Regency Christmas Gifts: Scarlet Ribbons / Christmas Promise / A Little Christmas

“Here now! What’s this?” Her father had regained his voice. “He only got here a few moments ago. You don’t even know the fellow!”

Amalie turned her lips down in a pout and made the lower one tremble. “But Michael brought him for me all the way from the peninsula. I like him and I want to keep him.”

Her father blanched perfectly white and even Michael looked appalled at the swiftness of her decision.

She pressed on. “I’ve already promised him my whole inheritance from Grandmama, half the estate when we inherit, and—best of all—he’s bringing me his three natural children to raise for my own. Their mothers won’t mind, he says, for we can install them somewhere in the village.”

Her father gaped.

She went on, fabricating to her heart’s content. “Since we can live right here with you, there should be plenty of help with little ones. Please, please, Father, don’t say no. Mother will be delighted with grandchildren!”

In fact, Mother was so disinterested in children, she had paid only scant attention to her own. She was not even down here now, welcoming the one who had just survived a war.

The Scot squeezed her hand until she felt the knuckles grind together. Her father sputtered helplessly. Michael’s eyes were wide, panicked, darting from her to their father. This was too entertaining.

Michael rushed to suggest, “Amie, perhaps you should consider—”

“What, brother? What’s to mull over that you haven’t thought out?” she demanded, trying to retain a cheerful tone. “Surely you considered every detail when choosing him? How much more suitable could he be, I ask you?” She flung out her free hand as if to present the man as the greatest prize imaginable. “Just look at him!”

“Just look at us,” the Scot echoed, surprising her. “Matching bookends.”

The underlying tone of his voice warned her to cease before he lost his temper completely. But Michael’s face was a study in scarlet perplexity and their father was now eyeing her brother with an urge to throttle. She added one more little plea. “Please, Papa?”

At length, her father dragged his attention from the errant Michael and fastened it on her. Suddenly his face softened and his tight lips relaxed into a sad smile of sympathy. No, pure pity.

Oh, dear! Amalie’s heart stuttered. Don’t say it, Father! Do not! Her silent plea went unheard. She had overplayed her hand.

“Of course, my darling girl. You may have anything your heart desires. You deserve it.”

The Scot leveled her with a glare that promised retribution for this attack of insanity. She bit her lip and wrinkled her nose at him, but she had a feeling a look of apology would not be sufficient in this case.

Michael dusted his hands together. “Well, glad that’s settled! I shall go and fetch Mother.”

Oh, no!

“Wait!” Amalie cried, throwing out her hand as if she could grasp his coat. He stopped and turned, eyebrows raised in innocent query.

She bit her lip, her glance skipping from him, to her father and finally to their guest. “Please.” Her voice almost a whisper, she lowered her eyes and sighed. “This was only a jest meant to lesson you in meddling, Michael.”

But that wasn’t the worst of the matter. “Captain Napier, I do apologize for abusing your good nature in such an abominable way.”

Her father’s color returned. He rocked heel to toe for a few seconds, then hesitantly asked the captain, “Did she make up that part about the children and your…The mothers?”

The Scot lowered his face to his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. He shook his head slowly as if at a loss in dealing with Bedlamites. “A fabrication, to be sure,” he said. “I do have one son, but he’s quite legitimate.”

“Legitimate?” Michael croaked, clutching his chest. “Never say it! You’re married?”

Captain Napier glanced up swiftly, still shaking his head. “No. My wife…passed away.”

Widowed. Amalie felt terrible. “Do say you forgive me, sir. This was a horribly thoughtless thing for me to do. I had no idea…”

“I know,” the captain said, not looking at her, but at the floor. “I’ll have a brandy now if it’s convenient.”

They’d forgotten to offer him a drink! Michael and her father almost collided in their haste to reach the decanter.

Napier graced her with a dangerous look of warning as he spoke in a dark whisper, “If I were not confined to this chair, I would take you over my knee.”

She bobbed her head up and down, noting how his deep green eyes glinted and his expressive lips turned up just a bit at the corners. It was in no way a smile. More like exasperation.

“I’ve confessed, sir,” she told him earnestly. “What more could you ask of me?”

