Comfort and Joy (36 page)

Over steaming bowls of creamy oyster chowder, Charles’s gaze locked on hers. Maeve’s throat went stone dry. Undisguised desire burned in his dark ash eyes.

“You know oysters are an aphrodisiac, don’t you?” he asked, rather thickly.

“No... I...did not.”

“Be warned.” His lopsided smile held a promise of passion that took her breath away.

In order to finish her meal without throwing herself into his arms, Maeve avoided her husband’s eyes, did not venture a glance at his sensuous lips. Instead, she devoured the delicious hot meal of chowder and biscuits, stewed tomatoes, and macaroons. Once, she stopped long enough to look beyond Charles’s broad shoulder to the window.

A steady snow fell through the velvet black night. The bright white crystal flakes created a fresh new cover of snow that glistened beneath the scant rays of fluttering candlelight.

Love and desire curled through her like a tunneling cloud, leaving an exquisite ache in its wake. Being within arm’s reach of the man Maeve loved more than life itself gave her more happiness than she’d ever known. Determined to live for the moment, she refused to think of what lay ahead, after the holiday had passed.

Alone in the intimate room, a deep river of magnetism flowed between Maeve and Charles. A tumbling current of unspoken need. His dusky gaze held hers. Her body trembled.

Pine cones snapped in the fireplace, leaping flames crackled. Charles made no move to retire for a cigar and brandy as was his custom after dinner in Beacon Hill.

“Hilda has set out decorations to hang on our tree,” he said, breaking the heavy silence. “But first let’s hang Barnabas’s sketch of St. Nick.”

Maeve bobbed her head in assent as Charles held her chair. Clasping her hand in his, he led her into the parlor. The warmth of his touch sheared through her. She slipped from his grasp, stepping up to the wall.

“I think we should place it there beside the tree, where the Frederick Church painting hangs now. Every guest will see St. Nick immediately upon entering the house,” Maeve pointed out, pretending a self-possession she did not feel. She felt afire.

“You don’t know how many times I’d feared this sketch was lost forever,” Charles said, replacing Church with the work of his brother Barnabas.

“But you believed.”

“Because you believed. A woman who believes in faeries and in Santa Claus is a mighty force. Your astounding capacity for believing kept me hoping somehow.”

Words caught in her throat.

Charles retrieved a package from under the tree. “This is for you.”

“But... but it’s not Christmas yet.”

He gestured toward the jolly likeness of St. Nick hanging on the wall. “Thanks to you I have my Christmas gift to enjoy. It’s only right you should have yours now, too.”

Sinking into a nearby ottoman, Maeve opened the package adorned with paper cherubs and golden ribbon. Her fingers shook when she opened the box. “Oh, Charles!”

She could say no more. The most beautiful porcelain doll Maeve had ever seen rested on a bed of cotton. The delicate figure possessed large pansy-blue eyes and perfectly bowed ruby lips. Dark sausage curls fell from under a velvet bonnet and skimmed the shoulders of a hunter green coat, just like Maeve’s.

Her first doll.

“Do you like her?” Charles asked.

“Saints above! She’s the most beautiful doll in the world.”

“Not quite.” His lips turned up in a small, crooked smile as his eyes met hers.

Maeve rose to give him what she meant to be a kiss on the cheek but somehow Charles turned his head in time for his lips to claim hers. Within a heartbeat, he’d wrapped his arms around both Maeve and the doll. As her lips parted beneath his, her knees wobbled and a deep, moist yearning swirled inside of her.

It seemed a very long time before Charles raised his mouth from hers and spoke. “I saw the doll in a shoppe window and she reminded me of you, my little bit.”

“I shall treasure her forever.” Hugging the doll to her, Maeve wheeled from Charles’s embrace. She didn’t want him to see the tears in her eyes again.

While regaining her composure, she stared out at the snowy night, shimmering flakes dancing in slender ribbons of golden light. It was almost as if Maeve and Charles had done the impossible and slipped through the Great Mist into the faerie land of Tir Nan Og, a magical place of love and happiness. They had traded two different worlds for one magical world.

“Maeve?” Charles sounded worried.

“I should like to stay here forever,” she murmured.

