The Heart Of Christmas: A Handful Of Gold / The Season for Suitors / This Wicked Gift. Nicola Cornick

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      The sitting room, Verity thought, gazing about her, had become a holy place, a church. Everyone, even the children, sat hushed as they would in a church, waiting for the service to begin. Verity did not wait. She began to play quietly some of her favorite Christmas hymns.

      It was Christmas, she thought, swallowing and blinking her eyes. She had not thought it would come for her this year except in the form of an ugly selfsacrifice. But for all the lies and deceptions—with every glance down at her hands she saw the false wedding ring—Christmas had come. Christmas, she reminded herself, and the reminder had never been more apt, was for sinners, and they were all sinners: Mr. Hollander, Debbie, Viscount Folingsby and her. But Christmas had found them out, despite themselves, in the form of the clergyman and his family, stranded by a snowstorm. And Christmas was offering all its boundless love and forgiveness to them in the form of the bread and the wine, which were still at this moment just those two commodities.

      A child had been born on this night more than eighteen hundred years ago, and he was about to be born again as he had been each year since then and would be each year in the future. Constant birth. Constant hope. Constant love.

      “My dear friends.” The clergyman’s voice was quiet, serene, imposing, unlike the voice of the Reverend Moffatt who had conversed with them over tea and dinner. He smiled about at each one of them in turn, bathing them—or so it seemed—in the warmth and peace and wonder of the season.

      And so the service began.

      It ended more than an hour later with the joyful singing of one last hymn. They all sang lustily, Verity noticed, herself included. Even one of the coachmen, who was noticeably tone-deaf, and the housekeeper, who sang with pronounced vibrato. Mr. Hollander had a strong tenor voice. Debbie sang with a Yorkshire accent. David Moffatt sang his heart out to a tune of his own devising. They would not have made a reputable choir. But it did not matter. They made a joyful noise. They were celebrating Christmas.

      And then Mrs. Moffatt spoke up, a mere few seconds after her husband had said the final words of the service and wished them all the compliments of the season.

      “I do apologize, Mr. and Mrs. Hollander,” she said, “for all the inconvenience I am about to cause you. Henry, my dear, I do believe we are going to have a Christmas child.”

      Chapter Six

      HENRY MOFFATT was pacing as he had been doing almost constantly for the past several hours.

      “One would expect to become accustomed to it,” he said, pausing for only a moment to stare, pale faced and anxious eyed, at Julian and Bertie, who were sitting at either side of the hearth, hardly any less pale themselves, “after two previous confinements. But one does not. One thinks of a new child—one’s own—making the perilous passage into this world. And one thinks of one’s mate, flesh of one’s own flesh, heart of one’s heart, enduring the pain, facing all the danger alone. One feels helpless and humble and dreadfully responsible. And guilty that one does not have more trust in the plans of the Almighty. It seems trivial to recall that we have hoped for a daughter this time.”

      He resumed his journey to nowhere, back and forth from one corner of the room to the other. “Will it never end?”

      Julian had never before shared a house with a woman in labor. When he thought about it, about what was going on abovestairs—and how could he not think about it?—he felt a buzzing in his ears and a coldness in his nostrils and imagined in some horror the ignominy of fainting when he was not even the prospective father. He remembered how glibly just a few days before he had planned to have a child of his own in the nursery by next Christmas or very soon after.

      It must hurt like hell, he thought, and that was probably the understatement of the decade.

      There was no doctor in the village. There was a midwife, but she lived, according to the housekeeper, a mile or so on the other side of the village. It would have been impossible to reach her, not to mention persuading her to make the return journey, in time to deliver the child who was definitely on its way.

      Fortunately, Mrs. Moffatt had announced with a calm smile—surely it had been merely a brave facade—she had already given birth to two children, as well as attending the births of a few others. She could manage very well alone, provided the housekeeper would prepare a few items for her. It was getting late. She invited everyone else to retire to bed and promised not to disturb them with any loud noises.

      Julian had immediately formed mental images of someone screaming in agony.

      Debbie had looked at Bertie with eyes almost as big as her face.

      “If you are quite sure, ma’am,” Bertie had said, as white as his shirt points.

      “Come, Henry,” Mrs. Moffatt had said, “we will put the children to bed first. Perhaps I can see you in here for a few minutes afterward, Mrs. Simpkins.”

      Mrs. Simpkins had been looking a delicate shade of green.

      That was when Blanche had spoken up.

      “You certainly will not manage alone,” she had assured the guest. “It will be quite enough for you to endure the pain of labor. You will leave the rest to us, Mrs. Moffatt. Sir,” she said, addressing the clergyman, “perhaps you can put the children to bed yourself tonight? Boys, give your mama a kiss. Doubtless there will be more than one wonderful surprise awaiting you in the morning. The sooner you fall asleep, the sooner you will find out what. Mrs. Lyons, will you see that a large pot of water is heated and kept ready? Mrs. Simpkins, will you gather together as many clean cloths as you can find? Debbie—”

      “Ee, Blanche,” Debbie had protested, “no, love.”

      “I am going to need you,” Blanche had said with a smile. “Merely to wield a cool, damp cloth to wipe Mrs. Moffatt’s face when she gets very hot, as she will. You can do that, can you not? I will be there to do everything else.”

      Everything else. Like delivering the baby. Julian had stared, fascinated, at his opera dancer.

      “Have you done this before, Blanche?” he had asked.

      “Of course,” she had said briskly. “At the rectory—ah. I used to accompany the rector’s wife on occasion. I know exactly what to do. No one need fear.”

      They had all been gazing at her, Julian remembered now. They had all hung on her every word, her every command. They had leaned on her strength and her confidence in a collective body.

      Who the hell was she? What had a blacksmith’s daughter been doing hanging around a rectory so much? Apart from learning to play the spinet without music, that was. And apart from delivering babies.

      Everyone had run to do her bidding. Soon only the three men—the three useless ones—had been left in the sitting room to fight terror and nausea and fits of the vapors.

      The door opened. Three pale, terrified faces turned toward it.

      Debbie was flushed and untidy and swathed in an apron made for a giant. One hank of blond hair hung to her shoulder and looked damp with perspiration. She was beaming and looking very pretty indeed.

      “It is all over, sir,” she announced, addressing herself to the СКАЧАТЬ