they met and Alex felt a pang in his chest. She had her daughter’s smile, not as sweet or sincere, but it brought Olivia to mind. And the guilt.
He turned back to David. “Has Mr. Michael told you that I am to wed Miss Amalie?”
The boy nodded and cocked his head. “Is she to be my mother then?”
Alex hardly knew what to say. David’s grandmother answered for him. “She is to be your stepmother.”
David’s eyes widened. “Not like the wicked ones in the stories!”
“Certainly not!” Amalie exclaimed. “I shall only be wicked when we play draughts or war with your little soldiers! Then you must watch out, for I will trounce you soundly! Depend on it!” She grinned at David and winked.
The boy chewed his lip. “I haven’t any little soldiers.”
“Oh, but you shall,” she promised. “Michael, you must take David up to the nursery and acquaint him with the troops.” She leaned forward in her chair. “But not before he has his tea and biscuits. Cook Nan makes the best you have ever tasted. Word on it.”
David had drifted closer to her, assessing her carefully. “Were you a soldier and shot, too? Can ladies be soldiers?”
“Lands, no! Except in play,” she said. “A clumsy old horse unseated me and I fell right in the dirt! Can you feature that?” Before he could answer, she gestured to her mother. “We should feed our guests, Mother, don’t you think?”
The baroness was already standing. “Come, Mrs. MacTavish. I’m certain you’d prefer to freshen up whilst I arrange for tea.” Belatedly, she remembered the child. “Uh, David. Would you come, too?”
“I shall stay here, thank you.”
Alex marveled at the conviction in his son’s voice, the maturity and swiftness with which he made the decision. Here was no overcoddled lad, but a strongminded young man.
His chest swelled with pride, no matter that he’d had nothing to do with making the boy so. He guessed he must credit Mother MacTavish.
Suddenly as that, Alex realized that he, David and Amalie were in the room alone. Michael had propped the new crutches beside the door as he left.
“Could you bring me those, David?” he asked. “I feel remiss not greeting you on my feet.”
“Aye, sir.” The boy retrieved the crutches, one by one, handing them to Alex.
“Now then, grab my knees and give me a shove against that wall to brace the chair.”
David hesitated only a moment before complying. “I can hold those upright for you, sir, if you like.”
“Excellent idea. There’s a good man.” He pushed himself up and settled the crutches beneath his arms. “Ah, just right.” He looked down at his son and held out his hand. “How do you do, Master David Napier? It is indeed a pleasure to meet you again.”
“The pleasure is mine, sir,” the boy replied, grinning up at him and showing the blank space where his front teeth had been. “I have heard so much about you.”
“All good I would hope.”
The boy’s smile dwindled. “Some.”
Amalie drew their attention to her, shaking a finger at Alex. “I’ll warrant David’s head is filled with your boyhood antics! You shan’t have a leg to stand on when he misbehaves.”
David cocked his head and regarded her with a matching grin. “He has one leg to stand on, miss.”
“Amie. My good friends call me Amie and so shall you.”
“I’m not to address elderly persons so familiar, miss.”
Alex laughed at her expression and chose to let them work it out together.
“Miss Amie, then,” she said finally, and regained her smile. “I quite like you, David. Forthrightness is to be admired.”
He nodded. “Grandmother advises it. She says if I don’t come off strong, the older classmates will beat me when I go off to school.”
“When?”
“Next year, I believe.”
Amalie darted Alex a frightened look. “He’s not to go so young, surely!”
Alex had the very same thought, but reconsidered before he spoke. He was in no way to raise a child and neither was Amalie. Mother MacTavish had obviously realized her limits did not extend past David’s reaching seven. Small wonder, for he recalled what a raucous handful he had been at that age. And the poor woman had done more than enough already. Still, Alex remembered, too, what boarding school had been like.
“We shall see,” he answered quietly, already dreading the next separation from his son, however it must come. “Shall we go in to tea?” he asked.
David moved behind Amalie’s chair and offered to push without anyone suggesting it. Neither of them had thought to ask it, but she thanked the boy and nodded. Alex followed, maneuvering better than he expected to on his new apparatus.
So many surprises today, he could hardly register them all.
“The house seems much warmer, don’t you think?” Amalie asked over her shoulder.
“Infinitely,” Alex agreed, answering her smile. Yet in his heart, he was already preparing himself for giving up again the person he loved most in the world.
It must have shown on his face, for she added, “Enjoy the now, Napier.”
But he wasn’t trained to do that, had no experience in it ever. All his happy moments existed only in retrospect. Even when Olivia was alive, he could never recall himself stopping in the midst of anything to think, much less say, “I am happy at this very instant.” He had been happy then, many times, but realized it only in retrospect. Amalie had opened his eyes to celebrating the moment.
“I smell cimmanum!” David exclaimed. “Yum!”
At least his son had an appreciation of the moment.
Chapter Five
A full week passed and Amalie figured they had all endured enough of Hilda MacTavish’s ill humor. When she was not hovering over young David like a wolf bitch with only one cub, she busied herself flinging ill-disguised accusations at Napier and making snide reference to Amalie’s uselessness.
Napier needed a flogging for allowing the woman to carry on so. Where was the spirit he’d shown when he first came? Where was that humor with which he turned insults aside and made their speaker feel foolish? It was still within him, that was for certain, and neatly employed when the barbs came from her own mouth.
She supposed it fell to her to set the woman to rights. Finally, she found Mrs. MacTavish alone in the parlor embroidering whilst Michael had David outdoors, visiting the stables.
Amalie wheeled herself into the parlor, stopping when the edge of the plush Turkey carpet prevented her getting any nearer. Hilda wore unrelieved black as she always did, a color that in no way flattered her seamless complexion or the honeyed tint of her whitening hair. She was not so old as she tried to seem, probably only forty-five or thereabout. Amalie decided on flattery and distraction as the best approach.
“A word with you, Mrs. MacTavish?” she asked sweetly.
The woman put down her embroidery hoop and glared at Amalie with narrowed eyes. “Why?”
Amalie shrugged. “I thought we should become better acquainted.” She paused. “Tell me, madame, since you have been widowed for nearly two years now, have you given any thought to returning to society?”