He came up behind Maeve then and held her, pressing her back against the hot, steely wall of his chest “I think we can manage to spend a good deal of time at Ashton Pond. It’s a splendid place to raise children.”

Her precious doll almost dropped to the floor. Maeve whirled around. “Children?”

“Wouldn’t you like to have children, Maeve?”

“Aye. Yes, but —”

“But what?”

Her throat closed. Taking a deep breath, she tried once again. “But we are to be divorced.”

Charles took the doll from her and laid it on the marble-topped tea table.

Taking both of her hands in his, he looked into Maeve’s eyes. “I don’t want a divorce.”

“You don’t?”

“I’ve never been as happy as I’ve been these past few weeks. And I can think of only one reason. You. I cannot imagine living without you. I cannot conceive of living without your laughter or sleeping without you beside me.”

“But we are from two different—”

“We are both happiest at Ashton Pond. This is common ground for us.”

“But we cannot live here. Your business is in Boston.” She shook her head in dismay. “And I shall never belong in Boston society.”

“I need you in my world, Maeve. You have the power to open eyes and hearts. You’ve already done so. Do you think Spencer, Pansy, or my mother ever thought they’d be dancing the Irish jig?”

Maeve could not help but laugh at the picture the memory conjured. “No. I expect not!”

“I understand it won’t be easy, but I promise to support you and care for you so dearly that no one ever will dare hurt you.”

Charles was begging her to stay. Maeve could hardly believe she was not dreaming. But she loved him too much to cause him the loss of his friends. She loved him too much to cause him any pain at all. So, she raised still another obstacle to their happiness. “Your mother does not approve of me.”

“My mother will come around. Did you know she complimented your triumph at the Cabots’ Snow Ball?”

“No.”

“Besides, Beatrice advised me at the last to do the right thing.”

“The Rycroft right thing.”

He nodded. His lips turned up in a gentle smile. “For me the right thing is being married to you, Maeve.”

Maeve could hardly credit what she was hearing. She thought to pinch herself. “Are you...are you asking me to be your wife forever?”

“Forever.” Charles lifted her hands to his lips and brushed her palms with a soft breeze of a kiss.

Maeve tingled from her fingertips to her toes. Her body flooded with startling warmth.

“Forever yours,” she murmured.

“And if you do not allow me to make love to you immediately,” he said quite earnestly, “I will be forced to run outside and roll in the snow until my hot body freezes over.”

Maeve grinned. “I should dislike it if you took a chill on my account.”

Without another word, Charles scooped her into his arms and carried his laughing wife upstairs to his bed. He made love to Maeve with reverence. With each tender caress he brought her closer to the land of legends. She lay in a lush green meadow of shamrocks, where the beautiful wee people sipped nectar from flower petals and an azure sky glimmered with specks of silver faerie dust In precious moments Maeve reached the place of her heart, the magical splendor of Tir Nan Og. Ever-young. Spring eternal. Love forever. It was all hers, all found in Charles’s arms.

Charles could not stop loving her. He filled his palms with the lush, soft mounds of her breasts, the full, silken curves of her hips. Bittersweet pain rippled through his body from the throbbing ache in his loins. His mouth covered her ear, and then a dusky, taut nipple. She tasted pleasantly salty. She tasted like peppermint. She smelled like violets in the spring ... a whole bouquet of sweetness. When he could not bear the pain of being apart from her, Charles buried himself deep inside the welcoming warmth of Maeve’s body, thrusting wildly, loving her recklessly. Too soon, his hammering heart shattered and his seed spilled in a hot rush of delicious release.

Dear God, he loved this woman!

The grandfather clock in the hall chimed the midnight hour. The fire in the fireplace burned dangerously low and the candle on the bedside table was about to flicker out.

“It’s Christmas,” Maeve whispered. “Merry Christmas, my love. My love.”

Chuckling, Charles kissed his saucy Irish wife and then grew serious. Bracing himself on one arm above her, he looked into the mystical shining blue irises of Maeve’s eyes. He knew it was time to confess what he’d known from the start, but could not reconcile. “I love you, Little Bit. Do you know how much I love you?”

Her eyes widened. Her lips, swollen from his kisses, parted in wonder.

“If I have never told you how much I love you and how dear you are to me, I am telling you now. I love you.”

She turned her ear toward him as if she might not have heard him. “Did you say you loved me?”

