Miss Milton Speaks Her Mind (27 page)

It was a relief to smile to the assembled Newtons, wish them Happy Christmas, tuck her bare feet under her, and watch the children open presents. Mr. Butterworth settled himself in an armchair and promptly fell asleep. Jane managed to intercept Lucy and prevent her from climbing on her sleeping uncle. “We should never have sent Scipio to midnight Mass,” was Richard's only comment as he helped his younger daughter arrange a sofa and wing chair in her Christmas dollhouse.

Emma sat beside Jane and opened her gown to nurse Olivia. “Scipio did not think you would object if Richard bought Andrew the same gifts we had arranged for Jacob.”

“
It was so kind of you,” she said, pressing her little finger against Olivia's hand and enjoying the strength of the infant's grasp. “This has been quite the most wonderful Christmas.”

“
For me, as well,” Emma said. She looked at her sleeping brother. “And for Scipio, I think.” She hesitated. “Jane, he is not a happy man, for all that he would like everyone to think otherwise.”

Jane nodded. “He keeps himself quite busy, tending to other's welfare, doesn't he? I know that Andrew and I have been grateful recipients of his many kindnesses.”

“
The busier he is, the better he likes it,” Emma stated. “We have introduced him to any number of ladies from his own class and background, and he is the soul of courtesy, but nothing ever comes of it.” She sighed, and raised Olivia to her shoulder to pat her back. “In fact, a few years ago, he told me not to bother anymore. Excellent, Olivia! And so I have not.” She placed the baby against her other breast, tickling her cheek with the nipple until the baby began to suck again. “I tell him there must be someone in the world for him, and he just laughs and changes the subject. Ah, me.”

She fell silent then, watching her baby nurse. Jane looked at Andrew, who was playing jackstraws with Jacob. With a pang, she remembered last Christmas at Denby, spent seated beside Blair, ever watchful of him. When she emerged from the sickroom long enough to ask Andrew how the day had gone for him, he had only shrugged, mumbled something that she hadn't the energy to ask him to repeat, and vanished into his book again. This is far better, she told herself, as Emma coaxed a burp from the sleeping baby.

“
Hold her, my dear?” she asked, handing the baby to Jane. “We do have our family rituals.”

Jane watched as Amanda handed a sprig of mistletoe to her mother. Carefully, Emma knelt beside her husband, who was rearranging the servants' quarters of the dollhouse, and held it over his head. With a growl that made Lucy shriek and then clap her hands, Richard grabbed his wife and kissed her soundly. Mr. Butterworth sat bolt upright, blinking his eyes in surprise. He laughed when Amanda held the mistletoe over his head and kissed him. “That's for the bonnet, Uncle Scipio,” she said.

“
And not because I am irresistible?” he teased, grabbing Lucy as she tried to run by. He kissed her while she struggled, then whispered in her ear. In another moment, she was holding the bedraggled bit of greenery over Jane's head.

Andrew leaped up from his game of jackstraws and kissed her cheek. Her arms went around him and she held him close. “This is the best Christmas ever,” he told her. “I only wish …”

“…
that your father were here?” she said softly.

He looked at her in surprise. “Well, yes, that, too, but I was thinking how nice it would be to have a Christmas just as good next year.”

“
We will,” she declared, releasing him. “I know we will.”

“
Not if we are at Stover,” he said, his face serious again.

And that is food for thought, she told herself as she settled Olivia against her legs. She watched, delighted, as the baby stretched, then drew herself into a ball again. “She is so economical,” Jane said.

“
She is used to a confined space,” Mr. Butterworth said as he perched on the end of the sofa. “Em, just think: In fifteen years she will be making demands on everyone and wheedling any number of commodities out of her old Uncle Scipio.”

“
Dear brother, you are the easiest mark alive,” Emma said, as she let Richard help her up from the floor. “Come now and let us find the breakfast room. Cook has promised us cinnamon buns and no porridge, Lucy, in honor of the day. Jane?”

