Enright Family Collection (35 page)

“I think I was just about your age the first time I served at the holiday tea. Maybe a little older, but then, you’re a very grown-up girl.”

“And I did a fine job on Thanksgiving,” Corri reminded her, holding up an index finger as if to make a point.

“Yes, you did.” India laughed and hugged the child. “You most certainly did.”

“Come upstairs and see the dresses you could wear. I could help you choose.” Corri tugged at India’s arm.

“Go ahead, India, I’ll call when the soup is ready.”

India followed a gleeful Corri up the steps to her room. Across her bed an array of colors, fabrics and textures fanned out like a faded rainbow.

“Look, India, this is my favorite.” Corri pointed to a dark blue dress of fine wool.

“Hmmm, that is lovely,” India held the dress up to her body and stood before the mirror. It was perfect, from the lace-trimmed neckline to the trim waist and the full skirt, to the tightly fitted sleeves that ended in more lace. It was simple but beautiful. She could easily overlook the tiny moth hole here and there if it fit.

Carefully replacing the dress on the bed, she lifted each of the other two dresses her aunt had brought out of storage for
her to try. A black silk Victorian-style dress, high-necked and mutton-sleeved, with green and white embroidery on the bodice, looked too hot. The dark cranberry-red satin looked too formal. The blue would be just right for today.

August called from the foot of the steps to announce that their soup was ready.

“Yeah! Aunt August said I could get dressed after lunch!” Corri shouted gleefully as she fled down the steps.

Laughing, India followed behind, pausing in the hallway where the old black telephone stood on its table. Lifting the receiver, she dialed the number she had committed to memory and waited while it rang. Disappointed to get a recorded voice urging her to leave a message, she did as she was told.

“Nick, hi, it’s Indy. I’m at Aunt August’s—actually, I’ll be going to Captain Jon’s for the Christmas tea at three today. Maybe you can stop by. If not, well … I just wanted to let you know that I’m home.”

She replaced the receiver quietly, then trailed behind Corri’s loud rendition of “Jingle Bells” to the kitchen.

At two, all three of the Devlin ladies had dressed and made a hurried stop at Darla’s to pick up some of the tea goodies that would be served that day to the ladies and gentlemen—and the occasional child—who had purchased tickets for the event that was a holiday tradition in Devlin’s Light. Generations before, attendance at the tea had been one of the
musts
of the town’s social season. Ten years ago, the tradition had been revived as a means of raising money for maintenance of the property, and it had proven to be so popular an event that every available seat in the mansion was sold well before the end of November.

“Oh, it’s like a palace!” a wide-eyed Corri exclaimed upon entering the wide front door to stand in the massive entry hall. “A Christmas palace.”

Fresh garlands of white pine bedecked with ivy, sprayed gold, and huge burgundy satin bows draped the magnificent stairway, which curved from the top of the second-floor landing thirteen feet above. At the foot of the steps stood a massive fir tree, which reached all the way to the top of the
open stairwell and sported sparkling diamonds of white and gold lights, burgundy and gold ornaments of angels and spun glass. The entire effect was that of a crystal wonder-land. Not a soul entered who did not gasp, much as Corri did, when they saw the tree.

“Wonderful, this year!” August’s friends would tap her on the arm as they passed by on their way to whichever room they were to be seated in.

“The best ever.” India heard the pronouncement over and over throughout the day.

“Exquisite.”

“Just perfect.”

“The committee has outdone itself once again.”

August would agree, ushering the arrivals through the hallway lest traffic back up, leaving guests stranded on the front porch in the cold. “Wait till you see the dining room,” she would say to coax them forward.

Taking a cue from her aunt, India would gently ease an elbow toward the library or the conservatory, the sitting room or the music room, saying, “The table decorations are just delightful this year.” Or “I just can’t wait to show you what they did with this mantel.”

By three-fifteen, all but the stragglers had been seated, and the hustle of serving began. Stealing an occasional peek toward the door whenever it opened, India realized that she was, in fact, looking for Nick. Waiting for him. As if her casual mention of where she’d be would be enough to draw him there, make him drop whatever he was doing and abandon his plans for the day.

