Christmas Pie Page 36

  # # #

  When they were finally able to stir themselves, James helped Polly dress, even going so far as to fasten her irritating corset. Polly thought she’d found perfect happiness when she sat on the cushioned ebony bench, stared at her reflection in the large mirror above his vanity table, and watched James brush her hair.

  She was also glad she’d decided to dress her hair simply tonight. However much she loved him, she wasn’t entirely sure she trusted James with her hair. She didn’t expect he’d have much trouble with the two carved ivory combs she’d borrowed from her mother, however.

  “You hair is exquisite, Polly.”

  As he punctuated his brushes with kisses, Polly only sighed and smiled. She felt languid, relaxed, and oddly sleepy. She couldn’t imagine ever sleeping again.

  “I don’t want to go home,” she confessed when he put the last pin in her hair.

  “I don’t want you to, either. But soon this will be your home and you’ll never leave it again.”

  She smiled, and was amazed at the Polly she saw reflected in the mirror. This was a Polly she’d never known before. Her face held a mysterious aura of satisfaction. Must be love, she decided.

  “This house is big enough for your mother, Polly, so if you’re worried about her, please don’t be.”

  She looked up quickly. “Thank you, James.” She felt the sting of tears behind her eyes. Oh, my, she loved him.

  It was quite late when James drove Polly home. They went in his Olds Curved Dash Runabout because his groom had already undecorated and stabled the two fine black horses with which he’d taken her to the ball.

  When they pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the MacNamara residence, it was two o’clock on Christmas morning.

  “My goodness, I’ve never seen so many lights on in the house in my life,” murmured Polly. “I hope Mother hasn’t been up worrying about me.”

  “Me, too.” James’s guilty expression turned into one of surprise as he looked about the darkened street. “Where on earth did all these motorcars come from?”

  Polly hadn’t noticed before, but at James’s comment, she too glanced at the street. Sure enough, two other horseless carriages were parked nearby. Good heavens. She’d never seen so many motorcars in one place in her life.

  “Maybe the neighbors have visitors?” she offered uncertainly.

  Before he took Polly’s arm, James paused in the glow of the gas porch lamp to inspect her face. His smile told her she passed inspection.

  “Nobody will ever know,” he assured her. Then, as though he couldn’t help himself,·he wrapped her in a huge embrace. “But they will soon.”

  They laughed as they walked up the steps. To Polly’s surprise, she didn’t even have to dig in her handbag for her key, because the door burst open as they approached.

  “Raymond! What in God’s name are you doing here?”

  Polly, as startled as James to see Raymond Sing standing at her front door, a big grin on his face, asked in alarm, “Is anything the matter with Mother?”

  She heard her mother’s voice sing from out the parlor. “There’s nothing the matter with me, Polly. Nothing will ever be the matter again.”

  Puzzled, Polly looked at James.

  “Everything’s fine, James, Miss MacNamara. Come in. Come in.” Raymond sounded as jolly as a Christmas elf.

  “Get in the blasted house, you ridiculous runaways!”

  James stopped in his tracks, horrified. “Father?”

  J. P. Drayton charged out of the parlor. “Yes, it’s your father, you damned insolent whelp. Get the hell in here!”

  Too startled to take exception to J. P.’s profanity, Polly allowed James to grip her arm and lead her toward the parlor door. Raymond, chuckling and rubbing his hands together, followed them. This whole scenario was absurd; Polly didn’t understand any of it.

  She and James exchanged a befuddled glance as they walked together into the parlor. Then Polly looked up, her gaze automatically going to the fireplace.

  “Stephen!”

  Later she would laugh when Stephen told her that her shriek probably woke up residents in the churchyard a block away.

  Right then, though, Polly didn’t think at all. She saw her brother—in his naval uniform and as handsome as she remembered him—grinning at her from in front of the fireplace, and she shot from James’s side as though propelled by gunpowder. She raced straight into Stephen’s arms.

  Laughing and sobbing, she cried, “Stephen, Stephen, Stephen,” until her brother finally pried her arms away from his shoulders.

  “I’m a wounded man, Polly. Ease up a little.” He had tears in his eyes, too.

  “You’re wounded?” Snatching her arms away as if afraid he’d shatter if she continued touching him, Polly dashed a hand across her eyes and peered up into his face.

  “It’s not bad,” he said. His words were thick.

