Authors: Kay Hooper; Lisa Kleypas

Tags: #Romance, #Anthologies

Gifts of Love (19 page)

BOOK: Gifts of Love

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Laura interrupted, unable to stand any more. “Shut up, Mother.”

Wilhemina’s jaw dropped in astonishment. None of her children had ever dared to speak to her so rudely.

Hale snickered, throwing Laura a glance of surprised approval.

Sophia stepped forward and shook her finger at Samuel, who had managed to sit up and was holding his head bemusedly. “Young man, I do not appreciate having my guests accosted in my own home.” She turned to her brother. “Please take your friend outside, Hale.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied dutifully.

“Sophia,” Laura said in a low voice, slipping her arm through Jason’s, “I believe we will be going home now.”

Sophia looked from Jason’s stony expression to Laura’s distressed one. “I understand, dear.”

Hale stopped them before they reached the door, clapping Jason on the back. “I…er, would like to apologize for Lindon. He’ll be devilish sorry for all of this when he sobers up.” He extended a hand and Jason shook it briefly, both of them exchanging rueful glances.

Laura was silent during the carriage ride home, wanting to let both their tempers settle. She was angry and upset by Jason’s behavior. It had not been necessary for him to make such a scene! Samuel had been obnoxious but hardly dangerous. The problem could have been solved with a few brief words, and Jason knew it. He also knew that if two gentlemen ever found it necessary to come to blows, it was never done in the presence of ladies.

As soon as Jason escorted Laura into the house, Mrs. Ramsey appeared to welcome them. Laura waved the housekeeper away, and Mrs. Ramsey promptly disappeared, having read from their faces that all was not well. Jason turned and began to head toward the stairs.

“Jason, wait,” Laura said, catching hold of his arm. “We must talk about what happened.”

He shook off her hand. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Isn’t there? You must admit that you overreacted.”

“I don’t call it an overreaction to stop some drunken fool from pawing my wife.”

“There was no need to deal with him so harshly. He wasn’t aware of what he was doing—”

“The hell he wasn’t! Do you think he would have insulted you had you been someone else’s wife? A Boston Brahmin’s wife?” He sneered at her lack of response. “No. Because he and his peers are accustomed to giving the Irish housemaids a slap and tickle, or visiting the North End shanties for prostitutes, and in their eyes the fact that you’re married to an Irishman makes you—”

“Jason, don’t,” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging herself to his rigid body. “Must you blame everything on the fact that you’re Irish?” She pressed a beseeching kiss on the side of his neck. “Let’s talk about this sensibly.” She gave him another kiss, this time underneath his ear. “Come sit with me by the fire.”

For a moment she thought he was going to refuse her, but then he agreed with a muffled curse and followed her into the parlor. While Laura drew up an overstuffed ottoman and seated herself, Jason stirred the coals in the grate. He threw on a handful of pine knots and a birch log, dusted off his hands, and sat on the floor, propping one knee up. The blaze of firelight played over his rumpled black hair and hard-edged face, turning his skin to copper.

Laura took a deep breath and groped for the right words to say. “Jason…that Lindon boy’s remarks didn’t upset me as much as your reaction did.” She stared into the fire, picking at her beaded dress in agitation. “I’m afraid that you may have more in common with my mother and her prejudices than you think,” she said. He gave her a forbidding stare, but she continued doggedly. “Deep down you seem to believe as she does, that a Brahmin should never have married an Irishman. You think the two worlds should be kept separate. But you can never erase your past…your family…your heritage. You can’t turn your back and pretend they don’t exist.”

Jason was silent, motionless. Laura sighed with frustration, thinking that she may as well have been talking to a brick wall. “Oh, why must you be so stubborn?” After considering him for a moment, she stood up and went to the Christmas tree in the distant corner. “I have something for you,” she said, picking up a small package wrapped in colored paper. “I’d rather give it to you now than wait until the morning.”

“Laura, I’m not in the mood for this.”

“Please,” she entreated, bringing the gift to him. “Please, I want you to.” Heedless of her fine dress, she knelt on the floor next to him and dropped the flat package into his lap.

He regarded it stonily. “I suppose this has some bearing on the conversation.”

“Yes, I think so.”

Slowly Jason ripped one side of the paper and pulled out a small photograph in a frame. He went still, his head bent over the sepia-toned albumen print. Laura had chosen a simple silver frame ornamented with a garnet in each corner.

The picture was of Charlie Moran in the doorway of his grocery store. It was a shock to Jason—he had not seen his father’s face since the day before Charlie had died. He felt as if he’d received a hard blow to the chest. “Where did you get this?” he asked after a long time.

“Your mother showed it to me. I asked her if I could give it to you. She said you’d never seen it.”

“No.” He stared at the weathered face in the photograph, shaken by the memories it provoked.

Laura watched him with an almost maternal tenderness as he studied the faded image.

“Big, hard-drinking, blustering, hot-tempered Irishman,” Jason said. “We could never talk without arguing. The last time I saw him was the worst. We nearly came to blows.”

“Why?”

“He accused me of being ashamed of him and the family. I told him he was right. I…” Jason looked away from the picture, his jaw tensing. “…said things I never should have said. I wanted no part of his plans for me. God knows I was never meant to champion Irish causes, or go into ward politics, or take over his store—” He broke off abruptly. “It doesn’t matter now.”