Jane shook her head and placed her hand gently on Olivia's belly. “Let me just stay here and relish the moment, Emma.” It may not come again, she thought, as the woman blew her a kiss and left the room. In a few days we must leave, and I do not know that I will ever see these dear people again.

“
I will bring you something to eat, Mr. Butterworth.” He held up his hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “And I will sit here until you eat it.” Just as you sit beside me to make sure that I am sleeping peacefully, she thought. “I am a dreadful lot of trouble to you, Mr. Butterworth,” she said.

“
How odd this is then, because I haven't noticed,” he said. He got up from the arm of the sofa, and squatted by the dollhouse with easy grace. “Lucy is an engine of destruction,” he murmured, looking around the dollhouse. “Ah! Here it is.” Carefully he extracted what remained of the mistletoe from the miniature trellis with its wax roses, and held it over her head. “I never got a turn, Miss Milton. Happy Christmas.”

She turned her head to offer him her cheek, but he put his other hand under her chin and sat beside her on the sofa, careful not to disturb Olivia as he gently turned her face toward him. He leaned toward her and she closed her eyes, reaching up to pull him closer as he kissed her. “Merry Christmas. Happy New Year,” he murmured, his lips against hers, then kissed her again. “And while we are at it, let us not forget Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, and Easter in the spring,” punctuating each holiday with a kiss that left her restless and wishing that she had relinquished Olivia to her cradle.

“
I could never forget the holidays!” she murmured as he pressed his hand against the warm skin of her shoulder, under her nightgown and robe.

Olivia chose that moment to move about and utter the little squeaks that Jane knew were her prelude to a cry that would bring Emma from the breakfast room. She took her hand from his neck to pat the baby, and the moment was over. The mill owner sat back on the sofa, an expression on his face that she had never seen before. He took her hand, raised it to his lips, kissed it, and placed it back on Olivia, who was crying in earnest now.

With a sigh that she was certain could be heard in the next shire, Mr. Butterworth scooped the baby from her lap. “I believe I owe you an apology, Miss Milton,” he said, then smiled at her. “I mean, if I was planning to review the ecclesiastical year, I should at least have found a more respectable piece of mistletoe. What must you think of me?”

If ever a woman had an invitation to speak her mind, I am certain this is it, Jane told herself. She stood up, surprised at how unstable her knees seemed. “I think you ….”

She stopped as Emma hurried into the room to claim the squalling infant from her brother. “Olivia, what will they think of you?” she chided, holding her daughter close. “Jane, could you find her blanket? There is a chill in this room.”

“
I hadn't noticed,” Jane said. She found the blanket next to the box holding the new bonnet that Amanda had received from her uncle. When she turned around, Mr. Butterworth was gone.

I
f Mr. Butterworth did not perform a vanishing act, then he came as close to it as a man not an illusionist possibly could, Jane decided. After breakfast, he disappeared into his office and did not come out of it until nearly noon.

When she wondered out loud to Emma why he had taken himself off, Emily merely shrugged. “That is Scipio's way,” she explained. “He sees the day as a time for children, and as he has none, off he goes to console himself with double entries.”

Emma did admit to some surprise later in the morning when Andrew burst into the room where they were bathing Olivia with the breathless announcement that he and Mr. Butterworth were driving to Leeds. “This is odd, indeed,” she murmured to Jane as she wrapped a bathing towel around the wriggling infant.

“
May I inquire the purpose of this expedition?” Jane asked with a smile.

Andrew shook his head. “Mr. Butterworth said it is an absolute secret,” he said. “Please say that I may! He said we would take Christmas dinner at his favorite inn in Leeds.”

“
Of course you may,” Jane said, puzzled. Mr. Butterworth, you are a curious man, she thought, hoping that her face did not brighten in color from the thought of his mistletoe kisses. Olivia, you are the only witness to his enthusiasm, she told herself, looking at the baby in Emma's arms. How grateful I am that you are too young to tattle on my own enjoyment of the moment.