  “Oh, Stephen!” And there she went again, weeping onto his chest, clutching him as though she’d never let him go.

  James stared in astonishment, unable to believe the man at the fireplace was truly Stephen MacNamara, who had been, the last James had heard, a sailor lost at sea. Quickly, he scanned the room. The faces he saw told him his senses had not gone haywire; the man was, indeed, Polly’s lost brother. As if to put the period to further doubt, James finally noticed the naval contingent: two uniformed brass, grim-faced and stiff, standing in a corner as though they didn’t quite know what to do with themselves in the face of this much spontaneity.

  All these people must account for the motorcars parked outside, James decided irrelevantly.

  His eyes were the same color as Polly’s, James realized when Stephen lifted his face and swept a glance around the room. It landed, with appropriate brotherly concern on James. Stephen gave a little shrug as though to ask, “What can one expect from a sister?” and James snapped out of his stupor.

  “You’re Polly’s brother? I’ve been trying and trying to find you.”

  “Couldn’t do it, though, could you, boy?”

  James jerked around to stare, dumbfounded, at his father. He couldn’t speak.

  “Your father was the one who clamped the lid of secrecy on it, James,” explained Raymond. “He sent a ship out to search for the missing vessel. His ship found the China Seas’ crew stranded on an island in the Philippines. They’d managed to make it there before a storm kicked up and their boats floundered. He rescued them. Most of the men were saved, and only a few of them were so done in they had to be hospitalized. Your father saved the day.”

  James gaze shot from Raymond to his father. “You did it? You? You helped them?”

  J. P. scowled as though somebody’d just snatched his favorite toy away. “Yes, damn you, I helped them. For free,” he added smugly.

  With another glance which took in Raymond, Polly and Stephen, and Lillian MacNamara, wiping her eyes as she watched her children, James swallowed hard. Then, feeling as though he were living a dream—one he didn’t dare quite believe might have a happy ending—he walked to his father.

  All sorts of phrases slammed through his brain; phrases of gratitude; phrases of question; phrases of love. He was too confused to pick out an appropriate one and ultimately said simply, “Thank you, sir.”

  He stood in front of J. P. Drayton for a good minute or more, staring at his father, who stared back. J. P. looked nervous. James felt awkward. Then he tossed a lifetime’s worth of old bitterness over his shoulder, reached out, and hugged the old man. It was something he hadn’t had the nerve to do since he was five years old.

  After a shocked moment, J. P. swallowed audibly, and hugged his son back. So softly that only James could hear, he mumbled, “I never meant to be a bad man, son. I just didn’t know how not to be hard. I did it for you. I love you, James.”

  Afraid he was going to burst into tears and disgrace himself, James said, “I know that, sir. I think I understand now.”

  Thank God, he didn’t cry.

&nb
sp; All of a sudden James heard Polly’s thin, shaky, “And we’re going to be married!”

  He let go of his father and turned around only to be careened into by his darling little Polly, her usual reserve obviously shattered beyond repair this evening. Laughing, he wrapped his arms around her and let her sob onto his lapel this time, since she’d apparently given up on Stephen’s for the time being. James planted a kiss on her beautiful hair and lifted his head to face the room at large.

  Mrs. MacNamara dabbed at her eyes with a hankie that looked as though it had already been through more than it was designed to bear. Raymond grinned from ear to ear. J. P. looked as though he’d expected something of the sort; his bushy brows plunged and he frowned. J. P.’s frown gave him the look of a man on the verge of a temper fit, but James realized for the first time in his life that this was only his father’s way of dealing with life outside his world of business. James didn’t suppose he’d ever like it, but he began to feel the vestiges of reluctant understanding.

  Only Stephen appeared at all grim, and James would have liked him less if he hadn’t exhibited such brotherly misgiving. In order to assuage Stephen, James walked over to the fireplace, dragging Polly along with him, and held out his hand.

  “I’m James Drayton, Mr. MacNamara, and I’m in love with your sister. I hope we can be friends, because we’re going to belong to the same family soon.”

  Lifting her head from James’s soggy lapel, Polly sniffled and said in a sadly watery voice, “This is the happiest Christmas of my life.”

  Stephen grinned.

  No one disagreed with her.

  # # #

  “I’ll be damned,” roared J. P. Drayton to no one in particular an hour or so later, “if I’ll allow these two idiots to have their engagement party in any home but mine!”

