A Stockingful of Joy (22 page)

Brand reached out and grasped it fervently. With surprising pleasure, Anthony realized that once again they could be friends. If the truth be known, he'd missed Brand far more than he'd missed Cecilia.

Emma, who had been watching approvingly, made a small movement of her head toward the door. Understanding, Anthony ended the handshake. "Can you forgive me, too, Cecilia? I never meant to injure your marriage."

She gave him a teary smile. "Brand and I did most of the damage ourselves. From now on we'll do better, won't we, dearest?"

"We will, darling. I swear it." Brand bent his head and kissed his wife passionately, one hand slipping down her back to pull her against him. The air crackled with sexual tension.

Knowing they would not be missed, Anthony collected his coat. Then he and Emma quietly left the gallery. "I'd forgotten what a watering pot Cecilia is," he murmured when he'd closed the door behind them. "Thank heaven you're not like that."

After donning his coat and straightening his cravat, he draped his left arm around his wife's shoulders and they made their way down the stairs. "That was a very timely intervention, my dear," he said sternly. "But don't you
ever
put yourself between two armed men again, or I'll have to thrash you. You could have been killed."

She said demurely, "If every day you forbid me from another thing on pain of being thrashed, very soon I'll be restricted to sitting by the fire with a book."

He smiled, but it quickly faded. "Who would have thought that the angry words I yelled at Brand nine years ago could have such terrible, lasting effects? I almost ruined his marriage. I swear before God, Emma, I never meant for that to happen."

"Words have power, Anthony," she said quietly. "Especially angry words thrown by someone like you, who affects people so strongly."

Everything comes to you easily. Too easily
. "If I have power, I've used it badly," he said with self-disgust. "I've lived my life on the surface, sliding from one thing to another with never a serious thought in my head."

"That's probably true," Emma said with a depressing amount of objectivity. "But as Cecilia said, they did most of the damage to themselves. If either of them had had the courage to admit their love, they could have saved themselves years of misery."

"Perhaps in the long run their marriage will be better for having been tested like that. I hope so."

"You have also used your power of words for good, you know," Emma said quietly. "I think I remember every friendly word you ever said to me when I was a child. And there were many, even though you couldn't have been particularly interested in a plain, shy girl years your junior."

"Was I kind, Emma? I hope so." He smiled ruefully. "I have to admit that I don't remember that much about our encounters. You were merely one of many smaller Vaughns."

They'd come to an archway that divided two halls. A kissing bough hung there, so he stopped and turned Emma to face him. As he studied the strong, well-shaped planes of her face, the intelligence and warmth in her eyes, he wondered how he ever could have thought her plain. "I don't want us to become like Brand and Cecilia—hurting each other by not saying what we mean." He grinned. "Luckily, as alarmingly honest as you are, I don't think that will be a problem."

Her gaze dropped. "If I must be honest, then I shall have to admit that I've always loved you, Anthony, even when I was a child. When Mr. Evans mentioned that you were in desperate financial straits, I dismissed every other possibility and ran straight to you, hoping you were desperate enough to marry me," she said haltingly. "Luckily you were."

She looked up again. Her great eyes, more gray than green tonight, were regarding him without hope or illusion. She did not expect love, but she did deserve honesty.

What did he feel for this woman who was his wife? Respect, certainly. Desire
absolutely. Liking and protectiveness and a hundred other things. In fact, he recognized with lightning bolt suddenness and power, he was in love with her. It was so obvious. So right. The passion and intimacy and laughter between them were
the
truest thing he'd ever found his life, entirely different from his boyish yearning for Cecilia.

It took a moment for him to collect his scattered thoughts. Then, his gaze holding hers, he said slowly, "I can't claim to have loved you most of my life, Emma, but rather to my own surprise, I seem to have fallen quite madly in love with you."

Holding her face between his hands as if she were made of rare, fragile porcelain, he kissed her, the first kiss of true love he'd ever given in his life. In it was tenderness and desire and a growing sense of awe. Emma kissed him back with a sweet intensity that brought her spirit closer to his than he would have dreamed possible.