His lips firmed. His nostrils flared ever so slightly with an indrawn breath. Then he spoke. “I’d ask if you’re lying about everything. I happened to notice you just moved your feet.”

Alex had felt an overpowering need to lash out, to hurt someone, just because he’d been humiliated. Now, brandy in hand, his temper cooled somewhat, he hated whatever had possessed him.

She hadn’t answered his cruel question, but he had not expected she would. If she was pretending, it was certainly no business of his. And if she wasn’t, he had gained her enmity for life.

Just because she had moved her feet did not mean she was capable of walking. What had he been thinking? He could move his, too, but still could not depend on that left leg to support him.

Michael had taken a chair across from him and now appeared to be searching his mind for a way to explain his sister’s strange behavior.

The baron had left the room—glad to get away, Alex imagined—and had gone to fetch the baroness. He wondered if she were as daft as the rest of the family.

“Has Dr. Raine been down from London recently, Amie? Is there any improvement in your condition?” Michael asked his sister.

“No change,” she said, her tone defensive. “He should be here the day after tomorrow for his monthly visit.”

Michael gave a resigned nod, then addressed Alex. “I should like him to see you, too, when he comes. See what he thinks. Raine is the best available. Father saw to that when Amie was injured.”

That was all Alex needed, another opinion, when he was clinging so desperately to the only positive one thus far. His own. “Thank you, but—”

“Don’t bother refusing,” Michael warned. “You know I shall only wear you down.”

Alex gave it up. He would talk to the doctor to placate Michael. Nothing more than a conversation. No examinations. No arguments.

“If you insist, I’ll see him.”

Michael jumped up and headed for the door. “Wonderful! I’ll bring his letters of recommendation from Father’s study.”

“What’s the worst Raine could tell you, hmm?” Amalie asked.

Alex turned on her, his anger flaring anew. “You’ve the devil of a tongue on you, you know that? If you’ve any feeling in that backside of yours, it ought to be made use of!”

“That’s the second time you’ve suggested such,” she retorted with a moue of feigned fright. “You’d cane a poor cripple?”

“Leave off,” he growled. “This sniping serves no purpose.”

She tossed him an insincere smile. “Oh, but it does, Captain. It serves to distract us.”

He leveled her with a glare. “You are a spoiled, self-indulgent excuse for a lady if I ever met one. Is that all you do all day? Sit around throwing verbal darts at anyone who wanders by?”

She inclined her head as if considering the question in new light. “I suppose I do. It passes the time. That’s bad of me, I know.”

“Have you even tried to stand?” he asked, surprising himself with his own directness.

Her humor, black as it was, fled on the instant. “Yes, of course I have.” Her voice sounded so small.

“You make me want to kick myself,” he muttered.

“Now there’s a picture!”

Alex smiled in spite of himself. He just didn’t know what to make of this person. He began to suspect she harbored exactly the same frustrations he did, only she had endured them longer. And she seemed to have lost her hope, something he was terribly afraid of doing himself. He suddenly realized a deep-seated need to help this girl despite the fact that she nettled him so mercilessly.

“So, tell me of this doctor of yours,” he said by way of turning the subject.

“Oh, Raine’s pleasant enough when you say what he wants to hear, I suppose. He’s not overly fond of me, as you might imagine.”

“He expects too much of you, eh?” Alex guessed.

She slipped into a thoughtful mood, laying her brittleness aside for the nonce. “Yes, he does. He brought this Amazon with him not long after he began treating me. Magda, she’s called. Frightful woman. She pummels and stretches my limbs unmercifully each day. Twice! It’s quite painful.”

“I see. Then you do have feeling in your…limbs.” He smiled again. Legs were not mentioned in polite company. He should have remembered that earlier. Neither were backsides.

“Tremendous feeling,” she admitted with a grimace. “Though no action at all.” Her curiosity got the better of her. “You?”

“I work the muscles as often as I can now that the bone’s healed. Hurts less now than it did.”

“Truly?” Her interest aroused, she queried further. “How can you do that alone?”

“Have to,” he explained patiently. “You see, if the muscles atrophy—and I suspect that’s why your Amazon is so avid in her task—there’s no chance you’ll ever regain the strength to use them.”