  Silence greeted the old man’s belligerent declaration. Everyone looked at everyone else. J. P. glowered at them all, his grizzled brows giving him the appearance of a huge, bad-tempered troll.

  James couldn’t believe it when he started to laugh. He’d never laughed at his father before in his entire life. All of a sudden, however, the old man’s antics magically seemed to have lost all power to touch him with anything but amusement and the vague regret that old J. P. felt it necessary to intimidate the universe into submission. Did the poor old soul actually fear the world that much?

  J. P.’s hot glare only made James laugh harder. He wiped his eyes and held his arms out, palm up, toward his father, in a gesture meant to beg forgiveness for a weakness the sufferer couldn’t control.

  “I mean it.” J. P.’s glare raked the assemblage as if daring anyone else to do anything so inappropriate as laugh at him.

  Polly opened her eyes wide and nodded. Then she ducked her head and hid her face against James’s shoulder.

  Stephen turned suddenly and pretended to pour some brandy into his already-full glass.

  Raymond studied the floor with apparent fascination.

  Lillian said, “I don’t believe you’ll hear an argument from anyone here, Mr. Drayton.” Then she lifted her much-abused handkerchief to her mouth. Something sounding very much like muffled mirth sneaked out from behind the hankie.

  The navy had left by this time. Undoubtedly the navy would not have laughed at J. P. Drayton.

  When James could finally catch his breath, he gave Polly an extra squeeze and stammered, “I—I’m sorry, Father. Of course, we’ll have our engagement party at your house. We’d be honored, sir.”

  James felt Polly wipe her eyes against his coat sleeve and decided a little more water couldn’t hurt it. She lifted her head and said, “Of course. We—” She slapped her hand against her mouth, obviously to hold in her irreverent giggles. “We wouldn’t dream of having it anywhere else.”

  It was the best she could do. Unable to stifle her laughter a single second longer, she dove back to the shelter of James’s shoulder.

  “Sounds like a great idea to me.” Clearly the most disciplined of the lot—no doubt due to his naval training—Stephen was able to speak his entire sentence without chortling once. He did, however, turn back to the brandy decanter as soon as the words left his lips.

  Raymond said not a syllable, but stared at the carpet as if trying to memorize its pattern.

  J. P. nodded, evidently choosing to ignore the amusement his demand had caused. “Good. New Year’s Eve, then.”

  “The turn of the century,” murmured Raymond.

  Polly lifted her head. “My word, that’s right. The year 1900. Goodness, it doesn’t seem possible.”

  “A perfect time to begin, my love.” It felt so good to be able to hold her and squeeze her any old time he wanted to that James did it again. He wanted to do it forever.

  “Oh, my, yes,” Polly breathed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The party was in full swing, and everybody seemed to be having a grand time. Not only were the revelers celebrating James and Polly’s upcoming nuptials, but the beginning of a brand-new century.

  Polly had never been so happy. She fingered her medals and looked up at the sparkling sky. James stood at her side and held her close. They’d slipped away from the crowd and now graced the balcony of J. P. Drayton’s grand mansion together.

  “Wishing again, love?”

  Polly glanced at his face and saw that he was looking at her with the most tender expression she’d ever hoped to see. Oh, my, she loved him.

  “My wishes have all come true, James. I have nothing left to wish for.”

  “What about our happy future?”

  “I already know we’ll have that.”

  “Children?”

  “I know we’ll have children, too, James.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I want to make a family, Polly. I want a family like neither of us ever had.”

  He sounded very emotional as he wrapped her in his arms. Polly hugged him back and felt just wonderful.

  They were quiet for a long time, loving one another in the soft winter night. Music drifted out to them from the ballroom. Happy laughter punctuated the air. Polly fancied she could see the gaiety drift up to the stars and weave around them, making their sparkles brighter.

  At last she said quietly, “It is magic, James.”

  As she expected, he didn’t have to ask what. “You really think so?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  He picked up her hand, which still held her coin, and stared down at it.

  “I have to give it back,” she said after a minute or two of silence.

  He kissed the coin in her hand. “Why is that, love?”

  She didn’t answer for a minute then gave a tiny shrug. “I’m not sure. So some other lost soul can borrow it for a while, I guess.” She looked up at him and smiled. “I only know I have to do it.”

  “Would you like to do it now?”

  “Now?”

  His smile made her breath catch. “Why not? Nobody’d miss us if we sneaked away for a half-hour or so.”