Gifts of the Season: A Gift Most Rare / Christmas Charade / The Virtuous Widow. Lyn Stone

back to Calcutta in time for the sale?” she asked, stunned. “But you couldn’t have, not when they told me that you—”

      “Here you are, Miss Blake!” exclaimed Clarissa, the holiday-red ribbons in her hair bobbing as she skipped into the library. “Mama said I should find you here, and I—oh, Lord Revell, why are you here, too?”

      “And a fine good day to you, too, Miss Clarissa,” said Revell, deftly covering Sara’s confusion. “As you can see, I am helping Miss Blake prepare your lessons for today.”

      Clarissa’s cheerfulness vanished, and she heaved a dutiful sigh that must have begun at the tips of her slippers; clearly she’d been hoping for an explanation with more interesting possibilities. “What sort of lesson, my lord?”

      “We shall be continuing to speak of ancient generals, Clarissa,” said Sara quickly. “I’ve found a picture here in one of your father’s books to show you how Hannibal used elephants to cross the Alps to reach Rome.”

      “Truly?” asked Clarissa with more interest as she crowded next to Sara to look at the open book. “I do like elephants, with their funny long noses.”

      “It’s a pity the artist hadn’t the slightest notion of how an elephant should be ridden, however,” said Revell critically, also crowding next to Sara on her other side, and effectively trapping her between the little girl and himself.

      Although he continued looking down at the illustration instead of her, he let his hand brush against hers, doing it as if by accident so she couldn’t shift away without making a scene. Carefully he pretended to trace the line of the elephant’s trunk with one finger, but Sara knew better. Even that slight touch was enough to send a shiver of sensation racing up her arm, a shiver she most decidedly did not wish to feel.

      “This poor fellow here might as well be perched at the top of a sliding board, sitting on the elephant’s neck like that,” he continued, frowning a bit to prove the seriousness of his commentary. “He’d be tossed off, head over heels, and bouncing down the mountainside before he knew it.”

      “He would?” asked Clarissa, her eyes round with horrified fascination. “All the way down to the bottom?”

      “All the way,” said Revell solemnly. “In less time than it takes to tell. And oh, how that old elephant would laugh!”

      “Artists often make such errors, my lord,” said Sara hurriedly. Heaven only knew what Revell would say next if she left him unchecked, and he wouldn’t be the one who’d have to deal with nightmares tonight. “Artists often must instead rely upon the reports of others because they cannot see everything they must portray. They can’t really be faulted if the results are sometimes questionable.”

      “Questionable?” repeated Revell, his brows raised with exaggerated wonder. “I’d say the results were deuced peculiar, and so would you, Miss Blake, if you dared be honest. You know perfectly well what a proper elephant should look like.”

      “I also know what a proper one smells like,” countered Sara warmly, “not that that is particularly relevant to this discussion.”

      “Why not, Miss Blake?” asked Clarissa, leaning her cheek on her elbow. “If elephants don’t smell nice, then why would Hannibal wish to take them all the way to Rome?”

      “Because they are very large and strong and have great endurance,” said Sara, eager to move on from the question of elephantine aroma. “They would be exceptionally useful to any army.”

      “Your Miss Blake is quite the expert on elephants,” said Revell, beaming dangerously at Sara. “I doubt there’s another governess in Sussex—no, all of England!—that has so much experience with the creatures.”

      “Miss Blake?” asked Clarissa, simultaneously enormously impressed yet uncertain as to whether she should believe Revell or not. “However would she have any experience with elephants?”

      “Because I learn through reading,” said Sara quickly, before Revell could offer any additional helpful insight. Blast him for teasing her this way! Didn’t he realize the kind of trouble he was making for her? “One can learn everything about anything through books.”

      But Clarissa was paying much closer attention to the elephants than to the wisdom to be gained through reading.

      “We should put elephants in Mama’s greenery,” she said, grinning up at Revell. “Miss Blake and I have been charged with making the greenery in the ballroom more festive for Mama. It’s our special task. We were going to make camels for the three kings, but now I think they should have elephants instead.”

      “Oh, Clarissa, I do not believe that is the wisest idea,” said Sara doubtfully. Lady Fordyce’s tastes were exceptionally traditional, and likely she would not be pleased to find elephants—even elephants cut from white pasteboard and daubed with colored inks—parading over her mantels and sideboards between the silver candlesticks, through boughs of holly and boxwood.

      “Why not, Miss Blake?” asked Revell blithely. “There are plenty of elephants in the Bible, aren’t there? Begin with them, then some tigers.”

      “Tigers!” exclaimed Clarissa with a small roar of relish. “Tigers for Christmas!”

      Revell nodded, his eyes glinting with wicked mischief that would have shocked Albert and the others. “What better time of the year, eh? And what of a mongoose or two? Miss Blake knows of them, too, you know.”

      “You must come help us, Lord Revell,” ordered Clarissa. “This afternoon, in the schoolroom. You can help Miss Blake and me cut out the animals and paint them, and then tomorrow we can arrange them in the ballroom.”

      “I’m sure Lord Revell has other plans, Clarissa,” said Sara, silently praying that he did. “Doubtless he’d rather spend his afternoon in the company of the other gentlemen like your brother, not in the schoolroom with us.”

      “Not at all,” said Revell, holding his hand over his heart so gallantly that Clarissa giggled. “I cannot think of a greater pleasure than spending the afternoon in the company of two such delightful ladies.”

      “Please, my lord,” said Sara, almost pleading. “It is not necessary.”

      “And I say it is my decision if I choose to splatter myself with glue and paint for the sake of the elephants and tigers and mongooses, too.” His grin softened as their gazes met over Clarissa’s head. “Besides, isn’t Christmas the time for miracles and magic of every sort?”

      Chapter Four

      Revell stood before his bedchamber window, watching the two figures make their way in a zigzagging path across the snowy field toward the house. Against the stark black and white of the wintry landscape, the pair stood out in sharp contrast: the little girl in her bright red cardinal and blue mittens, the woman in a cloak of darkest green. But then, for Revell, the two would be the first he’d spot even in the most crowded street in London.

      “That be Miss Fordyce and her governess, my lord,” said the maidservant, following his gaze as she set the tray on the table beside him. The woman was past middle age, a servant who’d likely been with the Fordyces for so long that she felt entitled to certain conversational freedoms like this. “No matter what the weather, them two always go walking at this time of the day, regular as clockwork after first lessons.”

      Revell, of course, had discovered this for himself, having already visited the schoolroom as promised to help with the tigers and elephants. The schoolroom had been empty except for a mystified parlor maid who’d informed him of Miss Clarissa’s customary walk. He’d have to control his impatience for another half hour or so until they returned, and without much interest he glanced at the plates of sliced cold meat, breads, and cheese on the tray that the cook had sent up to him out of a certain pity.

      He knew he was already being regarded as something of an oddity. The other houseguests had scattered for the