“Mine must have atrophied then,” she said in a quiet voice, as though speaking to herself. “They’re of no use whatsoever. Perhaps Dr. Raine and Magda began too late with me.”

“Let me see,” he demanded, his former training over-ruling any thought to impropriety.

Her eyes rounded with shock. “Sir! How dare you suggest such a thing?”

Alex scoffed. “Spare me the hysterics. I’m a trained physician. It’s not as if I’ve never seen a woman’s legs before. Lift your skirts.” Meanwhile, he busied himself with the wheels of his chair, arcing them so that he faced her, knee to knee.

“You’re a doctor?” she asked, frowning. “Seriously?”

Alex finished lifting her skirts halfway up her thighs, employing the swiftness and businesslike manner imperative in examining a female patient. “Not so seriously these days, but I trust I can still recognize a withered limb when I see one.” His gaze traveled over the smooth ivory skin of her legs while his hands judged the amount of slackness of tendon and muscle beneath it.

“Quadriceps femoris seems firm,” he muttered, reaching beneath her leg. She jumped and made a little sound. “That hurt?”

“No,” she said breathlessly, then bit her lip.

“Good. Facia lata seems a bit lax to me. Flex it.”

She gasped. “Flex what?”

“Your leg!” he ordered impatiently. “Try to lift it.”

Suddenly she yelped and punched at his shoulder frantically with her fists.

“What’s this?” Michael shouted. “What are you doing?”

Alex groaned, snatched his hands away and jerked down her skirts.

“He’s a doctor!” Amalie cried. “He was only—”

“I know what he was doing!” Michael thundered. “Captain, if you were not…incapacitated, I should call you out on the instant!”

Alex grabbed the wheels of his chair and rolled himself backward, no small task given the thickness of the carpet. “Settle your feathers, Harlowe. You know I’m no threat to—” He broke off when he looked over at Michael and saw the baron standing beside him, sagging under the inert weight of a woman Alex supposed was the baroness. She had fainted dead away.

“He is a doctor!” Amalie wailed. Alex didn’t blame her at all. He felt like wailing himself.

“They’ll have to marry now,” her father declared in a woebegone tone.

“Milord…” Alex let his words trail away, knowing it was no use. No matter that he couldn’t manage a seduction right now if his life depended upon it or that the idea had not even occurred to him. He had thoroughly compromised Miss Amalie Harlowe beyond all redemption in the eyes of her parents and her brother. He’d been squarely caught with his hands up her skirts. And, since he had never confessed his former profession to Michael, any claim of purely medical interest under those ruffles would never be believed.

Even if he sent for his license to prove it, he still had no excuse. The lady had a physician already and no reason at all to be soliciting the opinion of one who had given up the practice.

He bit the bullet he knew he was expected to bite, and looked Amalie straight in the eye. “Miss Harlowe, I was just on the point of asking you. Would you kindly do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

She stared at him as if he’d grown horns. “You are mad, sir!”

Alex had to agree. “Assuredly, but I shouldn’t think that would be an impediment you would notice much around here. So, will you, then?”

She dropped her gaze to her lap, then stared pointedly at his, her thoughts so apparent and well focused on any future attempt at consummation, she might as well have spoken them aloud.

Then she raised her head, looked him straight in the eye and shrugged one dispirited shoulder. “Why not?”

Chapter Three

Amalie had cursed her foolhardiness all through dinner and well into the night. Now, this morning, she suffered from lack of sleep that could very well make today even worse.

What in the world had come over her yesterday? Usually she maintained very tight control, both of her temper and the people around her. At the moment, she felt even more helpless than she had then.

“It has surely been half an hour! Stop!” She lay on her stomach on her bed while Magda tortured her, deliberately ignoring any demand to cease. This was nothing new, however. Amalie had grown used to it and accepted it as her ongoing punishment for past sins. But she didn’t accept it silently or with good grace. Magda was used to that, too, and only dug harder into Amalie’s calf with those beefy fingers.

Yesterday, Magda had plunked her in the library after she had finished and dressed her. There was nothing to do there but spend hours on end reading books already read a dozen times each. The limit of endurance had been fully reached when Michael arrived with the Scot.