He chuckled again and nuzzled her ear, sprinkled bite-sized kisses along the porcelain column of her neck. “I love you more than I thought it possible to love a woman. If I had the words of a great poet, you would know with utmost clarity the love that fills my heart. And I need you,” he confessed thickly. “You give life to my soul. Will you be my wife?”

“I will be your wife,” she whispered. And then Maeve’s arms curled around Charles’s neck and brought his lips down on hers.

Mouth-watering aromas filled the country house on Christmas Day. Roasting turkey, fresh-baked apple pie, cinnamon, and bubbling cranberries mingled in the air.

Maeve wore one of her new silk dresses, a green-and-white striped confection with a soft busdtle in the back. Charles thought the light in her eyes bright enough to guide whaling ships from far Nantucket to the Boston harbor. Happiness radiated from her as tangible as the toy soldiers dangling from the Christmas tree. They’d belatedly decorated the tree this morning.

At the sound of distant sleighbells, Maeve ran to the door. She greeted her father and Shea—who looked none the worse for wear after his boxing match—with great hugs.

“Merry Christmas!”

Charles stood at her side, greeting each of her family with a hearty handshake. “Father Thorn?”

Father Thorn stepped from behind Shea.

“Father Thorn!” Maeve exclaimed, bewildered. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“Merry Christmas to ye, Maeve.”

She could not imagine who invited the good father— Dad or Shea—but she was always happy to see the priest.

“Father Thorn has come to marry us,” Charles said.

Startled, Maeve turned to her husband. “But he has already done so.”

“Not so that I can remember. The best, very nearly the only, right thing I’ve ever done in my life is to marry you. But I have not one memory of it.” He gave her a wide grin that caused her heart to fly. “Do not expect me to live without the memory of marrying you, Maeve.’’

Within the hour, Father Thorn married a grinning Charles and a beaming Maeve. At the conclusion of the brief ceremony, Shea passed Charles a small velvet box. When he opened it, the gleaming gold of two rings winked at Maeve. Irish Claddaugh rings. Heart, hands, and crown intertwined on the bands symbolizing love, loyalty, friendship, fidelity, and faith.

“But this isn’t my Mam’s ring,” she said.

“No. It’s yours. Shea will give your Mam’s ring to his bride one day.”

“Oh, Charles!” Maeve threw herself at her husband and, risking his embarrassment, kissed him soundly in front of the others.

The wedding party celebrated with Christmas dinner. Maeve wished everyone at the table could feel the same happiness she felt. But that was not within her power. Near the end of the meal, she leaned toward her brother. “I hate to bear bad news,” she said, laying a gentle hand on his arm, “but I think my friend Pansy has proved to be fickle. She’s discovered another man.”

Shea broke into a wide smile. “Not bad news, me Maeve. That is good news to me ears. Sure’n I found her red hair bonny, but wondered just the same how not to hurt a friend of yours. I’m not ready to settle yet, Maeve, my darlin’. I’ve got a fishing business to build.”

“Did I hear fishing business?” Charles asked.

“Aye.”

Charles arched a brow. “What an astonishing coincidence. One of the investments I’ve been considering is a fishing enterprise. Tell me, do you have a boat?”

“Not yet”

“I think I can help with that.”

To Maeve’s absolute delight, the proof of Charles’s love continued to blossom around her, reaching out and touching the ones she loved.

When the small group pushed themselves from the table, Hilda served plum pudding drenched in sweet hard sauce as they opened gifts around the Christmas tree.

Da took to his new jacket immediately and Shea looked amazingly handsome in the heavy cable sweater Maeve knit for him.

Charles whooped with laughter when he opened the package from Maeve. She’d made him a Santa Claus suit in hopes he would entertain the children at the orphanage again next year.

True to his word, Charles had given her the best Christmas of her life. But she knew there would be many more. The sweet Charlie she’d married weeks ago had become one with the Beacon Hill blue blood, a combination one could only love.

Later, after everyone had retired for the night, Maeve waited in bed, propped against a small mountain of feather pillows. She waited for her lover. Her husband. One small candle burned at her bedside.

At last she heard a soft rap on her door, the rap she’d been waiting for.

She called softly, “Come in.”

She wasn’t expecting the man who walked through the door.