After a long, long embrace, he lifted his lips a few inches and said huskily, "Yesterday the dowager said that things come easily to me, and she's right. Through no effort or virtue of my own, I've acquired the best of all possible wives."

He ran his admiring gaze over Emma's richly curved body. "It's something of a bonus that you're the most alluring woman I've ever known. What more could a man ask of the only woman he'll ever lie with again?"

She caught her breath. "Do you mean that, Anthony?"

Fidelity struck him as a very adult, very desirable trait. "I swear and vow, Emma, that you will be my one and only as long as we both shall live."

She gave him such a shining smile that he almost kissed her again. He was halted by the dowager duchess's amused voice. "I'm glad you two found a kissing bough to misbehave under. We wouldn't want the children corrupted."

Anthony and Emma jumped as if they'd been caught picking pockets. Then they both turned to the dowager, who was gliding over the polished floor toward them.

Calmly she asked, "Did you get Brand and Cecilia sorted out?"

"Yes, Grandmère," Emma replied as if it was perfectly natural for the dowager to know everything. Perhaps it was.

Anthony added, "I suggest that you avoid the gallery. I think they may be reconciling in a manner that would embarrass anyone who accidentally interrupted
them."

Amusement gleamed in her blue eyes. "Well done, both of you. Christmas should be a time of reconciliation. By that measure this may be the best Christmas we've ever had at Harley."

Almost simultaneous, Anthony and Emma said, "It's the best I've ever had." Then they looked at each other, laughing with the sheer pleasure of being in love.

The dowager studied them both thoughtfully. "I've talked to Amelia and James, and they agree that it would be a very good thing for the two of you to exchange your vows again tomorrow night before the Christmas Eve service. That way, the whole family can celebrate with you. Emma, James would like to give you away, if you agree."

Emma inhaled with delight. "I would like that above all things. Anthony?"

"An excellent idea." He put his arm around her waist. "I wonder if Brand would stand up with me? When I was younger, I'd always assumed that someday he would be my best man. This would be a way to put the past behind us."

"I suspect that he would be very honored by such a request." Smiling with satisfaction, the dowager turned and floated away.

Emma glanced shyly at Anthony. "I used to dream of being married at Harley. In my wildest dreams, I even imagined marrying you."

"I think a second ceremony will be most appropriate." Anthony drew her into his arms again. "After all, when we married in London, it was a marriage of convenience. This time, my dearest, it will be a pledge of love."

Tears filled Emma's eyes. Wiping at them with one hand, she said tremulously, "Now you're going to think that I'm a watering pot, too."

"As long as you're
my
watering pot," he said tenderly.

Emma laughed and slid her arms around his neck. "If I'm your watering pot, then you're the cleverest bargain I ever made." Her smile turned wicked. "The very best husband money could buy."

Author's Note

Though it may have read like a product of my fevered imagination, the incident that inspired this story is quite real. The October 3, 1996, edition of the
Baltimore Sun
ran a short filler story about a Spanish businessman who happened to stop into a church while visiting Stockholm, Sweden. The church was empty except for a coffin. The Spaniard, a devout Catholic, knelt and prayed for twenty minutes or so, then signed a condolence book that asked for the names of anyone who prayed for the deceased. No one else had signed.

After returning home, he received a call from Stockholm announcing that he would inherit the entire fortune of the man who had died, a successful real estate dealer who had left no close relatives. The Spanish gentleman's generous act of faith had made him a millionaire, and provided me with an irresistible hook for a story.

All of which goes to prove, once again, that truth is stranger than fiction!

by JUSTINE DARE

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Wyoming Territory, 1878

It was night, it was a stable, and he'd followed a light, but that was definitely where the similarities to another Christmas season ended.