“Now I’m doomed to his company for the rest of my natural life,” she said aloud.

Magda grunted as she rolled Amalie over and began massaging the right foot. “Well, at least he will be someone different to look at, eh?”

“Um. I suppose.” And that would be a welcome change for a while, Amalie thought. “He saved Michael’s life, so they’d said, so I do owe him for that.”

“Ja. Young sir is home safe.” Magda rotated the ankle.

“There’s nothing I can do to repay him but try to be pleasant,” Amalie said, deciding she might as well try. How long that would last was anyone’s guess, but she would make the effort.

“He does not want this marriage, but he’s stuck with it now.”

“Marriage is good,” Magda commented.

“What a sad state of affairs that I welcome any change at all, good or ill, just to relieve the sameness of the days.”

“Change is good.”

Amalie ignored Magda as best she could, since she wasn’t really talking to her.

“He mentioned a son. Perhaps it would be entertaining to have a child about the place. Someone to run and fetch and to watch play, if nothing else. I’ve never really known any children other than Michael when he was small. What a little demon he was, but funny all the same.”

“You will be the mama.” She lifted the right leg, eliciting a groan.

Amalie forced the pain from her mind though her words still emerged in small puffs. “It not as if…I shall become a real mother…to the child. Or a real wife to…the father.”

“Hmph. We shall see. I like to get these hands on him!” Magda declared.

Amalie imagined she would. “No chance of that, Mags.”

The memory of his hands upon her bared legs surfaced and gave Amalie a lilting little feeling in the pit of her stomach. His touch had been meant as impersonal, she knew, as efficient and medically inquisitive as Dr. Raine’s or Magda’s. Yet it had affected her in an entirely different way.

Captain Napier was no stodgy old Londoner with more than fifty years to his credit, nor was he a great strapping woman with hands like giant claws. He was somewhere near thirty, terrifically attractive, and had wonderfully agile hands.

Also, he could make her laugh. How long had it been since her laughter had not reeked with sarcasm or self-deprecation? Lord, she’d become a regular martinet, a thoroughly unpleasant companion to one and all.

Perhaps that was the reason everyone left her alone in the library so much of the time. She must somehow work harder to get past her anger at what had happened to her. Acceptance was the key, she knew. She had to accept her fate and be gracious.

Alex dressed himself. Not the easy task he had always taken for granted before he had been wounded. Except for removing his boots, he had refused the assistance of the footman early last evening after being rolled into the bedchamber prepared for him. Thankfully the room was located on the ground floor, a vacant room meant to house a servant, of course, as all downstairs sleeping accommodations were.

Hopping on one foot, he nearly toppled before he managed to make it to the Bath chair. Maneuvering around the small front wheel and guidance lever took some doing, but he finally got into the damned thing.

He was just wondering what he would do about his boots when Michael entered. “Good morning, Alex,” he said, sounding a bit stiff.

“You’re here to talk things out.”

Michael sniffed, looking out the window, anywhere but at him. “I cannot believe you would abuse my hospitality in such a manner. I was so angry last evening, I could not bring myself to speak with you at supper.” He flopped down on the unmade bed and clasped his hands between his knees. “Is it really true you’re a doctor?”

“I was,” Alex admitted. “And I swear to you, Michael, I had no intention of giving insult to you or your sister. We had been discussing our injuries and I thought perhaps—”

Michael’s head jerked up and his eyes were bright. “Well, what? What do you think? Could she walk if she wanted?”

“I can’t say. You should speak with her physician about it. He’s coming today?”

“Yes. You still have to marry her, you know,” Michael warned him. Idly he reached down, picked up one of Alex’s Hessians and looked around for the other. “Father is adamant about it.”

“As are you, I see.”

Michael nodded emphatically and brought the pair of boots to him. “And you cannot take her off to Scotland. She must stay here.” He crouched in front of Alex and acted the valet, as he had done many times on the journey from Spain.

Alex smiled. “Michael, your outrage isn’t necessary. I’m perfectly willing to marry her.” He sat forward in the Bath chair, leaning toward his friend. “And you needn’t worry she’ll be saddled with me permanently. If she does recover and wishes to make a better match, an annulment can be quite easily obtained. I want you or your father to call your solicitor and have papers drawn up to the effect that I require nothing in the way of a dowry. Everything hers, remains hers.”

