I tried to look insulted. “Um, that was Moira? Hello?”
Mac—?whose laugh reminded me of the sound my horse makes when she has a gas pain—?bent, hands on his knees. “Oh, my sweet girl,” he said, shaking his head. “I love you dearly, but ye sound more like a leprechaun with tonsillitis than my darling Moira.”
I scrunched my face at them, but I was grinning when I turned to pour the rich coffee into my cup. As I watched the cream swirl and disperse, I felt my energy begin to return.
“You gotta admit,” I said, plopping in a few sugar cubes, “I’m getting better, right?”
By the time they quit laughing, I was snugged down on the opposite sofa, slippered feet tucked beneath me as I sipped.
Collum returned from the small foyer, laden to his chin with a variety of white, ribbon-tied boxes and a stack of creamy envelopes clamped between his teeth.
“No, no. Don’t mind me. Stay. Enjoy your comedy hour. I’ve got it,” he grumbled through the mouthful of ivory paper, then bent and let the envelopes drop to a table.
“Ooh! What’s all this, then?” Phoebe jumped up and began pawing at the packages, causing Collum to juggle and stumble or face dropping the whole lot.
“Dammit, Phee,” he grunted at his sister. “Hold your water.” He dumped the boxes on the sofa beside me. “Here. Have at it, you animal. The boy who delivered them said it came from Madame Belisle.”
Phoebe began mauling the lovely heavy cardboard, shop paper, and painted teakwood boxes, snarling the ice-blue ribbons into hopeless knots.
Collum looked over at his sister, shaking his head, though I thought I saw his features soften with fondness. “She’s always been like this,” he told me. “I remember one year, couple of days before Christmas, there were all these presents under the tree, aye? Phoebe was just a wee thing, but she kept sneaking in to unwrap them, even after Gram took a wooden spoon to her.”
Across the room, Mac nodded, grin widening with the memory as Collum went on.
“Well, we got up Christmas morn to find that she’d woken during the night. Gone downstairs. And unwrapped every single one. Knowing she’d have her hide tanned again once Gram found out, she tried to rewrap them so we wouldn’t know.” Collum barked a laugh that pulled wide grins from everyone in the room. “Da had to cut the tape out of her hair.”
Phoebe looked up at her brother, a scrap of the brown shop paper stuck to her chin. “I remember that,” she said. “Took months for my bangs to grow back out. But I got an Easy-Bake Oven. Gram wanted to make me wait to play with it, but Da only laughed and said that if I was that determined, then it wouldn’t matter where they hid it, I’d only find it and end up burning the house down around our ears.”
Doug chuckled. “I was still in Edinburgh when that crime was committed,” he said. “Though I do recall my first Christmas at the manor when a certain redhead somehow convinced me to spend the night hiding behind the drapes because she’d decided to find out if Santa Claus was real.”
Mac’s shoulders shook as he laughed. “Aye, and as I remember it, the two of you fell asleep. When we couldn’t find you the next morning, we spent hours tearing the house clean apart searching for you. Moira got herself all worked up, convinced you had somehow gotten down into the Dim’s cavern and been whisked back in time, never to be seen again.”
The four of them exchanged more comical, nostalgic stories. And though I smiled along, I squirmed at the sharp little ache that pinched at me, wondering what my life would’ve been like had Mom brought me to Christopher Manor to live, instead of marrying my dad and moving to America. If instead of sedate Christmas mornings with my new books . . . always books . . . I had been one of those hiding in the drapes, or having my bangs snipped to the scalp.
That’s a twisty path, I realized. Your what-if road is too freaking crooked, Walton; better step off. If you let yourself follow it, you’ll start thinking things like . . . What if Mom had never found me? What if she hadn’t brought me back with her to this time?
What if I’d never been taken from the sixteenth century? What if I’d spent all my Christmases with the man and woman who’d given me life? What if I was now nothing more than a bit of dust and bone, beneath a crumbling headstone in some old parish churchyard, like Bran said? What if. What if. What if? No. That is a path I do not want to tread.
Mac passed out the envelopes. “One for each of us, looks like.”
I hefted the thick vellum. Inside the envelope was a stiff card, embossed at the top with a swirling V. The gilt-engraved invitation read:
The company of Miss Hope Randolph is requested to attend a soiree at the home of William K. Vanderbilt, on the evening of Wednesday, 13th of March, current year. 8 o’clock p.m.
Number 660 5th Avenue,
New York City, New York.
At the bottom, scrawled in a childish hand: I do so hope you will come. Consuelo V.
Phoebe whooped as she ripped hers open. “You did it, Hope! We’re in! You must’ve made an impression on Connie.”
“Yeah.” I smiled through the pang of guilt. “Yeah.”
I knew I’d had no choice, and besides, what I’d told Connie Vanderbilt hadn’t been a complete falsehood, had it? I wasn’t being shipped off to Scotland to marry some guy I barely knew, of course. But the rest of it? That I understood.
There was an expression for it. In my own time, casual overuse had stolen away most of its original meaning, leaving it flabby and worn as an old sock.
But for Connie, the condition of being “hopelessly in love” existed within a very literal context. Like most women from time immemorial, she had no choice. No hope. Her history was already written, and she would never, ever end up with the man she truly loved.
Would a future Viator one day look upon me with the same pity I felt for her, knowing that—?for Bran and me—?the phrase fit all too well?
My hands were shaking as I turned to the packages beside me and began ripping into them, hiding my face from the others as I emulated Phoebe’s careless abandon.
“Whoa.” Fabric whispered in the sudden quiet as Phoebe tugged out a shimmering ball gown of frothy azure tulle. She held the exquisite garment up against herself. “Gotta give it to old Frenchie,” she said. “She might’ve been a hateful old bird, but she knows her way around a needle and thread.”
Chapter 37
MY OWN MADAME BELISLE CREATION DID A PRETTY damn good job of disputing that assertion.
I spread the gown across the couch and stepped back, thinking some distance might make it look a bit less repulsive.
Yeah. No.
“The bloody thing looks like a strawberry and kiwi smoothie left out to spoil in the sun,” Collum commented.
“Thanks,” I said, with a face-melting glare. “That helps.”
“Boy, Hope, you must’ve slagged off that old bat but good,” Doug said, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t joking.