His For Christmas Read Free

voice.
    The boy laughed and Ivy smiled, settling deeper into the warm and, furthermore, clean covers.
    What a positively wonderful dream! If only she would never wake.
    “ She smiled, ” the boy said. “ I just saw her smile! ”
    Smile?
    Her?
    This … wasn ’ t a dream?
    There was only one way to find out.
    Slowly, she opened her eyes and found herself staring at a white silken canopy, much like the one she slept under back home, back in a place she was no longer welcome.
    An older woman, her graying wispy hair coming free from the bun at the nape of her neck, leaned forward into Ivy ’ s view. There seemed to be flour on her dark woolen shoulders, as well as a smudge of it on her high cheekbones that looked decidedly non--European. “ Are you awake, then? How do you feel? ”
    There was a soft pulsing of heat along her temple and Ivy raised a hand, encountering a thick bandage right on her hairline. “ I …”
    She turned her head slowly and locked eyes with a small boy, freckles sprinkled liberally over his thin features. “ You had a wicked lump on your head, ” said the boy in a matter--of--fact voice. “ That would be the sack of potatoes. ”
    Potatoes? She remembered the tall, skinny bookseller who forced her from the relative warmth of the establishment ’ s doorstep. The woman pushed her down the three stairs onto the street … she ran into something hard, bounced off and then …
    Then?
    She shook her head and immediately regretted doing so, as a sudden wave of pain flashed across her eyes. With a small cry, she closed her eyes for a moment, hoping it would help.
    It did help, although not much.
    “ Are you in pain? ” asked the older woman, the one who smelled like flour and lemon verbena. The smell was so familiar, so reminiscent of Mrs. Brown, it brought a lump to her throat and she felt hotness at the corners of her eyes.
    The scent of lemons came closer. “ Oh, my. Is it that bad, dear? ”
    Ivy shook her head again, this time slower and more carefully. “ Not at all. What … what …”
    The boy leaned against the bed, one elbow on the silken white sheets, and grinned, a gap where his two front teeth had once been. “ Mr. Whitley dropped a bushel of potatoes on you. ”
    “ Among other things, ” said the woman who leveled a steady glance at the man who standing slightly behind her. “ He mentioned if the knock on your head wasn ’ t going to kill you, then it was the multitude of smaller objects he happened to drop upon you. But Elliot has assured me it was strictly by accident. ”
    The man in question stepped forward, just into the candlelight. “ How do you feel? Doc Warner assured me there should be no lasting harm except for some rather nasty bruising, but that ’ s the good thing about them, don ’ t you think? ” His dusky red lips twitched. “ They don ’ t last very long. ”
    Ivy had opened her mouth to say something along the lines of an apology and gratitude, but the moment the man stepped into the light, everything coherent left her mind.
    Beautiful.
    Eyes the color of a dark starless night, hair the same shade tied back in a loose queue at the nape of the strong column of his neck, he wore a simple white shirt underneath a pale blue vest and a plain black cravat. He seemed a complete gentleman, but instinctively, she knew there was something powerful hidden underneath that thin veneer of civility.
    Perhaps it was in the way he held his shoulders.
    Or the way his eyes never seemed to leave her face, making her feel very much the prey and he the hunter.
    A perfectly fanciful thought, but then again, Ivy had always been somewhat fanciful. Most likely, it was that particular undesirable trait that got her into this mess in the first place.
      “ Are you all right? ” he asked, a furrow between his elegantly winged eyebrows. “ Timothy, perhaps you ought to run back for Doc Warner. With luck, he ’ ll not have the office. ”
    The boy nodded and made as if to get