In her heart, she had known that it would be so.

“I wouldn’t stand so long under the mistletoe if I were you, Miss Devlin. I might have to take advantage of the situation and start the tongues wagging.” He had come out of nowhere to whisper in her ear.

“It might be worth it,” she whispered back over her shoulder as she placed a delicate china plate of watercress, cucumber and onion, and ham-salad tea sandwiches in front of a blue-haired lady seated just inside the doorway of the library.

“Then come back into the kitchen with me and we’ll take our chances.”

“Nick, have you noticed we’re always sneaking into the pantry, into the kitchen?”

He silenced her with a kiss of welcome and the promise of more kisses before the day was through.

“That’s because it’s the holiday season and the holidays mean celebrations. And celebrations mean food. Of course, it also means a total lack of privacy,” he said pointedly as Darla bustled back in with an empty tray.

“What do you expect?” Darla laughed. “This is one of the two biggest social events of the season in Devlin’s Light.” She quickly and efficiently replaced the tray’s doily of paper lace and restacked the sandwiches, then handed it to Nick. “Here. Go be gracious and charming in the dining room.

“And you, India, take this one to the conservatory. And tell your aunt that I have two more silver teapots ready to go.”

“Give some people a little authority and look what they do with it,” India muttered, purposely loud enough for Darla to hear. “Napoleon had nothing on you.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.” Darla held open the wide swinging door to the hallway for India to pass through.

By the time the last tea drinker had passed back through the festive entry on their way to the front door, hundreds of scones, tiny sandwiches, fruit tarts, petit fours and truffles had been served and happily consumed. Two full tables of first-timers, up from Cape May for the day, upon hearing that the mansion would be open for the Twelfth Night Ball, had eagerly asked to purchase tickets to that gala as well. All in all, the tea had once again been a rousing success, having raised equal amounts of money and civic pride.

“Nick, have you ever had a tour of the captain’s manse?” August asked as the clean-up crew—those members of the committee who had not dressed in period clothing for the event—arrived to take over.

“No, I haven’t, but I’d love one. Are you offering?”

“I’m old and I’ve been on my feet for hours,” she told him, “but India will take you.”

“Right this way, sir.” India beckoned him back toward the front of the house. “You’re familiar with the first floor, so I’ll take you upstairs.”

Her long dress trailed behind her, sweeping on the
parquet floor like a wide and elegant broom. She unfastened the velvet rope that blocked off the foot of the steps.

“I’m sorry,” a voice called to her from a doorway, “but no one’s permitted on the second—Oh, India, it’s you.”

“Aunt August suggested that I give Nick a tour,” India explained to Linda Forrester, the president of the historical society and self-designated keeper of the gate.

“Well, I guess it would be okay.” She frowned in a way that made it obvious that if India’s name had not been Devlin it would
not
have been okay. “As long as you don’t touch anything.”

“I hope that doesn’t include the guide,” Nick whispered, and India giggled, taking his hand and leading him into the first room on the left.

She snapped on the light switch, and twin chandeliers illuminated the cavernous bedchamber, dominated by a massive canopy bed.

“All of the furnishings are original,” she told him, “right down to the sheets on the bed. This is the room Captain Jonathan shared with his wife, Jerusalem. ‘Salem,’ he called her. That’s her portrait down in the front hall over the fireplace, and there, on the wall behind the captain’s desk.”

“She was an interesting-looking lady,” he noted, studying the features of the woman who seemed to look down upon them somewhat imperiously.

“Not a true beauty, in the classic sense,” India agreed, “but a strong and handsome woman. She was the absolute center of Jonathan’s life, and he was hers. Here, sit here”— India pointed to a window seat where dark green cushions were piled high with gold silk pillows of various shapes and sizes—“and I’ll show you something.”

“Sit?” he stage-whispered, his eyebrows raised in mock horror at the suggestion. “What if Mrs. Forrester catches me?”

“We’ll tell her you were feeling faint.” India opened the center drawer of a delicately gilded lady’s desk that stood off in an alcove by itself and removed a small white leather book. “This was the journal that Salem kept while Jonathan was at sea.”

