Love, Come to Me(82)

“I’m not surprised you’re here,” Heath said dryly. “I haven’t yet heard of a Yankee hesitating to venture into enemy territory.”

Damon held his white napkin up by the corner and dangled it as if it were a flag of surrender. “I came to inquire, General, if there’s any hope of a negotiated peace.”

Heath smiled slightly, pulling out the chair next to Lucy and sitting down. “Possibly. You might start by passing the muffins.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lucy let out her breath and smiled as the negotiations proceeded and compromises were discussed. Neither of the two men at the table was so inflexible that he would sacrifice ambition for the sake of pride. And in Lucy’s opinion, neither of them would seriously consider giving up the newspaper. The Examiner meant more than money to them, more than ink and paper, words and columns. It had given two worldly men their only chance to be idealists, and they were not ready to relinquish that.

It took hours of dedicated persuasion for Lucy to coax Heath into taking her to the Hosmers’ Christmas Eve party in Concord instead of attending the magnificent annual Redmond gala. But Christmas in a small town was different from Christmas in the city. There was less glamour and pageantry, certainly, but a Concord Christmas was old-fashioned and special. Every home was decorated with pinecones and holly; each room was fragrant with cinnamon-dusted pomander balls. The doorways were garnished with large bows and tiny round potatoes that had been covered with sprigs of mistletoe and long ribbon streamers. By long-established custom, anyone caught underneath one of them had to surrender a kiss.

People in Concord celebrated the holidays with well-planned parties, where long-familiar friends gathered to eat, drink, and converse. The tables were burdened with rounds of Christmas Irish bread, filled with raisins, frosted and topped with a cherry, bowls of cranberry punch, berry turnovers, candied fruit peel, and delicate cups of eggnog sprinkled with nutmeg.

Knowing that she would see old acquaintances, many of whom she hadn’t visited with in months, Lucy dressed with care. She wore a green velvet dress with sleeves cut in long leaflike points, and a sash richly embroidered with gold thread. Her crinoline was unusually narrow, only half the width of ordinary hoop skirts, and the excess material was gathered in back to fall in a train. Heath had approved of the new style wholeheartedly. More conventional crinolines were so wide that they took up all the room on a sofa, besides preventing a man from standing any closer to a woman than arms’ distance.

As Heath escorted Lucy to the front door of the small Concord home, the Hosmers received them with a surprising degree of warmth. Mrs. Hosmer exclaimed over Lucy’s velvet dress and commanded one of her three sons to fetch cups of eggnog for the Raynes, while Mr. Hosmer pulled Heath aside and introduced him to other guests.

“Lucy,” Mrs. Hosmer said, her piercing eyes softer than usual, “we haven’t heard a thing about you since you disappeared to Boston. How do you like living in the city?”

“My husband and I find it busy, but quite agreeable,” Lucy replied, watching covertly as Mr. Hosmer led Heath into the next room.

“I imagine you must. Especially considering your husband’s livelihood . . . a newspaper, of all things . . . frankly none of us expected such a potential . . . you understand . . .”

“I understand,” Lucy said with a faint smile. “His acquisition of the paper was a surprise to me as well.”

“Oh, really?” Mrs. Hosmer inquired, and the dubious tilt of her voice made it clear that she didn’t believe that at all. “Well, it appears that he’s becoming quite an influential man in Boston, in spite of his background.”

“Is he?” Lucy parried, accepting a cup of eggnog. “How nice of you to say so.”

“You’ve done better for yourself than you led us all to believe at first.”

The statement caught Lucy off-guard. “It was not my intention to deceive anyone,” she said carefully, and the other woman had the grace to blush.

“I’m certain it wasn’t, my dear.” She looked past Lucy’s shoulder at a new couple that had just entered the house. “My goodness,” she chattered, “if it isn’t the most handsome young couple in Concord! Sally, why don’t you . . . oh . . .” Mrs. Hosmer flushed deeply in distress as she looked from Lucy to Daniel and Sally. Lucy turned around and faced them with composure, finding that the sight of Daniel after so many months was not the shock that she had anticipated.

“Merry Christmas,” she said, her lips curving slightly. “You do make a handsome couple.”

“Lucy!” Sally exclaimed, her radiant golden curls bobbing as she took a few steps forward and hugged her quickly. “How stylish you are! I can hardly believe how fashionable your dress is, and your hair—”

“Don’t babble, Sally,” Daniel said absently, his dark, searching eyes meeting with Lucy’s.

Lucy could not repress a smile. Daniel had not changed. “You both look well,” she said, her gaze flickering from Sally’s blond prettiness to Daniel’s set face. He looked handsome and well kept, having let his mustache grow from a crescent into a distinguished bullet-head, full and curled at the tips. Although the style would have been too old for most men his age, it suited him perfectly. His lean, slim form was clad in a “ditto suit,” the coat, vest and trousers all made of matching material. Calm and self-assured as always, he gave her a reserved smile even as his eyes noted every change in her. Though she no longer felt anything for him but a distant fondness, Lucy was still glad that she looked her best and that there could be no fault found in her appearance.