“But that’s not how things are done.”

“This time it is. However,” he said, hoping to divert Michael to another topic, “I would ask a favor. Can you arrange transportation for me to Maidstone in a week or so?”

“To see a friend there?” Michael asked, frowning. “Is this friend a woman?”

How like Michael. He was jealous on behalf of his sister. “My mother-in-law. She is English. When her husband passed on last year, she went to live with her sister in Kent. She has the care of my son and I should like to see him.”

Michael shook his head. “I swear I thought I knew you well, Alex, but you never said a word about a wife or child in all the time I’ve known you. I believed your only relative was the old uncle in Edinburgh. And you only mentioned him the once.”

“My past is no pleasant subject.”

Michael shrugged, then scurried around behind Alex and pushed him toward the open door. “Let’s have breakfast. Father’s waiting.”

Alex wondered whether he would see Amalie this morning and what her frame of mind might be after mulling over their conundrum. She’d likely feel better once he assured her she would have a way out of the marriage whenever she wanted.

He felt a bit better about things himself, actually, after reassessing his finances. If he planned carefully, he could pay his way here at Balmsley so he wouldn’t be a burden on Amalie’s family. And he would be near enough Maidstone to visit his son now and again. It would also give him time to overcome his own injury while he decided what to do with the rest of his life.

If this Dr. Raine was of the firm opinion Amalie could walk again unassisted, then Alex meant to make it happen. She needed a firm hand and a bit of prodding to get her up and going. Leaving her to the tender mercies of a family that loved her too much would be doing her no favor. She’d remain just as she was.

Well over an hour passed as he and Michael and Lord Harlowe ate a hearty meal and retreated to the library. They discussed the newspaper reports of Wellington’s retreat from Burgos, the progress of the campaign in general, and carefully avoided any further exchanges about the coming nuptials. If banns were to be cried the following Sunday, no one mentioned it.

The doctor arrived around eleven o’clock and was immediately shown upstairs. Alex had not yet met the man, but was anxious to speak with him about Amalie. He folded the newspaper and laid it aside when he heard voices on the stairs.

Michael made the introductions when Lady Harlowe herself brought Dr. Raine into the library where they were waiting. As might be expected, Amalie’s mother cut up stiff, just as she had done the night before, after she’d recovered from her swoon. She left without even making an excuse.

“So you are the betrothed,” Raine said with a merry grin. Short, rotund and energetic described him. Laugh lines creased his entire face and a smooth bald pate reflected the light from the window. Alex put him near fifty. “I must say Miss Amalie is all atwitter about the engagement.”

“Yes, well,” Alex growled. “We are all atwitter, sir.”

Michael grabbed the back of Alex’s chair and shoved him toward the door. “This way, Doc,” he said. “We’ve a new patient for you today. Alex is also a medical man, y’know. Says those army surgeons are crack-brained know-nothings. Takes one to know one, I expect.” He laughed, chattering on incessantly, making light of the diagnosis Alex had received.

Raine followed and they were soon ensconced in the modest little chamber just off the hallway to the kitchens. “Off with you, my boy,” he ordered Michael, who left reluctantly.

“Now then,” Raine said, turning serious. “Let’s get those pantaloons off you and see what damage was done.”

“Not necessary,” Alex protested. “But I would like to speak with you about Miss Amalie since she is to be my wife.”

“No secret there anyway. She’s got the idea embedded in her mind that she can’t walk since the bones healed. Or it may be fear of pain. Does hurt, I know, getting back up on her pins. Nothing wrong with ‘em now.” He tapped his head. “Mind over body but not in the good sense if you see what I mean. Now about you…”

“I’ll be fine,” Alex said. “That nurse you assigned Miss Amalie. She’s to prevent atrophying?”

“Therapeutic manipulation of the musculature often does wonders. Let’s see the leg, Captain.”

“No.”

The doctor stood there with his pudgy hands grasping his hips. “I’m waiting. Don’t think you’ll foist me off now. Curiosity and all that.”

“I will walk,” Alex said emphatically.