Stupid thought
, Morgan Blaine told himself as he shivered slightly, and pulled his bedroll blanket tighter around him. The movement made his rifle slide down the bed of hay, and he risked the chill to pull it within reach. Not that he was expecting any trouble, not in this quiet out-of-the-way place, but he was trespassing, and if the owner of this small homestead took it in mind to protest, he might have need of the weapon. It was a tidy, well-built place; he'd noticed metal hinges on the doors instead of the easier rawhide, and the barn at least was in decent repair. And that oddly bright light in the window had seemed warm and welcoming, even to a homeless stranger. It was the kind of place a man protected.

He closed his eyes in determination. He'd thought he would be asleep as soon as he found a place to lay his head, but somehow the rest he so badly needed eluded him. His mind was restless, although he wasn't sure why. It wasn't like he cared, and anyway, he'd known it was December. It was hard not to when the briskness of the air here in the Wyoming Territory had long since given way to the crisp cold of winter. Storms had already whitened the mountains, and each week saw the snow line creep lower toward the high plains. Tonight even the lower elevations were getting a taste of what was to come. Soon the thick blanket of white would be here to stay.

But until he had walked into that saloon a couple of miles back and been met with a drunken and off-key rendition of a song about one-horse sleighs, and had seen the small, crooked tree in one corner, decorated rather ludicrously with empty shot glasses and a length of yellowed lace he didn't want to speculate about, he hadn't realized just how close—two more days, the bartender told him—Christmas was.

He'd lasted long enough for one shot of whiskey that was a little too reminiscent of stuff he'd tasted in the back hills of Tennessee, but was warming nonetheless. Then he'd looked around again, at the tawdry tree, the faces of the men who had no place else to go—or nowhere they wanted to go—on this cold night, and worse, the faces of the three women, who had had no place else to go for far longer, and he'd known he couldn't stay. He never stayed around people this time of year. He'd ridden out of the small town of Granite with a sense of relief, stopping only when he'd been drawn to this place by that light casting its glow out into the snowy night. No matter that he'd ridden into town thinking he would welcome human company for a change.

Human company, yes, he thought now as he listened warily to the small noises coming from a stall at the other end of the small barn, but not human misery. Not that he was any better off. He had nowhere to go, either, and nothing to do when he got there. He didn't even have anywhere to be, and hadn't for what seemed like a very long time.

In the distance a coyote yipped. An answer came; even the wild ones had company tonight, Morgan thought. Save one, he amended wryly, thinking of his imperious aunt's declaration that he was such a one, wild, uncivilized… and unfit to bear his father's name. As a child, he'd been hurt by her words, although he'd hidden it well behind a mask of insolence. As an adult, he'd wondered at her perception; how had she known even then?

The small sounds came again, then a quiet footstep.

Human company.

He had it after all, it seemed. He sat up and quietly hefted his Winchester. More footsteps, furtive, closer, and his nerves hummed to attention, sleep forgotten. No, they weren't furtive, just… light, he thought.

A shadow moved at the corner of his vision. He rolled to his knees and brought the rifle to the ready. In the next instant he realized two things: he indeed had human company, and he was aiming a good foot too high.

He let out a breath, shivering with the force of old, ugly images, relieved he hadn't shot before he'd looked. He lowered the Winchester slowly, feeling nearly as wide-eyed as the barely three-foot-tall child who stared back at him from beneath long, silver-blond bangs and the brim of a too big hat. Yet there did not seem to be any fear in those huge dark eyes, only curiosity.

"Are you Jesus?"

For the first time in longer than he could remember, Morgan was taken utterly aback. He stared at the child, who answered his own question before Morgan could even begin to think of anything to say.

"Nah, guess you're too big. Jesus was a baby. And it's not Christmas yet anyway."

The child's gaze flicked from the straw that clung to Morgan's jacket to the blanket crumpled beside him to the saddlebags he'd been using as a pillow, then down to his own bundle, a rolled-up collection of clothes and some other oddly lumpy things, from what Morgan could see.

"Did you run away, too?" the child asked.

Now, that, Morgan thought, was a good question. And he wasn't sure he wanted to face the answer to it. The child just looked at him, waiting, with a patience uncanny in one so young. A boy, he thought, although the soft, thickly lashed brown eyes could have been a girl's. Or a fawn's.