A Mackenzie Family Christmas: The Perfect Gift

Today Louisa was like a bright angel, dressed in bottle green, with a plaid ribbon pinned to her bodice to indicate her honorary connection with the Mackenzie clan. Her red-gold hair had been drawn up into complicated curls on top of her head, with delicate wisps brushing her forehead. Tiny diamonds dangled from her earlobes, and a silver pendant rested on her chest.

She was younger than Fellows, from an aristocratic family, lovely and graceful, her manners polished. Though her father had lost every bit of capital he'd had, and more he'd never owned, in Louisa's world birth and breeding counted for more than money. She was so far superior to Fellows that she might as well be soaring like a lofty kite while he stumbled along the ground, too slow to follow.

Louisa was perfectly polite to him all through the meal. No indication that she remembered their kiss--their fiery, hot, magical kiss. Her fascination with him, and the kiss, had probably been a whim, long forgotten. If the incident embarrassed her, she made no sign.

After the meal was over and cleared, a grand procession entered the dining room. The butler led it proudly, carrying a masterpiece of a plum pudding, flaming with brandy, the lights lowered to highlight the effect.

Fellows could hear his mother's Cockney voice now--"What's the point of lighting food on fire? Food's too precious to waste making it into a piece of art. It's for eating, innit?"

His mother was at her sister's as usual, enjoying her Christmas meal with her nieces, nephews, and now grandnieces and grandnephews. When Eleanor's letter with the invitation to her first Christmas dinner as Duchess of Kilmorgan had arrived, Mrs. Fellows had bid him go. "It's where you ought to be," she'd said. "You're as good as any duke. You go and show 'em."

Fellows, listening to the others exclaim over the plum pudding, thought he'd be better off at his aunt's house, bouncing his cousins' children on his knees.

A slab of pudding, studded with fruit and smelling of spices, landed on his plate. Fellows nodded his thanks to the footman who'd served it.

"Careful," Louisa said as Fellows scooped a chunk of cake onto his fork. "You might have a sixpence."

Fellows did enjoy the English tradition of coins or little trinkets stirred into the Christmas pudding, at least he had when he was younger. His aunt usually put in farthings or tiny toys for the children, but he'd always imagined the Mackenzies put in gold guineas.

If they did, none had ended up in his share of the pudding. He tasted treacle, raisins, nuts, cloves, and brandy, plus the creamy rum flavor of the hard sauce, but no silver or gold. Louisa ate in dainty bites, including Fellows in her conversation or joining in with others near her. These guests were more aristocrats Hart wanted to keep well tamed in case he wanted to use them again. Louisa was very good at putting people at ease, he saw, as was Eleanor, who chatted amicably from the foot of the table, her pregnancy well hidden beneath her dress and the tablecloth.

"Oh," Louisa exclaimed, then she smiled as she removed a silver bit from her spoon. "I've found a sixpence."

"Excellent," Eleanor said. She'd barely eaten any of the pudding, but she'd torn it apart to see whether she'd received any coins. "You'll have good luck all the year, my dear."

The sixpence also meant prosperity, Fellows knew, though he assumed the duchess was being delicate in not implying that Louisa needed assurances of money.

Louisa cleaned the sixpence on her napkin then her smile deepened as she held the coin out to Fellows. "You take it, Inspector. It was on the edge of my piece, so it likely was very nearly in yours."

Fellows eyed the glinting silver, then Louisa. "No, indeed," he said. "It was in your slice. I'd hardly take a sixpence away from a lady."

"It's for luck." Louisa still smiled, but her eyes were watchful. "And a memento of the occasion."

Something to remember her by. Yes, he wanted that. And she wanted it. Perhaps. Or she might be teasing him. Fellows had no idea, and his swiftly beating heart didn't care.

It would be ungracious to refuse a gift from a lady. Fellows bowed, held out his hand, and let her drop the sixpence into it. He noted that she was very careful not to touch him.

Those around them watched the exchange, puzzled and curious but too polite to ask. They did, however, begin to speculate on the things sixpence could buy, things even an inspector of Scotland Yard could afford, they said without actually saying that.

It didn't matter. Louisa smiled at him, all he needed to make him forget silly games with pudding and thinly veiled insults. Let them fire at him. Louisa's smile took all the sting away.

*** *** ***

"Mac, I can't see where I'm going if your hands are over my eyes."

"Almost there." Mac was warm behind her, his fingers gentle on Isabella's face.

"We ought to be downstairs," she said. "The ball's about to start."

"True, but this has been the only time all day I've been able to bring you up here." Mac led her into the room, and Isabella heard him kick the door closed behind them. "You may look now."

Mac slid his hands from Isabella's eyes and turned her to face what he wanted her to see.

They were in Mac's studio. A painting had been propped on an easel at one end of the room, the picture waiting to dry and be framed. Mac had set the lights so that the picture was illuminated, the rest of the room shadowed. Isabella saw that he'd already put into use the brush holder studded with semiprecious stones she'd given him this morning, but her attention was all for the new painting.