“He died the next day, didn’t he?” Laura asked.

Jason smiled bitterly. “That night, actually. It was quick, unexpected. Ma sent for me, but he was dead before I reached the house.”

“You must have been devastated.”

“I was angry because of all I’d said to him.” Jason was too wrapped up in the memory to guard his words. “Because he’d gone before I could take any of it back.”

“What would you have told him?” she whispered.

“I…” He swallowed hard and narrowed his eyes against the sudden glitter of tears. “Dammit.” Roughly he rubbed his sleeve over his face, disgusted with his lack of control. “Hell, I don’t know.”

“Jason, you must forgive yourself,” she said softly. “There is no one to blame. It wasn’t your fault that you wanted a life different from his. It wasn’t your fault that he died.”

“I never…” Jason was surprised at how the memory could hurt after all these years. “I never made peace with him. He died thinking I hated him.”

Finally she understood the burden of guilt he had carried for so long. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to him. She curved her arm around his neck and laid her palm against his damp cheek. “No, Jason,” she whispered. “That isn’t true. He knew you loved him. And he was proud of you. Ask Kate and she’ll tell you how much.” She saw his fingers tighten on the silver frame, and she put her hands over his.

Jason stared at the photograph while the grief and guilt that had weighed on him for years began to ease. It would take time to let go completely, but he knew that Laura was right. The fault was not his—there was no one to blame.

Laura studied the picture along with him. “I want us to keep this on the mantel,” she murmured, “for everyone to see. I want it to remind you of the past, and remind you that there is no shame in what he was and what you are.”

“Perhaps not to you,” he conceded gruffly, “but—”

“It doesn’t matter what shallow-minded people think. I fell in love with you because of the man you are. And when we have children, I intend for them to know your family as well as mine. They’re going to be proud of their Irish heritage.” She smiled unsteadily. “And if you think I can’t match your stubbornness, Jason Moran, then you have a thing or two to learn.”

He was quiet, his brooding gaze fastened on the photograph, and then he set it aside. “Then we’ll keep this damned thing wherever you want it,” he muttered. “Hang it on the front door if you like.”

A smile of pure gladness broke out over her face, and she knew then that everything would be all right. “Perhaps I will.”

Jason pulled Laura into his arms, crushing her to his chest until she could hardly breathe. “I love you,” he said hoarsely, burying his face against her hair. “I’ve always loved you.”

“You had a fine way of showing it,” she murmured, nuzzling underneath his jaw. “Impatient, sarcastic—”

“Sassy little devil.” He let out a long sigh. “I thought if you knew how I felt you’d throw it back in my face. It was safer to let you and everyone else think I wanted you merely as an ornament, a trophy—”

“While I pretended that I married you out of a sense of duty to my family.” She laughed softly. “We should have been honest with each other from the beginning.”

He rubbed his cheek against her hair, holding her as if he would never let her go. He had never felt such peace. All his life had been directed toward this moment, this woman. The silence was unbroken by anything except the crackle of the fire. Its golden light glinted off the ornaments on the Christmas tree, the glass wings of the angel, the beads on Laura’s satin dress.

Laura was suffused with a glow of happiness. She had always loved Christmas, but now more than ever because it was on this night that their marriage was finally beginning, and no greater gift could be given to her. How many holidays he had spent with the Prescotts, always an outsider. But she and Jason would spend a lifetime together and have their own family. And they would make every Christmas as magical as this one. She held him tightly.

“Mo stoir,”
he whispered, and dragged his mouth from her chin to the valley between her breasts.

Laura recognized the words he had said before. “Tell me what it means,” she said, her eyes half-closing as his hand slipped inside her bodice.

“My treasure.”

She caressed the back of his neck. “And the other thing you call me—”

“
Gradh mo chroidhe…
love of my heart.”

She smiled in pleasure. “Is that what I am?”

“That’s what you’ve always been,” he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.

LISA KLEYPAS
is the author of twenty-two historical romance novels that have been published in twelve languages. In 1985, she was named Miss Massachusetts and competed in the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City. After graduating from Wellesley College with a political science degree, she published her first novel at age twenty-one. Her books have appeared on bestseller lists such as the
New York Times
,
USA Today
,
Publishers Weekly
, and WaldenBooks. Lisa is married and has two children.

By Lisa Kleypas

SCANDAL IN SPRING

DEVIL IN WINTER • IT HAPPENED ONE AUTUMN

SECRETS OF A SUMMER NIGHT

AGAIN THE MAGIC • WORTH ANY PRICE

LADY SOPHIA’S LOVER • ONLY IN YOUR ARMS ONLY WITH YOUR LOVE • WHEN STRANGERS MARRY

SUDDENLY YOU • WHERE DREAMS BEGIN

SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME

STRANGER IN MY ARMS • BECAUSE YOU’RE MINE

SOMEWHERE I’LL FIND YOU

PRINCE OF DREAMS • MIDNIGHT ANGEL

DREAMING OF YOU • THEN CAME YOU

And the Anthologies

WHERE’S MY HERO?

THREE WEDDINGS AND A KISS

This is a collection of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

“Holiday Spirit” copyright © 1991 by Kay Hooper; “Surrender” copyright © 1991 by Lisa Kleypas. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

ePub edition January 2007 ISBN 9780061744211

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