“
Dear me, this means they will be going to the Bell and Clapper,” Emma said, after Andrew waved good-bye and darted off, banging the door behind him. She took a smaller towel and dried Olivia's hair. “Scipio is combining business with secrecy, I suppose. I wonder what he intends? He will eat far too much and require a serious dose of bicarbonate of soda when they return. And he will have heard the latest mill workers' gossip and likely hired a man or two.” She worked a curl of Olivia's hair around her finger. “I hope you do not mind that Andrew keeps low company!”

“
I only wish I could think up an excuse to keep Andrew here in such company,” Jane said frankly.

“
Do you?” Emma asked.

“
My dear, you have been a tonic to both of us.” And that is all I will say on the matter, she thought, or my face will grow even redder than Olivia's is right now. She kissed the baby and started for the door. “Emma, you would not object if Amanda and I checked in on the Christmas goose and decked the hall while Olivia dines?”

Emma gave her a grateful look. “You know I have no shame when it comes to using my Christmas guest for all she is worth!” She made herself comfortable in the armchair, her hand on her buttons. “After dinner I give the servants a half day off. For supper we Newtons generally ferret around in the pantry. Richard will attempt an omelet, I imagine. If Scipio is in fit shape after doing duty at the Bell and Clapper, he will toast cheese.” She watched Olivia begin to nurse. “This is all dreadfully common to you, isn't it?”

Jane blew her a kiss from the doorway. “I prefer to think of it as wonderfully kind to your servants. Supper in the kitchen is probably far more fun than listening to Lady Carruthers begin her annual review of all my shortcomings, and then admonish Andrew to be grateful for every bone she throws him.” She frowned. “I suppose I should not say that.”

“
Sometimes things are easier to bear when they are spoken of,” was Emma's quiet reply. “Is it so dreadful there, my dear?”

Jane nodded. “It is, and the wonder of it is that I never realized how unpleasant my Christmases have been because all I had to measure Stover Hall against was the workhouse. But now that I know you Newtons, it will be hard duty, indeed.” She came back into the room and leaned against the door. “I am beginning to think that when your brother suggested that I speak my mind occasionally, I took him more truly at his word than either of us realized.”

Emma looked down at Olivia for a long moment, and when she looked up, Jane was dismayed to see tears in her eyes. “Jane, if you could only convince my brother to speak his mind now!”

“
I doubt he needs advice from me,” she replied, after a long pause. “He certainly hasn't ever asked for any.”

Emma was equally slow to respond. “Asking and needing are only distant relations, Jane. And then there is wanting ….” Her voice trailed away.

Andrew and the mill owner did not return until after dark, when Richard was concentrating on the omelet and Amanda was placing out the silverware on the servants' table. Without a word, Emma handed the slumbering Olivia to Jane and prepared her brother a cup of water and soda, which he accepted and downed without a pause. Nodding to them all, he left the room. Just after the door closed behind him, they heard a loud belch. Andrew stared, wide-eyed, then turned away, his shoulders shaking.

“
My dear brother,” Emma said to no one in particular. “Amanda, get a platter for your father. Richard, don't you dare try to flip that omelet!”

Mr. Butterworth did not reappear for the rest of the evening, but none of the Newtons seemed to think it strange. “Jane, as much as I wish he would change, Scipio is used to the solitary life,” was all Emma said as they sat in the parlor. “When he tires of our company, he turns to his blueprints.”

And he must also regret planting kiss after kiss on Jane Milton, Jane thought, as she nodded and continued to organize Amanda's embroidery thread. I shall have to think up an excuse to leave. This is his house; he needn't have to skulk around in it to avoid an embarrassment he would probably just as soon forget.

After reading to Andrew and Jacob, she took that thought to bed with her, deriving no pleasure from it. She sat for a long moment at the dressing table, contemplating her own serious expression. “Jane Milton,” she told her reflection, “you will return to Stover Hall and remove that horrid funeral wreath from the door. You could also stop wearing drab funeral colors, except that is all you own.” She sighed, picked up her hairbrush, then set it down again, thinking of the mill owner and how good her hair felt that morning when he brushed it. It occurred to her when she closed her eyes that for the first time in months, she was not dreading sleep. “Thank you for that, Mr. Butterworth,” she murmured.