No, he could not leave her alone. It would be grossly unfair when he was the master of the house-and when Susannah and Miles had entrusted Deborah to his care.
“Have the carriage sent away,” he told his butler. “I will not be needing it this evening after all.” He smiled fleetingly in self-mockery. This was the most blatant example of rationalization he had ever been involved in. And he must have windmills in the brain. He was choosing to party with young people rather than with sane adults?
No, actually he was choosing to party with his lady and his daughter.
They had danced a quadrille and numerous country dances. All the young people danced every set. They were clearly enjoying the novelty of being able to use the skills they had learned from dancing masters in the setting of a real ball-or what was almost a real ball.
Jane was feeling wonderfully happy as she watched and as she played with an increasingly tired Veronica. The child did not want to give in to suggestions that she be taken up to bed. At the moment she was seated cross-legged on the floor beside the Nativity scene, rocking her doll to sleep in her arms and looking as if she was not far from sleep herself.
But what completed Jane’s happiness was the fact that for some reason Viscount Buckley had not gone to the Oxendens’ after all but had stayed at the house. He had mingled with the company and chatted with Mrs.
Carpenter between dances and had not been near Jane and Veronica. But it did not matter. Just having him in the room, just being able to feast her eyes on him, was enough. He looked even more splendidly handsome than usual in a pale blue evening coat with gray knee breeches and white linen and lace.
She thought with secret, guilty wonder of the fact that she had been kissed by this man. And that she had his gift, the lovely shawl, to hug about her-literally-for the rest of her life.
He was bending over Mrs. Carpenter, speaking to her, and she was nodding and smiling. He turned to his young guests and clapped his hands to gain their attention.
“This is to be a waltz, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Do you all know the steps?”
They all did. But the young ladies in particular had not expected to be able to dance them in public for many years, until they had made their come-outs and had been approved by the patronesses of Almack’s in London. There was a buzz of excitement.
Jane knew the steps of the waltz too. She remembered with an inward shudder demonstrating it for the girls at school with the dancing master, whose hands had always seemed too hot and too moist, and who had always tried to cause her to stumble against him. But it was a wonderful dance. Wonderfully romantic-a couple dancing face-to-face, their hands touching each other.
“Jane?” Suddenly he was there before her, bowing elegantly as if she were the Duchess of Somewhere, and extending a hand toward her. “Will you do me the honor?”
“Me?” she said foolishly, spreading a hand over her chest.
He smiled at her and something strange happened to her knees and someone had sucked half the air out of the room.
“Thank you.” She set her hand in his and he looked down at Veronica.
“Do you mind if I steal Miss Jane for a few minutes?” he asked. “Will you watch us dance?”
Veronica yawned.
Jane had dreamed of happiness and romance and pleasure. But never until this ten-minute period had she had even the glimmering of a notion of what any of the three might really feel like. They were almost an agony.
She danced-he was an exquisite dancer-and felt that her feet scarcely touched the floor. She danced and did not even have to think about the steps. She danced and was unaware that the room held anyone else but the two of them and the music. She was too happy even to wish that time would stop so that forever she would be caught up in the waltz with the man she had so foolishly fallen in love with.
To say it was the happiest ten minutes of her life was so grossly to understate the case that the words would be meaningless.
“Thank you,” she said when it was over, coolly, as if it really had not meant a great deal to her at all. “I think I should take Veronica up to bed, my lord. She is very tired.”
“Yes,” he said, glancing down at his child. “Take her up, then. I will come in ten minutes or so to say good-night to her.”
And so the magic was gone and the day was almost over. She took the sleepy child by the hand and led her up to the nursery, undressed her and washed her quickly, helped her into her nightgown, and tucked her into bed beside her doll.
“Good night, sweetheart,” she said, smoothing back the child’s curls with one gentle hand. “Has it been a happy Christmas?”
Veronica nodded, though she did not open her eyes and she did not speak.
And then Jane’s heart lurched with alarm. Two tears had squeezed themselves from between the child’s eyelids and were rolling diagonally across her cheeks.
Jane turned instinctively toward the door. He was standing there, as he did each night. When he saw her face, he looked more closely at his daughter. Jane could tell that he could see the tears. His face paled and he came walking across the room toward the bed.
He did not know what to do for a moment. She had seemed so happy for most of the day. She had been laughing and excited during the afternoon.
What had happened to upset her? And how could he cope with whatever it was?
“Veronica?” He touched his fingers to her cheek. “What is it?”
She kept her eyes closed and did not answer him for a while. But more tears followed the first. There was something horrifying about a child crying silently. Jane had got up from the bed to stand behind him.
“Why did Mama not come?” his daughter asked finally. “Why was there no present from Mama?”
Oh, God. Oh, dear Lord God, he could not handle this. He sat down on the bed in the spot just vacated by Jane. “Mama had to go far away,” he said, cupping the little face with his hands and wiping the tears away with his thumbs. “She would be here if she could, dear. She loves you dearly.” He rejected the idea of telling her that the doll was from her mother. Children were usually more intelligent than adults gave them credit for.
His daughter was looking at him suddenly. “Is she dead?” she asked.
A denial was on his lips. And then Jane’s words came back to him. She needed to know. Ultimately it would be worse for her not to know, for her to grow up believing that her mother had just tired of her and abandoned her. He stood up for a moment, drew back the bedclothes, scooped up his daughter in his arms, and sat down again, cradling her against him.
“Yes,” he said. “She died, Veronica. But she sent you to Papa. And Papa loves you more than anyone or anything else in this world.”
She was sobbing then with all of a child’s abandoned woe. And he, rocking her in his arms, was crying too. Crying over his daughter’s loss and grief. Crying over the truth of the words he had just spoken, and over the treasure he had so very nearly given carelessly away.
She stopped crying eventually and lay quietly in his arms. “You are not going to send me away, Papa?” she whispered.
“Send you away?” he said. “How could I do that? What would I do without my little girl? Who would there be to make me happy?”
She looked up at him with a wet and swollen face so that he was reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief even as she spoke. “Do you really love me, Papa?”
“You are my little Christmas treasure,” he said, drying her eyes and her cheeks. “The best gift I ever had. I love you, dear.”
She reached up to set one soft little hand against his lips. He held it there and kissed it and smiled at her. She yawned hugely and noisily.
“Is Miss Jane going to stay, too?” she asked.
He felt Jane shift position behind him.
“Yes,” he said, “if I can persuade her to. Would you like that?”
“Yes, Papa,” she said.