India sat next to him, leaning slightly toward the right and holding the small book at an angle to catch the light.

“Sunday, 12th September, 1701. It being the Sabbath, I spent the day in prayer for my beloved Captain. The storm that raged for two days, it is said, now spreads its fury at sea. I dare not sleep, lest he come home and think I prayed not, but rested while his ship faced such fearsome dangers. How could I sleep, knowing that this evil storm could take him from me? That the last time I kissed him may have, indeed, been the last time I would taste of his lips, that the last time we lay together could have planted a child that might never look upon his father’s face? Oh, beloved, thou art my very heart, and my heart beats only to count the minutes until thou art in my arms again.”

Sensing Nick’s smile, India looked up at him and asked, “What?”

“I was wondering what it would take for a man to inspire such love in a woman.” His eyes darkened, from honey to whiskey, as he watched her face. “What would it take, India?”

She closed the journal softly, without looking at it, and placed it beside her on the seat. Turning to him, she wrapped her arms around his neck to draw him close to her.

“I’d have to say that old Captain Jon had nothing on you, Nicholas Enright.” She eased his face down toward the kind of kiss that the captain and his lady had probably shared a hundred times, right there on that very same window seat. “I’d say you were doing just fine.”

“India?” August’s voice floated down the hall from the top of the steps.

With a reluctant sigh, India called back, “Here, Aunt August.”

“Ah, there you are.” August entered the grand room with all the grace and authority of its first occupants. “We’re all cleaned up downstairs, and everyone is leaving. All the doors are locked, except for the front door, which I will lock on my way out. Here’s a key—you’ll need it to get out and to relock the front entry behind you when you leave.”

“Does Mrs. Forrester know you have that key?” Nick asked with just the right note of suspicion.

“Pooh. Linda Forrester knows better than to take me on. India will leave when she’s ready to leave. Just secure the house before you go. Corri and I are taking some things to
Darla’s, then Darla and Ollie and Jack will be having dinner with us. As you know, it’s pot roast, so it’ll be there when you are.”

“Thanks, Aunt August.” India kissed the woman on the cheek, as did Nick.

“So, here we are,” India said as August’s shoes tapped softly on the worn carpet and then on the stairwell.

“Yes, so we are.”

“I guess I could show you some of the other rooms.”

“You could,” Nick agreed.

“Although this room has a certain ambience, don’t you think?”

The front door slammed shut with a muffled thud.

“Good thing you have that key,” he noted. “We might have been stuck here all night.”

“Umm.” India backed slowly across the room, watching his face, the captain’s canopy bed behind her.

His eyebrows raised just a tiny bit more with each step she took.

“Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” His mouth was suddenly dry.

India grinned.

“What would Mrs. Forrester say?” He grinned back at her, a slow, lazy smile that promised good things.

“What she won’t know won’t hurt her.” India stood at the foot of the bed, and in a heartbeat he was there with her, filling her arms and her mouth, kissing her until she was boneless, leaving her wanting only more of him.

“This dress is only one step up the evolution ladder from the chastity belt,” he muttered, the row of tiny buttons seemingly endless in their march from the low neckline to her hips.

“One at a time, Nicky,” she whispered, “just take them one at a time.”

And one small button at a time was the way he took them, from top to bottom, until her skin felt the cool of the drafty room and the heat from his breath.

She pulled him back onto the bed and he groaned softly, his hands seeking the softness of her, all of her, needing to feel flesh upon flesh, filled with the terrible need of her. Only her. Only India.

She slid the dress from her shoulders and pulled him closer to feast upon her softness, moaning softly as he did so with a mouth that was wet and warm and dark and that drew her toward places she had never been before.

“More,” she insisted, and he gave her more of what she demanded. His mouth filled with her, making her cry out.

“More,” she told him yet again, and he obeyed, slipping into her warmth and turning the room and the night upside down, and setting it all spinning out of control.

“I love you, India.” She heard him say the words just as the dense fog that had swirled around her had finally come to claim them both.